Aircraft Carriers have been obsolete for a long time

reply to post by peck420


You don't need to sink them, just make sure they can't transmit. Use destroyers and smaller escorts to hunt them, board them and disable their radios and they can't transmit positions anymore.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
You don't need to sink them, just make sure they can't transmit. Use destroyers and smaller escorts to hunt them, board them and disable their radios and they can't transmit positions anymore.

All of which happens well after they have transmitted the relevant data.

The trawlers don't need to ever see the actual carrier, they just need to reduce the required search area.

Unless the US plans on stopping every single fishing vessel...which is not only impossible, but illegal, they can't prevent the area of obscurity from being narrowed down rapidly.

Once it is narrowed down, sorry, you're found.

This isn't WW2 any more. Nobody was able to prevent this then, and nobody will be able to prevent it now.

reply to post by peck420


That's why the destroyers and frigates hunt as solos and packs. They can't stop every vessel, but if they even stop half of them they have put a big dent in the search fleet. You aren't going to be able to completely stop a search and eventually a carrier will be found, but you seem to think it would be easy, and it won't be.

reply to post by peck420

Not only, but all the Japanese spy "fishermen" in harbors watching the coming and going of American ships. Add to that the importance of organizations utilized in the Pacific like the Coast Watchers.

The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II to observe enemy movements and rescue stranded Allied personnel. They played a significant role in the Pacific Ocean theatre and South West Pacific theatre

You can bet the people of Asia took notes. Nowadays their highly sophisticated communications devices are probably ... cellphones.

In 1942, two coastwatchers on Bougainville, Read and Mason, radioed early warning of Japanese warship and air movement (citing the numbers, type and speed of enemy units) to the United States Navy. Coastwatcher reports allowed U.S. forces to launch aircraft in time to engage the attackers. Admiral William Halsey, Jr. was later to say that the two men had saved Guadalcanal.

Lots of Islands in the Eastern Pacific Region.

reply to post by intrptr


They don't have to go anywhere near those islands, and cell phones don't work well on most ships. You guys think it's just a matter of looking somewhere and you find them easily. You think all this hasn't been taken into account in carrier doctrine, and contingencies haven't been planned for all this? Yes she'll eventually be found but if she even gets one Alpha Strike off before she's found that's a big hit she's delivered already.

reply to post by Zaphod58

Yes she'll eventually be found but if she even gets one Alpha Strike off before she's found that's a big hit she's delivered already.

ICBM's, MRBM's and SRBMs will have made that unnecessary by then. Carrier would arrive way late. Hunkered down somewhere (hiding) from retaliation is my guess. In some remote Island harbor...

Edit: At least you admitted carriers are vulnerable once detected...

read that Obsolete.

reply to post by intrptr

Didn't seem to be much of a problem during WWII? Finding ships? Back then they didn't have any modern conveniences.

No, but you did have limited range, which meant more narrowly defined paths. Not so with a nuclear carrier than can replenish escort ships. This is a big difference (and much smaller "fleets", or instead, "battle groups")...

Impossible? Certainly not, but it is difficult enough to find carriers to make them certainly worth while. Heck, even knowing exactly where they are wouldn't diminish their modern role.

Edit: At least you admitted carriers are vulnerable once detected...

read that Obsolete.

Every weapon is "vulnerable" to something, and no, this does not equate to obsolete.

reply to post by intrptr


None of those will be used except maybe SRBMs just for the fact that no one wants to go nuclear, which would happen if you start lofting ICBMs or even MRBMs. Not even China thinks they would survive a full up nuclear war.

Show me a single post of mine where I have said carriers aren't vulnerable at any point. They would be hard to hit,because you have to find them then get through their defensive screen but I've never once even come close to saying it couldn't be done.

I thought I'd spend a little time today discussing the Carrier Strike Group. Several people have mentioned, correctly, that a carrier never travels alone. The ONLY time I have ever heard of a carrier "alone" was in a "pedal to the metal" situation where, for one reason or another, everyone was running at flank speed (meaning, as fast as you are capable of going) and the carrier easily outdistanced the other ships. Indeed, to give you an idea of how fast these babies can move, the rooster tail behind the carrier is higher than the flight deck. Make of that what you will. The top speed of a carrier is fraught with rumor, hyperbole, and lots of stories told by sailors who "were on the bridge when they covered up the speedometer." It's also classified. But any time the CVN is under the possibility of a threat, its support ships surround it.

