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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/Carrie

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
It’s mainly being tested in the Black Sea, where Ukrainians are methodically sinking Russian ship after Russian ship, with cheap drones.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  That's revealing a severe deficiency in Russian air-defense and close-in defense (tactics, equipment, probably a bit of both). People looking to smack the US Navy in the same way would be wise to look at how Kyiv's Patriot batteries have fared, though; quite a bit better, including against hypersonics.
  - paganel 2y ago
    The Black Sea is a de facto big lake, any big navy would have the same problems as the Russians now have against drones and land-based missiles. In a way the Americans are now experiencing the same problems in the Red Sea, hence why USS Eisenhower had to escape 200 miles North to Jeddah once it started being targeted a few weeks ago. Which is to say that the Black Sea / Red Sea is not the Midway Atoll with its wide-open ocean.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > The Black Sea is a de facto big lake, any big navy would have the same problems as the Russians now have against drones and land-based missiles. I doubt that; Russian land-based air defense is struggling in a similar fashion. Very little get anywhere near Ukraine's Patriots, while hand-me-down NATO-supplied weapons are happily taking out S-300 and S-400s in Crimea. As for drones, the US has been dealing with small-boat attackers for significantly longer; I'm sure they're using lessons learned in Ukraine to improve, but in jet ski versus CIWS in open waters, I'm betting on CIWS. (That said, you would indeed avoid getting a carrier group stuck somewhere like the Black Sea.) > hence why USS Eisenhower had to escape 200 miles North to Jeddah once it started being targeted a few weeks ago Notably, it's not on the bottom like the Moskva. Being able to pretty effectively take down threats doesn't mean you need to unnecessarily risk it, but Russia's difficulty a) defending against NATO missiles and b) striking back against NATO air defense in Ukraine should give folks like China some serious pause in their own planning.

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

It’s mainly being tested in the Black Sea, where Ukrainians are methodically sinking Russian ship after Russian ship, with cheap drones.

ceejayoz 2y ago
That's revealing a severe deficiency in Russian air-defense and close-in defense (tactics, equipment, probably a bit of both). People looking to smack the US Navy in the same way would be wise to look at how Kyiv's Patriot batteries have fared, though; quite a bit better, including against hypersonics.
- paganel 2y ago
  The Black Sea is a de facto big lake, any big navy would have the same problems as the Russians now have against drones and land-based missiles. In a way the Americans are now experiencing the same problems in the Red Sea, hence why USS Eisenhower had to escape 200 miles North to Jeddah once it started being targeted a few weeks ago. Which is to say that the Black Sea / Red Sea is not the Midway Atoll with its wide-open ocean.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > The Black Sea is a de facto big lake, any big navy would have the same problems as the Russians now have against drones and land-based missiles. I doubt that; Russian land-based air defense is struggling in a similar fashion. Very little get anywhere near Ukraine's Patriots, while hand-me-down NATO-supplied weapons are happily taking out S-300 and S-400s in Crimea. As for drones, the US has been dealing with small-boat attackers for significantly longer; I'm sure they're using lessons learned in Ukraine to improve, but in jet ski versus CIWS in open waters, I'm betting on CIWS. (That said, you would indeed avoid getting a carrier group stuck somewhere like the Black Sea.) > hence why USS Eisenhower had to escape 200 miles North to Jeddah once it started being targeted a few weeks ago Notably, it's not on the bottom like the Moskva. Being able to pretty effectively take down threats doesn't mean you need to unnecessarily risk it, but Russia's difficulty a) defending against NATO missiles and b) striking back against NATO air defense in Ukraine should give folks like China some serious pause in their own planning.