Why Aircraft Carriers Still Rule the Oceans

Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by crazyjj · 2012-09-18 08:22 · Score: 5, Funny

Our penises are #1! All others are #2 or lower! Tremble before them, everyone else!

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Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by cpu6502 · 2012-09-18 08:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes. Aircraft carriers == countries grandstanding about how big & strong they are. Politicians like Romney brag about "showing strength to discourage attack" and the voters eat it up.
Of course a better projection of power instead of obsolete battleships or airplane carriers would be the Arsenal Ship I worked on in the 90s. It was filled with nothing but self-guided missiles & required very minimal staffing. Just enough to watch the radar and load targeting solutions. Nothing says "power" like a ship that can launch 500 nuclear-tipped tomahawks in less than ten minutes. Or a barrage of ship-to-air missiles to shoot aircraft carrier attacks from the sky.

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Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by Razgorov+Prikazka · 2012-09-18 08:59 · Score: 4, Informative

> 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! :-)

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Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by Beardo+the+Bearded · 2012-09-18 09:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or just allow for assassinations again.
"We're not bombing civilians anymore. Fuck with us and we'll murder you in your sleep. One of your guards will have a price. A million US to poison your coffee? 500 million? At some point, they'll crack and you'll die. Quickly, painlessly, and then you're over."

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Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by wdef · 2012-09-18 09:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

You're right that would be a better show of strength, but then you have the type of foolishness perpetuated by the Obama administration where we essentially go around appologizing to our enemies inviting them to attack us. They know well that Obama would die at the hands of the enemy before he goes to war over anything. Our enemies know that too. See our foriegn embassies for evidence. So all of the posturing in the world isn't going to help when you've already shown your hand.
Really? You know, to us in the rest of the world, there is no noticeable difference between Obama and Bush. None. The Obama government's foreign policy is much the same as Bush's. Same offshore oil wars went on. Same idiotic sabre-rattling about invading Iran, which would be a total disaster and another oil war. It's republicans and democrat voters that differ. Your politicians are all the same underneath, pandering to the low common denominator in the US for votes, and you end up with the same policies regardless. It's a pseudo democracy, and the UK and Australia are not much better. And patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel (that's a quote). Hence I expect no genuine changes no matter who is elected, just a different tone to the rhetoric.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by craigminah · 2012-09-18 09:35 · Score: 4, Informative

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
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by MightyMartian · 2012-09-18 09:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

I wonder how Ghaddafi feels about Obama's use of projected power.
I do love partisans though. If Obama doesn't thump some Arab leader with a big stick, he's an apologist pussy. If he does thump some Arab leader with a big stick, why he's a warmongering Congress defier. One gets the sense that it is irrelevant what a sitting President does. If he's wearing your team's colors, he's 100% great, if he's wearing the other team's colors, he's 100% bad.

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Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by Sir_Sri · 2012-09-18 09:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

And once you run out of non nuclear missiles how are you going to bomb ground targets?
Carriers don't rule the oceans. Submarines and missile cruisers rule the oceans. Carriers rule the land near oceans, they are portable airpower, which makes them more cost effective than missile boats for air support and air superiority roles.
Big ships are just platforms. If you put large very heavy guns in them they become of significantly lower versatility - you need to completely rebuild the ship to have something without the guns. Aircraft carriers are as versatile as the aircraft you put on them. Need helicopters to support a naval invasion? Use a carrier. Need airborne surveilance and control? use a carrier. Need some combination of air superiority and ground attack? Use a carrier. In this sense a carrier is just a specific variant of big ship, that happens to be more versatile than the previous two iterations ('pre-dreadnought' battleships that were a mish mash of guns, post dreadnought 'big gun' battleships).
Granted, it depends very much on the type of war you have to fight. But that's the problem. Your 500 nuclear tipped tomahawks is a job for war no one is fighting at the moment. You're not going to nuke Damascus or Tehran to get Assad or the Ayatollahs out of power (in fact using nuclear weapons in this case would be almost diametrically opposed to that goal).
Also, it's not like navies are composed entirely of aircraft carriers. The US has about 50 in total, of nearly 300, and carriers (especially the big ones) are hard to make in a hurry, so you tend to be top heavy and have a disproportionately large inventory of large assets - if it turns out you need 50 destroyers by the end of next year 50 shipyards could probably pull that off, if you need 5 aircraft carriers by the end of next year it isn't going to happen. The Royal navy has 80 ish ships, of which two are supposed to be full blown aircraft carriers, a heli carrier and then some 'landing ships' which are like half heli carriers. With that diverse collection of assets some can be carriers, some can be 'arsenal' ships, some can be all sorts of different things, until you know what war you're fighting it's a matter of being reasonably prepared for whatever.
Carrier operations off pakistan for example, related to Afghanistan, are because Diego Gracia (which doesn't actually belong to the yanks) is the nearest US allied base, and it's in the middle of nowhere. Ok for staging disaster relief and nuclear weapons, not so good for ground support in north western afghanistan. And as we just saw the hard way, aircraft based on the ground in theatre can get blown up.
One of the lessons sept 11 should have taught americans is that their notions of 'power' are outdated and whimsically useless, you could have nuked Kabul or Riyadh into the ground in retaliation but what would that have gotten you? Capabilities matter, but being capable of doing something useless doesn't translate into power, and sure, a boat with 500 missiles can hit 500 targets - if you're lucky - but those missiles take a long time to go from off shore to wherever you need them, even if they land in the right place the thing you want destroyed might not be there, or might be too well fortified against the size of missile you can launch. They aren't useless by any means, but they aren't a panacea, nor are carrier based assets.
Anyone who you could seriously want to nuke can nuke back (russia, china, north korea, pakistan), and if they can't nuke you they can at least kill millions of your allies. MAD sort of implies *mutually* after all. And anyone else you don't really want to nuke because you're more likely to get something out of conventional overthrow of the government.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by sdguero · 2012-09-18 09:52 · Score: 5, Informative

