9 ms·

Not at all. They enable the USA to have an almost unparalleled naval capability.

colechristensen 7y ago
In a real shooting war they are very vulnerable high value targets which exist more for the egos of the upper ranks than for usefulness in combat. They work to intimidate adversaries and defeat much less capable opponents, but are too easily destroyed when coming up against a competent military.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  You need to control the airspace to be successful in war and in order to do that you need to be able to project your power across seas so that the fight is on their doorstep not ours. The carriers are there to make sure that if someone wants to cross the ocean with ill intent, they can deny them the airspace far out at sea making them struggle to even get to the country they seek to attack. The US always prefers to play an away game. Also, don't forget carriers are never alone and surrounded by multiple aegis guided missile cruisers which are the most accurate missile defense systems in existence.
  - bhouston 7y ago
    I think against China or Russia the carriers will be destroyed quite quickly. Against an inferior army like Iran, they will be okay. The purpose of aircraft carriers are more often to launch attacks against inferior nations or highly inferior subnational entities so they are useful there.
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      They would have to find them first. That's still non-trivial, even with satellites.
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        Yea, a lot of people underestimate the speed at which a carrier can move. So much so that it would be outside the blast radius of any ICMB targeted at the carriers last known position when the missile is launched. Most ICBMs cant change trajectory mid-flight.
        shdh 7y ago
        Not a MIRV blanket though.
        chipsa 7y ago
        /me points to SM-3
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        Probably need THAAD or GMD for MIRV because of the altitude and speeds
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        Actually yea it can because the more re-entry vehicles you use the smaller the blast radius of each will be. the fireball radius of the largest current US-made warhead is only .71km at 455kt on the Trident missile (W-88). It carries 12 re-entry vehicles which could blanket approximately a 3sq km zone. An aircraft carrier can move at approximately 1km per minute. so you have approximately 90 seconds to launch and hit the target with one of the US's best weapons.
      - gruez 7y ago
        Why? They are massive objects that has zero camouflage against the ocean. How hard could it be?
        vinceguidry 7y ago
        You can't use regular photons to detect one because that requires getting in a plane and going out to find them. You're an even bigger sitting duck in a plane in the air than the carrier is sitting on the water. Radar will find you and interceptors will destroy you before you get close enough to see their exact position. You using a plane and radar runs into the same issue. If you sit on the shore and use active radar tracking then you're leaving yourself open to decoy ops and EM countermeasures. Satellites don't loiter over the area long enough to get a tracking lock. Ships can take evasive maneuvers and US Navy ships move very fast.
    - wbl 7y ago
      Russia has no blue water Navy. How do they destroy the carriers?
      - sonnyblarney 7y ago
