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Why Aircraft Carriers Still Rule the Oceans
An anonymous reader writes "Despite being created during World War I, the modern carrier has evolved to be the pinnacle of modern warfare's best and most visible symbols of power. Nothing says 'show the flag' more than a carrier off an enemy's coast. Some, though, have called the carrier a 21st-century version of a battleship — high on looks and weapons but vulnerable to modern weapons. Critics note air-power killed the battleship; people now suggest super-sonic 'carrier-killer' missiles will make the carrier a relic of the past. With their cost in the billions of dollars, some point to killing off carriers as an obvious cost saving measure. Carriers though still have a lot of uses. Many navies, like India and China, are adding them to their arsenal, and they are still feared by many. While carriers might be old, they are a symbol of power that no missile or submarine below the surface can match yet."
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Carriers have been replaced. Now its Supercarriers and Titans. Carriers and dreadnoughts have had their roles reduced to ship transports and structure shoots.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Part of the reason that carriers remain relevant is that, while they do have their own weapons, their MAIN weaponry is the planes that they carry. And it's easier to upgrade those planes (subject to limitations such as the elevators, etc...) than it would have been to upgrade a BB's weaponry.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Because we haven't got railguns yet to slap onto battleships. We'll almost contently see the return of it in our lifetime. When it does happen you can be sure you'll see cruisers with small versions if they can get away with it. But you'll see very worlds military building battleships with those suckers as soon as they think they can.
But let's be honest, despite what the article says, there's a few other reasons besides power projection. Pirates, shipping lane protection, and they work much better for disaster relief than a couple of cruisers. The capacity just isn't there. But a carrier is a city onto itself. Besides, it's hard to get a small aircraft that does tactical attacks halfway across the world to take out a pirate base. Bombers sure, but by the time it's in the air they could have scuttled.
Om, nomnomnom...
...people now suggest super-sonic 'carrier-killer' missiles will make the carrier a relic of the past
Then people are freaking morons.
The ship in itself is insignificant; it's what the carrier carries that projects power. Carriers won't be going anywhere until we've managed to mobilize conventional airfields.
Hrmm, maybe if we put them on top of a giant ship...
To sink 'em, you gotta find 'em.
Most people who have never been literally in the middle of the ocean have no fucking idea how big it is.
Aircraft carriers are force projection, not a symbol of power. It's incredibly useful to have a bouyant, nuclear city able to go where it's told to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection
Billy Mitchell demonstrated the vulnerability of modern warships in 1921. Although the vulnerability of carriers seems to be a matter of common sense, to my knowledge there is no carrier Billy Mitchell yet.
If aircraft carriers are obsolete, what is going to replace them? Submarines can't project force outside of the water except to launch a limited number of missiles. Sub Carriers were tried by the Japanese in WWII, but were never especially practical. If your planes have to fly across three countries to get to their destination from the nearest airbase they aren't going to be able to offer much support.
Doesn't it seem more likely that people who run carriers will instead look to develop ways of stopping those supersonic missiles? That is the general idea behind the carrier battlegroup already. The carrier is in the middle projecting force, and everybody else is there making sure it stays safe. Besides, the kind of enemies that the Navy is fighting today are the ones that have ramshackle fishing boats and maybe an RPG to scare freighter captains with, not highly technological nation states. The nations they fight are the kind that don't even have a Navy and the only missile danger is losing fighter planes to SAMs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Carriers might not be useful for an attack on China or Russia, who have large land-masses, an active air-defense system, and several thousand cheap missiles to launch at a carrier or its air wing.
However, against an adversary with only a couple hundred missiles in their arsenal they are likely to be in service for another hundred years, as there is nothing even remotely on the horizon (no pun intended) to replace them for long range missions.
Carriers replacing battle ships brought a whole new concept.
The only new concept around these days is Drones.
But until a massive scale-up occurs, the drone payload is pitifully small, their self defense capability totally absent, and you still have to launch them from somewhere. Drones are more likely to be launched from carriers than they are to replace carriers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Which carrier has been sunk by a super-sonic 'carrier-killer' missile? Let's wait until a carrier is actually killed before declaring the end of its day.
A carrier lets you park a military city 10 miles off just about anyone's border just about any time you want to. Until something either replaces that function or ends its utility the carrier will persist.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Or a symbol fiscal inefficiency?
This.
A carrier can hit you hard with missles/guns. Or a carrier can hit you fast by launching jets. A carrier is a portable full array of armed forces (land, sea, and air).
That's why they aren't battleships.
I thought a submarine with a bunch of nuclear cruise missiles was a pretty intimidating item, provided you've got the brass to use 'em.
It's not just about the Carrier. Having a Carrier says "Our nation/military is so strong, we can put 6,000 people on a boat and blow up your country from 300 miles away."
The Carriers of today are not the Battleships of WWI. Carriers have multiple defense systems like CIWS (shoots 3,000+ RPM) and Sea Sparrow missiles. A Carrier Group will have some sort of Aegis defense mechanism on board a few ships as well. Not to mention the aircraft complement of 50+. Throw in an E-2C and not much will get within 100 miles of that Carrier.
sudo make me a sandwich
Or more properly, Phalanx CIWS does. R2D2 is just a nickname, owing to what the radar section looks like.
It was designed specifically to deal with supersonic hi-G maneuvering anti-ship missiles.
The future weapon to fear is the railgun. How are we (or anyone) going to defend against that? Forcefields? I can't think of any kind of armor that will stand up to a railgun.
Missiles.. how quaint.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
In my opinion, the U.S. could not have waged some of the wars they have in the last 60 years without aircraft carriers.
Why are we even talking about the aircraft carrier when we should be out building helicarriers!
Wood Shavings!
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They are too expensive and that will be the weapon that will take them down. Not missiles, not submarines - money.
One tangential "money" issue is 1000 suicide boaters in a simultaneous attack is cheaper than one carrier. Carriers are really freaking expensive. That doesn't work well in the middle of an ocean, but near the shore of the Persian gulf, maybe...
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And thus was created the first battle star.
emt 377 emt 4
They might as well put giant bulls eyes on them.
By itself aircraft carriers look like an easy target but they do not travel alone, they form part of a Carrier battle group. So you have to go undetected through a submarine and a few frigates to get near them. Not everything is related to costs if you can't replace it.
Okay, so I've served on a carrier. But seriously, do we NEED 12 carrier battle groups? Mind you, a typical battle group isn't just the carrier -- it's the carrier, plus a few destroyers, plus a few fast-frigates, plus an attack sub or two. Not to mention the 120 planes in the squadrons -- attack, fighter, AWACS, anti-submarine.
Surely 10 groups is enough. Perhaps even 8.
... but vulnerable to modern weapons. Critics note air-power killed the battleship; people now suggest super-sonic 'carrier-killer' missiles will make the carrier a relic of the past ...
Aircraft carriers have always been vulnerable to submarines and aircraft. These new missiles are modern analogs to the dive bombers, torpedo bombers and kamikazes of the past. While the offensive weaponry has improved, so has the defensive. Computers and radars have replaced the manually operated guns. Supersonic missile meet supersonic interceptor missile, wall of lead/steel from a computer/radar controlled gatling gun, etc. It is not a given that a modern carrier is any more vulnerable to modern missiles than WW2 era carriers were vulnerable to enemy aircraft.
