A Hypothetical Confrontation With China and Survivability Of The US Aircraft Carrier

originally posted by: charlest2
a reply to: YouSir

Don't you feel guilty about being right all the time?

I do!

It's not hard Charles...to quantify human behavior...I think we just prefer to not be persuaded so much by hyperbole...and innuendo...

It's all a question of psychology...and logic...and an innate desire to not be controlled...

Which is frankly...an impossibility in actuation...the entirety of our societies are constructs designed for the masses to live their illusions of freedom and independence...when reality shows how utterly subservient they are to those who designed said societies...

Our world is as it appears...and beneath that appearance as it truly is...because it was designed to be exactly what it both appears and what it truly is...

If I have any illusions...it's that my Don Quixote-like tilting at windmills ever makes any lasting impressions...

I highly doubt it makes a fart in the winds difference...but at least I have my illusions also...and perhaps that's all any of us can really ask for...

I sometimes wish I'd taken the blue pill...


YouSir

a reply to: charlest2

So the military is constantly doing readiness and training exercises. There was one training exercise where a french naval sub was the aggressor. And was able to score direct hits, on the Truman I believe, along with hits on other ships in the carrier group. The loss of 5,000 sailors would be a horrific blunder. And it shows that a carrier group is not invincible. But the Navy takes these things seriously and is always working on ways to survive such attacks.

originally posted by: charlest2
a reply to: hangedman13

I think I did mention I was not a military or naval aficionado and the scenario was crude and incomplete. And maybe others here could provide additional suggestions to make it more complete.

It's just hypothetical musings imagining the potential outcomes in a scenario such as that. An immaginary work in progress, so to speak.

For things like this data is needed and we can be assured we do not have it available in this instance. By the limited resources available you got an answer you preferred. I am not inferring anything military about this but about the practical concerns that do you really think the information about our aircraft carriers is in the public domain? You can throw hypothetical's out all day, but without accurate data it's a useless endeavor.

a reply to: dragonridr

exactly! they never travel alone and no way no how does china choose to target nukes on carrier/carrier battle groups it would be a HUGE escalation and unlike russia china does not have even close to parity with the usa in number or type of nuclear weapons/delivery platforms

en.wikipedia.org... now when they actualy tested nukes on groups of ships/fleet they didnt even sink the lot of them and they were in a natural harbor at the time

A fleet of 93 target vessels was assembled in Bikini Lagoon. At the center of the target cluster, the density was 20 ships per square mile (7.7 per km2), three to five times greater than military doctrine would allow. The stated goal was not to duplicate a realistic anchorage, but to measure damage as a function of distance from the blast center, at as many distances as possible.[36] The arrangement also reflected the outcome of the Army/Navy disagreement about how many ships should be allowed to sink.[37] The target fleet included four obsolete U.S. battleships, two aircraft carriers, two cruisers, thirteen destroyers, eight submarines, forty landing ships, 18 transports, two oilers, one floating drydock, and three surrendered Axis ships, the Japanese cruiser Sakawa, the battleship Nagato, and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen.[25] The ships carried sample amounts of fuel and ammunition, plus scientific instruments to measure air pressure, ship movement, and radiation. The live animals on some of the target ships[38] were supplied by the support ship USS Burleson, which brought 200 pigs, 60 guinea pigs, 204 goats, 5,000 rats, 200 mice, and grains containing insects to be studied for genetic effects by the National Cancer Institute.[25] Amphibious target ships were beached on Bikini Island.[39]

gilda detonated at 500 feet above the sea sunk 5 of those ships ,2 attack transports sank immediately, 2 destroyers hours later and the next day a japanese cruiser ,now admittedly they missed the target the uss nevada a battleship but i think they tested another one on her later. but it did catch the carrier saratoga on fire more then a mile away

subsequent test baker done with an underwater detonation suspended under a landing craft sunk 9 finishing off the saratoga but failing to sink the prienz eugen which survived both tests ,so 14 sunk with 2 planned and orchestrated nuclear blasts of roughly 23ish kilo-tonnes of nuclear boom the tldr of this is it is incrediblly hard to sink ships with nuclear weapons even when stationary,mess up or kill the crews sure but as the USS Dentuda (SS-335) proved even hitting the battle group with an underwater nuke would not stop the boomers/attack subs with a carrier battle group as if they are under 1k feet down they are mostly "immune" to nuclear effects

murtiedjokobayu.medium.com...

