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> Is finding a US Navy battlegroup a challenge in the modern era? And won't the nearby escorts still have their radars on? yes https://www.navalgazing.net/Carr

> Is finding a US Navy battlegroup a challenge in the modern era? And won't the nearby escorts still have their radars on? yes https://www.navalgazing.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-1 https://www.navalgazing.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-1

ceejayoz 1y ago
A challenge for our likely opponents? Per your article: > China appears to be working hard to deal with this problem, and it’s very possible that they can locate the carriers reasonably effectively, but they have dozens of satellites and large, expensive over-the-horizon radar systems, which any other power is unlikely to be able to match. Seven years after this article's writing, "dozens of satellites" doesn't seem like that high a bar given Starlink's many thousands. (And we've seen huge bandwidth increases, too, which makes real-time imaging and analysis looking for ship wakes etc. far more doable.)
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Since we haven’t had a war against a peer in like 80 years, we have basically no idea what it’d look like, right? I mean, everybody has a bunch of satellites up there right now, and nobody wants to kick off Kessler syndrome. But if two sides with serious navies started fighting and everybody’s carriers were getting spotted by satellite, is it obvious that nobody would start running that calculation?
  - dmd 1y ago
    > nobody wants to kick off Kessler syndrome Except the Trump administration, you mean. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/space-pollution-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/space-pollut...
  - nradov 1y ago
    In any major near peer conflict the satellites will obviously be among the first casualties. The USA and China have been quietly engaging in an ASAT arms race for several years.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    At some point the ICBM nuke exchange happens, as well.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      This adds a sort of weird bit because, of course, it isn’t really clear why we’d care about carrier performance against China, if we assume it would be an ICBM war anyway. Maybe a proxy war or some sort of limited thing could be envisioned… but it seems really risky. I hope we don’t do it obviously.
    - credit_guy 1y ago
      Nuclear war may happen. I am giving more than a 50% chance that some form of nuclear weapon use in war will happen in my lifetime. But there are so many ways this could happen, from just a resumption of underground testing, to atmospheric testing, to dropping a bomb on an uninhabited island of the adversary, to detonating a bomb in space, to detonating a bomb inside your own territory while it's being overrun by the adversary, to detonating a bomb undersea with plausible deniability, and all the way to wiping out one city, or lots of cities. Nuclear war does not mean automatically end of civilization. Russia would like you to believe so, so they can prepare for all contingencies, but we don't.
  - timewizard 1y ago
    Satellites require uplinks. You don't have to destroy anything in orbit if you can destroy the control station on the ground. Plus if we can hack into it and force it into graveyard while expending all it's fuel that's obviously the opening move.
- relaxing 1y ago
  The count and function of China’s satellite fleet is no mystery. We see their payloads go up, same as they see ours. Very much the same way they see our boats leave port, in fact.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    They’re certainly working on it. https://www.theverge.com/news/669157/china-begins-assembling-its-supercomputer-in-space https://www.theverge.com/news/669157/china-begins-assembling...
relaxing 1y ago
This starts with the false premise that the adversary needs to search the entire ocean. In reality, the comings and goings of our ships are as public as it gets, and our peers quite easily track and maintain awareness of the locations of all our battle groups.
- nradov 1y ago
  There's a huge difference between knowing the general location of a ship and generating a track good enough for weapons guidance. And much of the searching is done by reconnaissance satellites, which are highly vulnerable and likely to be destroyed in the opening moves of any major conflict.
  - relaxing 1y ago
    Well they don't just know the "general location" of a ship. The article addresses the problem of terminal guidance (using out of date information) but it seems to treat targeting issues as fatal flaws, rather than acceptable risks. It doesn't matter if it the hit rate is 25%, they're going to fire ten of them. There might be collateral damage due to misidentification? Boo hoo, you're in an all out war. I get it, you're convinced ASAT warfare is inevitable. The reality is it's akin to MAD. No one's going to start that war because it's lose-lose.
    - nradov 1y ago
      Nah. The whole "Kessler Syndrome" thing is overblown. No one is going to refrain from shooting down satellites if it will gain them a temporary military advantage in a hot conflict. This is not even remotely close to MAD.
      - relaxing 1y ago
        It’s not just Kessler syndrome, it’s that GNSS would be targeted and losing that is catastrophic for the civilian economies.
    - Coffeebean2017 1y ago