Also note that with in-air refueling modern aircraft carriers can launch a strike from a much greater distance, thereby reducing its vulnerability.
>>>their MAIN weaponry is the planes that they carry
Better yet: Just eliminate the men and the planes. They take-up too much room. Replace them with self-guided missiles that don't need to eat or sleep. You can carry thousands of them in the space of an aircraft carrier and project power as quickly as you press a button. No need to wait for waking-up the men, fueling the planes, moving them into position, et cetera. Missiles are ready near-instantly.
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they are a symbol of power that no missile or submarine below the surface can match yet. Except those nuclear submarines and missles could sink them or do farm more indiscriminate damage if asked to. They are huge and project a lot of power don't get me wrong, but they are projecting power against regions of the world that are pretty much technologically still in the pre-1950s. The wouldn't seem so powerful if a bunch of relatively cheap missles were to sink them in an actual conflict. We've seen US strategy against foreign military now for a few decades of kill the air bases & rule the sky. Carriers would be target #1 in a conflict with any nation that has the capability to target them and turn them into very expensive high tech reefs.
I wish I could find the reference, but an article I read not too long ago noted that a single fully-deployed modern nuclear-powered supercarrier (including logistcal support like AWACS, etc) stationed in the middle of the US eastern seaboard had an effective zone of control that stretched from Halifax to Havana. That's just impressive, and a good reason the navies would like to keep them around as a symbol of power.
Battleships became obsolete because they were designed only for surface-to-surface combat and bombardment, and were vulnerable from above (and below). I suspect aircraft carriers are more adaptable; among other things, nascent computer-guided railguns (large and small) will probably help against future incoming ballistic dangers.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Somebody needs a damn history lesson!
The airships were launched and serviced by ships before World War I however sea planes launched by a cable and retrieved by the same, were used by the Japanese in World War I in 1914, hardly an aircraft carrier but only in the literal sense. Navies around the world used sea planes with battle ship fleets as well but these usually were cabled to the water line the same way.
In 1911, the French had the first Seaplane tender So was that an aircraft carrier? Well it carried aircraft but you couldn't launch or retrieve them without a crane.
World War I was from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1914. In the US we celebrate November 11 as Veterans Day.
It wasn't until the 1920s that they had flat top experiments which is distinctly different from everything before it. You couldn't have dedicated fighters and sea planes were damn slow compared to some of the land based aircraft at the time.
So how the hell do you say that Aircraft Carriers were created in World War I is beyond me!
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What we need is a submarine aircraft carrier!
The US had two or three at the end of WW2, surrendered by Imperial Japan. Incidentally there was a plan by Imperial Japan to use these to deliver plague infested fleas to the US west coast. These submarines were no joke. The US scuttled them when the Russians, an ally at the time, wanted to inspect them.
Nope, the real tactical importance of a Carrier Battlegroup is flexibility. If I can survive the first shot, the second, third, fourth and fifth will be mine and any conventional enemy knows that. We want to park the largest number of options as close to the likely theater as possible because I can't predict what is going to happen. Modern warfare is too complex for that.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
Cruise missiles, while useful, have trouble loitering over an area and providing CAS on demand, which is what air power is generally used for these days.
First, they don't need to go all that close to the shore. Their airplanes have sufficient range that they can stay far enough away to have warning of attacks from shore-based enemies.
Second, they don't sail by themselves - they are part of a battlegroup with a number of attendant cruisers, destroyers and submarines which provide significant protection against both shore-based and other sources of attack.
Part of the reason that carriers remain relevant is that, while they do have their own weapons, their MAIN weaponry is the planes that they carry. And it's easier to upgrade those planes (subject to limitations such as the elevators, etc...) than it would have been to upgrade a BB's weaponry.
It probably also helps them remain relevant that nobody has let a single one get any closer to something dangerous than they absolutely had to since the second world war... The concern is not so much that aircraft carriers are not powerful; but that they are so questionably survivable in the face of today's more sophisticated missiles that there may or may not be an aircraft carrier to come back to within the time it takes for the aircraft to go out and back.
They are better than battleships for beating up on hilariously outmatched little countries, since their range is longer; but that, along with saber rattling, is all they've been used for for quite some time.
Better yet: Just eliminate the men and the planes. They take-up too much room. Replace them with self-guided missiles that don't need to eat or sleep. You can carry thousands of them in the space of an aircraft carrier and project power as quickly as you press a button. No need to wait for waking-up the men, fueling the planes, moving them into position, et cetera. Missiles are ready near-instantly.
"Skynet was originally installed by the military to control the national arsenal on August 4, 1997, at which time it began learning at a geometric rate. On August 29, it gained self-awareness[1], and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, tried to deactivate it...."
The rest is an instructional video.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
1000 suicide boaters in a simultaneous attack is cheaper than one carrier.
How expensive is the redeployment cost of a 1000 suicide boats? Oh wait...
Does the US really need 11 carriers and to build several more? Nope.
Its done with mobile phones, why not with aircraft carriers? You can get 10 for the price of one! *
*Leather case not included.
... isn't the same as being able to replace it.
Just as tanks and helicopters don't preclude the necessity of infantry, missile batteries do not preclude the necessity of being able to occupy territory.
Carriers are also:
* Mobile hospitals.
* Mobile power generation units.
* Mobile food services.
And I'm sure that people here can think of a few more. Carriers cannot be fully replaced.
All true, and even more, the Carrier Strike Force can protect an entire contingent of Marines aboard landing ships from air/sea/sub attacks while they move into position to attack ground forces. Without the carrier, those transports would be shredded by even a small contingent of 1970s era attack jets.
This was the whole battle-of-Britain thing -- you can't invade someone by sea if you don't control the coastal airspace.
Why not also an India tag?
And when a carrier sinks, it takes that full array of armed forces with it. It would be interesting to see how long they last in a war between evenly matched sides where the carriers are vulnerable to air/missile attack.
" Some, though, have called the carrier a 21st-century version of a battleship — high on looks and weapons but vulnerable to modern weapons."
Sorry but battleships like the IOWA are immune to all modern weapons other than a space based particle beam or a Nuclear weapon. Even the most feared" Exocet missile will do no damage to the IOWA and it's almost 13 inch thick steel armor.
"The Iowas' armor scheme was modeled on that of the preceding South Dakota class, and designed to give a zone of immunity against fire from 16-inch/45-caliber guns between 18,000 and 30,000 yards (16,000 and 27,000 m) away. The magazines and engine rooms were protected by an armored belt 12.2 inches (310 mm) thick, which sloped to give an effective vertical thickness of 13.5 inches (340 mm). Their armor was not sufficient to protect against guns equivalent to their own 16-inch/50-caliber guns" What is shot out of the big guns is far FAR more powerful than any anti ship missle in the US or any other fleet's armory.