On April 19, 2005, the already-decommissioned USS America was towed to the Atlantic from Philadelphia to participate in the Exercise SinkEx, the exercise specially designed to sink her. She was fully loaded with fuel and mock aircraft on her deck to simulate a real functioning aircraft carrier. The navy squadrons used her as target practice. In the exercise, USS America managed to stay afloat after four straight weeks of constant bombardment by US Navy surface ship squadrons. It is later known that she can survive that long because of her massive size and there are so many compartments that need to be filled with water for her to sink. On top of that, even though she does not have the armor of a WW2 battleship, she does have a double-layered hull. That means the weapons hitting her have to push an alternating layer of steel and empty space to reach her internal compartment. In the end, when the navy really wants to sink her, they even need to board her to put explosives on her hull to make her sink because external explosions from weapons could not sink her. The lessons learned from the sinking of USS America is being used by the navy to perfect the design of the new supercarrier class being built for the navy, the Gerald Ford-class.

and this was 3? or perhaps 4 generations of carrier beyond what we have now.

www.lexingtoninstitute.org...

if and its a BIG if you sink one or more of our carriers let alone if they used a nuke to do it, it would be ww2 rules not what we have seen the usa do in places like iraq and Afghanistan the gloves would be off and pretty much no target would be off limits afterwards ,we dont want it and china sure as hell does not want it any time soon

Trying to make my way through the comments.

Given I’ve had a few and haven’t served.

However. Placing our carriers within 500 miles or even having gotten that close seems highly problematic from a logistics standpoint for starters.

Nexts IF it’s gotten to that point, China, the U.S., and most the globe better give themselves a reacharound and kiss their kids and pets goodbye.

Or whatever loved ones you hold dear.

Let’s be honest for a sec. We 6 months away from 2025. Five away from whatever dystopian hell Agenda 2030 is supposed to look like for us all..

The year that for me held vast Sci-Fi significance. Now let’s be clear and closer to home. We’re gonna nuke and drone each other to death and smithereens way before flying cars.

Sucks but it’s true.

So could TPTB or more likely their subordinates, pretty please with a cherry, find your better angels quick? Before our AI systems designate us all as hostile to be smoldering?

Thanks in advance from the plebs.

a reply to: UpIsNowDown2

originally posted by: charlest2 Obummer had to take his hand and lead him off stage at the end. X

That was disproven on the national news tonight! The WH version of Shirely Temple said it never happened; the video was faked to fool people, case closed.

It was also on the news tonight that they're kicking around the idea of drafting women and ramping up perks for illegal aliens to join and become citizens. Apparently nobody wants to serve, so maning the ships in any confrontation might just become a problem in the near future.

I don't know if AI agrees, but from I see I think the US is already spread far too thin and can't afford any more confrontations. I wonder if the BRICS nations think the same thing?

a reply to: SteamyAmerican

The point being made here, I was leading into, is that the United States will never try to defend Taiwan independence if China ever intends to invade there. Our government is running bluster, threats and a huge bluff they have no possible chance of following through on. They know this, I know this and China knows this as well.

The United States is fast becoming a paper tiger on the world stage. Shure, we have mighty sophisticated weaponry that can destroy the world but so do they at this point. Our bluff is, or soon will be called and the only thing the US can do is either back down or destroy the world. The end of global US hegemony is in sight, one way or the other.

War has become obsolete.

There is no conflict with China. Our Top Brass invited the Chinese delegation to view a demonstration of certain superweapons, and that was that, everybody went home happy.

a reply to: charlest2

Keep beating that drum someday you may be correct but it isn't today. Russia has been shown to be no threat a true paper tiger. And just to show how much the US van control China they stopped China from supporting Russia under the table. Chinese banks were warned they can no longer do business with Russia and avoid sanctions and they immediately stopped causing Russian stocks to crash.

When I hear people talk about brics and how the dollar will crash it just tells me how little they understand economics. The dollar is a reserve currency because it's stability and investors always choose stability. Great example right now is Russia. They were trying to dump the ruble and get us dollars causing the exchange rate to spike at 200 rubles to the dollar at banks in Russia.

Now why would Russians even want US dollars? That's the stability thing I was talking about they are trying to save their money from disappearing.

a reply to: charlest2

If I may interject an opinion.

I think the analysis from the AI is wrong. Goes back to the old programmer acronym GIGO.

Carrier strike groups are very well designed units. They are mobile fortresses that can bring devastating firepower to any place in range of an ocean. Someone mentioned that a carrier can go 30 knots. I can tell you from personal experience they can go much, much faster. They have four nuclear power plants, each capable for powering a small city. With enough warning, they can get out of the way of anything. Their AWACS can detect incoming threats from over 200 miles away. With satellites, even longer.

Carriers are protected by cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and other ships. Nothing in the air, on the sea, or under the sea is going to get close to a carrier without being intercepted. Or at least giving the carrier enough time to move.

