6 ms·

There are only 22 aircraft carriers in service worldwide. Safe for the US, no country has more than two of them at the moment. A single aircraft carrier can do

There are only 22 aircraft carriers in service worldwide. Safe for the US, no country has more than two of them at the moment. A single aircraft carrier can do a lot for military power and power projection.

akmarinov 6y ago
They’re huge, slow targets though. If war breaks out they’ll be the second thing to go after satellites. Great for these times when there isn’t open conflict between major powers, though. You can easily park it next to some middle east country and bomb the crap out of them.
- njarboe 6y ago
  If nuclear (major) powers are blowing up each others carriers, avoiding a nuclear exchange is going to be difficult. Conventional weapon systems have been just for power projection and using on countries without nuclear weapons since WWII.
  - Udik 6y ago
    I thought about that sometimes. It's funny how the size and cost (and size of the crew) of an aircraft carrier can work as a deterrent from sinking it. As in "this weapon is so expensive that, even if you can destroy it, you'd better not because that would bring an inevitable escalation". I wonder if major powers have devised plans to disable aircraft carriers without completely destroying them and killing the crews. It would make a lot of sense.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      Interesting idea. Similar to US troops stationed in South Korea; a "if you kill this smallish contingent of us, a lot more of us will come".
      - lazylizard 6y ago
        fat lot of good those "a lot of us" did for both the korean n vietnam wars?
- claydavisss 6y ago
  Any surface ship is basically as vulnerable to modern antiship missiles. Aircraft carriers have repeatedly proved their worth since WW2.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  > If war breaks out War doesn't just "break out". If tensions mount, the US can place its carriers 1000 miles or more away from any Russian or Chinese battery. At that distance, the carriers are not "huge and slow", they are tiny dots on a map and quite evasive too. In the time a hypersonic missile covers 1000 miles, a carrier can move a few miles.
  - akmarinov 6y ago
    Missiles don’t just get fired to one position, they can adjust their heading to hit a moving target.
    - chomp 6y ago
      While this is true, there’s limits to the capabilities of many ballistic missiles, some are incapable of changing trajectory. A sufficiently advanced missile should be able to predict course of the carrier and intercept, but I’m sure enemy capability would be taken into account in a high tension scenario.
    - credit_guy 6y ago
      Yes, but homing on a moving target hundreds of miles away is no easy feat. The missile obviously can't do this by itself (like an air-to-air missile). It needs external guidance. There is no radar that has this type of range so you either need a satellite, or an AWACS airplane. In other words, the kill-chain will be quite complex. You can bet there are multiple countermeasures that can disrupt such a kill-chain (shot down the AWACS airplane, blind the satellite with laser, jam the spectrum for the incoming missile, deploy a smoke screen, etc). The simple indication that the "carrier killer" missiles are not such a sure thing is that the Chinese are busy building aircraft carriers themselves. Are they really stupid?
- Balgair 6y ago
  For France, it would be power projection into west and central Africa, northern South America, the Antarctic ocean, the Indian Ocean departments, and in the francophone Pacific ocean. Remember, France's longest land border is with Brazil and the non-metropole departments are ~1/5 French citizens. Francophone Africa overpopulates France herself by about 5x. Such a mobile base of operations and air power is worth it to her, per the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_French_is_an_official_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_w...
wyuenho 6y ago
China has two now, and it's building a third.
- lazylizard 6y ago
  what the chinese are not so good at probably is making things 1 at a time? wait til they mass produce this shit.. heh
rozab 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_s... I can't see any metric by which this is the case
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  This is counting some carrier-like ships that aren't technically full-blown carriers. The Australian ships, for example, are "landing helicopter dock" ships. The Japanese ones are "helicopter destroyers" due (due to a prohibition in the Japanese constitution, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Cons... some are still being converted to carry the F-35). A number of the American carriers on the list - the USS Wasp, for example - are actually things like "amphibious assault ships".
  - rozab 6y ago
    But even ordering by the penultimate column (leaving only 'aircraft carriers' according to Wikipedia), still leaves the UK and China with two supercarriers each
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      Which fits with what the original poster stated: > no country has more than two of them at the moment Having even one puts you on a pretty small list.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
foepys 6y ago
There have been multiple publicly known incidents where small submarines surfaced near a carrier without being noticed by any ship or submarine in the carrier group. In a symmetrical conflict against an enemy with submarines they will be completely useless.
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  Aircraft carriers are more for beating up on nations without substantial resources or power projection once waters have been cleared. Unless you're the US and could stand to lose a few. In a great power conflict, carriers are unlikely to be used in the opening salvos for most nations, since they only have a couple. They're large easy targets and wouldn't be risked.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > There have been multiple publicly known incidents where small submarines surfaced near a carrier without being noticed by any ship or submarine in the carrier group. I would expect this to be more difficult if the carrier group is on a wartime footing, though.
  - foepys 6y ago
    One of those incidents included a Chinese submarine that surfaced voluntarily 5 miles away. I don't think you can interpret this in any other way than as a demonstration of how they can stalk any carrier near their waters at any time without being noticed. In 2015 a 30 y/o French submarine "attacked" a US carrier as part of a military exercise where all participants should be on the highest alert. In 2004 a Swedish submarine did the same.