Upgrade a battleship with modern anti aircraft systems and a single IOWA class battleship would utterly destroy most nations entire navy fleet before it was taken down. Unless Japan brings back the Yamato, that one was HUGE with 46cm guns that was basically shooting a school bus full of explosives at the enemy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How you enforce Air superiority if your planes aren't able to reach the enemy? That is why Aircraft carriers still exist
It isn't the "symbol of power" IMO it is true projection of power. There is a lot, probably majority, of the world where just having a fighter plane built in the last 50 years will give you air dominance. You can't be sure of having a friendly nation near by that will allow you to base planes out of their runways. An aircraft carrier gives you the few hundred meters of land you need in order to have an operating air force. Sure ship killers can reck your day but at least for now ship killers imply you aren't fighting a war against an enemy that is throwing rocks at each other as their primary weapon. So as long as it isn't China, US, EU, Russia, Aussies etc developed countries you have pretty free rain (think crap holes in africa, middle east, etc).
high on looks and weapons but vulnerable to modern weapons
Just how many carriers have we lost to these modern weapons they are vulnerable to? This obviously must have been written by someone with no concept of modern (since the birth of the Carrier) naval warfare. It's always been known that the Carrier is one of (if not) the most vulnerable and weak ships in the fleet in a straight fight. This is why they travel in groups with subs and other smaller craft that are there specifically to protect the Carrier from assault. So while they might be the least able to directly protect themselves, there is usually little risk of them needing to do so from a threat that could sink them.
Furthermore, the purpose of the Carrier itself is to transport air power into a region of conflict to be able to launch sortes from a stable and safe location. Until we have fighters and bombers that can effectively make it halfway around the world, conduct their mission, and return home on a single tank of fuel and do it in a short enough timespan for the intelligence to still be actionable, the Carriers won't be going away. On top of that, they are also (due to so much open space on deck and in the hangers when planes are cleared) one of the most versatile ships we have for moving large amounts of people and/or supplies.
You can't hold territory without troops on the ground, but they can't first take it without proper air support. And unless the conflict just happens to be "next" to your pre-existing airbases (and they continue to remain secure) then you need some way to get the air power to where it needs to go.
Political issues that get us involved in conflicts aside, the Carrier will remain a key piece of our military capability for some time yet.
The carriers themselves aren't TOO big of a deal. they can launch some missiles but really their big thing is they're a mobile airstrip and can launch devastating aircraft right off your coast or your fleet. The real teeth aren't on the deck but what they can put in the air. As the article mentions, battleships used to be the symbolic supership but were found to be vulnerable to airstrikes.
Sort of like a wasp nest. The nest itself is nothing to be worried about, it's the insects milling around looking for an excuse to sting you that you have to be thinking about.
From what I've seen recently, there's sabor rattling going on about these "carrier killer" cruise missiles. Basically it's a flying torpedo. Probably pretty bad news for a carrier, though we really haven't seen much from them to tell just how effective they are. Carriers have those CWIS that draw lines of metal in the sky when a missile is inbound, hopefully they're effective against threats coming in from outside screen ship range. That's really the biggest unknown right now. Miss the carrier and there's gonna be a whole world of hurt on the wing headed for wherever that missile came from. A bit like trying to throw a rock at a hornet nest.... better take it out on the first toss or better start running.
It'll be interesting to see how modern aircraft fair against modern battleships. Ancient canvas-winged swordfish crippled the most powerful battleship ever to float (Bismarch), I wonder what a nice modern jet will be capable of?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
of an AC is about 10 minutes in an open ocean battle, and we have not seen one of those since the Falkland Islands and that was a skirmish compared with WW-II where the fleets met at sea and slugged it out. The AC's job is to deploy its aircraft and hopefully still be there to recover them to rearm and refuel them and relaunch.
Skip ahead to today. The only country that can put a significant fleet to sea is the United States. Yes Russia has an AC, the Brits have one, the Chinese as well, but we are the only country that has many of them, for what its worth.
There is NO FLEET on the ocean today that can withstand a concerted attack by the Unites States Submarine Force. The Modern US nuclear Submarine is for all intents and purposes invisible and undetectable until it is way past too late. They have the ability to deploy standoff weapons such as the harpoon missile ( 50 mile range ) that are fire and forget. Torpedo's that you don't even want to be in the same ocean with if you are a target ( MK-48 ) that will break a ship in half ( an AC might take 2 ).
Against an opponent that has no naval presence or serious anti-ship missile program or serious Air Combat capability, an AC is for all intents and purposes untouchable. Against the USN? Not a chance in hell.
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Yes, by itself a carrier doesn't have a lot of defensive capabilities . That's why carriers travel in fleets which include cruisers, destroyers and subs which are designed to defend the carrier in addition to providing additional offensive capability. Carriers never go anywhere without backup.
It probably also helps them remain relevant that nobody has let a single one get any closer to something dangerous than they absolutely had to since the second world war... The concern is not so much that aircraft carriers are not powerful; but that they are so questionably survivable in the face of today's more sophisticated missiles that there may or may not be an aircraft carrier to come back to within the time it takes for the aircraft to go out and back.
Also, they haven't gone up against another navy of similar strength since the second world war. If that ever happens, a lot of theories about what works will bite the dust, just like how the battleship is now irrelevant.
They are better than battleships for beating up on hilariously outmatched little countries, since their range is longer; but that, along with saber rattling, is all they've been used for for quite some time.
Actually, they are also useful as a portable airport and support vessel. They can desalinate huge amounts of water, and have medical facilities. That's why the US sent a carrier to Indonesia after the tsunami. There's more to foreign relations than saber rattling.
None of our aircraft carriers would survive a simultaneous attack of 500+ small watercraft, each armed with a missile capable of creating a hull puncture sufficient to sink the vessel (or a mix of missiles and torpedoes). This is what Iran, or any small power will do if attacked by an aircraft carrier. The first casualty of such a conflict will be the perception of American power.
So, we're massing several of these dinos in the gulf, hoping that they might protect each other. I expect that we will lose at least one, should a conflict occur. Possibly more.
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Because they appear to be quite useful in relief efforts (assuming they're in the area), where they can provide enough power and water to help reduce strain on local supplies. Additionally being able to provide medivac when local hospitals are understaffed or overburdened.
Looking at it from that perspective, every thousand or two thousand miles of coast should have one on standby for disaster relief.
Compared to the majority of other combat seacraft, the carrier is the one with the most non-military uses behind perhaps military transport vessels.
That way we'd have known to ignore the premise.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Missiles are too task specific. All they can do is blow up a target. They cannot perform surveillance. They cannot defend themselves. They cannot adapt to changing targets (ie if the ground target manages to get airborne, you have to have a completely different missile to take it out). They have no linger time.
Now, if the carrier had a hanger-full of Predators, UAVs and ROVs...
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Better yet: Just eliminate the men and the planes. They take-up too much room. Replace them with self-guided missiles that don't need to eat or sleep. You can carry thousands of them in the space of an aircraft carrier and project power as quickly as you press a button. No need to wait for waking-up the men, fueling the planes, moving them into position, et cetera. Missiles are ready near-instantly.
The people (at least some of them) will probably go before the planes.
A huge benefit of a carrier is that it creates an air-superiority bubble within which other ships and aircraft can operate; the Straits of Hormuz are a great example. This is part of the reason carriers always operate within a group, and not alone. (Another part is that a carrier requires a fair amount of defense and other support as well.) The benefit of aircraft over missiles is that aircraft can loiter, observe, and react, whereas most missiles are committed the moment they leave the launcher.
Autonomous aircraft will probably replace the function of at least some manned aircraft over time, but I suspect carriers of relatively long range/long duration aircraft will be around for a while.
It would be interesting to see how long they last in a war between evenly matched sides where the carriers are vulnerable to air/missile attack.
