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You know why we're doing it. We need to deter a resurgent Russia and China. People like you thought that nukes made conventional militaries obsolete in the 50'

You know why we're doing it. We need to deter a resurgent Russia and China. People like you thought that nukes made conventional militaries obsolete in the 50's. That was wrong then and it's wrong now. In order to maintain control of the seas and skies, we need to maintain our edge in aviation and in naval technology.

M_Grey 10y ago
"People like me"... always a non-starter; it tells me that you're arguing with a model of who I am in your head, that probably has more to do with the people you argued with in the past than anything to do with me. I don't think nukes end conventional militaries, but I think they end conventional conflicts between nuclear armed nations. That's why we're fighting Russia in a proxy war in Syria, and not with tanks in the Ukraine. As for China, how many times could our navy and air force obliterate them as it stands? Besides, they're just taking a page from our book, letting us front the R&D, then... stealing the designs. Much cheaper, much smarter.
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  "People like you" isn't a non-starter if they just mean "people who think nukes end the need for competitive conventional capabilities", and the justification for such a model can be gathered entirely in this thread.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    The "like you" part may be completely unjustified - especially when M_Grey said "I don't think nukes end conventional militaries".
    - johncolanduoni 10y ago
      He has however made it clear he thinks we don't need them to be competitive, which is why I used that word.
Agathos 10y ago
It's a surface ship, so it doesn't have a prayer against a submarine. Russia, China, and any hypothetical technologically sophisticated foe all have submarines.
- mcv 10y ago
  It most definitely has a prayer against a submarine. A carrier is never alone; it's always protected by a fleet that keeps an eye out for any threats, including submarines. That said, diesel-electric subs are definitely a weak spot for a carrier group.
rangibaby 10y ago
Russian doctrine appears to be to overwhelm AEGIS et al with many, many missiles. After all, only one needs to get through to sink a 5 billion dollar (NOT including the aircraft and thousands of sailors on it!) carrier. Carriers are a prestige weapon now, like battleships in the 20th century: good for bullying brown people, useless in a "real" war. I don't see what the Zumwalt does about that.
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  Do you have citations for that?
- gozur88 10y ago
  Carriers are not useless for "real" war. Not sure where you got that idea. We could probably spend that money more effectively, but for what government program isn't that true? And it would take more than one hit to sink a carrier. These are 100k+ ton ships, and the important bits are armored.
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    > Not sure where you got that idea. Like battleships, they are a big dumb target. The same way carriers and their aircraft made battleships obsolete modern anti-ship missiles have made carriers obsolete in a theoretical war between superpowers. Countries still covet them as a status symbol (or a way to spend taxpayer money), but I think that is about it. > And it would take more than one hit to sink a carrier. These are 100k+ ton ships, and the important bits are armored. That's why the Russian idea is to just bombard them with missiles until enough they poke enough holes in them to sink or disable them. It seems like a reasonable strategy to me.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      >Like battleships, they are a big dumb target. The same way carriers and their aircraft made battleships obsolete modern anti-ship missiles have made carriers obsolete in a theoretical war between superpowers. Yeah, except that's not actually true unless the war goes nuclear. Carriers are very well defended from air attack. The entire battle group is there to defend the carrier, which means aircraft-launched AA missiles, hundreds of SM-2s, plus point defense. Plus ECM and EM-type weapons. And that's assuming US forces aren't able to destroy any launch platforms, which is probably not a good assumption at this point. It's much harder to pull of a surprise attack than it used to be. >That's why the Russian idea is to just bombard them with missiles until enough they poke enough holes in them to sink or disable them. It seems like a reasonable strategy to me. Yeah, that's pretty much the strategy everyone's been using since they switched from boarding actions to guns in the 1500s. The Russians can't actually mount that kind of attack any more without telegraphing it in a big way, since it would take nearly every remaining conventional bomber and naval asset in the Russian military to ensure success. Nobody else is capable at all unless the scenario posits a US carrier in shallow water off the coast of Shanghai. I'm not saying carriers are invulnerable. They're not. People make mistakes, and sometimes they're fatal. There are always variables that are impossible to evaluate without knowing the absolute latest top secret stuff. But a carrier group in the open ocean is a tough nut to crack, especially from the air, and attackers make mistakes too. It's far from obsolete.
Pokepokalypse 10y ago
>We need to deter a resurgent Russia and China. . . . as if that has EVER worked. . .
- lostlogin 10y ago
  You're getting down voted. Given that both China and Russia are currently well into extensive land/sea grabs and Russia is backing the opposition in a war the US is sponsoring (And not losing currently) I am unsure why.
pjc50 10y ago
I believe the Russians have noticed this and are therefore resolved not to fight a conventional war with the US either. So what they're doing is expanding both "unconventional" and "deniable" warfare. Why fight a military when you can encourage a society's autoimmune response to destroy itself? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/06/troll-armies-social-media-trump-russian https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/06/troll-armies-s... Not just Ukraine and Syria, where the influence is obvious, but I suspect we'll eventually find they have a hand in the collapse of democracy in Turkey. And there's the feeding of selective hacking attacks and pseudoscandals to the US press. They've even managed to get the director of the FBI to do their stirring for them. (Also, the Russian Navy is terrible and barely afloat, so clearly the Russians are going to do as much fighting as possible inland.)