The ships and commanders of a Carrier Strike Group are:

1 CVN Carrier (Captain)
1 Cruiser (Captain) (567 feet long, about 10,000 tons)
4 or more Aegis class Destroyers (Commander) (500 feet long, 8,000-10,000 tons)
1 or more fast attack submarines (Commander)
1 fast attack supply ship (Captain, normally)
several frigates (Lt. Commander)

The whole group is overseen by a Rear Admiral, most often stationed on the cruiser, but sometimes on the carrier. A cruiser is slightly larger than a destroyer, but not by much. It's more a matter of classification and equipment these days. In fact, the Ticonderoga Class cruiser is built on a Spruance Class destroyer hull. As these ships are retired they will be replaced by destroyers. A WWII destroyer was about 2,000 tons, a fifth the size of an Arleigh-Burke.

A supply ship is more often than not run by civilians these days, but with a Captain in command. This is to give him required experience commanding a "deep draft" vessel, a step along the way to commanding a carrier. A supply ship carries all the Diet Coke and is capable of sustaining the entire Strike Group with whatever it needs from food to ammunition for 7-8 months. And although it looks like it, it's not defenseless.

When in battle formation the smaller ships form a shield around the carrier using the Aegis defense system. Think of it as a large bubble extending over the Group, including beneath the water. This system is capable of detecting and tracking multiple targets. The defense systems are capable of shooting down an ICBM in flight, an Exocet missile, or even a satellite, which has been done. These systems are being constantly upgraded to address newer threats.

So when someone claims carriers are obsolete and that a destroyer is superior because all it has to do is launch a cruise missile at a carrier to take it out I chalk that sentiment up to the most woefully ignorant comments I have ever read on this site. Face palm, truly.

Now, you can't hide a 1,000 foot long 10 acre carrier. Everyone who wants to know where any of them are at any given time knows approximately where they are, if not precisely. Satellites are tasked with tracking them. This isn't WW II where radar is a brand new invention any more. So they don't try to hide. China, Russia, and India all know where they are already.

But they can be faked. Now anyone who has actually studied American warfare knows the Americans are very good at deception. The stuff the American military has pulled off historically is nothing short of amazing. This is part of defensive strategy. If you can fake out the enemy to the point he throws his resources away, you gain a significant advantage.

What if, for example, you could create a Phantom Fleet anywhere on the globe, a fleet of warships, maybe a couple of Carrier Strike Groups converging on North Korea? To the enemy these fleets would seem real, show up on radar with all the right signatures, all the right radio traffic, all the right radar, and for all intents and purposes be regarded as real and in need of an immediate response. They've got minutes and hours here, not days and weeks to check it all out: Incoming in 30 minutes. Time to scramble. Even if the enemy figures out we have Fake Fleets, they still have a problem. They can't tell which is the real one. Think about it. They've got X number of missiles to throw at us, which might be taken out by Aegis anyway, and they don't know which targets are real. That would be kind of demoralizing, don't you think?

What if you could cram all the advanced electronics needed to put on this performance into a white van and stick it on the deck of a CVN?

Wouldn't that be something!

reply to post by Zaphod58

Not even China thinks they would survive a full up nuclear war.

No way...at most, they have around 200-300 operational ICBMs capable of hitting the Continental US. We have 2000 operational (and many more thousands in reserves) that can hit them, plus a pretty robust missile defense grid. Oh sure, we'd lose some cities, but the US is very spread out, lots of major cities over a big area. China, on the other hand, has far less targets for us to hit. Of course, 5 to 10 years from now, this may be a much different argument. (and will likely be argued in Chinese in 20...)

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by peck420

 

That's why the destroyers and frigates hunt as solos and packs. They can't stop every vessel, but if they even stop half of them they have put a big dent in the search fleet. You aren't going to be able to completely stop a search and eventually a carrier will be found, but you seem to think it would be easy, and it won't be.

Your Navy doesn't have the ability to stop half of them...not even close. The world's combined navies might be able to hit the 50% mark, but that would still be difficult.