It seems like you would need an awful lot of successful attacks to take out a carrier though. The modern carrier has so many defenses, some secret, I am doubtful even a good supersonic missile could get close to one. Even if a missile does get through they are so huge and compartmentalized it would probably not sink.
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That's how all of war works. Battles usually have lower casualties than a casual observer would guess, and those that do are usually remembered as bloody. You don't engage until you know you can win. If your enemy advances you retreat. The weaker side retreats until they can't, then they surrender or are destroyed.
If anti-carrier missiles have a longer range than the carrier's aircraft, then the carrier is in check. So now maybe you have to use a guided missile submarine and cruise missiles to destroy the anti-carrier missiles first. Maybe your opponent has a good anti-submarine force. But maybe your carrier's planes don't have enough range to hit the anti-carrier missiles, but they do have enough range to hit the anti-submarine force.
War is not rock paper scissors.
This is true. Gary Brecher said it best: http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
First, they don't need to go all that close to the shore. Their airplanes have sufficient range that they can stay far enough away to have warning of attacks from shore-based enemies.
Second, they don't sail by themselves - they are part of a battlegroup with a number of attendant cruisers, destroyers and submarines which provide significant protection against both shore-based and other sources of attack.
And yet modern AIP subs can penetrate the defense and hit the carrier. Aircraft carriers are very vulnerable, they are not made to operate in shallow waters, their maneuvrability is constrained. What kind of protection you think has an aircarft carrier in the persian gulf ? None to speak of. 5 Kilo subs positioned stratigically in the persian gulf, can bring great havoc to an aircraft carrier.
The more an aircraft carrier gets to shore, the more it is vulnerable. And you can't project power from thousands of miles out in the pacific ocean when you want to control what's going on in the south cina sea for instance.
Control of continental waters doesn't require aircarft carriers, not when they are subject to counterstrike from your primary land based oponent (Cina for instance). That is why the US Navy is investing so much in nuclear submarines like the Virginia class that can operate in brown waters. And a sub is a much better ROI than an aircarft carrier will ever be.
Carriers are a convenience. In any real conflict, which is to say a fight with any nation capable of carrier-sinking missiles, we can fly somewhere nearby the hard way and take over airspace and create landing strips. Also, what's good for the goose is better for the gander with even better tech. We just need not slack off like Europe does while China forges ahead.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This probably highlights the emphasis on "way-over-the-horizon" technologies like Prompt Global Strike.
I presume that something like PGS would be used to to take out the carrier killers. So that the carrier air groups(s) can move in and take the sky whilst mitigating the risk of becoming a billion dollar reef.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Not sure why this is on Slashdot, but its certainly something that I have been interested in for a while. There is a large body of government, DoD and think-tank level research about this already, and a good source for it comes from the Center of Strategic and Budget Assessments" (I'm not affiliated). For example, they have a writeup on AirSea Battle that describes some of the tactics and vulnerabilities of carrier based operations in a joint forces framework. They also discuss the vulnerabilities of carriers in some of the possible operating environments of the future, namely the Western Pacific and the Strait of Hormuz . This question is also at the heart of the big debate about how China would optimally compose its growing navy (carriers vs. subs), and the practical US military response to such behavior.
Carriers are great against countries that don't have the kinds of weapons needed to sink them. Kind of a duh, but to put it another way, every country isn't China and Russia.
There are serious concerns however about how long they would last against a major world power. The questions is not do we need any (yes) but how many we need. If we are just going to use them to project power against weaker nations, we don't need that many. With subs and planes we can deny the ocean to the enemy it many cases, but would carriers in any substantial way assure our continued use of the oceans? Does having carrier groups assure our troop transports and weapons shipments will reach their goal? If the carrier is having a hard time defending itself how will it defend needed shipping? How many airstrikes will a carrier group get against China? Sadly once again I suspect if we ever find out, it will be the hard way.
Should we for example focus more on existing air bases throughout the world? Could we ship troops and weapons underwater escorted by subs with airplanes hunting air ASW? Maybe we should start thinking outside the box a little and hedge our bets.
Dude, way to miss the point entirely.
No ship, aircraft, soldier, or other military vehicle ever gets closer to something dangerous than it absolutely has to. Or civilian for that matter. What makes the carrier king of the seas is that, thanks to its aircraft, it can see and hit the enemy from further away than anything else, thus it's "no closer than it absolutely has to" is much further than anything else. All other naval platforms are either just as vulnerable except with much less striking range and power, or can't detect anything at comparable ranges, or both.
The major advantage that a lot of people miss is the long detection range, thanks to airborne radar. Against an enemy naval formation that doesn't include carriers, the carrier can detect them and their position, then plot, launch, and recover a strike, all at a range where the enemy can't detect the carrier at all. Thus the enemy's missiles aren't worth much, no matter how fast and cool they are, because they don't know where to shoot them.
Battleships are rather better most of the time at beating up hilariously outmatched countries because they can shoot more stuff faster and there aren't any threats from those countries to require them to stay far away from the shores.
I don't reply to ACs
And when a carrier sinks, it takes that full array of armed forces with it. It would be interesting to see how long they last in a war between evenly matched sides where the carriers are vulnerable to air/missile attack.
Evenly matched sides... that seems unlikely.
The subs protecting the carriers rule the oceans.
But carriers rule the land near the oceans and also the public's perception of power.
Both have a place and the combination is pretty neat.
They are better than battleships for beating up on hilariously outmatched little countries, since their range is longer; but that, along with saber rattling, is all they've been used for for quite some time.
That's what all US military technology has been used for for quite some time. Last I checked we haven't gone to war with China or Russia recently, and the rest of the world (not counting our allies) is pretty much made up of hilariously outmatched little countries.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The thing is, the risk from missile attack is someone over stated. They have other ships who exist primarily to intercept those missiles. Even as a last ditch protection, they have anti-missile weapons on board. In the later case, yes the ship is likely to take some damage but nothing comparable to a direct hit.
That's not to say they are invulnerable, but air attack is the least likely route. Honestly, subs are by far the largest risk to a carrier. Even then, it would be difficult to successfully pull off a strike unless it was a suicide attack and they had per-determined coordinates of where the carrier was likely to be.
Yes, a carrier has a lot of eggs in one basket, but there are many layers of protection around that basket exactly for that reason.
At the end of the day, there is nothing which comes close to projecting power like a super carrier can.
I stopped reading when he suggested that current air carriers could be destroyed by "a swarm of iranians flying Cessnas" (I didn't know Iranians had that many Cessnas) or with a German V2 (yes, really). That guy is a joke, and presents any information as if he had a personal issues with aircraft carriers (maybe one of them ran over his mother?)
Why can't
And what country wouldn't love the power to park your space carrier between another country's capital city and the Sun?
Why? So that it casts a negligible shadow on the country? Admittedly, the power required to do so would be pretty scary.
There is still an 800 lb gorilla in the room: nuclear weapons.
A war where a carrier came under attack would either be a major blunder by a nuclear power or the start of a nuclear war. In the latter case, it is likely that multiple nuclear weapons would be targeted on each carrier. The probability of its survival is negligible.
This...and one of the most common uses is free water. In disasters and war, fresh water is always at a premium. A super carrier's ability to desalinate water becomes invaluable.
The problem is, like people who naysayed torpedo boats in WW II, the replacement for aircraft carriers is NOT submarines or battleships.
It's the 21st Century.
