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> to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of submarines and drones. Can you expand on that? Super carriers seem to be a centr

• ef4 12y ago
  In an infamous 2002 wargame, an American carrier and much of its fleet were destroyed by swarms of speedboats with missiles, simulating potential Iranian tactics. Also, anti-ship ballistic missiles keep getting better. It's not clear whether the US Navy could stop the latest generation of Chinese anti-ship missiles. In both cases, a supercarrier suffers a serious probabilistic problem: the attackers only have to get through once. The defenders need to be 100% effective. That's not realistic in a world where it's economically feasible to field thousands of cheap drones.
  • robotresearcher 12y ago
    Cheap drones have small payloads, and one small payload won't do disastrous damage to a carrier. The attackers have to get through once with a serious weapon, or many times with small, cheap weapons. Is there a small, cheap weapon that is nasty enough, without relying on crazy luck? Do carriers have known vulnerabilities to small weapons, as in Star Wars Ep. IV? Edit: Just read up on USS Cole, and a small boat made a 40ft hole in the side, killed 17 and injured 39 sailors. Very serious. Is this enough to disable a carrier? Also, small boats have enormously more payload than a drone. Wikipedia says an attack on USS Sullivan failed when the overloaded attack boat sank, so clearly they are using all that capacity.