Chinese Carrier

[MicroBalrog]

As to a carrier's vulnerability, they are both very tough ships and very hard to get ordinance to.  Even the Soviets, who spent a lot of time and money to figure out how to, were unsure of their ability to sink more Carriers wholesale.  The folks that talk about "big easy targets" tend to have been no closer to a navy ship then reading a Tom Clancy novel.

Not to mention, the battlegroup runs EW interference. Soviet naval bombers failed to get positive target locks on U.S. carriers.

Again: the second most advanced military power at the time failed to get target locks on American ships 300 meters long. American EW interference was that good.

Actual soviet strategy regarding American carrier battlegroups involved launching eight anti-ship missiles carrying 110-kiloton atomic warheads - not to destroy the U.S. carriers, which were expected to survive the strike, but merely to weaken the battlegroup and it's electronic-warfare output to the point that the carriers could be engaged with conventional guided munitions.

[longeyes]

Electronic counter-measures are no doubt highly effective.  But 100 per cent?  And effective against, say, a small tactical nuclear warhead on an air-to-ship missile or ballistic missile?  When were carriers tested against a major enemy power with modern weapons?

[longeyes]

As to a carrier's vulnerability, they are both very tough ships and very hard to get ordinance to.  Even the Soviets, who spent a lot of time and money to figure out how to, were unsure of their ability to sink more Carriers wholesale.  The folks that talk about "big easy targets" tend to have been no closer to a navy ship then reading a Tom Clancy novel.

My view--I can't speak for Tom Clancy--is that there's been a geopolitical Gentleman's Agreement about what "ordnance" is kosher in terms of attacking carriers.  The Russians, in an ultimate throw-down, could not take out U.S. carriers?  I honestly find that hard to believe.  This is a matter of accepting reprisal, not tactical impotence.

[MillCreek]

I always thought the key to carrier attacks were using anti-ship missiles to saturate the defenses.  The Aegis cruisers and destroyers only have so many Standard missiles to shoot down the anti-ship missiles, and I had read that the sea-skimmer versions were pretty hard to hit.

[longeyes]

This certainly.

[Jamie B]

Obviously, this group in uninformed as to the level of Chinese airplane technology.

Chinese Dive Bombers



Chinese Drone Launch



Chinese Drone Pilots



Chinese SR-71 Knockoff

[MicroBalrog]

My view--I can't speak for Tom Clancy--is that there's been a geopolitical Gentleman's Agreement about what "ordnance" is kosher in terms of attacking carriers.  The Russians, in an ultimate throw-down, could not take out U.S. carriers?  I honestly find that hard to believe.  This is a matter of accepting reprisal, not tactical impotence.

The Russians themselves believed that it would be a seriously difficult mission.

A carrier is a strategic asset, 100,000 tons of national will made manifest. Sure you could eventually kill one, but it would require a huge naval battle.  It would require the planning skills, EW capability and air cover of a parity opponent to be able to pull it off with any reliability.

[erictank]

Naval tactics fail.  Carrier Battle Groups are designed and trained to control large areas of ocean to keep sea lanes open.  Apparently in the last "serious dust-up"  there were some Bavarian dudes in little bitty sinking ships that caused trouble all out of proportion to their size.

The whole force projection thing is something they do because no one is actually trying to close sea lanes.

As to a carrier's vulnerability, they are both very tough ships and very hard to get ordinance to.  Even the Soviets, who spent a lot of time and money to figure out how to, were unsure of their ability to sink more Carriers wholesale.  The folks that talk about "big easy targets" tend to have been no closer to a navy ship then reading a Tom Clancy novel.

Our sub guys generally were able to "sink" the carrier in CVBG wargames - IIRC, though, other friendly unterseeboots had somewhat lesser levels of success in such things. Our CO did pass along over the 1MC every time we whacked the sub guys, though - and that was pretty frequent, too. For above the waves, unless you're talking about landing a MIRV warhead on one (not a huge amount that CAN be done about orbital/suborbital threats - though the Aegis guys might surprise you even there, they use Aegis for ABM work, don't they?), a CVBG can stop most surface/airborne threats short of defense saturation by large numbers of missiles.  Not impossible, but very very difficult.

[dogmush]

Our sub guys generally were able to "sink" the carrier in CVBG wargames - IIRC, though, other friendly unterseeboots had somewhat lesser levels of success in such things. Our CO did pass along over the 1MC every time we whacked the sub guys, though - and that was pretty frequent, too. For above the waves, unless you're talking about landing a MIRV warhead on one (not a huge amount that CAN be done about orbital/suborbital threats - though the Aegis guys might surprise you even there, they use Aegis for ABM work, don't they?), a CVBG can stop most surface/airborne threats short of defense saturation by large numbers of missiles.  Not impossible, but very very difficult.

