Slashdot Mirror
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."
Our penises are #1! All others are #2 or lower! Tremble before them, everyone else!
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
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...
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
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.
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.
The thing is, if you have a weapon that can sink a carrier, the ship becomes pretty significant. A mobile airfield is useless if it's underwater.
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
Why are we even talking about the aircraft carrier when we should be out building helicarriers!
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
What we need is a submarine aircraft carrier!
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.
US carriers have been routinely sunk by canadian, australian, dutch and english subs. As another commentator mentioned, aircraft carriers are great for projecting power against an inferior enemy, not as much when facing a sophisticated foe.
>>>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.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
And when you find them, which isn't really that hard with technology, you encounter a fleet of ships. Not just an aircraft carrier. A carrier, by itself, is VERY vulnerable. But its shortcomings are made up for with the countless destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and other ships accompanying it.
The only way you can attack the aircraft carrier is to surprise all of those ships. A supersonic missle would work on an aircraft carrier for the same reason it would work just about anywhere else. If you can't recognize it and react in time with a missle that can intercept a supersonic missle, then you can't stop it.
This is all beside the point. The main purpose of an aircraft carrier is to be multi-purpose. It is a mobile city. Think of a cruise ship with a whole lot more technology and capabilities. It drives on nuclear power, launches air and land vehicles, launches some weapons, carries people, medical/food supplies, etc...
Localized hypersonic sound pulse emission combined with teraflop level calculation for precision targetting to disperse a concentrated aerosolized polymer matrix mist loaded with synthetic diamond.
I think anyway.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
Seeing as how Mitchell embarrassed the Naval brass, beating them at their own game, the Navy would never give him recognition.
However, the Army and the Air Force, and the AF owes him a huge amount, have made numerous recognition of him.
Per Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell
Sinking a US carrier by being undetected has been demonstrated. see http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/boats/boat_walrus2.htm
I kinda see it like delivering atomic weapons by dirigible.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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!
Now, get off my lawn!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
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.
Billy Mitchell demonstrated the vulnerability of modern warships in 1921.
And then went on to become the first person to ever achieve a perfect score in Pac-Man.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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!
Akagi.
The vulnerability of carriers has been proven. A very long reach may allow them to outclass other surface ships in a duel, but they are still just very long armed boxers with glass jaws. We know what happens when carriers meet carriers. We expect must the same when surface-based craft hunt carriers.
In today's world there are many weapon systems that can match the long reach of a carrier, although it is (so far) unproven how accurately they can target a ship 400-600 miles out to sea. Targeting will inevitably improve, and then it becomes a matter of numbers where the missiles are cheap going up against an expensive carrier.
The US can do a lot more for vastly less money with 4 supercarriers and 10 pocket carriers designed for helicopters and UAVs than 11 supercarriers. And we still get the prestige of the supercarriers.
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.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
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.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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
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)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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
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.
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.
I see a problem with that... to fight the Iowa we would need to call in the Yamato... but to do that, we would need to recover it from the bottom of the ocean... and it was put there by a bunch of vintage aircraft...
Your words make little sense to me. Of course you talk about upgraded AA systems, but thinking that there are "perfect" systems that make something invulnerable is like thinking that I may beat a marathon runner just by deciding to not slow my pace.
Why can't
... aircraft carriers are great for projecting power against an inferior enemy, not as much when facing a sophisticated foe.
/.er been inside the former Russian B-39 diesel attack boat tied up at San Diego? There are two photos of US carriers (Midway (ironically, nearby) and another (perhaps the Oriskany)). The interesting feature of these photos is that they were allegedly shot through the B-39's periscope.
Has no other
I have no doubt if the B-39 was close enough to photograph these carriers, it could also sink them.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
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.
Alot of those ships are getting old. Enterprise is 51 years old. Nimitz is 45 years old. If you stop building them, the number of carriers will naturally drop through attrition as the older ships are retired. There's a problem though: There is one and only one shipyard capable of building nuclear supercarriers. It's not a cargo ship. It's not a cruise liner. It's not even a normal naval vessel. It's a floating, nuclear powered, military city with a hanger and an airstrip on the upper decks. If you don't keep that yard busy building a ship every 5 or 6 years, you lose the ability to build them entirely. Why? Because all the people with the knowledge necessary will be looking for new jobs. When you do decide to build one, you'll be restarting from ground zero; and, it will cost significantly more to build that one than to have just kept the system running at a slow but steady pace. That's the argument anyway.
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.
As apposed to some random jack with a pseudonym reminiscent of a pervert who's spouting opinions so perverted that history doesn't support them?
Grow up.
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.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Maybe because they're air bases that are mobile.
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
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.
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."
Negative...I think President Reagan was very wise which trumps intelligence everyday for a leader. No sarcasm in my post.
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.
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
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.
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.