China records 192,000 Fishing vessels. Most outsider estimate that that is 1/10th of their fishing fleet based on reported tonnage vs catch rate.

Good luck, and keep in mind, they only need 500 to map the Pacific with modern civilian equipment.

Originally posted by Gazrok
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Not even China thinks they would survive a full up nuclear war.

No way...at most, they have around 200-300 operational ICBMs capable of hitting the Continental US. We have 2000 operational (and many more thousands in reserves) that can hit them, plus a pretty robust missile defense grid. Oh sure, we'd lose some cities, but the US is very spread out, lots of major cities over a big area. China, on the other hand, has far less targets for us to hit. Of course, 5 to 10 years from now, this may be a much different argument. (and will likely be argued in Chinese in 20...)

The problem with nuclear war is everyone starts letting them off and as some russian responded to the fact the americans could nuke the work many times over they replied "so what we can do it once and thats enough" (or something to that effect)....the moment anyone hits that big red button the planets glass for the next few thousand years and hail to our new cockroach overlords

reply to post by Gazrok

Every weapon is "vulnerable" to something, and no, this does not equate to obsolete.

Let me clarify. Carriers are not obsolete in "peace time". What I mean by that is, America's big stick has sufficed up till now. Free to roam the worlds oceans unmolested by any foreign power while at the same time raining death and destruction where she pleases thru the use of her carrier borne airpower. This has been occurring for decades. From Korea, Vietnam, thru to the present day. As long as the wars are preplanned by America and the carriers have time to arrive on station to carry out their part of the hostilities, then they will not be obsolete.

So far, so good(?).

reply to post by Zaphod58

Show me a single post of mine where I have said carriers aren't vulnerable at any point. They would be hard to hit,because you have to find them...

You answered your own question.

reply to post by intrptr


Hard to find and hard to hit do not invulnerable make. It simply makes them....hard to find and hard to hit.

reply to post by peck420


And you seriously think they are all capable of sailing across the Pacific? At BEST a yummy fraction are capable of true long range operations.

I wonder if we're not reaching a conclusion here.

1. Carriers are not obsolete. They are doing the job they were intended to do and have done it for nearly half a century. A CVN, in particular, carries more firepower than 90% of the world's air forces. Put two in the same place and you have air superiority. Three and it's all over. Once again, I know that sounds jingoistic, but it is fact, whether you approve or not.

2. Carriers are not invulnerable, but they are far from defenseless. Taking one out would require the resources of a nation state willing to take the consequences, and victory is far from assured. I think the issue of a bunch of Chinese fishing vessels "finding" them is a side issue. What are they going to do then? Throw out a fishing net? The carriers aren't hiding. They're too big. They show up on satellite images. Everyone knows where they are anyway. What's the point here? It’s a waste of resources. That fishing vessels COULD be used to map the ocean doesn’t mean they will be. It’s a needless theoretical exercise.

3. I concede that the carriers are not obsolete "during peacetime," but that begs the question. What would "wartime" look like? Here's a breakdown of the world's carriers:

United States has 10 CVNs, 100,000 tons, 85-90 aircraft, range: unlimited
United States has 10 LHD/LHA, 40,000 tons, helos & harriers, range: 9,500 miles

Italy has 2, Giuseppe Garibaldi, 10,000 tons & Cavour, 27,000 tons
Spain has 1, Juan Carlos I, 27,000 tons, range: 6,000 miles
France has 1, Charles de Gaulle, 37,000 tons, range: unlimited
China has 1, Liaoning, 55,000 tons, 30 jets, range: 7,500 miles
India has 1, Viraat, 23,000 tons, 30 jets, range: 6,500 miles
Russia has 1, Kuznetsov, 43,000 tons, 42 jets, range: 8,500 miles
Brazil has 1, Sao Paulo, 24,000 tons, 22 jets, range: 7,500 miles
The UK has 1, Illustrious, 22,000 tons, helicopters only, range: 5,000 miles
Thailand has 1, Chakri Naruebet, 11,000 tons, mostly helos, range: 10,000 miles

There are some on the books, so a couple of nations will soon have 2. I put the LHDs in the mix because they’re bigger than most all the other carriers.