        Long range hypersonic/cruise missiles with micronucleaer warheads. They have them demoing right now, they'll eventually work out the bugs. That said, it's all armchair because a) We don't know what they really have b) we don't know what kind of amazing gear the US has hidden away or c) how any of it will really hold up in a war. None of it has been tested. So maybe the Russians launch a bunch of newfangled missiles and they basically don't find their target. Maybe they all do. Maybe the Russian s300's totally wipe out F22s, or maybe it's a mirage and they are irrelevant. So many factors: training, conditions, countermeasures, sabotage, overwhelming force etc. etc.. Maybe the vast number of crappy Chinese subs overwhelm the US navy over there. Maybe the US has a combination of tech+procedure that makes all of those little diesel subs pointless. Or maybe they only need 1 or 2 to 'get through'. My bet is that the Carriers are vulnerable, that Russia and China don't really have the ability to project much outside their nations (though Taiwan and HK are close), that the Americans will move around the world with impunity in a hot situation, except right in the vicinity of Russia/China where it would be a mess because they are both smart nations with 'good enough' gear, and China has a zillion bodies to throw at any problem.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  This comment is being downvoted to grey, but it seems completely in line with TFA. If we acknowledge that “unstoppable” missiles exist, and that aircraft carriers are high value, doesn’t that imply they will be the first to go in an actual war?
  - 0815test 7y ago
    You're assuming that finding the handful of "high-value" aircraft carriers you want to target is easy, whilst it very much isn't. If that becomes the bottleneck, there are lots of possible defenses.
    - bhouston 7y ago
      Great Powers can hit while they still have their satellites. But in a real hot war, there will be a race to take those satellites all out as well. In a real hot war between Great Powers, the ability to destroy will be quite huge, especially against strategic targets, compared to defense abilities.
- reddog 7y ago
  Just because they are vulnerable in an all out war doesn't mean they are not useful. After all something like 12 USN carriers were sunk in WWII but every military historians would agree they were pivotal in winning the war in the pacific.
fit2rule 7y ago
It is widely acknowledged in war-fighting circles that America's aircraft careers are only useful in policing actions - i.e. to be used as a threat of war, and not actually of any use in conditions of total war, since they are big, fat, slow moving high-value targets that can easily be taken out with widely deployed missiles designed for the job - i.e. the P-270 MOSKIT (SS-N-22 Sunburn) missiles, which Russia developed specifically to counter the threat. Americans don't like to be told this, nor will they work to understand it beyond a glib "America, Fuck yeah!" style response, but the American naval surface fleet is probably one of the first casualties in an all-out war. The MOSKIT is deployed specifically to target these carriers, and there is - so far - no defence against them. Laser-based defences are being developed to defend against the threat, but are not widely deployed across the fleet. America will lose its carriers in the first minutes of all-out war. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/ http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carrier...
- wbl 7y ago
  The RAM and CWIS systems are designed to deal with the threat. Also you assume the launch platforms can't be targeted. They can be.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Of course, all platforms can be targeted, that is the point of open warfare. >RAM and CWIS Yeah, jury is still out on the MOSKVIT survivability, but hey .. lets hope we never find out.
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    How proven and tested is the phalanx and similar against "real" Carrier killers? Hell, even the iron dome isn't super reliable. Compare the price of one carrier to 100 ship killing missiles.

