How have Navy ships been used as bases for ground forces?
England: We did clearly demonstrate with the [air craft carrier] Kitty Hawk that the concept of [using a Navy aircraft carrier] as a staging base for ground forces was a viable and effective concept. So, I expect you will see more of this. The Navy view is that we will have more sea-basing than we have had in the past. We will use those sea bases to influence events ashore. GE: Is this a good use of aircraft carriers? England: At some point, we’ll have some tailored platform for this mission rather than carriers because carriers are a very high-value weapon system, and there’s a limited number of them. I would hope in time we use our carriers in a most effective way and we have some other sea based-platform for staging special forces. But we don’t, so in the meantime we’ll use carriers [and some smaller amphibious-ready group ships]. GE: How is the Navy Marine Corp Intranet program going? England: Last year, I think it was in serious trouble. In one dimension it seems to be very simple
