Talk:Revolt of the Admirals

Old comments
A great start! I've read Isenberg's account, but it's back at the library so I can't get page numbers right now. I would like to have a fuller body count, because eventually we'll have bios to connect to/from. The last paragraph is OK neutralitywise, but it would be nice to have a general account of strategy to link to - I immediately thought of Kosovo, and the cruise missile vs bomber issue is an article all by itself. Another thing to explain is that it's not entirely obvious why any admiral would get the boot - the mouths-shut tradition of senior military wrt politics is not universal, witness Israel for instance. I wonder if there's a picture from hearings or something that would illustrate usefully. Stan 14:11, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I didn't actually think the language was AF-centric, and the description of the hearings corresponds with what Isenberg (a Navy guy) wrote about how things went. So the deletions seem more like neutering than neutralizing, not really a good idea. Stan 19:20, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I took the language from the SECDEF's bio, which seemed as neutral a place as possible. The prior language seemed very anti-Navy, and had come staight from the AF association article. I'm willing to listen to other ideas. And will keep looking for the Committee's actual report. Jinian 20:06, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The article says that the episode led to the dismissal of Admiral Denfield, and later that Congress protested the dismissal of Admiral Denfield, but nowhere directly describes the exact events and circumstances surrounding the actual dismissal. While the reader can presume that he was dismissed becasue he continued to lobby for the construction of the United States or a similar supercarrier after the SecDef cancelled the project, details here would be greatly appreciated.  Rlquall 14:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I just read several AFA articles. Wow, they don't hold anything back. Very biased and anti-Navy. Not just about the Revolt, but the Navy in general. Not a good source. Jigen III 15:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Moved the dismissed sentence down a paragrph, to where it makes cronological sense. As they were dismissed after the super carrier was canceled and not before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.120.110 (talk) 08:07, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggested Rewrite of Background:Paragraph 4
The fourth (currently last) paragraph in the Background section starts off with a comparison of carriers vs strategic bombers opinions, but concludes with an objective description of their capabilities. The sentence starting with "Though" is not even a proper sentence.

This is as much a note to myself as a suggestion to others. I'll do it when I get some time if no one beats me to it.

JC, son of a swabbie —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jchyde (talk • contribs) 09:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The united states class was intended by design, to support 12 to 16 modified savage bombers. A savage needed to be modified to fly with a single nuclear warhead from that era... This payload, from this era, was mind dumbingly large and the warheads also needed to be modified(reduced) in size... There is no way a savage could take on board 8 warheads from that era, some basic math is amuck here. A B29/36 could only carry a single nuclear warhead as well... So I have updated the argument accordingly, increasing the number of aircraft to 14 from 10 but decreasing the numbers of bombs in the bay from eight to one. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.120.110 (talk) 20:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC) Also added in the intention to deploy eight supercarriers to better fill out the Navy side of the arguement as to what the Navy really wanted. As the total costs is the real budget issue.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.120.110 (talk) 20:26, 20 August 2011 (UTC) For clarification the Navy asked for eight supercarriers but only received five supercarriers in the 1949 appropriations bill, while under Forrestal.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.120.110 (talk) 20:35, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Saturday Evening Post article
Has anyone ever seen Admiral Gallery's "Don't let them scuttle the Navy!" article from the SEP? It's become kind of legendary in the naval history community, but SEP doesn't make it available, and I can't see to find a transcript of it on the web anywhere. It would not only be an interesting read, but some direct quotes would be nice for this article. DesScorp (talk) 20:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Pro-Navy
The Revolt of the Admirals Page is rather markedly "pro-Navy" in its bias. I attempted to neutralize this in the summer of 2008 by reworking some of the content of the articles cited as references. Whoa, there! It turns out that this article is under the special aegis of one of Wikipedia's senior editors. I was threatened with everything short of the Spanish Inquisition if I did not quit attempting to emend it. So, I quit. But, the article is still quite flawed and still needs corrected to recognize that the matter was not just a denigration of the US Navy. I doubt that this posting will do any good, but it is a necessary attempt to provide some balance to a rather unbalanced article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marc James Small (talk • contribs)