ceejayoz 1y ago

A challenge for our likely opponents? Per your article: > China appears to be working hard to deal with this problem, and it’s very possible that they can locate the carriers reasonably effectively, but they have dozens of satellites and large, expensive over-the-horizon radar systems, which any other power is unlikely to be able to match. Seven years after this article's writing, "dozens of satellites" doesn't seem like that high a bar given Starlink's many thousands. (And we've seen huge bandwidth increases, too, which makes real-time imaging and analysis looking for ship wakes etc. far more doable.)

bee_rider 1y ago
Since we haven’t had a war against a peer in like 80 years, we have basically no idea what it’d look like, right? I mean, everybody has a bunch of satellites up there right now, and nobody wants to kick off Kessler syndrome. But if two sides with serious navies started fighting and everybody’s carriers were getting spotted by satellite, is it obvious that nobody would start running that calculation?
- dmd 1y ago
  > nobody wants to kick off Kessler syndrome Except the Trump administration, you mean. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/space-pollution-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/space-pollut...
- nradov 1y ago
  In any major near peer conflict the satellites will obviously be among the first casualties. The USA and China have been quietly engaging in an ASAT arms race for several years.
- pjc50 1y ago
  At some point the ICBM nuke exchange happens, as well.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    This adds a sort of weird bit because, of course, it isn’t really clear why we’d care about carrier performance against China, if we assume it would be an ICBM war anyway. Maybe a proxy war or some sort of limited thing could be envisioned… but it seems really risky. I hope we don’t do it obviously.
  - credit_guy 1y ago
    Nuclear war may happen. I am giving more than a 50% chance that some form of nuclear weapon use in war will happen in my lifetime. But there are so many ways this could happen, from just a resumption of underground testing, to atmospheric testing, to dropping a bomb on an uninhabited island of the adversary, to detonating a bomb in space, to detonating a bomb inside your own territory while it's being overrun by the adversary, to detonating a bomb undersea with plausible deniability, and all the way to wiping out one city, or lots of cities. Nuclear war does not mean automatically end of civilization. Russia would like you to believe so, so they can prepare for all contingencies, but we don't.
- timewizard 1y ago
  Satellites require uplinks. You don't have to destroy anything in orbit if you can destroy the control station on the ground. Plus if we can hack into it and force it into graveyard while expending all it's fuel that's obviously the opening move.
relaxing 1y ago
The count and function of China’s satellite fleet is no mystery. We see their payloads go up, same as they see ours. Very much the same way they see our boats leave port, in fact.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  They’re certainly working on it. https://www.theverge.com/news/669157/china-begins-assembling-its-supercomputer-in-space https://www.theverge.com/news/669157/china-begins-assembling...

relaxing 1y ago

This starts with the false premise that the adversary needs to search the entire ocean. In reality, the comings and goings of our ships are as public as it gets, and our peers quite easily track and maintain awareness of the locations of all our battle groups.

nradov 1y ago
There's a huge difference between knowing the general location of a ship and generating a track good enough for weapons guidance. And much of the searching is done by reconnaissance satellites, which are highly vulnerable and likely to be destroyed in the opening moves of any major conflict.
- relaxing 1y ago
  Well they don't just know the "general location" of a ship. The article addresses the problem of terminal guidance (using out of date information) but it seems to treat targeting issues as fatal flaws, rather than acceptable risks. It doesn't matter if it the hit rate is 25%, they're going to fire ten of them. There might be collateral damage due to misidentification? Boo hoo, you're in an all out war. I get it, you're convinced ASAT warfare is inevitable. The reality is it's akin to MAD. No one's going to start that war because it's lose-lose.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Nah. The whole "Kessler Syndrome" thing is overblown. No one is going to refrain from shooting down satellites if it will gain them a temporary military advantage in a hot conflict. This is not even remotely close to MAD.
    - relaxing 1y ago
      It’s not just Kessler syndrome, it’s that GNSS would be targeted and losing that is catastrophic for the civilian economies.
  - Coffeebean2017 1y ago