China Can Sink Our Aircraft Carriers...This kind of gets frightening.

Originally posted by humbleseeker
I wouldnt mind the US sending nuke right into the great wall. Just to say hello were watching.

Have you heard of the M.A.D. doctrine? This would be really dumb.
Mutually Asurred Destruction Strategy.

Originally posted by Silver Shadow

Originally posted by Subjective Truth

So all Americans are cowards. Hmm spoken like a true paper ass no offense.

Well, take away an American's gun, and he will cry like a baby.

The most pathetic sight I can imagine, is an overweight and unfit American stripped to his underpants with his gun taken away from him.

More pathetic: An Australian who never had a gun to begin with, shrimp getting burnt on the barbie because he had to go look for his baby which was eaten by a dingo.

Originally posted by humbleseeker
These communist devils want nothing more than to turn our stars and stripes into a red flag. The terrible thing is that many so called americans want this to happen. Any more I am beginning to think being an American is a matter of the heart, not a matter of birth. Freedom will only remain when we stand up to our enemies such as China and Russia, and most of the middle east.

Lol, thats a very backwards, outdated and small minded view you have there..

Communist devils lol.. China is not communist.. It is State Run Capitalism. Noone wants to take over the US anymore.. Maybe ten years ago but that time has passed.

"Being American is a state of the heart" Hahaha - Where to you people get your perspectives from? Its actually hilarious.

Its not the US being the Worlds police that makes people hate you guys.. Its the amount of people with ridiculously insane opinions like yours that causes the distrust and dislike.. Especially when they get voted into power.

Russia as an Enemy?.. Russia and the EU will soon be joined into a common economic and security policy.. So does that mean that Europeans are also your enemy then?

Or maybe you are the one with the problem.. Not Russia or China or Europe or the Middle East.. Which by the way, stripping resources and invading countries over oil is a sure fire way to make enemies... So look in the mirror before assuming that everyone else is wrong. The fact is that the US empire is the main global aggressor.. and has been for decades at this stage.

reply to post by humbleseeker


But then they'd send one back.. And that would be be at another wall.. Wall St. perhaps..

Then even if you all weren't watching you would and so would the rest of the world.

But I doubt it would come to that.. the US nuking China (the Great Wall or any other low impact target) would be the best thing that China can hope for vis-a-vis oneupmanship.
They will get soo much geo-political capital that they could NEVER have received any other way..

Originally posted by Dr Slim

Originally posted by nastalgik
Also just remember we have Maverick and Goose on our side..we can't possibly lose.

goose be dead

Bloody Heck! You could've said spoiler alert or something at least nastalgik kept the illusion alive!

Aircraft carriers are wonderful feats of engineering, but they are not invincible. Never have been. Enough massed anti ship missiles could do it, as could torpedoes.

This is just another potential weapon. It doesn't have to be a nuke it just has to be a lump of depleted uranium hitting at mach 10+. That will ruin your day.

Avoiding these scenarios are where tactics come into play.

Close in weapons e.g. phalanx or the laser probably wouldn't work. You'd have to hit it high and manoeuvre out of its path. The counter to this is network centric operations (immediate passing of launch detection and tracking to the fleet) coupled with the Aegis BMD. Luckily thats where the money is going.

The real scary aspect of using a ballistic missile to make a conventional attack is that it could easily be misinterpreted as a nuclear attack and draw a nuclear response. Leading to escalation and megadeath on both sides.

Originally posted by Thepreye

Originally posted by Dr Slim

Originally posted by nastalgik
Also just remember we have Maverick and Goose on our side..we can't possibly lose.

goose be dead

Bloody Heck! You could've said spoiler alert or something at least nastalgik kept the illusion alive!

im sorry, shall i go back and edit it to say.. "maybe one of them is dead? " ???