Tried to clean this up a bit while supporting the point already present. Especially the need to fight conventional wars with naval assets... To be clear startegic bombing was used in Korea and massively. But it wasn't "Nuclear" strategic bombing so I tried to defferentiate what was two points and, I think, was a flaw in wording relative to what is strtegic from what is nuclear strategic. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.120.110 (talk) 08:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * As it stands right now, the article's point of view seems to have shifted anti-Navy. One example of this is that factoid "All efforts to develop a viable carrier based, heavy nuclear bomber during the 1950s from the: P-2 Neptune, AJ Savage to the P6M SeaMaster resulted in failures and cancellations."  I don't know what source was cited in support of that, but the AJ Savage wasn't cancelled, and was part of the national nuclear deterrent for years. The P-2 Neptune, while not famous as a nuclear bomber, did serve for a long time in the Navy and was never cancelled.  We need to review the article exhaustively for errors like this and make it truly NPOV. loupgarous (talk) 20:35, 18 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I deleted the problematic sentence and replaced it with reference to the two carrier-based nuclear bombers actually deployed in that role, the AJ Savage and A-3 Skywarrior, both developed at the same time and despite the cancellation of the original USS United States-class supercarrier. I also mentioned that carrier-based attack aircraft such as "Spads" (A-1 Skyraiders) were also considered nuclear-capable as nuclear weapons were miniaturized. loupgarous (talk) 01:56, 25 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I also added the list of carrier-based attack aircraft and fighter-bombers which could deliver nuclear weapons - many of the later ones could drop late-generation thermonuclear weapons, long after Polaris meant the end of dedicated heavy strategic carrier-based bombers. More powerful attack and fighter-bombers, together with lighter thermonuclear weapons meant the US Navy had a carrier-based nuclear strike force well into the 1990s. While the US Navy as a matter of policy (nuclear surety, mainly) took nuclear weapons off the carriers back then, the Navy still has access to nuclear weapons, and aircraft capable of delivering them. The F/A-18 and AV-8B are both capable of delivering B61s, thermonuclear gravity bombs with an adjustable yield from 0.3 to 340 kilotons. loupgarous (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

cruise missiles have replaced high-altitude bombing in the airpower role
The following section:

"as in Operation Desert Storm and Kosovo, although in the 21st century cruise missiles have replaced high-altitude bombing in the airpower role. "

Seems like original research unless someone has a good site for this. My own original research would say that this is certainly not true except for maybe, just maybe, for Kosovo but on research the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia page says:

"NATO's bombing campaign involved 1,000 aircraft operating from air bases in Italy, and the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt stationed in the Adriatic Sea. At dusk, F-18 Hornets of the Spanish Air Force were the first NATO planes to bomb Belgrade and perform SEAD operations. BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from ships and submarines. "

So even then cruise missles hardly replaced bombing and is probably the least closely related to the role of high-altitude bombing. I would say closest to replacing dive bombers, but even then aircraft launched missles still were probably a bigger factor. Also since Apache helicoptors were involved at least 3 branches or air power.

ICBM's were a much bigger factor in the decline of IC Air bombers than cruise missles IMHO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BeBoldInEdits (talk • contribs) 06:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and missiles and bombs delivered by bombers collectively replace a sole reliance on high-altitude bombing, but it's a more complex picture than that.


 * The B-21 Raider stealth strategic bomber slated to replace the B-2 Spirit stealth strategic bomber and supplant the B-52 Stratofortress and B-1B Lancer strategic bombers is probably going to deliver its ordnance from high altitude, escorted by Penetrating Counter-Air long-range escort fighters to mitigate enemy air defense hazards. B-1Bs have been rumored to be the "arsenal ship" the Obama administration Department of Defense had in mind to carry guided missiles and glide bombs to strike targets designated by the F-35 and/or drone aircraft; they can bomb from high or low altitude and are moderately stealthy.


 * Russian deployment of the SSC-8 ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) and testing of the RS-26 Rubezh at IRBM ranges have returned intermediate-range nuclear strike missiles (presently banned to the US and Russia under the INF Treaty) to the picture as well. GLCMs are generally considered US Air Force weapons, but the Pershing II IRBM "belonged" to the US Army (I'm assuming the RS-26 will remain under Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces regardless of the operational range it's deployed for, as it's basically a shortened RS-24 Yars ICBM).