The replacement is small mobile destroyers with racks of armed and unarmed drones, operating in task forces.
The fact that the current brass can't grok that, does not mean they are right. Just ask Canada which provided more actual combat equipment in Libya to take out the dictator from just a few small ships than all the planes we launched from Italy did.
Change is Change. It isn't "like" what happened before.
(caveat - I was only a Sergeant with a SECRET clearance who ended up in a HQ unit after doing counter-terrorism and other ops)
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It's been done, it was called WWII.
And the deciding factor was who's carriers got caught with their pants down.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Well big ships cannot be fully replaced. Whatever armament you attach to it (guns, aircraft, something else) depends a lot on who you are trying to kill with it.
That, and they are the center of a carrier group. You don't just get a carrier, you get a whole host of other ships along with it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You're still thinking last century. Small fast boats are the 90s.
Nowadays it's drone carriers - basically small destroyers with racks of armed and unarmed drones, along with some launched choppers.
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Missiles are too task specific. All they can do is blow up a target.
They cannot perform surveillance.
What's what unmanned drones are for - and you can send a half dozen of them cheaper than sending a single aircraft
They cannot defend themselves.
There's no reason why a missile or drone couldn't have defensive weapons
They cannot adapt to changing targets (ie if the ground target manages to get airborne, you have to have a completely different missile to take it out).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standoff_Land_Attack_Missile ... can also be controlled remotely from the air. It relies on military-grade GPS and infrared imaging for navigation. It can strike both moving and stationary targets. It can be redirected to another target after launch if the original target has already been destroyed, or is no longer a priority...
They have no linger time.
If you want linger time, use a long endurance drone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-altitude_long-endurance_unmanned_aerial_vehicle ...for extended durations of time, typically 24 to 48 hours...
I'd like to see you get that much endurance from a single seat fighter.
We haven't seen a high-intensity naval conflict for 70 years. We're unlikely to ever see one again, give the likely fallout (political and otherwise) from nuking ships in deep water is small. Equally matched opponents in a high-intensity conflict aren't going to have any battle groups left after the first day, on either side; that's pretty much a given.
Carrier groups project power quite well against "frigate navies". For a while, there was a significant weakness against asymmetric threats - a roboat with a big bomb was a proven form of attack against US Navy ships. That has largely been addressed now (it wasn't all that hard to adjust to smaller and close threats).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Ummm... a lot of Naval theory springs from WWII, when the Allies were matched, if not evenly, then at least by other potent naval powers. The Japanese and Germans both had formidable navies that did go head to head against the US and the British Empire.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
One of the key reasons for investing in solar powered desalination is the ability to force project with a shorter fuel and water supply line. You bring your own supplies with you.
One of the key purchasers of solar desalination plants is the US military.
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They are too expensive and that will be the weapon that will take them down. Not missiles, not submarines - money.
One tangential "money" issue is 1000 suicide boaters in a simultaneous attack is cheaper than one carrier. Carriers are really freaking expensive. That doesn't work well in the middle of an ocean, but near the shore of the Persian gulf, maybe...
You'd have better luck with a single boat. 1000 would be torn to shreds before they ever got within visual range of a carrier.
As op mentioned, anti-ship missiles will doom the carrier. While they're useful as floating airbases for use against enemies that are at a asymmetric disadvantage, against a nation like China (which possesses one of the largest ballistic missile forces in the world) they would only be a bigger target. How many anti-ship missiles would it take to saturate a carriers close-in defense systems? If that number is n, then all it would take to sink one is n+1. Assuming that n is even one thousand missiles, that is close to the number that China had a few years ago just across the Taiwan Straight (and they apparently add ~100 to just that force annually).
Some of the CIA and NSA drones have that capability.
But you are correct about the standard issue military ones.
Cover Air Support (used to be CAP) is to defend a large target. As you move to dispersed mobile small targets the need diminishes.
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A useful aspect of losing your carrier in enemy waters is that any planes that are in the air suddenly have much better range..... because they don't have to conserve fuel for getting back and landing! What a silver lining!
Everyone knows they would never use Cessnas.
You always use Piper Cubs.
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It would be interesting to see how long they last in a war between evenly matched sides where the carriers are vulnerable to air/missile attack.
No military leader worth half a shit would fight such a battle. Those are horrifically unacceptable odds.
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>>>They cannot perform surveillance.
Yeah actually they can. Tomahawks come with cameras too for surveilling the terrain.
>>>They cannot defend themselves.
They don't need to. They are cheap and disposable. Just like bombs, except self-piloting. I really don't see why we need human pilots anymore when we have missiles that can deliver themselves to the target w/o human help.
>>>They cannot adapt to changing targets (ie if the ground target manages to get airborne, you have to have a completely different missile to take it out).
That's why you launch both Tomahawks and ship-to-air missiles at the same time. The 'hawks takeout the ground and the air missiles takeout any airplanes that managed to get in the air.
>>>They have no linger time.
Also false. Tomahawks can fly for hours-and-hours on their cruise engines. (Honestly why did you even post? You demonstrated you know little about modern missile technology.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
and it was pretty interesting :
http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Cruise Missiles are great if all you want the ship to be able to do is destroy buildings, vehicles and people. If you want to be able to provide CAS and CAP, fly rescue missions, escort combat and non-combat vessels and so on, you need manned vehicles. Automation is great but there is still a great need for a self aware thinking pilot who can evaluate and monitor a situation rather than just flying in and blowing up the target. How about drones you say? Well that works until the enemy puts up manned fighters, drones don't do well in dogfights against manned aircraft, and remote piloting introduces signal delays that are fatal in combat.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Because they're awesome, that's why.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
That depends on how fast it needs to get somewhere. Carriers often out run their non-nuclear support ships, when they push hard. Might seem counter-intuitive, being as big as they are; but, a carrier is a fast moving ship when she need to be.
So we can record people saying "Hey, is that an eclipse?" followed by "That's no moon. It's a space carrier."
You'd be surprised how good ground support aircraft would be at destroying 1000 boats all heading the same way for 50-200 miles at a time, or perhaps the massive fleet escorts that make up an average US carrier group.
A carrier can hit you hard with missles/guns
Reality check: Carriers dont' carry guns or missiles (directly). They carry planes that carry guns and missiles.
Anything that was close enough to a carrier that it could hit it with a gun would be too close.
We already have that - they are called submarines, and collectively carry a huge number of cruise missiles as well as a significant portion of the US nuclear arsenal. It would make no sense to put all of your missiles inside one nice, obvious, easily destroyed target when you can hide them underwater.
If carriers weren't so enormous and launching fighters impossible underwater, you don't think they'd have made them submersible as well? (that crazy WWII Japanese carrier-sub notwithstanding).
I think the upgradeability of the airplanes is less important then the fact of the airplanes themselves. As the Japanese Imperial Navy demonstrated so effectively in 1941, a surface warfare vessel that only projects destruction as far as its guns can shoot simply can't outfight a ship that can project destruction as far as its missiles and airplanes can fly.
A sub has a very limited number of missiles, basically you can shoot a couple dozen and you're done. A carrier can pound you with hundreds of missions per day for months if it needs to.
Everyone is missing the point. The real strategic purpose of a carrier is that they are so big, expensive, and have so many sailors on board that to actually sink one is basically asking for all out war. It's the same reason we have 30k troops in SK. It's not like they could stop a North Korean invasion. It has been calculated that 30k troops being killed would be enought to convice Americans to start a nuclear war.
