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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."
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.
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
> Yes. Aircraft carriers == countries grandstanding about how big & strong they are
:-)
And the other way around. Countries that have a carrier, big. A carrier is a toy for the big guy's because it needs a whole squadron around it to protect the carrier and for all your other naval activities a different fleet has to be operational.
It is a ship that is a big target in the best of times and a big, cumbersome, slow moving, blind (there is a visual and radar blindspot with a mile radius around it) and hopelessly lacking manoeuvrability all the other times. In order to have one floating around, one needs at least a handful of frigates (all of them equipped with a helicopter) , a minesweeper or two, one auxiliary ship and preferably a submarine or two and a hospital ship.
And yes you can try with less ships around it being dedicated to your airstripship... like the Argentinians tried in 1982... and failed...
Nice maritime topic by the way, with International talk-like-a-pirate-day tomorrow and all! How considerate!
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
While I probably agree with you and your comments, I refuse to even look at that link. Its like the news equivalent of rickrolling.
I don't think you realize how inaccurate an ICBM is. There is a reason they only make nuclear ones.
I didn't bother to check the link but seriously, linking to fox news does not help your cause. If you haven't realized it they are known all around the world for their lack of credibility.
Yup. Seems President Reagan agrees with you:
"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong." Ronald Reagan
"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free." Ronald Reagan
According to this article, while foreign opinions of Obama has slipped a bit, overall it is still far better than when Bush was in office...
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/13/12184262-survey-worlds-opinion-of-us-obama-slips?lite
Not that I care. "Merica!
Assassinations refers to political leaders, i.e. killing a country's president because we know the next in line is more willing to work with us. Bin Laden was not a political leader of any country, he was a terrorist, thus not protected by the executive order prohibiting Assassinations. There is a distinct difference and a reason for the difference.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
And the earth has a horizon to deal with.
Your link confirms what I said.
Put it in a ballistics simulator and try to hit a target at 15 miles with a projectile that is going Mach 7, or 4,500 mph to 5,600, which is what your site quotes. Line of site for a 30ft elevation to each target is 12 miles, so the ground gets in the way.
To do you would have to adjust for windage in hopes of dropping it on top of them, which is about 1100m (15 seconds of freefall) in 24000m (15 miles in meters), or about 1.3 degrees of angle to land where you want it.30 miles and the angle becomes 5.2 degrees at 30 miles. Pretty fine aiming, even for computers. For comparison, the angle for a normal shell is something like 20.2 degrees @15, and could not hit at 30 with a max range of 24. (I have simplified for no air resistance, not a small impact. But it is a comparison, not an actual I-need-to-hit-the-target number)
What it is really good for is reaching out and shooting down nearby missiles/aircraft. Calculating 1 or 2 second intercept is perfect, and you could use fletchettes to get a nice scatter.
See, I have actual naval training in calculating firing solutions, and while it may be a little rusty after 15+ years, I know what I can hit with a gun of a given specification.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
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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I see you are either suffering from ignorance of the simple statistical data, or have been brainwashed. Neither of these are character flaws; they are simply deficiencies. Not accepting the truth after being made aware of the misconception would be a character flaw.
Cumulative deficit spending in constant dollars:
Reagan, 8 years: 1.600 trillion
GHW Bush, 4 years: 1.462 trillion
Clinton, 8 years: 1.610 trillion
GW Bush, 8 years: 4.351 trillion
Obama, FIRST 3 YEARS ONLY: 4.765 trillion
Gee. Reagan and Clinton were almost exactly the same in terms of accumulated debt. GHW Bush was almost twice as bad considering he only had half as long to work with running up debt as either of the former. And GW Bush and Obama were SPECTACULARLY the worst. Obama has been much worse than GW so far, but both are an unparalleled absolute disaster.
Fact: 9 trillion of the 15 trillion cumulative debt outstanding as of the end of September 2011 and accumulated since the founding of the Republic is down to the GW + Obama period alone.
Note: all the yearly figures run from October through September, so they don't quite correspond to presidential terms, but they are very close.
Now, having corrected the spectacular misconception, here's something to chew on. Presidents can't spend a single dime without the House of Representatives budgeting it. The House has COMPLETE control over the purse strings. All the Presidents do is PROPOSE budgets to the House. Then after the House passes a budget the Senate and President have to concur with it; there is a dance of reconciliation between the House and Senate, and then the President just says "yeah fine, I guess" or "Hell no", after which Congress can still override the veto.