Indeed, our subs.  And it's possible an Akula is quiet enough to sneak in, but I wouldn't bet the farm.  And you'll still need a nuc tipped torp to come close to guaranteeing a fatal hit.  A CVN is much tougher built then comparable civilian ships and is designed to take battle damage and remain fighting.  Also, the sub that gets in range isn't going to get but 1 spread fired.  Then they'll likely be running for their lives. 

Anyone know how quiet the Chicom missile boat is?  That should be their best bet for sneaking in.

[dogmush]

  The Russians, in an ultimate throw-down, could not take out U.S. carriers?  I honestly find that hard to believe.  This is a matter of accepting reprisal, not tactical impotence.

Look it up.  Enough Soviet doctrine has been made public in the last 20 years.  They weren't optimistic.  They were going to try, mind you, but their planners didn't call it easy, or even probable. Like Micro said, they planned on nukes.  It's the only real shot they had. The Red Navy knew they needed nukes to have a chance at success.  Everyone else is just hoping to hit the lotto if they fire on a US Carrier.

[roo_ster]

I'd say our carriers are pretty safe as long as they stay out of range of the Chinese land-based short & med range ballistic missiles across the straights form Taiwan.  Just too many of them SOBs.  "Too many" as in "likely 10X more than our carrier group has anti-missile munitions." too many.

Then, there is the sort of attack that requires less tech and more brainpower.  Asking questions like, "If we fight the Americans over <Taiwan, Japan, S Korea, whatever>, where would they deploy a carrier?"  And then post weapon systems where they could range those locations.

[freakazoid]

and I had read that the sea-skimmer versions were pretty hard to hit.

There are certain ones that I hope are never fired at us.

[Matthew Carberry]

Just to reiterate, the entire Soviet Navy, which no other navy now extant (other than ours of course) can even come close to emulating in size, capability, or force projection, operating with full cooperation from all their national level command and control assets and their land-based air and nuclear forces, weren't sure they could take out the two or three carriers (out of a dozen) we would willingly put in a position they could even reach with all those assets in a more-or-less conventional fight.

Long-term it'd be foolish to diminish the Chinese potential to become a more than momentary threat to shipping more than a few hundred miles off their national territory; but as it stands this carrier is just an artificial reef waiting to be emplaced.

 

[MechAg94]

IMO, the type of missiles that can be fired from outside the normal air patrol of a carrier are not cheap or small or easy to conceal.  Enough of those to saturate defenses is something you would think they could see coming and wouldn't sail into.  Or at least it would require sacrificing a great number of aircraft to bring them into range.  And even then, are you taking out the carrier or escorts?  I would think subsurface threats would have a better chance, but I don't know.

[Tallpine]

So why couldn't the Russkies have just lobbed a big long distance nuke missle in the general vicinity of a carrier fleet  

Could have even launched from a boomer a couple thousand miles away.



I'm sure they had a plan 

[AZRedhawk44]

I bet detonating a BIG bomb under a carrier would do the trick.


BIG = nuclear

Under = a thousand or more feet underneath.


Kind of like the Bermuda Triangle theory of how ships sink... if the water has less density than water typically has, ships lose buoyancy.  Methane bubbles decomposing on the sea bed and floating up in  large batches supposedly can cause this and is how people theorize all the ships disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. 

Think of what a couple megaton nuke could do... superheat the water to plasma-steam that rises through the 1000+ feet of colder water above.  As that steam emerges under the carrier group, the ship starts to "fall" in the "air" around it rather than floating in the water it was just in a few moments ago.

Not as glamorous as blowing a 1000 ft long ship into little pieces, but it puts it and its assets in the bottom of the drink and exploits a position from which it is rather difficult to defend.

Are there any submarinal Aegis-style defenses to shoot a nuclear submerged missile down?  I doubt a conventional torpedo could do the job.  I know Iran has submarinal missile systems that are difficult for our ships to interdict, and those are conventional-tipped and intended to physically strike the target rather than cause the phenomenon I described above.

[RevDisk]

So why couldn't the Russkies have just lobbed a big long distance nuke missle in the general vicinity of a carrier fleet  

Could have even launched from a boomer a couple thousand miles away.

I'm sure they had a plan 

One, we'd see it coming, try to shoot it down, and try to get out of the way.  Nukes are not as destructive as people think.  As Boris says, might work, might not.