It's basically like going all in playing poker. Parking a carrier no matter how vulnerable is going all in and asking your opponent how bad they want to win.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
There hasn't been any mention of the tactical response times offered by a carrier. Sure, a country can launch ICBMs and strategic long-range bombers for long-range offense, but having a floating city twenty minutes out from the operational theater changes the game a fair bit.
In the rarely employed non-combat roles, there's again the benefit of having however many tens of thousands of tons of ship and resources at your disposal on-site.
think quoting a senile idiot who spend us into the level of debt we are in now is a good idea?
Iranian Cessnas carrying French Exocet missiles, flying below the radar horizon.
your opinions have consistently shown to be worth less than nothing.
Carriers are fast because the top speed of a ship with a displacement hull is most strongly a factor of length at the waterline. Carriers are long-> carriers are fast.
WW2 had aircraft, but no guided anti-ship missiles, other than the Japanese kamikaze (which were very serious threats).
The accuracy rate of missiles and torpedoes today is far far higher and their range better. They are much better at armor piercing and detonating in the most vulnerable spot.
A single modern torpedo will sink a destroyer-sized ship in a minute, and has a very high chance of impact once fired. It has up to a 50 kilometer range---a huge area for anti-submarine operations. It locates the most vulnerable point. Against a carrier it will destroy the reactor and spread all the waste as aquatic fallout. Given that naval nuclear reactors work on very highly-enriched weapons-level uranium, it could create a criticality accident irradating the nearby ships. Other than aircraft crews in the air, survival is likely negligible. It's not like in WW2 where a carrier could take a few hits, and some of the crew could be evacuated in the few hours they were fighting fires. It's likely to be one and done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRQNyDW15UA
Get a bloody canoe and put Chuck Norris in it for god's sake. Much cheaper and every bit as discouraging to prospective adversaries. I can already see it: Chuck Norris paddling merrily about while whistling Enya songs and Submarines diving nose-first directly into the sea-floor in terror. Great Whites would beach themselves when he licked his Sun-parched lips, if the Sun would dare. The Yellow Sea would be red (mostly red), white and blue and even China would agree. The Ring of Fire would ask politely for permission to twitch.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Subs only work against a battle group if that battle group doesn't know the war has started. Once all that sonar goes active (not just from the ships, but from hundreds of dropped buoies), there's no where to hide within many miles of the carrier - heck, the sonic energy delivered is so high that it causes mass fish/dolphin kills in excercises, which the hippies routinely protest.
And of course a carrier battle group includes submarines. But it simply takes a submarine too long to put eyes on a ship 200 miles east and evalute it as a threat or warn it off. Submarines make poor hospitals. do a poor job of escorting troop transports, and in general are poor at anything but offense.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
He is a idiot, the DF-21 missiles are MRBM's that have a maximum speed of Mach 1.2 not Mach 10. It also carries a 500kt nuclear war head, which means China would have to be willing to go to Nuclear war over the spat, which at that point, China has a lot better and newer missiles with longer range it could use.
Additionally, just as China's longest range Nuclear weapons can hit anywhere in the main land of the United States, the United States could do the same thing right back to China.
Additionally, unlike the United States, NATO and Russia, China has openly refused to be the first one to launch nuclear weapons, they are in a second strike role, which is why the Chinese favours mobile launchers which a first strike will not actually eliminate. The Soviet Union before their collapse also agreed to limit their use to second strike capabilities only.
So if China does use the DF-21 as a anti-aircraft carrier group weapon, more then likely, it wont matter to any of us at the time, as nuclear weapons will be heading in both directions any ways to hit targeted areas of high population instead of worrying about a little aircraft carrier group somewhere in the ocean.
If the side are evenly matched, then you have already failed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Lesson learned: :Limit the amount of memory it can access, keep it within a set of bounds.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
YOu would look less stupid had you read the entire post and respond appropriately.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The ONLY (let me emphasize this particular word) reason why carriers are still relevant is asymmetric nature of modern warfare. US, Russia, France, UK, China, Japan and several other countries with significant amount of modern weaponry cannot go to war with each other. If they did, life span of enemy carriers would be less then 24 hours. They're the first, and easiest targets to disable/kill as even relatively minor damage can cause too much tilt to make carrier operations impossible before significant repairs are made.
On the other hand, they excel at projecting power in asymmetric warfare, where opponent lacks modern anti-ship weaponry. For this reason, the countries with colonialist/imperialist intentions want them.
Torpedoes are indeed more powerful than in WW2, but then so are countermeasures. There are lots of ways torpedoes may be defeated. Of course this does not get talked about that much - although plenty of information is in the public eye (although most commentators don't know about them). Here's a hint, look up the word "Nixie" and go from there.
The point about carriers vs other ships is that they have a big flat area on top that can be used for a variety of purposes. Even if you built a big battle ship that could also serve as a hospital, power generation unit and provide food/water supplies, you wouldn't have the transportation options of landing helicopters or transport planes on the thing.
It probably also helps them remain relevant that nobody has let a single one get any closer to something dangerous than they absolutely had to since the second world war.
True. Very, very true. And, in WWII, the main dangerous thing they got close to was other carriers. After the Battle of the Coral Sea it was clear that whoever got off the first strike would probably win, which is why the Japanese were in such a hurry to change the loads on their planes at Midway and got caught with their pants down.
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Submarines rendered skimmers obsolete many years ago.
I've been so close to carriers (undetected) that it once took five shots with a periscope-mounted camera to get a picture of the whole thing. That's five sets of crosshairs folks, and they never knew we were there.
But you'd either have to have it really close to cover up the sun, or really, really far away and of monumentally immense size to actually eclipse the sun. You can situate it to block out a tiny part of the sun for an entire country, but the extremely diffuse shadow wouldn't even be noticed by the most sensitive light meters. To actually park it _over_ a particular country, however, would be a pretty impressive display of power, however. Orbits don't work that way, so to accomplish it, you'd have to be doing something pretty impressive technologically.
The carriers would be out in the Arabian see, hundreds of miles from Iran if we were to go to war, just like they were for Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The transit through the straight was just a show of capability, not where they would be deployed in the event of war. If they try to run small boats 100+ NM from shore, they would be easy prey for helicopters, fighters, and the guns on the smaller surface ships.
say there are two kinds of ships, submarines and targets.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Maybe because they're air bases that are mobile.
Modern carriers were developed in WW1? Don't think so, pal.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Submarines, and Targets!
Death From Below!
U.S. Sub Vet
It's about subs, not surface vessels or even air power. The only significant danger to our submarines is magnetic detection from the air. That's a pretty scary one, though. So if we own the air, or are at least involved in a nasty scrap for it, our subs stay safe. If our subs stay safe, we own all the water on the planet. If we own all the water on the planet, we're always on the offensive and never on the defensive. Carriers don't even have to win - they just have to keep the other side from gaining air superiority over the bulk of the oceans.
That's the big-war version, anyway. The little war version is that your unsophisticated ass can't touch our bulky, ageing carries in spite of their intense vulnerability, so we might as well keep whacking you over the head with them since we already paid for them. Well, we never plan to actually pay for them but you know what we mean, you little shit.