Originally posted by justwokeup
The real scary aspect of using a ballistic missile to make a conventional attack is that it could easily be misinterpreted as a nuclear attack and draw a nuclear response. Leading to escalation and megadeath on both sides.

i can see the governments answer now..
"oops, better safe than sorry?" *shrugs and smiles.. slowly, in a tv sitcom sort of way*

reply to post by aspx


Got a fact for ya sunshine, Korea is a UN issue. So if anything was to be done about N. Korea the whole of the UN would need to be involved. It's just that the European bloc has relied on the US to take care of business since WWII.

i love the anti-america stuff, its a great scape goat for self examination. As if americans are the only people who go to work everyday, watch tv, buy stuff, hangout and mostly just want to be left to themselves to live. thats evil i guess and only americans do it

i also like the lumping americans together thing and the generic slander, i wish politicians represented "us" for all the flack "we" get, truly amazing, per se` im a coward for not finishing crazy north korea, it doesnt matter that i despise the government and what goes on there, since the Fed doesnt end them, im a coward, ya that makes sense. Oh and im a coward because someone for a socialist disarmed country sense im a pussy if i dont have my gun. lol dont know what to do with that, since the beginning armed > unarmed, simply no argument there

as others have stated, china is a propaganda machine, they've got a good blend of capitalism and some illusions of freedom to keep people in check , a liberals wet dream. They've done a great job at fooling people into thinking they're government is something less than a corrupt tyrannical nightmare.
Whatever they say they have, they dont. what they do have, they copied from someone else and did it poorly. Launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at an aircraft carrier would result in almost certain equal or greater retaliation. Its a blind threat, nothing more than chest pumping of what might be, just like building an arsenal of 30,000 nuclear warheads, its not like they're increasing any real capability

reply to post by centurion1211


Exactly,

Every year some "new" Superweapon comes along that is [ shrill voice ] "THE END OF THE CVN" [ / shrill voice ] last year it was the Bhramos. These systems tend to develop a mythology before they are even fielded :shk:

They are assuming it seems that a CBG has been static in terms of defences for the last 40+ years.

looking through the thread its clear that some points are needed:

1) YES it is hypersonic. It is a ballistic missile after all. It is not a cruise missile that will hug the wavetops etc.

2) In order to hit a moving target at sea, it would require some sort of guidence. THe CBG would have to be spotted and contact maintained untill the warhead was close enough to overcome manuvering of the target.

3) Such targeting would have to occur using satelites or an over the horizon radar system. OTH system can be spoofed or jammed and the US demonstarted the ability of the Aegis system to deal with satelities (the shootdown did not have to happen but they were sending a message to the Chicoms.

4) The USN has Aegis BMD escorts which have demonstated the capacity to shoot down ballistic targets.

etc.

Originally posted by hangedman13
reply to post by aspx

 

Got a fact for ya sunshine, Korea is a UN issue. So if anything was to be done about N. Korea the whole of the UN would need to be involved. It's just that the European bloc has relied on the US to take care of business since WWII.

Yea, n how's that relevant today?
UN = US + EU ? Nuh-uh..

Like to see where Korea is detailed as a UN issue as of today.. Can't seem to find any text on it.

reply to post by FredT


The answer to all that technology is simple.

By the time you have realized one of these hypersonic weapons is inbound, YOU ARE DEAD.

Originally posted by intrepid One has to take into account that while carriers ARE the arm of the military they aren't alone. Subs, AWACS, destroyers etc. They are covered. Try to attack them and see what happens.

Ah, right! That's all nicely covered then. From a conventional attack.

Mmmmmmm - but what about a weapon of mass destruction? You must remember those fabled and somewhat mystical things that were hidden in Iraq?

What would protect a carrier battlegroup from a nuclear ICBM? Those things can shift at over 11,000 miles a second! So how Mr [or Miss/Mrs] Intrepid does an American carrier battlegroup survive a nuclear explosion or even a neutron bomb?

Get real people, no amount of weaponry will protect you from an ICBM, not even the fabled airborne laser that has recently been tested and neither will Patriot!

Wwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee BOOOOOOOM!

Originally posted by fritz

Originally posted by intrepid One has to take into account that while carriers ARE the arm of the military they aren't alone. Subs, AWACS, destroyers etc. They are covered. Try to attack them and see what happens.

Ah, right! That's all nicely covered then. From a conventional attack.

Mmmmmmm - but what about a weapon of mass destruction? You must remember those fabled and somewhat mystical things that were hidden in Iraq?

