>So not true. There are ballistic anti-ship missiles, surprise the article specifically mentions it. A Heh. Normally when I write something that's shaping up

>So not true. There are ballistic anti-ship missiles, surprise the article specifically mentions it. A Heh. Normally when I write something that's shaping up to be incoherent, I delete it before posting. >Russians have sea skimming missiles. Let's not get hung up on the word "ballistic", it doesn't matter what missile is used, the point is it will easy to take out a large ship. Some of the sea skimming missiles can be launched by aircraft, so that extends their range. I only got "hung up" on the word "ballistic" because that's the type of missile you mentioned. That made the most sense of your post, since conventional anti-ship ballistic missiles are a new threat and relatively difficult to deal with. Yes, many countries have cruise missiles, from Russia to China to France to India to others. And yes, we know how to shoot down cruise missiles. Could we successfully defend a CBG in real life against a massed cruise missile attack? Yes and no. Depends entirely on the scenario. >Once whole carriers are starting to be taken down, it will be pretty close to that. "Pretty close"? What does that mean? >If we do a lot of damage to China, what do you think they are doing to do, sit there and look beweldwered. At that point they'll be launching everything. Again, what does that mean? Certainly we will respond with nukes if the Chinese nuke the US or US naval assets. Other than that there are plenty of things in China they'd rather not have us destroy that we'd probably go about destroying if they attacked our navy. What do you imagine would happen if the Three Gorges Dam were (relatively easily) destroyed? Is there anything China could hope to accomplish in a war that would be worth a catastrophe of that magnitude? >If they are sitting there doing nothing I am sure they are. But they probably have AA systems around. Which is true of any aircraft, and it's why destroying AA is the first phase of any air war. But that's not the point. There are reasons to think the A-10 should be retired, but the inability to destroy tanks (any tanks, not just Russian tanks) isn't one of them.