4 ms·

Something that I found interesting was how far away the USA had to keep its navy. What's the pint of having 11 aircraft carrier groups when you can barely even

Something that I found interesting was how far away the USA had to keep its navy. What's the pint of having 11 aircraft carrier groups when you can barely even use them?

dv35z 4mo ago
Is there a map that shows generally where they are?
- redwood 4mo ago
  https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker
- _fs 4mo ago
  This is updated weekly. https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/us-naval-update-map-june-18-2026 https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/us-naval-update-map-j...
godwinson__4-8 4mo ago
They were still used heavily... you think aircraft carriers are only useful if you can get right next to your target? A huge part of American doctrine is to kill the enemy before you are ever in their view. This is also just basically intuitive. I'm not sure what is confusing you. Its like asking why isn't a bomber parked next to its target before taking off and deploying its munitions.
- symian 4mo ago
  I think the essence of the question you responded to is: The U.S. has a gigantic navy and couldn’t force safe passage through Hormuz. Why is this the case? Is the U.S. wasting its money given this?
  - AtlasBarfed 4mo ago
    The answer is yes. The world is deglobalizing, and while drones may not exert Blue water power projection, they now dominate littoral power projection. Marine invasions may be impossible in drone combat without drone superiority, and right now, Joan superiority is not a thing that I think exists between two fully drone enabled armies And note the US army is not a fully drone enabled army.
  - s1artibartfast 4mo ago
    I think it was a much more specific question. Both are valid. Iran is a big country ~100 million people. Aircraft carriers can launch planes to disable specific targets. They cant take out an entire country. They could have been more useful if the US was waging total war against Iran, but it isn't/wasnt.
  - walrus01 4mo ago
    If we say that you can fit a small unit of guys equipped with Shahed-136 and launcher, or small missile launcher into just about any civilian garage or small industrial/warehouse-sized structure within a 300 km radius of the strait of hormuz, it would be quite impossible to air strike every possible hiding site without causing absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable civilian casualties. The capability of the IRGC and Iranian regime to hide small to medium sized drone and missile launch equipment within civilian infrastructure (nevermind caves, bunkers, etc) within range of the strait exceeds the capability of the US forces to destroy or remove it. As long as major shipping companies believe that the Iranians retain enough drone and missile capacity to hold the straight under threat, they're not going to sail through it. The only possible way would be an extremely bloody and manpower intensive ground operation to hunt it down at the boots on the ground level.
    - godwinson__4-8 4mo ago
      Which will also not work. America knew how to do this once. Berlin is still in a sense occupied by American troops in that we still have bases there, and through NATO subsidize their defense and way of life. You simply can't kill your way out of political conflicts into perpetuity, unless you truly plan on annihilating everyone. That is part of what makes the alcoholic running the DoD so galling. His thesis on places like Fallujah is essentially there wasn't enough bloodshed. Americans would be vacationing in Baghdad if only there had been more violence.
- sudosysgen 4mo ago
  Aircraft carriers lose efficacy rapidly as distance increases. The aircraft flying from them require refueling and longer-range standoff munitions, which requires super-linearly more sorties to get the desired. This is even worse when the targets are far from shore, which can be the case when you want to bomb large countries. The American doctrine might be to kill the enemy before you are in their view. But the enemy gets a vote. This is no longer something the US can rely on, even against clever enough middle powers. It's just true that the assumptions that underpinned the current American force composition and strategy are breaking down. That's why the war went much worse than most mainstream analysts expected.
s1artibartfast 4mo ago
Why do you think they were barely used? I dont know, but assume they were being used nearly non stop to support bombing runs. They dont go on land and they dont have cawasn't. I'm no expert, but the attack range of the carrier flight wing is 4-500 miles
- ChoGGi 4mo ago
  cawasn't?
jmyeet 4mo ago
It's a good question and there are three aspects to this: 1. The US Navy is designed for the Cold WAr. It's often called a "deep blue" Navy because it's designed to operate in the open ocean in deep water. Also, it's designed to operate in colder climates like the North Atlantic and the North Sea. The Persian Gulf is none of those things. It's shallow, warm and narrow. The warm part also matters. It increases wear on ships, it's harder to keep them habitable, you get faster biofouling and so on; 2. Geography just isn't a friend here. The navigable part of the Strait of Hormuz at its narrowest is about 6 miles wide. You'll hear claims about it being 2 miles wide. That's incorrect. There are 2 mile wide navigation channels, one in each direction, and they're separated by a ~2 mile wide buffer; and 3. Another clue here was the continued use of so-called "stand off" weapons [1]. Rather than using gravity bombs, missiles continued to be fired from ships and planes. That's inefficient because you lose weight for the munition part to fuel. So you only ever do this if you can't safely use gravity bombs. Therefore, one can conclude that the military could protect air or water assets. Water assets can't be protected mainly from drones. There was a lot of talk about mines and that is a threat but the same drones that essentially destroyed Gulf military bases could overwhelm the defenses of an aircraft carrier battle group too. Plus there's drone boats. But the way aircraft were used also demonstrated a lack of air supremacy. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380176
- relaxing 4mo ago
  1. You might want to call up the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and let them know they aren’t designed to operate there. As well as the rest of the Navy that operates in similar waters in SE Asia and the Caribbean.
pibaker 4mo ago
The US is too used to wars where they have absolute domination and has developed a very low tolerance for casualty. If any ship, not even just a carrier, any ship, gets sunken by an Iranian missile, it will sink the already abysmal approval of the current administration to the bottom of the ocean and if we have learned anything from Biden and Afghanistan it is that you never recover from a shock like that.