But, let's suppose, two or even four carriers are taken out by a surprise attack with unknown weapons. The response would be Biblical. As I recall, we have 15 carrier strike groups. I may be wrong on that, but I'm sure we have more than 4. Add to that military bases we have in Japan, South Korea, Alaska, and Australia. I don't think it would take long to get air superiority over China, even if Russia helped.

The biggest problem for the US would be manpower. We could bomb China for months, or even years. But, eventually, we would need to occupy territory. China has a lot of land and a lot of people, not easy to occupy.

--------------

I've been wanting to do a thread for a long time about how people misunderstand what AI is and isn't. Just can't seem to find the time. The short version goes like this. Consider a chess playing computer. A powerful chess playing computer could beat the human world champion. But the difference between the human and the computer is that the human chooses to play chess. The human sets that goal for themselves. The computer is programmed to play chess. The chess computer can't randomly decide to play Mahjong. And it can only play chess as well as the programmer programmed to.

Keep that in mind when you see articles declaring "AI says this" or "AI says that." AI only makes the decisions it is programmed to make. So, when you see an opinion expressed by an AI, the questions you need to ask yourself are, who is the programmer, what is the goal of the programmer, what data is the computer using, and what information does the computer not have?

a reply to: charlest2

Okay cool. Thank you for your response. I’m old enough to remember a term called “Strategic Ambiguity”.

I taught it once as a substitute teacher actually.

I digress. A quick search reveals no such term easily.

But yeah I feel ya, thanks for you thoughtful post.

a reply to: VictorVonDoom. I like where your heads at. At least in this. Mostly always.

Anyway way I was just reading and article today that was suggesting what “dogs” and aren't...

Apparently between China and the US weaponizing quadrupeds. Coupled with the recent mandate for 18-26 yoS.

FWI a year or two ago a fighter flight group showcased what AI can do. An article was then ran too. Any promptly fact-checked. BBC style.

It weren’t pretty. Then. Imagine Now.

Time as that are-a-changin’

There is only one thing to remember, China is a country and can't be sunk, whereas carrier fleet.....

originally posted by: charlest2
a reply to: Justoneman

You mean something like the drone wars that evolved in Ukraine? Using small assembly line drones to drop grenades on the enemy? They are killing more than the artillery is. Destroying more armored military hardware as well. Those little bastards have become the mainstay of the Ukrainian military and wreaking havoc on both sides of the fence.

Oh, you mean some unknown sophisticated futuristic $h!t that costs a billion dollars a pop.

Well, at least that theme. Only, it will be much bigger and much more actually awe some.

originally posted by: YouSir

originally posted by: charlest2
a reply to: YouSir

Don't you feel guilty about being right all the time?

I do!

It's not hard Charles...to quantify human behavior...I think we just prefer to not be persuaded so much by hyperbole...and innuendo...

It's all a question of psychology...and logic...and an innate desire to not be controlled...

Which is frankly...an impossibility in actuation...the entirety of our societies are constructs designed for the masses to live their illusions of freedom and independence...when reality shows how utterly subservient they are to those who designed said societies...

Our world is as it appears...and beneath that appearance as it truly is...because it was designed to be exactly what it both appears and what it truly is...

If I have any illusions...it's that my Don Quixote-like tilting at windmills ever makes any lasting impressions...

I highly doubt it makes a fart in the winds difference...but at least I have my illusions also...and perhaps that's all any of us can really ask for...

I sometimes wish I'd taken the blue pill...


YouSir

Well if it helps any, you inspire others to seek the answers they didn't even know the questions too prior. Carry on, sir!

a reply to: nugget1

Oh, they are going to hate it when they don't get to strawman us this way in the future. If it wasn't for "not what your stinking eyes saw, but it is what I say you moron", they would have nothing. That time is here.

Well considering in real life hezbollah was able to strike and damage the USS Eisenhower without the assistance of hypersonics a few weeks ago I'd say yes.

Of course most here probably heard nothing about it.


Hypersonics technology has put every American ship and base abroad in danger. While the American military was fighting goat farmers in Afghanistan the rest of the world was arming themselves for this exact conflict.

Regardless of whatever the AI says the reality of the situation is American would lose any major conflict that isn't on our border. We don't have the ability to project the kind of power necessary to take on China on their doorstep. Much like China lacks the ability to do the same thing.

Weapon advancements, drone technology, and 5th generational warfare almost makes America's 40 year old aircraft carriers obsolete at this point. You throw enough trash in their skies there dome will fail just like Israel's did last month. Notice how Israel isn't attacking their neighbors anymore after hezbollah conducted precision strikes on one of the most heavily defended airbase on the planet?


