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The idea is that you store anti-ship missiles on civilian craft, then swarm a carrier group and launch a sneak attack from tiny speed boats and fishing vessels.
by rjurney 18y ago
The idea is that you store anti-ship missiles on civilian craft, then swarm a carrier group and launch a sneak attack from tiny speed boats and fishing vessels. Air supremacy does not solve that, and there is currently no defense against such a swarm.
Everyone thought battleships were invincible until they turned out to be exactly USELESS with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes. Its quite possible that the anti-ship missile, in large deployments in a post-war declaration period, has done this to the carrier.
Even though the Japanese were smart enough to launch the attack on Pearl harbor, the US and Japanese navies were both certain their battleships would be important in the upcoming conflict, and the Japanese navy trained intensely for large scale night-battles among fleets of battleships. Everyone woke up overnight to the fact that battleships were exactly useless, and it was a rude awakening.
- DenisM 18y agoYou are thinking about a different article - this one: http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&IBLOCK_ID=35 http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&... The article being discussed here is the one about new Chinese ballastic missiles as the newest threat.
- rjurney 18y agoI read the article, but this one builds on his previous ones about the ballistic missile threat to carrier groups, and most of the confusion in these discussions would go away if people read the previous articles as well.
- potatolicious 18y agoHistory has shown that disruptive technologies have the potential to drastically alter warfare. The invention of the gatling gun, for example, single-handed turned the line-based warfare of the 19th century upside down. The invention of the tank as a self-sufficient mobile force was also an incredible blow to known combat tactics at the time - the Nazis wielded this to incredible effect in Poland. The onslaught of fast-moving tanks made the cavalry-heavy Polish military look downright pathetic. While I'm a bit skeptical of the article, I have to accept that it's entirely possible for a single technology, if disruptive and innovative enough, to complete obsolete the aircraft carrier in only a few short years.
- anamax 18y ago> Everyone thought battleships were invincible until they turned out to be exactly USELESS with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes. Except that battleships didn't become useless with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes any more than bombers became useless with the advent of good fighters. Carrier-based planes just meant that battleships were vulnerable to a another threat. (They were already vulnerable to other battleships and submarines.) Battleships are still incredibly useful for dropping lots of ordinance on a target that isn't too far from water. They can take damage that would sink other ships and still fight. They just can't launch planes to protect themselves, but they can be paired with ships that can.