Something that I found interesting was how far away the USA had to keep its navy. What's the pint of having 11 aircraft carrier groups when you can barely even use them?

dv35z 4mo ago

Is there a map that shows generally where they are?

redwood 4mo ago
https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker
_fs 4mo ago
This is updated weekly. https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/us-naval-update-map-june-18-2026 https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/us-naval-update-map-j...

godwinson__4-8 4mo ago

They were still used heavily... you think aircraft carriers are only useful if you can get right next to your target? A huge part of American doctrine is to kill the enemy before you are ever in their view. This is also just basically intuitive. I'm not sure what is confusing you. Its like asking why isn't a bomber parked next to its target before taking off and deploying its munitions.

symian 4mo ago
I think the essence of the question you responded to is: The U.S. has a gigantic navy and couldn’t force safe passage through Hormuz. Why is this the case? Is the U.S. wasting its money given this?
- AtlasBarfed 4mo ago
  The answer is yes. The world is deglobalizing, and while drones may not exert Blue water power projection, they now dominate littoral power projection. Marine invasions may be impossible in drone combat without drone superiority, and right now, Joan superiority is not a thing that I think exists between two fully drone enabled armies And note the US army is not a fully drone enabled army.
- s1artibartfast 4mo ago
  I think it was a much more specific question. Both are valid. Iran is a big country ~100 million people. Aircraft carriers can launch planes to disable specific targets. They cant take out an entire country. They could have been more useful if the US was waging total war against Iran, but it isn't/wasnt.
- walrus01 4mo ago
  If we say that you can fit a small unit of guys equipped with Shahed-136 and launcher, or small missile launcher into just about any civilian garage or small industrial/warehouse-sized structure within a 300 km radius of the strait of hormuz, it would be quite impossible to air strike every possible hiding site without causing absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable civilian casualties. The capability of the IRGC and Iranian regime to hide small to medium sized drone and missile launch equipment within civilian infrastructure (nevermind caves, bunkers, etc) within range of the strait exceeds the capability of the US forces to destroy or remove it. As long as major shipping companies believe that the Iranians retain enough drone and missile capacity to hold the straight under threat, they're not going to sail through it. The only possible way would be an extremely bloody and manpower intensive ground operation to hunt it down at the boots on the ground level.
  - godwinson__4-8 4mo ago
    Which will also not work. America knew how to do this once. Berlin is still in a sense occupied by American troops in that we still have bases there, and through NATO subsidize their defense and way of life. You simply can't kill your way out of political conflicts into perpetuity, unless you truly plan on annihilating everyone. That is part of what makes the alcoholic running the DoD so galling. His thesis on places like Fallujah is essentially there wasn't enough bloodshed. Americans would be vacationing in Baghdad if only there had been more violence.
sudosysgen 4mo ago
Aircraft carriers lose efficacy rapidly as distance increases. The aircraft flying from them require refueling and longer-range standoff munitions, which requires super-linearly more sorties to get the desired. This is even worse when the targets are far from shore, which can be the case when you want to bomb large countries. The American doctrine might be to kill the enemy before you are in their view. But the enemy gets a vote. This is no longer something the US can rely on, even against clever enough middle powers. It's just true that the assumptions that underpinned the current American force composition and strategy are breaking down. That's why the war went much worse than most mainstream analysts expected.

s1artibartfast 4mo ago

Why do you think they were barely used? I dont know, but assume they were being used nearly non stop to support bombing runs. They dont go on land and they dont have cawasn't. I'm no expert, but the attack range of the carrier flight wing is 4-500 miles

ChoGGi 4mo ago
cawasn't?

jmyeet 4mo ago

It's a good question and there are three aspects to this: 1. The US Navy is designed for the Cold WAr. It's often called a "deep blue" Navy because it's designed to operate in the open ocean in deep water. Also, it's designed to operate in colder climates like the North Atlantic and the North Sea. The Persian Gulf is none of those things. It's shallow, warm and narrow. The warm part also matters. It increases wear on ships, it's harder to keep them habitable, you get faster biofouling and so on; 2. Geography just isn't a friend here. The navigable part of the Strait of Hormuz at its narrowest is about 6 miles wide. You'll hear claims about it being 2 miles wide. That's incorrect. There are 2 mile wide navigation channels, one in each direction, and they're separated by a ~2 mile wide buffer; and 3. Another clue here was the continued use of so-called "stand off" weapons [1]. Rather than using gravity bombs, missiles continued to be fired from ships and planes. That's inefficient because you lose weight for the munition part to fuel. So you only ever do this if you can't safely use gravity bombs. Therefore, one can conclude that the military could protect air or water assets. Water assets can't be protected mainly from drones. There was a lot of talk about mines and that is a threat but the same drones that essentially destroyed Gulf military bases could overwhelm the defenses of an aircraft carrier battle group too. Plus there's drone boats. But the way aircraft were used also demonstrated a lack of air supremacy. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48380176

relaxing 4mo ago
1. You might want to call up the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and let them know they aren’t designed to operate there. As well as the rest of the Navy that operates in similar waters in SE Asia and the Caribbean.

pibaker 4mo ago

The US is too used to wars where they have absolute domination and has developed a very low tolerance for casualty. If any ship, not even just a carrier, any ship, gets sunken by an Iranian missile, it will sink the already abysmal approval of the current administration to the bottom of the ocean and if we have learned anything from Biden and Afghanistan it is that you never recover from a shock like that.