Two, big nukes are physically big.  Few folks intend to use megaton yield nukes, because multiple several hundred Kt yield warheads are better under most circumstances.

[Tallpine]

Methane bubbles decomposing on the sea bed and floating up in  large batches supposedly can cause this and is how people theorize all the ships disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.

Airplanes, too   

One, we'd see it coming, try to shoot it down, and try to get out of the way.

I thought the "star wars" ABM program was shot down...?

How fast does an ICBM go ... Mach 10 ++ 

Don't think a carrier can move that fast 

Besides, you wouldn't have to sink the carrier - just disrupt things enough to mess up defenses so that other attacks could get through.

[MicroBalrog]

So why couldn't the Russkies have just lobbed a big long distance nuke missle in the general vicinity of a carrier fleet  Huh?

CEP would become an issue.

[freakazoid]

I bet detonating a BIG bomb under a carrier would do the trick.


BIG = nuclear

Under = a thousand or more feet underneath.


Kind of like the Bermuda Triangle theory of how ships sink... if the water has less density than water typically has, ships lose buoyancy.  Methane bubbles decomposing on the sea bed and floating up in  large batches supposedly can cause this and is how people theorize all the ships disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. 

Think of what a couple megaton nuke could do... superheat the water to plasma-steam that rises through the 1000+ feet of colder water above.  As that steam emerges under the carrier group, the ship starts to "fall" in the "air" around it rather than floating in the water it was just in a few moments ago.

Not as glamorous as blowing a 1000 ft long ship into little pieces, but it puts it and its assets in the bottom of the drink and exploits a position from which it is rather difficult to defend.

Are there any submarinal Aegis-style defenses to shoot a nuclear submerged missile down?  I doubt a conventional torpedo could do the job.  I know Iran has submarinal missile systems that are difficult for our ships to interdict, and those are conventional-tipped and intended to physically strike the target rather than cause the phenomenon I described above.

That's actually how some torpedoes work. Instead of physically striking the ship they explode underneath breaking the keel.

[longeyes]

Carriers are sea-going castles with plenty of knights.  Funny how castles don't figure into modern war games very much any more...

I will just repeat my basic thought on this: in a bigtime military confrontation, with everything on the line, carriers, despite all their defensive and offensive capabilties, are going to be highly vulnerable targets.

[RoadKingLarry]

This is a matter of accepting reprisal,

I think the term for that is M.A.D., Mutually Assured Destruction.

every time we whacked the sub guys, though - and that was pretty frequent,

We usually were running a noisemaker to make us sound like "the other guy" during those kind of ops. I remember one exercise we were in with US and NATO forces. We were running the noisemaker, dodging P3 sonar buoys and we didn't get "detected" till we were asked to broach the ship .

I had a picture taken from the periscope that took 2 frames in low power to get the fantail of the carrier we were working with, nobody ever knew we were there. Our CO had a copy framed and sent it to the CO of the carrier . We've also been known to get up close and personal with "the other guy".

That's actually how some torpedoes work. Instead of physically striking the ship they explode underneath breaking the keel.

I don't think anyone is using contact detonation torpedoes anymore. Torpedoes are also fairly long range weapons, 40K yds+

[dogmush]

Carriers are sea-going castles with plenty of knights.  Funny how castles don't figure into modern war games very much any more...

I will just repeat my basic thought on this: in a bigtime military confrontation, with everything on the line, carriers, despite all their defensive and offensive capabilties, are going to be highly vulnerable targets.

Giggles snort.

1. Carriers are not castles, or any other kind of static defensive position.

2. Modern war games do actually include "Castles", or rather defense of fixed positions.  They don't have stone walls and catapults, but the concept is alive and well.  Play some war games: 1-888-550-1769

3. Several people with actual strategic knowledge have pointed out that the professionals think you're overestimating the ease of sinking a CVN.  If you choose to remain uneducated that's on you.

4. Until the Chicoms can realistically neutralize a US Carrier Strike Group AND have ASW assets capable of finding a Seawolf or Virginia class SSN, the only thing their Carrier is projecting is impotence and fuel bills.

[MicroBalrog]

Carriers are sea-going castles with plenty of knights.  Funny how castles don't figure into modern war games very much any more...

Oh? What do you think a Fortified Area is, then?

[De Selby]

Those things have a demonstrated capacity to destroy a small country's military infrastructure, but somehow Russia and china are going to float more power out into carrier range and fight them.  Yeah right.

I would imagine that workplace accidents are a far higher risk to CVN crewmen than any foreign power.