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!
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by dwillden · 2012-09-18 09:59 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

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Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by wdef · 2012-09-18 10:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

You misunderstand me and re-reading my post, which in retrospect was a bit over the top, I can see why. Please allow me to qualify that. I'm no US-hater. Quite the opposite. Yours is a great country. I know and have worked with many US citizens and have high regard for them. US technology, culture, entrepreneurship and sheer energy are second to none and I will argue with anyone who says otherwise. The US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are inspiring, great works. It's fair to say that I love your country.
That is why it saddens me to see what the workings of your political system seems to have become. And I don't want to single out the US alone as I said. Democracy is imperfect, and unfortunately vulnerable, but it's far better than the alternatives. I'll take imperfect democracy anytime over any other system. And it requires vigilance to maintain, as Jefferson stressed. That is why, whatever the political persuasion, Americans (or others) really have a duty to speak up when it's obvious that, for example, something's broken eg when foreign policy isn't really much different when the party in power changes. How many presidential campaign promises are ever fulfilled, I wonder? I tend to think John Ralston Saul is right when he says that the old left/right divides of two dominant party systems, like Republican versus Democracy, are really just theatre now, and that all we really get is more of the same.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! by SplashMyBandit · 2012-09-18 12:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

You forget, 90% of the fleet's firepower comes from carriers (in the USN at least). The four squadrons of SuperHornets plus helos and EA-6 (or Hornet G) on each carrier can perform all sorts of missions (land/naval strike, interdiction, recon, CAS, BARCAP, sweep, SEAD/DEAD. elint, ew, SAR, anti-sub, etc etc) and they can do it thousands of kilometers from the fleet.
As far back as the 60s the US thought that perhaps carriers were obsolete and too expensive and should be gotten rid of. However, the various wars and skirmishes (eg El Dorado Canyon/Libya) have shown the US time and again that the carrier strike group is still unparalleled in mission range, variety, striking power and capability. Hence, the US has 12/13 (depending on the rate of building) and lots of other countries want them too. The UK also though of getting rid of its carriers but fortunately they were around when the Argentinians occupied the Falkland Islands. Without a carrier the UK would have had zero chance of restoring sovereignty to the Falkland Islanders (who govern themselves but cannot defend themselves).
However, on Slashdot the uninformed start with purile "penis" comparisons as if US defense policy was based on this (prestige follies happen in banana republics like Chavez's Venezuala or Qadaffi's Libya - but not in the US; the US follies are based on the economic benefits of the military-industrial complex in each State, but not braggadoccio as the posters suggest).
Aircraft carriers are an important part of global power projection. Without a carrier you simply cannot enforce your will around the World (unopposed aircraft can defeat all ships and submarines; if you don't have a carrier to counter this then your Navy is useless - which is why the Russian and Chinese Navies have carriers mostly tasked with protecting their fleets).
nb: with regard to carrier killing missiles. The US purchased advanced hypersonic Russian missiles and tested/developed defenses against them. Work is ongoing on improved versions of the Standard Missile against ballistic missiles like the DongFeng 'carrier killers' and lasers are being tested against Brahmos and other hypersonic sea skimming missiles. As a result the greatest threat to carriers is not missiles, it is submarines (especially those with Air-Independent-Propulsion, that are very difficult to detect). A torpedo from a submarine also contains a far greater payload than missiles (this includes nuclear tipped torpedoes, Soviet attack subs were issued with two nuke as carriers are so valuable [because they are so powerful] that bagging one was worth the risk of escalation).
So, the manhood insults about navies may be cheap lurlz but show considerable ignorance about modern military affairs and why there is so much activity around developing both naval aviation and counter-carrier capabilities.

