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This is one of the reasons in any real war, all the aircraft carriers will be far far away from the conflict region. Now your average Joe can track them from t

This is one of the reasons in any real war, all the aircraft carriers will be far far away from the conflict region. Now your average Joe can track them from their desktop for free.

scanny 2y ago
That's not exactly how it works. The satellite operator will be taking paid orders to scan over specific areas of the earth, about 4km in width or so. So you have to have a pretty good idea where the carrier is, and then you get an image delivered with some latency as the satellite will need to pass over a ground station that downlinks the data. So it isn't free (although umbra has a CC BY 4.0 license for their data, much more permissive than other providers. Nor is it easy to search huge amounts of the ocean for the carrier. What most entities probably do is tip and cue, which is use a sensor with coarser resolution to get an approximate location and then use a sensor with finer resolution to look closer.
- dist-epoch 2y ago
  Sure, I was over simplifying it. China will already have a good idea where the carrier roughly is - the previous position. And they will also have their own satellites.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Carriers will also never be going alone; they're part of a battle group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_battle_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_battle_group) with anti-air and -sea defenses to intercept any incoming counterattacks. In theory anyway, that wiki article has some criticisms about whether it's still viable today with hypersonic cruise missiles, u-boats, drones, etc. It hasn't come to a full on naval battle since WW2 though, so a lot of naval strategies and technology is theoretical. It is being tested nowadays with attacks on ships from the mainland from the Houhtis though.
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
  Wake seeking long range semi-autonomous torpedoes are a major threat and are already deployed. Currently they have about a 100km range. The subs can fire from far away, move and fire again from different angles. A ship could have dozens coming from all directions.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > hasn't come to a full on naval battle since WW2 though, so a lot of naval strategies and technology is theoretical Even then, aircraft carriers being unsinkable was a myth. “In 1942 the US lost as many carriers as the Japanese—and a larger percentage of their overall carrier force” to the extent that it “was almost out of carriers in the Pacific in late 1942.” “Why the US ended up winning the war in the Pacific was therefore not because of the fleet that they started the war with—it was the fleet that they ended it with—almost all of whose most effective and advanced warships were launched after the Battle of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941” [1]. [1] https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-and-deterrence-in-the-indo-pacific https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-and-deterrence-in...
  - aidenn0 2y ago
    Aircraft carriers were a key component of projecting power into the pacific. They've never been impregnable (obviously both sides lost carriers in the pacific, including at least one I can think of to a lone submarine). > “Why the US ended up winning the war in the Pacific was therefore not because of the fleet that they started the war with—it was the fleet that they ended it with—almost all of whose most effective and advanced warships were launched after the Battle of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941”. Considering that the tonnage of ships the US had was limited by treaty (treaties were expired, but it takes time to build ships) and that Japan's attack further reduced the fleet strength, one would expect that the US won with ships built after Pearl Harbor. There was an 18 month period in which the US built more fleet carriers than Japan had in the entire war. In addition, Japan lost a huge fraction of their experienced pilots in 1942, which was arguably as deleterious as losing the carriers.
- badpun 2y ago

This is one of the reasons in any real war, all the aircraft carriers will be far far away from the conflict region. Now your average Joe can track them from their desktop for free.

scanny 2y ago

That's not exactly how it works. The satellite operator will be taking paid orders to scan over specific areas of the earth, about 4km in width or so. So you have to have a pretty good idea where the carrier is, and then you get an image delivered with some latency as the satellite will need to pass over a ground station that downlinks the data. So it isn't free (although umbra has a CC BY 4.0 license for their data, much more permissive than other providers. Nor is it easy to search huge amounts of the ocean for the carrier. What most entities probably do is tip and cue, which is use a sensor with coarser resolution to get an approximate location and then use a sensor with finer resolution to look closer.

dist-epoch 2y ago
Sure, I was over simplifying it. China will already have a good idea where the carrier roughly is - the previous position. And they will also have their own satellites.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

Carriers will also never be going alone; they're part of a battle group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_battle_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_battle_group) with anti-air and -sea defenses to intercept any incoming counterattacks. In theory anyway, that wiki article has some criticisms about whether it's still viable today with hypersonic cruise missiles, u-boats, drones, etc. It hasn't come to a full on naval battle since WW2 though, so a lot of naval strategies and technology is theoretical. It is being tested nowadays with attacks on ships from the mainland from the Houhtis though.

FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
Wake seeking long range semi-autonomous torpedoes are a major threat and are already deployed. Currently they have about a 100km range. The subs can fire from far away, move and fire again from different angles. A ship could have dozens coming from all directions.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> hasn't come to a full on naval battle since WW2 though, so a lot of naval strategies and technology is theoretical Even then, aircraft carriers being unsinkable was a myth. “In 1942 the US lost as many carriers as the Japanese—and a larger percentage of their overall carrier force” to the extent that it “was almost out of carriers in the Pacific in late 1942.” “Why the US ended up winning the war in the Pacific was therefore not because of the fleet that they started the war with—it was the fleet that they ended it with—almost all of whose most effective and advanced warships were launched after the Battle of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941” [1]. [1] https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-and-deterrence-in-the-indo-pacific https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-and-deterrence-in...
- aidenn0 2y ago
  Aircraft carriers were a key component of projecting power into the pacific. They've never been impregnable (obviously both sides lost carriers in the pacific, including at least one I can think of to a lone submarine). > “Why the US ended up winning the war in the Pacific was therefore not because of the fleet that they started the war with—it was the fleet that they ended it with—almost all of whose most effective and advanced warships were launched after the Battle of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941”. Considering that the tonnage of ships the US had was limited by treaty (treaties were expired, but it takes time to build ships) and that Japan's attack further reduced the fleet strength, one would expect that the US won with ships built after Pearl Harbor. There was an 18 month period in which the US built more fleet carriers than Japan had in the entire war. In addition, Japan lost a huge fraction of their experienced pilots in 1942, which was arguably as deleterious as losing the carriers.
badpun 2y ago