akmarinov 6y ago

They’re huge, slow targets though. If war breaks out they’ll be the second thing to go after satellites. Great for these times when there isn’t open conflict between major powers, though. You can easily park it next to some middle east country and bomb the crap out of them.

njarboe 6y ago
If nuclear (major) powers are blowing up each others carriers, avoiding a nuclear exchange is going to be difficult. Conventional weapon systems have been just for power projection and using on countries without nuclear weapons since WWII.
- Udik 6y ago
  I thought about that sometimes. It's funny how the size and cost (and size of the crew) of an aircraft carrier can work as a deterrent from sinking it. As in "this weapon is so expensive that, even if you can destroy it, you'd better not because that would bring an inevitable escalation". I wonder if major powers have devised plans to disable aircraft carriers without completely destroying them and killing the crews. It would make a lot of sense.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Interesting idea. Similar to US troops stationed in South Korea; a "if you kill this smallish contingent of us, a lot more of us will come".
    - lazylizard 6y ago
      fat lot of good those "a lot of us" did for both the korean n vietnam wars?
claydavisss 6y ago
Any surface ship is basically as vulnerable to modern antiship missiles. Aircraft carriers have repeatedly proved their worth since WW2.
credit_guy 6y ago
> If war breaks out War doesn't just "break out". If tensions mount, the US can place its carriers 1000 miles or more away from any Russian or Chinese battery. At that distance, the carriers are not "huge and slow", they are tiny dots on a map and quite evasive too. In the time a hypersonic missile covers 1000 miles, a carrier can move a few miles.
- akmarinov 6y ago
  Missiles don’t just get fired to one position, they can adjust their heading to hit a moving target.
  - chomp 6y ago
    While this is true, there’s limits to the capabilities of many ballistic missiles, some are incapable of changing trajectory. A sufficiently advanced missile should be able to predict course of the carrier and intercept, but I’m sure enemy capability would be taken into account in a high tension scenario.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    Yes, but homing on a moving target hundreds of miles away is no easy feat. The missile obviously can't do this by itself (like an air-to-air missile). It needs external guidance. There is no radar that has this type of range so you either need a satellite, or an AWACS airplane. In other words, the kill-chain will be quite complex. You can bet there are multiple countermeasures that can disrupt such a kill-chain (shot down the AWACS airplane, blind the satellite with laser, jam the spectrum for the incoming missile, deploy a smoke screen, etc). The simple indication that the "carrier killer" missiles are not such a sure thing is that the Chinese are busy building aircraft carriers themselves. Are they really stupid?
Balgair 6y ago
For France, it would be power projection into west and central Africa, northern South America, the Antarctic ocean, the Indian Ocean departments, and in the francophone Pacific ocean. Remember, France's longest land border is with Brazil and the non-metropole departments are ~1/5 French citizens. Francophone Africa overpopulates France herself by about 5x. Such a mobile base of operations and air power is worth it to her, per the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_French_is_an_official_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_w...

wyuenho 6y ago

China has two now, and it's building a third.

lazylizard 6y ago
what the chinese are not so good at probably is making things 1 at a time? wait til they mass produce this shit.. heh

rozab 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_s... I can't see any metric by which this is the case

ceejayoz 6y ago
This is counting some carrier-like ships that aren't technically full-blown carriers. The Australian ships, for example, are "landing helicopter dock" ships. The Japanese ones are "helicopter destroyers" due (due to a prohibition in the Japanese constitution, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Cons... some are still being converted to carry the F-35). A number of the American carriers on the list - the USS Wasp, for example - are actually things like "amphibious assault ships".
- rozab 6y ago
  But even ordering by the penultimate column (leaving only 'aircraft carriers' according to Wikipedia), still leaves the UK and China with two supercarriers each
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Which fits with what the original poster stated: > no country has more than two of them at the moment Having even one puts you on a pretty small list.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

foepys 6y ago

There have been multiple publicly known incidents where small submarines surfaced near a carrier without being noticed by any ship or submarine in the carrier group. In a symmetrical conflict against an enemy with submarines they will be completely useless.

jorblumesea 6y ago
Aircraft carriers are more for beating up on nations without substantial resources or power projection once waters have been cleared. Unless you're the US and could stand to lose a few. In a great power conflict, carriers are unlikely to be used in the opening salvos for most nations, since they only have a couple. They're large easy targets and wouldn't be risked.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> There have been multiple publicly known incidents where small submarines surfaced near a carrier without being noticed by any ship or submarine in the carrier group. I would expect this to be more difficult if the carrier group is on a wartime footing, though.
- foepys 6y ago
  One of those incidents included a Chinese submarine that surfaced voluntarily 5 miles away. I don't think you can interpret this in any other way than as a demonstration of how they can stalk any carrier near their waters at any time without being noticed. In 2015 a 30 y/o French submarine "attacked" a US carrier as part of a military exercise where all participants should be on the highest alert. In 2004 a Swedish submarine did the same.