Carriers had their day by Punko · 2012-09-18 08:27 · Score: 4, Funny

Carriers have been replaced. Now its Supercarriers and Titans. Carriers and dreadnoughts have had their roles reduced to ship transports and structure shoots.

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If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands

Re:Carriers had their day by Dahamma · 2012-09-18 10:35 · Score: 4, Funny

No worries, you can identify Titans pretty easily by the huge "whooshing" sound they make as they pass. Here's a more appropriate Wikipedia page for you.

Not sure about the thesis of the article, but... by sconeu · 2012-09-18 08:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.

That's simple... by Mashiki · 2012-09-18 08:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

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Re:That's simple... by gl4ss · 2012-09-18 09:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

when was the last time a carrier was used against an enemy which had battleships? since ww2 pacific campaign when was the last time aircraft carriers were even used in battle against anyone with comparable fleet? . falklands war is the exception and even there the carrier groups didn't go head to head.
the modern aircraft carriers aren't meant for fleet vs. fleet warfare, that's not their purpose. they're floating islands not meant to be even anywhere near where they could be shot. for now most important thing why they rule the oceans is that they come with a big ass fleet with them and they're useful for launch bases on adversaries who can't project their firepower thousand kilometers away(where it sits).

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Re:That's simple... by funwithBSD · 2012-09-18 11:15 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

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Force projection, not a symbol of power by AntiBasic · 2012-09-18 08:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

Sunk? by Spazmania · 2012-09-18 08:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Re:Sunk? by thebigmacd · 2012-09-18 09:20 · Score: 5, Informative

I don't think you realize how inaccurate an ICBM is. There is a reason they only make nuclear ones.

Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. by SQLGuru · 2012-09-18 08:34 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Author obviously knows nothing about the Navy by Sparticus789 · 2012-09-18 08:35 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

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How many do we need? by AllanL5 · 2012-09-18 08:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

Re:R2D2 beats missles. by phrackwulf · 2012-09-18 08:44 · Score: 4, Funny

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.

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Re:So what replaces them? by Koreantoast · 2012-09-18 08:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

If people start lobbing nuclear weapons around, then it's a completely different war, and if anyone has any experience using nuclear weapons, it's the United States.

Re:Their vulnerability is not demonstrated by Hatta · 2012-09-18 08:52 · Score: 4, Funny

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.

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Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-09-18 08:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. by ColdWetDog · 2012-09-18 08:53 · Score: 4, Funny

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.

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Re:How vulnerable are they really though by aurispector · 2012-09-18 09:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

Missiles alone can not project power. They have to be launched from somewhere - a land base, a ship or aircraft.

Carriers are effective at controlling large areas of ocean and land due to their ability to launch long range aircraft. This allows them to stay out of range of anti ship missiles while it's aircraft destroy the enemy's ability to launch attacks. When you consider that fact that a US supercarrier has a larger air wing than most nations, and that the US possesses twelve of them when no other nation has even one, it becomes clear why carriers rule.

The real weapon is, as always, knowledge. The decisive carrier battles of WW2 were decided by the ability to place the assets where they were needed to destroy the enemy. Lose the knowledge battle and carriers are just great big targets.

Of course, when you need to gather knowledge about the enemy, aircraft are extremely useful. So are submarines. Float a ship loaded with deadly anti ship missiles and threaten a carrier group with it. You'll know a submarine is in the area when your ship unexpectedly explodes and sinks.

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Useful for the same reason we have troops in SK by trout007 · 2012-09-18 10:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

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Re:Useful for the same reason we have troops in SK by trout007 · 2012-09-18 13:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

You don't get it at all. The people in power or their kids aren't in South Korea or on the carrier. They get to bet with other peoples lives and if they start a war they get more money and power.

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I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.

Re:US should have fewer carriers by confused+one · 2012-09-18 10:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:why would anyone... by sumdumass · 2012-09-18 12:31 · Score: 4, Funny

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.

Re:How vulnerable are they really though by aurispector · 2012-09-18 13:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yep. First, take control of the skies. Carriers are very handy for that. Next, cover the area with attack copters. Finally, move in with frigates and destroyers. Nothing will be able to move without attracting a hellfire or SM-3. SEALs can mop up any fortified oil platforms, just like the last time the iranians got uppity.

The iranian tactic of swarming with large numbers of small craft will merely create a target rich environment. Sure, they might get lucky and sink a ship but their entire coastline on the strait will look like the surface of the moon.

Clean up the mines then it's back to business as usual.

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I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.

Re:why would anyone... by fnj · 2012-09-19 02:11 · Score: 4, Informative

who [Reagan] spend us into the level of debt we are in now

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.

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Why Aircraft Carriers Still Rule the Oceans

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