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Based on my reading, most experts, and maybe a consensus, think aircraft carriers are weapons for the last major war, and will be of little use in the next war

Based on my reading, most experts, and maybe a consensus, think aircraft carriers are weapons for the last major war, and will be of little use in the next war between major powers (if such a thing happens). Missiles can travel 2-3 times further than planes, and modern technology makes them very accurate. Therefore the carriers won't get close enough to the battle to fire a shot (or launch a plane), much as carriers kept their predecessors, battleships, out of range and helpless in WWII. Also, a carrier concentrates a very large amount of value in one very juicy target: Maybe $15-20 billion in assets including planes, 5,000 lives, and around 20-33% of available naval air power. An enemy could target a carrier with 1,000 missiles costing $1 million each, and still get a large economic net benefit ($1 billion spent to destroy $15-20 billion + 5,000 casualties). Current plans for high-end war use 'distributed lethality': Spread out the offensive power and assets so one lost ship isn't so costly.

nickff 10y ago
The problem is that most of your logic also 'proves' that aircraft would render tanks obsolete; yet tanks and aircraft have existed for quite a long time on the battlefield. The argument you are making is a very common one (and the subject of many Quora posts), yet I would still bet that carriers would be very useful in small and large future conflicts.
- vacri 10y ago
  The only actors that can actually threaten the destruction of an aircraft carrier have nukes anyway. It's hard to imagine a situation where they're willing to destroy your biggest ship but not be concerned about MAD. I mean, it's a bit hard to do an "oops, my finger slipped!" with the kind of arsenal it would take to destroy a carrier (like the OP's thousand $1M missiles).
  - uuuuiojhcxxbgg 10y ago
    The issue is that we look at MAD as the end of the world. It's not (for countries). There were battle plans in place for an invasion of NATO/Warsaw pact
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    Hardly. State of the art missiles have been sold to countries that don't have nukes.
    - hga 10y ago
      Aren't you assuming that only one of these missiles hitting it would "destroy" it? They're rather big, and we gained a lot of experience in WWII in making fleet carriers fairly survivable in the face of big hits. And those carried fuel oil for their boilers and gasoline for their planes, naval jet fuel isn't quite so volatile as the later.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > most of your logic also 'proves' that aircraft would render tanks obsolete; yet tanks and aircraft have existed for quite a long time on the battlefield. To be clear, it's not my logic, but what I've read from experts (I'm no expert myself). Anyway, aircraft do render tanks 'obsolete' AFAIK. Tanks that operate without their forces control of the airspace above them are highly vulnerable.
  - simonh 10y ago
    So if you have every intention of maintaining air superiority, they're not obsolete at all.
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > if you have every intention of maintaining air superiority, they're not obsolete at all. I don't understand. If the system isn't effective, it doesn't matter what it's intended to do, it's still obsolete. You can also use WWII-era equipment intended to provide air superiority, but it won't help.
- uuuuiojhcxxbgg 10y ago
  Sure, knocking out tanks is possible with an airplane, but at what cost? And when a tank gets knocked out, you build a new one and deploy. If a carrier gets knocked out, you lose force projection. Now how hard will it be to rebuild a carrier? Its the same as the B-2, F-22, and F-35. They're amazingly powerful, but so expensive that you can't afford to lose them in battle
  - oconnor663 10y ago
    > at what cost How expensive are the rounds for this thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#/media/File:GAU-8_meets_VW_Type_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#/media/File:GAU-...
taneq 10y ago
As they exist today, they're a large, vulnerable target, but then again they're fairly similar now to what they were 50 years ago: Basically a mobile airfield with missiles. Fast forward 20 years and I'd expect them to have evolved into a mobile base of operations for swarms of autonomous (not just remotely operated) air and sea vehicles. Large arrays of independently targetable beam weapons and mid-sized cannon, huge reserves of long-range cruise missiles, a wide range of sensing, cloaking, and electronic warfare equipment, all in a mobile base smaller than current aircraft carriers but still much larger than standard gunships.
- simplemath 10y ago
  An unmanned aircraft carrier is a staggering, sobering and entirely realistic vision.
- niels_olson 10y ago
  The most durable value proposition of an aircraft carrier is the ability to park 4 acres of sovereign US territory 2 miles off the coast of almost any country in the world within a few days. In close second is the fact that in it's default configuration, it comes with more combat aircraft than most national air forces. We have 12 of them. Now, that said, current Nimitz-class carriers have a life-span of 50 years. It takes 3 years to refuel them. Changing carriers is a slow process. But 4 acres of sovereign territory anywhere in the world is extremely useful in a crisis.
  - SpaceRaccoon 10y ago
    How do you define a crisis? They're useful for projecting power against countries that have difficulty defending themselves. They would not be useful against Russia, for example, a country that possesses cutting edge missile technology.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      A nuclear reactor and water purifiers are also useful for humanitarian response.
searine 10y ago
Modern carriers are a peacetime weapon. They project economic, diplomatic, and clandestine power far beyond the countries borders.
niels_olson 10y ago
So use long-range bombers to soften their deployed forces, missile installations, and ports prior to sending your $20B asset into the breach. The war games you read about generally assume we're throwing a single battlegroup against an entire nation. That alone should tell you we may have a bit more depth of power than those scenarios suggest.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > The war games you read about ... I'm not sure how you think you know that, but that's not what I read.
noonespecial 10y ago
It may not be much good in the next World War Level slugfest, but it's pretty darn intimidating to a third world dictator when essentially an entire fortified city shows up overnight in the Bay Of Wherever.
finid 10y ago
To me, aircraft carriers represent the first line of casualties that will never make it back home during a major war.
blahi 10y ago
Carriers project power. All trading in and out of China, Russia, or whatever can be dropped to 0 in a day.
- vetinari 10y ago
  That's why Chinese are building the continental Silk Road in addition to existing naval routes. When SHTF event happens, the trade within Asia+Europe will continue and the navy can manage whale traffic instead.
  - blahi 10y ago
    There is a reason why naval routes became dominant.
  - hga 10y ago
    Will that new Silk Road be able to deliver iron ore, crude oil, and other bulk cargoes including food ones? And if yes, except maybe for an oil pipeline (which would be relatively easy to take out), sea transport is still going to be a lot cheaper. Plus not everything they import if from Asia+Europe, e.g. iron ore and soybeans from Brazil last time I checked.
arethuza 10y ago
My feeling is that large aircraft carriers must be close to being outdated as the UK is close to having a couple of them.
- simonh 10y ago
  If we had only bought military assets exclusively useful in a full-on strategic all-out conflict between superpowers for the last 60 years, we'd have been pretty poorly prepared for the actual conflicts and crises we've found ourselves in during that time. For example, suppose the UK found itself in another conflict like the Falklands war? Or supporting medium-intensity operations in the Middle East? Or supporting humanitarian efforts in Africa or Asia? I imagine having a few carriers would be pretty useful. Personally I think it's more likely we'll find ourselves in situations like that, than that we'll find ourselves in an all-our direct engagement with Russia or China.
  - arethuza 10y ago
    I'm not saying that the carriers themselves are useless - just that the rest of the forces are being run down to a point where it's not clear that they can be manned, have aircraft to operate from them or enough escorts to defend them. The only way I can see them being used is as part of a US fleet possibly even carrying US aircraft. So we manage to build some carriers exactly at the time the US looks like it might be less interested in precisely the kinds of wars we might get dragged into. Leaving aside the fact that the domestic appetite for getting involved in unnecessary wars seems at an all time low. For humanitarian work, an RFA vessel seems more appropriate - e.g. the help with the Ebola outbreak last year: http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2015/february/06/150206-royal-navy-first-in-fight-against-ebola http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/20...
pps43 10y ago
The main problem with taking out carriers is figuring out where they are. In a war between major powers, satellites will be shot down almost immediately (their trajectories are very predictable). ASW ships and helicopters of a carrier group can make it very difficult for a submarine to get close enough. You can't just fire a ballistic missile, even with a thermonuclear warhead, at the last known location. By the time it gets there, the carrier group will already be outside the blast radius.