M_Grey 10y ago

"People like me"... always a non-starter; it tells me that you're arguing with a model of who I am in your head, that probably has more to do with the people you argued with in the past than anything to do with me. I don't think nukes end conventional militaries, but I think they end conventional conflicts between nuclear armed nations. That's why we're fighting Russia in a proxy war in Syria, and not with tanks in the Ukraine. As for China, how many times could our navy and air force obliterate them as it stands? Besides, they're just taking a page from our book, letting us front the R&D, then... stealing the designs. Much cheaper, much smarter.

johncolanduoni 10y ago
"People like you" isn't a non-starter if they just mean "people who think nukes end the need for competitive conventional capabilities", and the justification for such a model can be gathered entirely in this thread.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  The "like you" part may be completely unjustified - especially when M_Grey said "I don't think nukes end conventional militaries".
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    He has however made it clear he thinks we don't need them to be competitive, which is why I used that word.

Agathos 10y ago

It's a surface ship, so it doesn't have a prayer against a submarine. Russia, China, and any hypothetical technologically sophisticated foe all have submarines.

mcv 10y ago
It most definitely has a prayer against a submarine. A carrier is never alone; it's always protected by a fleet that keeps an eye out for any threats, including submarines. That said, diesel-electric subs are definitely a weak spot for a carrier group.

rangibaby 10y ago

Russian doctrine appears to be to overwhelm AEGIS et al with many, many missiles. After all, only one needs to get through to sink a 5 billion dollar (NOT including the aircraft and thousands of sailors on it!) carrier. Carriers are a prestige weapon now, like battleships in the 20th century: good for bullying brown people, useless in a "real" war. I don't see what the Zumwalt does about that.

Godel_unicode 10y ago
Do you have citations for that?
gozur88 10y ago
Carriers are not useless for "real" war. Not sure where you got that idea. We could probably spend that money more effectively, but for what government program isn't that true? And it would take more than one hit to sink a carrier. These are 100k+ ton ships, and the important bits are armored.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  > Not sure where you got that idea. Like battleships, they are a big dumb target. The same way carriers and their aircraft made battleships obsolete modern anti-ship missiles have made carriers obsolete in a theoretical war between superpowers. Countries still covet them as a status symbol (or a way to spend taxpayer money), but I think that is about it. > And it would take more than one hit to sink a carrier. These are 100k+ ton ships, and the important bits are armored. That's why the Russian idea is to just bombard them with missiles until enough they poke enough holes in them to sink or disable them. It seems like a reasonable strategy to me.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    >Like battleships, they are a big dumb target. The same way carriers and their aircraft made battleships obsolete modern anti-ship missiles have made carriers obsolete in a theoretical war between superpowers. Yeah, except that's not actually true unless the war goes nuclear. Carriers are very well defended from air attack. The entire battle group is there to defend the carrier, which means aircraft-launched AA missiles, hundreds of SM-2s, plus point defense. Plus ECM and EM-type weapons. And that's assuming US forces aren't able to destroy any launch platforms, which is probably not a good assumption at this point. It's much harder to pull of a surprise attack than it used to be. >That's why the Russian idea is to just bombard them with missiles until enough they poke enough holes in them to sink or disable them. It seems like a reasonable strategy to me. Yeah, that's pretty much the strategy everyone's been using since they switched from boarding actions to guns in the 1500s. The Russians can't actually mount that kind of attack any more without telegraphing it in a big way, since it would take nearly every remaining conventional bomber and naval asset in the Russian military to ensure success. Nobody else is capable at all unless the scenario posits a US carrier in shallow water off the coast of Shanghai. I'm not saying carriers are invulnerable. They're not. People make mistakes, and sometimes they're fatal. There are always variables that are impossible to evaluate without knowing the absolute latest top secret stuff. But a carrier group in the open ocean is a tough nut to crack, especially from the air, and attackers make mistakes too. It's far from obsolete.

Pokepokalypse 10y ago

>We need to deter a resurgent Russia and China. . . . as if that has EVER worked. . .

lostlogin 10y ago
You're getting down voted. Given that both China and Russia are currently well into extensive land/sea grabs and Russia is backing the opposition in a war the US is sponsoring (And not losing currently) I am unsure why.

pjc50 10y ago

I believe the Russians have noticed this and are therefore resolved not to fight a conventional war with the US either. So what they're doing is expanding both "unconventional" and "deniable" warfare. Why fight a military when you can encourage a society's autoimmune response to destroy itself? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/06/troll-armies-social-media-trump-russian https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/06/troll-armies-s... Not just Ukraine and Syria, where the influence is obvious, but I suspect we'll eventually find they have a hand in the collapse of democracy in Turkey. And there's the feeding of selective hacking attacks and pseudoscandals to the US press. They've even managed to get the director of the FBI to do their stirring for them. (Also, the Russian Navy is terrible and barely afloat, so clearly the Russians are going to do as much fighting as possible inland.)