 * If U.S. Army's Long Range Precision Fires (LRPF or DeepStrike) project (an extended-range version of ATACMS) now in the technology maturation and risk reduction (TMRR) phase is developed, it could be adapted to restore a long-range nuclear strike capacity to the US Army. The MGM-168 ATACMS and LRPF/DeepStrike's ranges of roughly 300 km aren't technical limitations, but imposed to comply with MTCR and the INF Treaty.  Paradoxically, development of ATACMS variants capable of lofting nuclear warheads for long distances resulted from another arms control limitation, the ban on cluster munitions.


 * It's been suggested in a 2017 paper published in the US Naval Institute's Proceedings that the TLAM-N "nuclear Tomahawk" cruise missile could be brought back from retirement without violating the INF Treaty, New START or other nuclear arms limitation treaties. The Russians already deploy nuclear-armed cruise missiles on their ships. The USNI paper suggests that restoring nuclear-armed cruise missiles to the US Navy would be a proportional response to Russia's violation of the INF treaty which doesn't itself scuttle that treaty. loupgarous (talk) 21:56, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Significant Updates 20 Nov-Dec 30 2016
I am a senior(age/retired) research author who is an expert on the revolt with family connections on all sides who lived thru this. I have made significant informative and detail changes to better communicate what actually happened from all viewpoints while removing completely false and irrelevant points. To reduce confusion and false conclusions, I have endeavored to enable a flawless chronological order to the events at hand. The timing of the events, literally drove, cause and effect results. This budget drawdown was a difficult time for the nation and all the services, but it was an especially terrible time for the US Navy.

The "exuberant" ones (Air Force) were doing what they thought was right militarily to best defend the country. The "ardent" ones (Army) were following orders from the administration and that those orders were right fiscally and economically. The "reluctant" ones (Navy) were afraid of losing the machines/ships they grew to love, that the country would need them again, and many (Navy family lineage) were also afraid to lose their jobs/careers (the Air Force did not communicate in 1949, the cost effective intent to make use of experienced Naval and Marine Aviators to fly the new nuclear bombers sometime in the future). With hindsight today, we can see that all parties had valid points to make.

Some have inferred this revolt as driven by technological developments inside the soviet union at the beginning of the cold war. There is some truth to this... I will add in a few lines regarding the Tu-4 bomber reveals and the first soviet nuclear tests. The timing of these events did have an impact on both political and public opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:191:200:DD30:5929:B99E:AA2A:8A0C (talk) 12:12, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I am sure these additions are all in good faith, however many of the additions add detail that is not necessary to the article and they tend obstruct the narrative. Many are also uncitated. We may need to trim some of this back. Gunbirddriver (talk) 07:32, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

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outcome final paragraph discussion
The discussion paragraph was to be limited to the immediate events following the revolts. Five years is a good timeline. Yet somehow it got extended again and again to events ten, twenty, fifty years ahead that have absolutely nothing to do with the revolt, itself. The so-called nuclear bombers used during the 1950s were all failures in their original intended strategic nuclear mission. They at best were a capability deception, and in reality were converted into air refueling vehicles. Aircraft that were deployed in the 1960s thru the 1990s were not the enabling aspect for the carriers to support a hydrogen bomb delivery mission. Warhead miniaturization after 1955 is what enabled the navy to support this mission and even then the focus was not a aircraft carrier based system but a missile submarine based system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:191:200:5D0C:B847:3D4F:75C4:17BC (talk) 14:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Your statement "The so-called nuclear bombers used during the 1950s were all failures in their original intended strategic nuclear mission. They at best were a capability deception, and in reality were converted into air refueling vehicles" and change in the article "The AJ Savage failed in it's mission in the early 1950s as a "carrier based" nuclear bomber and was cancelled" are unsourced - they are flatly contradicted by the three references cited after your change. You keep saying "The AJ Savage was cancelled", when it actually served on US Navy carriers and from US Naval Air Stations on the Mediterranean well into the 1960s - as a nuclear bomber.  Read the sources cited following the paragraph.


 * The reason I brought the long-term picture of nuclear-capable Navy bombers and fighter-bombers was to contradict your unsourced edits to this article. You can't complain about documented, well-sourced references to the AJ Savage's service life as a nuclear bomber unless you produce a source contradicting the sources I found showing AJ Savage was never cancelled and did serve until the 1960s in the US Navy in the nuclear bomber role.  Your statements contradicting this are WP:OR - you have not once provided a reliable source as defined in WP:RS to support them.