USA: 20 ships 1.4 million tons
Rest: 10 ships at about a quarter million tons

Then, of course, you have quality issues. A CVN can go 25 years on a tank of gas. Most conventionals can go about 7,500 miles. They can stay out 45 days where a CVN can stay out 7 months. CVNs carry F/A-18s. Some of the others carry nothing but helicopters.

It may be that China or India or Brazil will someday build a fleet of carriers. It’s not impossible, in which case the USA will have some real competition in dominating the world’s oceans as it does now. But I think it’s obvious from the figures that there’s not much out there that presents much in the way of a challenge today. And there’s nothing on the horizon either. So for me, at least, it’s nothing but a theoretical diversion because the carriers usefulness will outlast my lifetime.

reply to post by schuyler

United States has 10 CVNs, 100,000 tons, 85-90 aircraft, range: unlimited
United States has 10 LHD/LHA, 40,000 tons, helos & harriers, range: 9,500 miles

Italy has 2, Giuseppe Garibaldi, 10,000 tons & Cavour, 27,000 tons
Spain has 1, Juan Carlos I, 27,000 tons, range: 6,000 miles
France has 1, Charles de Gaulle, 37,000 tons, range: unlimited
China has 1, Liaoning, 55,000 tons, 30 jets, range: 7,500 miles
India has 1, Viraat, 23,000 tons, 30 jets, range: 6,500 miles
Russia has 1, Kuznetsov, 43,000 tons, 42 jets, range: 8,500 miles
Brazil has 1, Sao Paulo, 24,000 tons, 22 jets, range: 7,500 miles
The UK has 1, Illustrious, 22,000 tons, helicopters only, range: 5,000 miles
Thailand has 1, Chakri Naruebet, 11,000 tons, mostly helos, range: 10,000 miles

Maybe that shows what other nations think about their necessity? Maybe that shows that carriers are mainly about projecting force and conquering other countries, something all the others think less of? Maybe those figures are the best case to be made for obsolescence...

The rest of the world seems to be directing their defense requirements not at offensive juggernauts such as carriers but at defensive weapons that are primarily designed to take out such LSTs (Large Slow Targets).

Quieter subs, supersonic sea skimming missiles, rocket torpedoes, and "smart" mines are all weapons primarily directed at what, exactly? Does that float your boat, or sink it?

reply to post by intrptr


A lot of nations can't afford the cost to build, and the specialized facilities they require. A nuclear powered carrier requires specially trained crews and facilities. They also aren't looking to project power except to their neighbors and their own interests.

A lot of their navies see force projection through smaller more capable ships than before, so have downsized their naval forces in an effort to save money. The US had more treaty obligations than two other countries combined in some cases, so the ability to project power through carriers is almost essential.

Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by schuyler

 

Quieter subs, supersonic sea skimming missiles, rocket torpedoes, and "smart" mines are all weapons primarily directed at what, exactly? Does that float your boat, or sink it?

Other countries don't need to project force if we do it for them, which we have willingly done since the end of WW II. Most of the oil that is protected by our Carrier Strike Groups does not wind up in Louisiana. It goes to China, Japan, Australia, and the EU. The US protected Europe from the Soviet Block for the entire cold war so that Europe could diminish their defense spending and concentrate on reconstruction. If we developed our own energy resources, such as oil shale and the north slope, we really would have no need to park 2 CVNs in the Middle East, at which point you would see other countries building carriers. The UK has 2 in the works. India does as well. I fully expect China to be discontented with a single Soviet-era carrier. If they are no longer important and obsolete, why are those countries building them? They aren't cheap.

The thing is, we have the most silent submarines on the planet and have had for decades. The Trident has to my knowledge NEVER been detected, plus there is some evidence that they played an important role in ending the cold war as the USSR simply could not find them. The US has all those technologies you mentioned already, and once again, the Aegis system is quite capable of defending against newer threats.

But this begs the question again, just like last time. Who in their right mind has both the capability and the resolve to try to take out a Carrier Strike Group? And to what end? The consequences would be as immense as Pearl Harbor. You'd have to be insane to try to do it.

Which is why we arrive back at the same place we started. Within the context of the world stage today, the carriers are doing the job they were designed to do and are not in any sense "obsolete." They control the world's oceans and there is nothing extant today, nor on the immediate horizon, that presents a significant enough threat that would change that.