Wouldn't aircraft carriers be able to shoot down slow cruise missiles extremely easily? The carrier group as a whole can, yeah. Lots of complications thou

Wouldn't aircraft carriers be able to shoot down slow cruise missiles extremely easily? The carrier group as a whole can, yeah. Lots of complications though. 1. Lots of other types of missiles, like hypersonic ballistic missiles. 2. You generally shoot down missiles with missiles. Your carrier group has a finite supply of missiles. I believe it's around a few hundred. There are close-in weapons systems but they're kind of a last resort and I don't know if they can counter ballistic missiles. 3. A carrier group can only shoot down X targets at a time. Nobody knows the exact value of X. But imagine dozens or hundreds of missiles, drones, etc. at once. 4. Even if you don't hit the carrier it can't take off and land planes while undertaking evasive maneuvers. (see the Battle of Midway for an early example) And even a direct hit wouldn't come close to sinking an aircraft carrier. You'd probably need a dozens of direct hits. Common theme in warfare: you don't have to destroy the thing. You just have to take it out of commission. In the case of an aircraft carrier, if you can damage the flight deck, radars, etc... you get the idea.