 * I am going to delete your unsourced comments in the article. Please do not revert that change until you can produce a reliable source to support your statements.  Your own beliefs and/or knowledge of the subject are WP:OR original research and not usable to support a factual statement in a wikipedia article.  Please review WP:RS for guidance on what sources can be used to support statements made in our articles.  Please do not restore statements like "The AJ Savage failed in it's mission in the early 1950s as a "carrier based" nuclear bomber and was cancelled" until you can provide a reliable source, preferable a secondary or tertiary source, which supports them.  Two of the three references cited to support the paragraph flatly contradict what you're saying. loupgarous (talk) 20:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

There are multiple articles on the AJ savage including Wikipedia sources itself that support a factual representation of the aircraft capabilities and shortcomings. These bomber aircraft did not actually fly off carriers with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb load except in failed experimentation. I know these aircraft required rocket assist to launch successfully with a full bombload and they then could not return to the carrier but had to ditch the bombload if the mission was scrubbed... That pretty much killed it... The articles support what I am saying you may be reading it incompletely or thinking that performing a land based mission is the same as a carrier based mission... To be clear the savage and the skywarrior did fly off naval land based airfields but not carriers. It was not until AFTER the nuclear bomb size reductions occurred that the aircraft were capable of launching and landing with a nuclear bomb load well after 1954 or 1958 actual.

The focus on aircraft bomber success and failures is misleading. The real limitation is the carrier's ability to launch and land a very large aircraft. The USS Forrestal was simply not capable of launching and landing a 50,000 lb aircraft in the 1950's, far far short of the original stated goal of 100,000 lbs for USS United States. The Forrestal after several refits and modifications from 1960 to 1963 was able to launch and land a 50,000 lb aircraft but not a 100,000 lb aircraft.


 * You still have not identified a specific reliable source to support what you're saying. Unless you actually cite the articles you talk about, and they meet our guidelines for reliable sources (in the guideline WP:RS) we can't allow the statements to be made and any wikipedia editor should remove them.
 * You mention "Wikipedia sources", but Wikipedia articles cannot be cited to support a statement in a Wikipedia article (read WP:CIRCULAR for more information on that).
 * Your statements beginning "'There are multiple articles on the AJ savage including Wikipedia sources itself that support a factual representation of the aircraft capabilities and shortcomings. These bomber aircraft did not actually fly off carriers with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb load except in failed experimentation...'"
 * would point to usable statements if you produce those sources in a form where other editors and our readers can examine them to confirm the reliability and verifiability of the statements. I'm willing to concede some of your statements may be right, but others are flatly contradicted in the existing references following the last paragraph in our article:"'The Savage entered service in September 1949 and carrier operations began in April 1950 on the USS Coral Sea. North American built more than 140 in the series.'" from Boeing's AJ Savage Web page
 * I strongly encourage you to provide links to (or quotes from, in the case of non-Web sources) the articles you refer to. If they indeed are from reliable sources and support your statements, we can use then to justify specific statements you'd like to put in our article and/or remove any misstated facts you are concerned about in our article.
 * Right now, the problem is that we don't have any verification of the sources you mention, not even specific names of articles or other sources.
 * You have to give reliable sources (the "Prove It" utility makes this very easy, if you have a Web URL or an ISBN number from a book or other material you'd like to cite) before you can state something as a fact in one of our articles. I'd be happy to add the sources you're talking about, once we have a consensus on their reliability and the statements they support. But I have to actually know what sources you're talking about, first. loupgarous (talk) 19:54, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Did you know nomination
and others: There are quite a number of "broken English" instances in this article. It could well benefit from a cleanup if I could find these in a quick read through: Shenme (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "none of the three services had the resources implement the war plan"
 * is 'adjointed' supposed to be 'adjourned' ?
 * "that could a bomb that wide"
 * "and articles for public released had to be cleared"
 * "through official channels to Matthews's office"
 * "Matthews and Johnson to block the promotion of Burke by crossing out his name on the promotion list,"
 * All of these have already been corrected by  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  03:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)