nickff 10y ago

The problem is that most of your logic also 'proves' that aircraft would render tanks obsolete; yet tanks and aircraft have existed for quite a long time on the battlefield. The argument you are making is a very common one (and the subject of many Quora posts), yet I would still bet that carriers would be very useful in small and large future conflicts.

vacri 10y ago
The only actors that can actually threaten the destruction of an aircraft carrier have nukes anyway. It's hard to imagine a situation where they're willing to destroy your biggest ship but not be concerned about MAD. I mean, it's a bit hard to do an "oops, my finger slipped!" with the kind of arsenal it would take to destroy a carrier (like the OP's thousand $1M missiles).
- uuuuiojhcxxbgg 10y ago
  The issue is that we look at MAD as the end of the world. It's not (for countries). There were battle plans in place for an invasion of NATO/Warsaw pact
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Hardly. State of the art missiles have been sold to countries that don't have nukes.
  - hga 10y ago
    Aren't you assuming that only one of these missiles hitting it would "destroy" it? They're rather big, and we gained a lot of experience in WWII in making fleet carriers fairly survivable in the face of big hits. And those carried fuel oil for their boilers and gasoline for their planes, naval jet fuel isn't quite so volatile as the later.
hackuser 10y ago
> most of your logic also 'proves' that aircraft would render tanks obsolete; yet tanks and aircraft have existed for quite a long time on the battlefield. To be clear, it's not my logic, but what I've read from experts (I'm no expert myself). Anyway, aircraft do render tanks 'obsolete' AFAIK. Tanks that operate without their forces control of the airspace above them are highly vulnerable.
- simonh 10y ago
  So if you have every intention of maintaining air superiority, they're not obsolete at all.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > if you have every intention of maintaining air superiority, they're not obsolete at all. I don't understand. If the system isn't effective, it doesn't matter what it's intended to do, it's still obsolete. You can also use WWII-era equipment intended to provide air superiority, but it won't help.
uuuuiojhcxxbgg 10y ago
Sure, knocking out tanks is possible with an airplane, but at what cost? And when a tank gets knocked out, you build a new one and deploy. If a carrier gets knocked out, you lose force projection. Now how hard will it be to rebuild a carrier? Its the same as the B-2, F-22, and F-35. They're amazingly powerful, but so expensive that you can't afford to lose them in battle
- oconnor663 10y ago
  > at what cost How expensive are the rounds for this thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#/media/File:GAU-8_meets_VW_Type_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#/media/File:GAU-...