Also enemy carrier still far away from the coast is the best and completely legitimate target for nuclear weapons in otherwise non-nuclear war.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
military leader worth half a shit
That, unfortunately, excludes US military and politicians who run it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Points for cleverness, but that's just the Pacific Theater (which was pretty much treated like the red-headed stepchild of the war effort), and even then, I wouldn't have really called Japan an evenly-matched side. Yes, they had military superiority at the beginning, but the U.S. had ridiculous economic superiority. My mind boggles a little bit reading accounts of the vast difference in materiel (while the U.S. was primarily focused on the war in Europe, no less). Coral Sea and Midway sped things up, but Japan was pretty much doomed from the moment they started dropping bombs on Pearl Harbor.
Launching them from a first stage that's reusable is just a form of space and monetary efficiency, since while a few dozen warheads can share the same first stage with sub-launched ballistic missiles, a few dozen warheads can share the same first stage with a strike fighter. Then a few dozen more. Then a few dozen more the next day. You get the picture.
I don't remember the WW2 equivalent of Jutland. Care to remind me?
The Kriegsmarine mostly consisted of a few over-hyped capital ships intended as commerce raiders plus submarines. The latter were much more effective.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
blame all of the past debt including that of your senile friend on the black guy. Too bad for you, the adult around here are not as mentally deficient as you or your decrepit idol.
Perhaps that's true for for the US in the Pacific, but the British (who were largely fighting navies without carriers) managed to lose one to a capital ship and at least one other to a submarine.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It would be interesting to see how long they last in a war between evenly matched sides where the carriers are vulnerable to air/missile attack.
No military leader worth half a shit would fight such a battle. Those are horrifically unacceptable odds.
Horrifically unacceptable odds has failed to stop a lot of battles. And wars.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If the side are evenly matched, then you have already failed.
Sun Tzu would go farther than that:
From http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu :
For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And that is an easy way to turn a non-nuclear war into a nuclear war. Better be sure, for the sake of the rodina.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Actually, the USS Wasp was torpedoed in the Pacific in September, 1942, and the Yorktown was finally sunk at Midway when a sub caught up with her the next day. Even so, the most dangerous thing to a carrier's always been the planes from another carrier.
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Carriers are great force projection tools. Nothing says up yours like a carrier battle group crossing your line of death. However, they also fall into that second category of vessels when submariners refer to "submarines and targets." As ship killer missiles get better, submarines will be an even greater threat since they can fire from stand off distances. Sadly, it will take all the fun out of it as you no longer will get to due an approach and take a quick peek at your target right before it disappears.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Jesus you are daft. You don't control the skies by launching a bunch of missiles. You control the skies by having a presence in them.
Just like you can claim you "control" Fallujah, but if you can't safely set foot outside the green zone, you're not in 'control' of shit.
Also a giant, unmanned boat full of explosives and missiles would be targeted like flies on shit: you see one of the boats, you load a bunch of explosives into your little zodiac launch, you drive over to the unmanned boat, you attach explosives, and you sink the fucker. Bonus points if you can use its own armaments to fuel the explosion.
Protecting that boat, then, means you have to have a "carrier group" escorting it, full of men and planes and guns. Which means, you have a MOTHERFUCKING CARRIER, but with none of the benefits of it being a carrier, and thus reconfigurable, and capable of carrying many different kinds of armament, materiel and people. You have a super expensive, highly vulnerable, single-use ship that is nigh-useless in doing anything other than blowing up some buildings from a long way away, and you can already do that with bomber, sub, destroyer, or ground-launched cruise missiles.
Carriers fulfill a role that your "boat full of missiles" never will. So please, stop talking about it, because it makes you sound like a retard.
Actually there were more sophisticated anti-ship weapons in the late WWII than you seem to think namely Fritz X.
Not so long ago, back in times when a single country still could afford to develop original things (like the vertical-takeoff-landing Harriers), the Brits seriously considered a submarine carrier.
I remember one could even land crafts while the sub was almost entierely underwater, but the elevated landing spot (which was a mast in fact)...
Herve S.
Only if the opposing side attacks your carriers, as any other response would be disproportionate (and a war crime).
What you call "nuclear war" is actually nuclear war on populated land, and the only reason why it is wrong, is because it inevitably destroys massive numbers of civilians. There is never anything wrong with attacking a huge boat in the middle of the ocean with nothing but invading military on it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
P.S. I am pretty sure that this is the inevitable fate of each and every US carrier group within minutes of some crazy asshole-in-chief trying to start a "non-nuclear" war with China or Russia, but you may ask their governments for clarification.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Gary Brecher aka the War Nerd, on aircraft carriers, and why they're an obsolete idea.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
I'm pretty sure if a U.S. carrier group came under attached with nuclear weapons the U.S. isn't going to use your logic about it being out at sea. Disproportionate depends on your side. The reality is if the U.S. and China or the U.S. and Russia get into a military conflict parts of the earth are going to be glowing.
She was launched in 1916 (middle of WWI), complete with a flight deck for both landing & taking off. Traditionally most naval historians consider the Furious the beginning of the 'conventional aircraft carrier'. She was so successful that her sister ships, Courageous & Glorious, were converted to carriers in the immediate post-WWI period.
in the pacific
It would be interesting to see how long they last in a war between evenly matched sides where the carriers are vulnerable to air/missile attack.
No military leader worth half a shit would fight such a battle. Those are horrifically unacceptable odds.
Horrifically unacceptable odds has failed to stop a lot of battles. And wars.
You can't make an omelette without killing a few people.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Carries more attack and warfighting aircraft than most nations. And we have nearly a dozen of them. Also if you want 4.5 acres of sovereign US territory anywhere in the world in a few days, call the Navy and they send it.
nuff said really
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Air power decides outcomes, how are you going to get the air power to said location on a reeady to go operation platform.
How to you provide continous air cover to a moble fleet during wartime? How to you run electronic jamming and surveilance operations from anywhere?
Of course if war itself or US imperialism and global domination itself becomes obsolete....
The carrier is, by far, the most useful ship in the fleet in the wars we fight. Its theoretical weaknesses only become actual in the wars we don't fight.
Their greatest downsides are their expense and operating costs.
tone
Lesson learned: :Limit the amount of memory it can access, keep it within a set of bounds.
Yes, what could possibly go wrong with hardware and software controls over a collection of hardware and software?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
On the other hand, they excel at projecting power in asymmetric warfare
Hence their universally acknowledged role in helping us triumph in Afghanistan.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
...and in general are poor at anything but offense.
And spying, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Carriers are also:
* Mobile hospitals.
* Mobile power generation units.
* Mobile food services.
And I'm sure that people here can think of a few more. Carriers cannot be fully replaced.
This is a really good point, and the most common use of carriers in the US fleet. Also for providing fresh water in emergencies (such as Haiti), as mentioned in a followup post.
Interesting question, but since the advent of the Essex class carrier in 1941 no US carrier of Essex class or later has ever been sunk. USS Intrepid in the course of WW II took a torpedo and 5 Kamikaze hits at different times, and was repaired and back in service weeks after each attack.
Agree. MANNED AIRCRAFT Carriers are a relic. Not a single one of them could survive an attack by a swarm of drones.
That means drone carriers might be immensely useful.
A carrier can hit you hard with missles/guns.
Since before WW2 American carriers have mounted only point-defense weapons. The last to have organic weaponry that could be called offensive were the Lexington and Saratoga, completed in the late 20's, which carried a heavy cruiser's 8-inch gun armament. It was replaced by smaller dual-purpose guns during refits early in the war.