It isn't working with Ukraine and it won't work anywhere ever again. Our "enemies" have found out how to defeat our defenses by watching us fumble around in Ukraine and it's got the MIC worried.

Exactly how I was taught.


The professor said it this way:
"junk in junk out. The programs made are only as smart as the programmer made it"!

for you nerds here
all C++ programs must end with the command "rewind" or it was 10 pts off the projects grade.

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
a reply to: charlest2

If I may interject an opinion.

I think the analysis from the AI is wrong. Goes back to the old programmer acronym GIGO.

Carrier strike groups are very well designed units. They are mobile fortresses that can bring devastating firepower to any place in range of an ocean. Someone mentioned that a carrier can go 30 knots. I can tell you from personal experience they can go much, much faster. They have four nuclear power plants, each capable for powering a small city. With enough warning, they can get out of the way of anything. Their AWACS can detect incoming threats from over 200 miles away. With satellites, even longer.

Carriers are protected by cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and other ships. Nothing in the air, on the sea, or under the sea is going to get close to a carrier without being intercepted. Or at least giving the carrier enough time to move.

But, let's suppose, two or even four carriers are taken out by a surprise attack with unknown weapons. The response would be Biblical. As I recall, we have 15 carrier strike groups. I may be wrong on that, but I'm sure we have more than 4. Add to that military bases we have in Japan, South Korea, Alaska, and Australia. I don't think it would take long to get air superiority over China, even if Russia helped.

The biggest problem for the US would be manpower. We could bomb China for months, or even years. But, eventually, we would need to occupy territory. China has a lot of land and a lot of people, not easy to occupy.

--------------

I've been wanting to do a thread for a long time about how people misunderstand what AI is and isn't. Just can't seem to find the time. The short version goes like this. Consider a chess playing computer. A powerful chess playing computer could beat the human world champion. But the difference between the human and the computer is that the human chooses to play chess. The human sets that goal for themselves. The computer is programmed to play chess. The chess computer can't randomly decide to play Mahjong. And it can only play chess as well as the programmer programmed to.

Keep that in mind when you see articles declaring "AI says this" or "AI says that." AI only makes the decisions it is programmed to make. So, when you see an opinion expressed by an AI, the questions you need to ask yourself are, who is the programmer, what is the goal of the programmer, what data is the computer using, and what information does the computer not have?

a reply to: Zanti Misfit

Aircraft carriers are going to be complimented by satellites...

It's the subs that support them I'd be scared of the most if I had to plan an attack on a carrier fleet, there's nothing obsolete about putting 80+ birds in the sky either.

That might not sound like many planes, especially if you Google what China has... There's a difference between concentrated firepower and what's spread across a huge nation though. Suprise attacks are very difficult logistically whereas a carrier fleet already has everything on board.

In other words if China moves vast amounts of stuff they'll give the game away. If a carrier fleet moves it's just doing what carrier fleets do.

a reply to: VictorVonDoom

we currently have 11 with 12 planned full sized fleet carriers now the marines have 7 of these with one in reserve en.wikipedia.org... they were replaced with en.wikipedia.org... of which we have 2 of 11 built currently so 9-10 baby carriers

worldpopulationreview.com... this lists us having 20 total 11 fleet and 9 "helicopter carriers" which are the aforementioned baby carriers that can launch f35s in "assault carrier format" news.usni.org... of note these are the type the Japanese are building but destroyer platformed i believe

in context of china having aircraft carriers they do have two,one is a dedicated training platform and they are only just now starting to figure out how to use them and figure out flight opp's and other various forms of required doctrine that the usa has mastered since shortly before ww2. to put things in perspective by the end of this decade the usa will have build a total of 24? super carriers(forestall,Nimitz and now ford class) and at the end of world war two possessed a combined 155 fleet(33) and escort carriers(122)

and just as an interesting "fact" the conventional carrier boxer made it across the pacific in 7 days 10 hours and 36 minutes way back in 1952. which was nothing compared to the almost custom built among carriers uss enterprise with her 8 reactors that would leave most modern ships in the dust with a rumored speed of 50knots which is absolutely stupid fast for a 1,123 long and 132.8 wide roughly 100,000 pound ship

theaviationgeekclub.com...

Note that if you look up the official top speed of American carriers, you’ll see mealy-mouthed phrases like “in excess of 30 knots” as the Navy doesn’t want to say. USS KITTY HAWK once made a sprint in which she averaged 42 knots by simple math. USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65) allegedly once hit 50 knots. Allegedly. The Navy refuses to say. CVN-65 is now decommissioned and will be replaced by a GERALD R. FORD class carrier, CVN-80, which is, allegedly, faster than CVN-65.’

50 knots is roughly 57mph so freeway speed in a nuclear powered warship