taneq 10y ago

As they exist today, they're a large, vulnerable target, but then again they're fairly similar now to what they were 50 years ago: Basically a mobile airfield with missiles. Fast forward 20 years and I'd expect them to have evolved into a mobile base of operations for swarms of autonomous (not just remotely operated) air and sea vehicles. Large arrays of independently targetable beam weapons and mid-sized cannon, huge reserves of long-range cruise missiles, a wide range of sensing, cloaking, and electronic warfare equipment, all in a mobile base smaller than current aircraft carriers but still much larger than standard gunships.

simplemath 10y ago
An unmanned aircraft carrier is a staggering, sobering and entirely realistic vision.
niels_olson 10y ago
The most durable value proposition of an aircraft carrier is the ability to park 4 acres of sovereign US territory 2 miles off the coast of almost any country in the world within a few days. In close second is the fact that in it's default configuration, it comes with more combat aircraft than most national air forces. We have 12 of them. Now, that said, current Nimitz-class carriers have a life-span of 50 years. It takes 3 years to refuel them. Changing carriers is a slow process. But 4 acres of sovereign territory anywhere in the world is extremely useful in a crisis.
- SpaceRaccoon 10y ago
  How do you define a crisis? They're useful for projecting power against countries that have difficulty defending themselves. They would not be useful against Russia, for example, a country that possesses cutting edge missile technology.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    A nuclear reactor and water purifiers are also useful for humanitarian response.

searine 10y ago

Modern carriers are a peacetime weapon. They project economic, diplomatic, and clandestine power far beyond the countries borders.

niels_olson 10y ago

So use long-range bombers to soften their deployed forces, missile installations, and ports prior to sending your $20B asset into the breach. The war games you read about generally assume we're throwing a single battlegroup against an entire nation. That alone should tell you we may have a bit more depth of power than those scenarios suggest.

hackuser 10y ago
> The war games you read about ... I'm not sure how you think you know that, but that's not what I read.

noonespecial 10y ago

It may not be much good in the next World War Level slugfest, but it's pretty darn intimidating to a third world dictator when essentially an entire fortified city shows up overnight in the Bay Of Wherever.

finid 10y ago

To me, aircraft carriers represent the first line of casualties that will never make it back home during a major war.

blahi 10y ago

Carriers project power. All trading in and out of China, Russia, or whatever can be dropped to 0 in a day.

vetinari 10y ago
That's why Chinese are building the continental Silk Road in addition to existing naval routes. When SHTF event happens, the trade within Asia+Europe will continue and the navy can manage whale traffic instead.
- blahi 10y ago
  There is a reason why naval routes became dominant.
- hga 10y ago
  Will that new Silk Road be able to deliver iron ore, crude oil, and other bulk cargoes including food ones? And if yes, except maybe for an oil pipeline (which would be relatively easy to take out), sea transport is still going to be a lot cheaper. Plus not everything they import if from Asia+Europe, e.g. iron ore and soybeans from Brazil last time I checked.

arethuza 10y ago

My feeling is that large aircraft carriers must be close to being outdated as the UK is close to having a couple of them.

simonh 10y ago
If we had only bought military assets exclusively useful in a full-on strategic all-out conflict between superpowers for the last 60 years, we'd have been pretty poorly prepared for the actual conflicts and crises we've found ourselves in during that time. For example, suppose the UK found itself in another conflict like the Falklands war? Or supporting medium-intensity operations in the Middle East? Or supporting humanitarian efforts in Africa or Asia? I imagine having a few carriers would be pretty useful. Personally I think it's more likely we'll find ourselves in situations like that, than that we'll find ourselves in an all-our direct engagement with Russia or China.
- arethuza 10y ago
  I'm not saying that the carriers themselves are useless - just that the rest of the forces are being run down to a point where it's not clear that they can be manned, have aircraft to operate from them or enough escorts to defend them. The only way I can see them being used is as part of a US fleet possibly even carrying US aircraft. So we manage to build some carriers exactly at the time the US looks like it might be less interested in precisely the kinds of wars we might get dragged into. Leaving aside the fact that the domestic appetite for getting involved in unnecessary wars seems at an all time low. For humanitarian work, an RFA vessel seems more appropriate - e.g. the help with the Ebola outbreak last year: http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2015/february/06/150206-royal-navy-first-in-fight-against-ebola http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/20...

pps43 10y ago

The main problem with taking out carriers is figuring out where they are. In a war between major powers, satellites will be shot down almost immediately (their trajectories are very predictable). ASW ships and helicopters of a carrier group can make it very difficult for a submarine to get close enough. You can't just fire a ballistic missile, even with a thermonuclear warhead, at the last known location. By the time it gets there, the carrier group will already be outside the blast radius.