In a real shooting war they are very vulnerable high value targets which exist more for the egos of the upper ranks than for usefulness in combat. They work to intimidate adversaries and defeat much less capable opponents, but are too easily destroyed when coming up against a competent military.

blackflame7000 7y ago
You need to control the airspace to be successful in war and in order to do that you need to be able to project your power across seas so that the fight is on their doorstep not ours. The carriers are there to make sure that if someone wants to cross the ocean with ill intent, they can deny them the airspace far out at sea making them struggle to even get to the country they seek to attack. The US always prefers to play an away game. Also, don't forget carriers are never alone and surrounded by multiple aegis guided missile cruisers which are the most accurate missile defense systems in existence.
- bhouston 7y ago
  I think against China or Russia the carriers will be destroyed quite quickly. Against an inferior army like Iran, they will be okay. The purpose of aircraft carriers are more often to launch attacks against inferior nations or highly inferior subnational entities so they are useful there.
  - vinceguidry 7y ago
    They would have to find them first. That's still non-trivial, even with satellites.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      Yea, a lot of people underestimate the speed at which a carrier can move. So much so that it would be outside the blast radius of any ICMB targeted at the carriers last known position when the missile is launched. Most ICBMs cant change trajectory mid-flight.
      - shdh 7y ago
        Not a MIRV blanket though.
        chipsa 7y ago
        /me points to SM-3
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        Probably need THAAD or GMD for MIRV because of the altitude and speeds
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        Actually yea it can because the more re-entry vehicles you use the smaller the blast radius of each will be. the fireball radius of the largest current US-made warhead is only .71km at 455kt on the Trident missile (W-88). It carries 12 re-entry vehicles which could blanket approximately a 3sq km zone. An aircraft carrier can move at approximately 1km per minute. so you have approximately 90 seconds to launch and hit the target with one of the US's best weapons.
    - gruez 7y ago
      Why? They are massive objects that has zero camouflage against the ocean. How hard could it be?
      - vinceguidry 7y ago
        You can't use regular photons to detect one because that requires getting in a plane and going out to find them. You're an even bigger sitting duck in a plane in the air than the carrier is sitting on the water. Radar will find you and interceptors will destroy you before you get close enough to see their exact position. You using a plane and radar runs into the same issue. If you sit on the shore and use active radar tracking then you're leaving yourself open to decoy ops and EM countermeasures. Satellites don't loiter over the area long enough to get a tracking lock. Ships can take evasive maneuvers and US Navy ships move very fast.
  - wbl 7y ago
    Russia has no blue water Navy. How do they destroy the carriers?
    - sonnyblarney 7y ago
      Long range hypersonic/cruise missiles with micronucleaer warheads. They have them demoing right now, they'll eventually work out the bugs. That said, it's all armchair because a) We don't know what they really have b) we don't know what kind of amazing gear the US has hidden away or c) how any of it will really hold up in a war. None of it has been tested. So maybe the Russians launch a bunch of newfangled missiles and they basically don't find their target. Maybe they all do. Maybe the Russian s300's totally wipe out F22s, or maybe it's a mirage and they are irrelevant. So many factors: training, conditions, countermeasures, sabotage, overwhelming force etc. etc.. Maybe the vast number of crappy Chinese subs overwhelm the US navy over there. Maybe the US has a combination of tech+procedure that makes all of those little diesel subs pointless. Or maybe they only need 1 or 2 to 'get through'. My bet is that the Carriers are vulnerable, that Russia and China don't really have the ability to project much outside their nations (though Taiwan and HK are close), that the Americans will move around the world with impunity in a hot situation, except right in the vicinity of Russia/China where it would be a mess because they are both smart nations with 'good enough' gear, and China has a zillion bodies to throw at any problem.
nothrabannosir 7y ago
This comment is being downvoted to grey, but it seems completely in line with TFA. If we acknowledge that “unstoppable” missiles exist, and that aircraft carriers are high value, doesn’t that imply they will be the first to go in an actual war?
- 0815test 7y ago
  You're assuming that finding the handful of "high-value" aircraft carriers you want to target is easy, whilst it very much isn't. If that becomes the bottleneck, there are lots of possible defenses.
  - bhouston 7y ago
    Great Powers can hit while they still have their satellites. But in a real hot war, there will be a race to take those satellites all out as well. In a real hot war between Great Powers, the ability to destroy will be quite huge, especially against strategic targets, compared to defense abilities.
reddog 7y ago
Just because they are vulnerable in an all out war doesn't mean they are not useful. After all something like 12 USN carriers were sunk in WWII but every military historians would agree they were pivotal in winning the war in the pacific.

fit2rule 7y ago

It is widely acknowledged in war-fighting circles that America's aircraft careers are only useful in policing actions - i.e. to be used as a threat of war, and not actually of any use in conditions of total war, since they are big, fat, slow moving high-value targets that can easily be taken out with widely deployed missiles designed for the job - i.e. the P-270 MOSKIT (SS-N-22 Sunburn) missiles, which Russia developed specifically to counter the threat. Americans don't like to be told this, nor will they work to understand it beyond a glib "America, Fuck yeah!" style response, but the American naval surface fleet is probably one of the first casualties in an all-out war. The MOSKIT is deployed specifically to target these carriers, and there is - so far - no defence against them. Laser-based defences are being developed to defend against the threat, but are not widely deployed across the fleet. America will lose its carriers in the first minutes of all-out war. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/ http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carrier...

wbl 7y ago
The RAM and CWIS systems are designed to deal with the threat. Also you assume the launch platforms can't be targeted. They can be.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Of course, all platforms can be targeted, that is the point of open warfare. >RAM and CWIS Yeah, jury is still out on the MOSKVIT survivability, but hey .. lets hope we never find out.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  How proven and tested is the phalanx and similar against "real" Carrier killers? Hell, even the iron dome isn't super reliable. Compare the price of one carrier to 100 ship killing missiles.