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Striking requires targeting. S-400 is a very impressive piece of tech, but in order to strike something thats 2k miles away, you need to be able to see it. (Unl

Striking requires targeting. S-400 is a very impressive piece of tech, but in order to strike something thats 2k miles away, you need to be able to see it. (Unless it has blind fire capabilities where you can target an area/altitude and have the missile search for a target there.) Jamming and other countermeasures would make something like this that is a drone mothership very interesting over large land masses. US has a huge edge anywhere there is water, but deep inland, have a fully mobile and defensible air field that can go anywhere is extremely compelling. Doubly so when you already have established air superiority.

trhway 12y ago
>in order to strike something thats 2k miles away, you need to be able to see it. that is done by satellites in particular. And China for example develops ballistic anti-ship missile which would be able to strike targets 2K miles away. A ballistic warhead coming at 10M would present next level of challenge even for ship-based anti-missile systems. I don't see a flying aircraft carrier able to carry any meaningful defense capabilities against such an attack. My point here is that, even more than in case of naval aircraft carrier, such flying carrier would be useful only when total dominance is established, which wouldn't be the case with any meaningful military opponent. Of course there is no actual plans to fight an actual war against any such opponent :)
- sologoub 12y ago
  If US were to engage in open war with any other nuclear armed nation, fate of a few aircraft would be the least of our worries. Even if no nuke ever reached North America, the consequences will. Case in point is Fukushima radiation being detectable on the west coast. (http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection) Granted those are trace amounts, but if a full scale nuclear war took place in Eurasia, we'd definitely would feel effects.

trhway 12y ago

>in order to strike something thats 2k miles away, you need to be able to see it. that is done by satellites in particular. And China for example develops ballistic anti-ship missile which would be able to strike targets 2K miles away. A ballistic warhead coming at 10M would present next level of challenge even for ship-based anti-missile systems. I don't see a flying aircraft carrier able to carry any meaningful defense capabilities against such an attack. My point here is that, even more than in case of naval aircraft carrier, such flying carrier would be useful only when total dominance is established, which wouldn't be the case with any meaningful military opponent. Of course there is no actual plans to fight an actual war against any such opponent :)

sologoub 12y ago
If US were to engage in open war with any other nuclear armed nation, fate of a few aircraft would be the least of our worries. Even if no nuke ever reached North America, the consequences will. Case in point is Fukushima radiation being detectable on the west coast. (http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection) Granted those are trace amounts, but if a full scale nuclear war took place in Eurasia, we'd definitely would feel effects.