It's been done, it was called WWII.
And the deciding factor was who's carriers got caught with their pants down.
Referring more to this happening in the future, than in the past. The might of carriers in the past is well known, but if we're discussing whether or not they are a relic now then discussing in terms of their dominance around the time of their genesis is moot.
Holy shit, in a war, sometimes you lose assets? This is INCONCEIVABLE!
They don't need to. They are cheap and disposable. Just like bombs, except self-piloting. I really don't see why we need human pilots anymore when we have missiles that can deliver themselves to the target w/o human help.
A couple reasons.
1) War must suck. Make it not suck, and you get into the mindset of "I don't lke them. I'm going to press the [KILL THEM] button." Given the parallels to /. moderation, this is something you should be able to understand.
2) Fighter jets have a more valid reason to be in a given air space at any given time, meaning you can be closer to your target, meaning you can try and catch the other side off guard. You can't really perform a surprise attack against someone if they can see your missle coming for 5+ hours.
Also false. Tomahawks can fly for hours-and-hours on their cruise engines
That's not what "linger time" means. Think loitering, hanging about in one place for an extended period of time. How long would a tomahawk missle take in order to loop back around on itself? Not implying that it can't do so in short order, only saying that that is the question you need to answer if you want to debunk GP's "linger time" claim.
(Honestly why did you even post? You demonstrate time and again an inability to follow a conversation. Ok, perhaps a little harsh since you did make some good points, but still...)
Yamamoto said the same thing:
In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.
A military man can scarcely pride himself on having "smitten a sleeping enemy"; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Genesis was WWI, not WWII, that was their ascendency over battleships, who had ascendency in WWI.
Yamamoto, talking about the Yamoto battleship class, envisions the eventual fall of capital ships:
"The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants."
Personally, I see the biggest problem is that they are vastly oversized against any credible threat. We would be better served by drone carriers or missile frigates in most cases. Better to deal with asymmetrical threats.
But sometimes, only a capital ship will do.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
The reality is if the U.S. and China or the U.S. and Russia get into a military conflict parts of the earth are going to be glowing.
That's not necessarily true, however US being ruled by trigger-happy retards who automaticaly cry "war crime" when their military is losing, is a well-known problem, and I don't think, anyone expects it to be solved any soon. My point is that Americans should forget an idiotic fantasy of using their carriers in a "non-nuclear" war with any country that can destroy them with nukes, because they will be destroyed with nukes.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Wow dude, really? Nice job of missing the forest for the trees.
"Cessna" is commonly used as a generic term for "Small propeller driven civilian aircraft". It can include larger twin engine turboprop planes. I bet you also think that when they say "speedboat" they are referring to a 16' outboard.
Such aircraft can easily employ skip bombing tactics, which is incredibly effective and low cost, both because you can use cheap iron bombs and aircraft of comparably low performance, as skip bombing is typically done at 200-250 mph, and because it is easy to get hits on a ship with it. The key to it working in modern times is by overwhelming a ships defenses. This is easy enough to do with simple numbers. You build a bunch of $50,000-$100,000 prop driven aircraft with only very basic instrumentation and the payload to carry a 250-500lb bomb and can go fast enough to be good at skip bombing. (Could probably do it for less if you go full mass production.)
Send a couple dozen "speedboats" (PT boats) with one or two Exocets each. Carrier and escorts expend their AA ammunition engaging these threats and several ships will probably take hits. Then you have a couple hundred of these small, low cost, aircraft flying out, each with a 250-500lb bomb strapped to its belly. How many 250-500lb bombs impacting at the waterline can a carrier take before it sinks? Heck, how many before it can't even launch aircraft?
A Phalanx CIWS can only fire 15-25 or so bursts before its magazine is empty, assuming it wasn't knocked out by an Exocet impact. (Leave aside the fact that the Phalanx have never worked in the real world.) Ships that were not hit will be trying to cover stricken ships and thus have limited ability to maneuver and/or have limited AA ordinance at the ready.
Also don't forget that you can "turn-n-burn" with those "Cessna's". They can be quickly reloaded/refueled and sent out again just like the Israelis did during the 6 day war.
All of this is assuming that the country in question does not have AIP submarines with competent crews, in which case the carrier will be scrap on the ocean bottom as soon as it hits the continental shelf. Carriers then have to stay so far offshore as to be irrelevant.
After 50-100 years or so, ships would be a thing of the past in the military. When you consider that missiles today are cheap enough and technological enough when compared to the basic aircraft carriers and in the future, missiles would be so advanced that any amount of detection would not suffice to stop a missile attack. Drones in the future can be used to detect subs which is would be so easy to do even in today's technology(radar/sonar). No amount of radar/sonar absorbing technology would stop subs from getting detected(no such thing as displacement absorption/cloacking and such. Subs would likely stay so deep that they are utterly useless.
When it comes to manned-jets, world travel using a single fuel tank/no refuel will render ships more useless especially aircraft carriers.
In the future, weather can be manipulated(small scale tests have already been done with this one) and ships has limitations with large waves especially aircraft carriers.
Unless they can invent a force field and big enough to be used on a carrier size ship, a hail of bullets can destroy anything and even so with ships that is so slow in the water. "Special" bullets if targeted on the same point can break even the strongest shields(check electronic guns on this one).
This weapons I have stated are already in the works or already manufactured. I am not talking about future weapons/theoretical weapons here. Sorry if there are so many grammar mistakes, I am tired.
why can't we all be cyborgs... and get along :)
No not really, if you do that there will be so much noise contamination that no one will hear a thing(except for the guy trying to sneak up on you), you don't use active sonar until you have an actual target because it's detectable from a lot further away than it can detect things. If anyone was stupid enough to do that it's basically Christmas for an attacker, just send a whole bunch of sonar homing torpedoes(some very basic targeting selection can identify and ignore the buoys) in the general direction and watch things go boom.
Besides, an AIP submarine hugging the bottom is difficult to detect even with active sonar because things like bottom composition and variances in the salt content of the seawater in the path of the sonar beam can throw off the accuracy of the sonar beam so that even if you get a positive detection(which is not a given) you actually have very little idea where the target actually is.
carriers not yet tested against a power that can fight back.
Despite the delusions of some, there are still people on the planet who want to kill you, your children, and your livestock should you have some. If you don't, they'll settle for your pets and take your property to boot.
Aircraft carriers may be more vulnerable than they were in the past, but they are still necessary and far from obsolete, just as the battleship is not yet obsolete. Today, we only need battleships occasionally, but we have one or two ready to deploy without too much ado.
The Marines are very fond of them.
As for aircraft carriers, they can carry more firepower than most countries can bring to bear with their combined armed forces, much less in a package as compact as an aircraft carrier.
Another thing to remember is that aircraft carriers don't sail the ocean blue all by their lonesome. They have this setup called a carrier group.
It may be unclear how warfare will shape up in the 21st Century. Certainly the 20th Century saw a change from trench warfare, to advancing and retreating front lines, to complete "asymmetrical" warfare.
One thing is for sure, in a nation like the US, those who lack the "gear" to keep our country safe and our liberty secure will benefit from the minority of those who do.
100% correct - if the carrier was sailing up a narrow river and the attackers were hiding in ambush behind a bend.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."