3 ms·

Carriers are the cheapest way to deliver lots of bombs over a target, when there are no air bases in the neighborhood. Being expensive, they would not be moved

Carriers are the cheapest way to deliver lots of bombs over a target, when there are no air bases in the neighborhood. Being expensive, they would not be moved in until they are safe. To do that, the assets you mentioned would be employed first. Guided missile submarines, and long range bombers (accompanied in the near future by drones). Once the threats are eliminated, the carriers move closer. If carriers were useless, China would not invest in them. But what does China know?

cjbgkagh 4y ago
If I was China I'd invest in carriers just to make the US invest even more in their own carriers as well invest more into anti-carrier capability. This sort of strategy is common in games, where a tactic is feigned in order to elicit a costly counter from the competitor.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  That's a plausible strategy, but it has 2 problems. First is that China is not in a position to outspend the US in an arms race, at least not yet. Second is that the US does not show any signs of increasing its aircraft carrier procurement in response. Occam's razor would suggest China invests in aircraft carriers because it sees an actual benefit.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    China doesn't need to outspend the US to make it worthwhile, and you don't defend against aircraft carriers with other aircraft carriers. And Occam's razor is reductive here; it's politics not math.
dirtyid 4y ago
>If carriers were useless, China would not invest in them. But what does China know? As you mentioned, carriers are good for dunking on low/mid tier powers that can be dismantled and then bombed on budget. Questionable if it's good for peer warfare with powers that can take out carriers. And if you look at numbers, PRC is not really heavily investing/committing in carriers. 3 hulls over 10 years and ~50 J15s is very conservative relative to PRC MIC building prowess. For comparison, USN laid down and completed 4 Forrestal within 5 years. Nimitz was being launched every 3-4 years. Compare PLAN submarine fleet with huge tech gap that never the less commissioned many new hulls in same period because there's recognition that mass subsurface capability (and thus need to build up talent pool) is integral to future force composition. IMO right now they're prestige projects used for peacetime "diplomacy" and building up carrier infra if PLAN ever decide to go super carrier power projection route. But it could just as well as be dead end trial/experiment with future oriented towards UCAV carriers like Type 76 and long range bombers like H20. In 20-30 years, 100 B21s could probably drop cheap ordances more efficiently than carrier groups. IMO it will get hard to rationalize super carriers. But USNavy is a seperate branch with their own budget and desire to remain relevant, so US ends up with trillion dollar "presence" / photo ops platforms when the money could be best spent elsewhere.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  Excellent analysis. > IMO it will get hard to rationalize super carriers. It's a know-how preservation program. The US Navy could easily refit the old Nimitzes and extend their life by 3 decades. Instead, they are building new Fords at the most glacial pace that makes sense. One every 4 years means 3 billion spent per year. The Navy has a budget of $250 BN or so, so that's about 1%. The problem the Navy has is: right now they don't need new carriers, but what if one day they'll need 3 or 4 new carriers per year. It happened before. It's much easier to scale from 2 per decade to 4 per year than from absolute zero. On top of that, the Fords are a pretty flexible platform. They can carry now 75 manned jets. But you can easily see one day they can switch to 25 manned jets and 150 drones. > 100 B21s could probably drop cheap ordances more efficiently than carrier groups 100 B21s will cost about $70 BN. And a lot to operate on a per hour basis. They might be cost effective for some missions, but they are not going to make carriers obsolete anytime soon.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

If I was China I'd invest in carriers just to make the US invest even more in their own carriers as well invest more into anti-carrier capability. This sort of strategy is common in games, where a tactic is feigned in order to elicit a costly counter from the competitor.

credit_guy 4y ago
That's a plausible strategy, but it has 2 problems. First is that China is not in a position to outspend the US in an arms race, at least not yet. Second is that the US does not show any signs of increasing its aircraft carrier procurement in response. Occam's razor would suggest China invests in aircraft carriers because it sees an actual benefit.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  China doesn't need to outspend the US to make it worthwhile, and you don't defend against aircraft carriers with other aircraft carriers. And Occam's razor is reductive here; it's politics not math.

dirtyid 4y ago

>If carriers were useless, China would not invest in them. But what does China know? As you mentioned, carriers are good for dunking on low/mid tier powers that can be dismantled and then bombed on budget. Questionable if it's good for peer warfare with powers that can take out carriers. And if you look at numbers, PRC is not really heavily investing/committing in carriers. 3 hulls over 10 years and ~50 J15s is very conservative relative to PRC MIC building prowess. For comparison, USN laid down and completed 4 Forrestal within 5 years. Nimitz was being launched every 3-4 years. Compare PLAN submarine fleet with huge tech gap that never the less commissioned many new hulls in same period because there's recognition that mass subsurface capability (and thus need to build up talent pool) is integral to future force composition. IMO right now they're prestige projects used for peacetime "diplomacy" and building up carrier infra if PLAN ever decide to go super carrier power projection route. But it could just as well as be dead end trial/experiment with future oriented towards UCAV carriers like Type 76 and long range bombers like H20. In 20-30 years, 100 B21s could probably drop cheap ordances more efficiently than carrier groups. IMO it will get hard to rationalize super carriers. But USNavy is a seperate branch with their own budget and desire to remain relevant, so US ends up with trillion dollar "presence" / photo ops platforms when the money could be best spent elsewhere.

credit_guy 4y ago
Excellent analysis. > IMO it will get hard to rationalize super carriers. It's a know-how preservation program. The US Navy could easily refit the old Nimitzes and extend their life by 3 decades. Instead, they are building new Fords at the most glacial pace that makes sense. One every 4 years means 3 billion spent per year. The Navy has a budget of $250 BN or so, so that's about 1%. The problem the Navy has is: right now they don't need new carriers, but what if one day they'll need 3 or 4 new carriers per year. It happened before. It's much easier to scale from 2 per decade to 4 per year than from absolute zero. On top of that, the Fords are a pretty flexible platform. They can carry now 75 manned jets. But you can easily see one day they can switch to 25 manned jets and 150 drones. > 100 B21s could probably drop cheap ordances more efficiently than carrier groups 100 B21s will cost about $70 BN. And a lot to operate on a per hour basis. They might be cost effective for some missions, but they are not going to make carriers obsolete anytime soon.