What would protect a carrier battlegroup from a nuclear ICBM? Those things can shift at over 11,000 miles a second! So how Mr [or Miss/Mrs] Intrepid does an American carrier battlegroup survive a nuclear explosion or even a neutron bomb?

Get real people, no amount of weaponry will protect you from an ICBM, not even the fabled airborne laser that has recently been tested and neither will Patriot!

Wwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee BOOOOOOOM!

11,000 miles per second? I think you mean 11,000 miles per hour.

I hate to break it to you, but nuclear weapons aren't magical, all-destroying devices that can destroy whole planets or ecosystems with a single initiation. They are tremendously destructive, but they are quantifiable, and yes, even survivable.

How does a carrier battle group survive a nuclear attack? A combination of active engagement, and maneuverability. Active engagement (or, in plain English, shooting down or deflecting the incoming warhead) is something that can already be done with the later versions of the Standard SAM. The missile launch won't be a covert event...the thermal flash from the engines igniting will be an event of interest to reconnaissance satellites that have been in place since the early 1960s. Even if the launch isn't detected, or the information isn't passed to the carrier battle group, their own air-search assets will detect the missile as soon as it rises over the horizon. That leaves several minutes of reaction time for the battle management system to plot and execute an intercept.

If the intercept fails, Plan B is simply to make sure that, wherever the device is going to come down, the task group is not there. Given that a ballistic missile isn't a very maneuverable device (for a variety of aerodynamic and engineering reasons), a carrier group could move from 3 to 6 miles between missile launch and warhead initiation. That might not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference in survival.

Note that I'm not at all a member of the "Carriers are invulnerable" crowd. A CVBG has several vulnerabilities, but non-nuclear ballistic weapons aren't high on the list, and nuclear ballistic weapons aren't a sure kill. They also have the dual drawbacks of being undeniable (since several nations can track your missiles almost from launch to initiation), and a universally accepted casus belli. Essentially, tossing a nuclear device at a CVBG is a lose / lose scenario. If you sink the carrier, you'll get a rather large shipment of LemayCo's Sunshine-in-a-Can. If you don't sink the carrier, you'll get an appetizer course of Rickover Industries Instant Urban Renewal and then see above.

Given the age of the USN's carrier fleet, and the age of most of their airframes, wait a few more years and the carrier fleet might not even be an issue, much as it pains me to admit it....but that's a rant for another thread entirely.

reply to post by Brother Stormhammer[/url] Oh dear, I am undone! You are probably right. Hands up, I'll admit it. Nuclear missiles do not travel at 11,000 miles per second. My mistake. Buggar!

Now the shooting down bit.

Take one carrier battlegroup. Take one neutron device. Launch missile.

Carrier groups get warning and starts to make an evasive course. Missile makes terminal velocity along predicted course.

Carrier group continues to alter course, randomly. Missile reaches separation height and disgorges warhead.

Carrier group turns to evade. Warhead detonates several miles above carrier group blanketing the area with neutron radiation.

Aftermath: Carrier battlegroup is left deaf, blind and dumb - as is every other vessel for hundreds of miles.

Enemy lofts second missile with conventional nuclear payload. Result, as per my post before you replied.

I was just trying to make certain people understand that there are more ways to kill a carrier battlegroup than torpedoes, missiles and bombs.

Would my secario work? Of course it would!

When the Russians detonated an exo-atmospheric device over European Russia during the early 70's, there was a widespread radio, television, radar and electronic blackout ovcer most of Europe.

That was a small device of a couple of kilotons. Imagine a refined device like a 500 Kt Neutron warhead detonating in low space orbit.

What people are missing out on here is not whether or not China can hit and sink a US carrier. It's about where and when China can engage a US carrier fleet geographically.

If China can start to engage a US carrier fleet long before the fleet can be effectively positioned, the US fleet also have less options to attack China.

If The fleet cant use it fighters, they can only use ballistic or cruise missiles. If China can shoot down a satellite moving at 40 000km/h in orbit, i guess they have the technology to take out incoming missiles to.

When it comes to submarines. The US dont have the best subs. They have the most expensive subs. China has subs that can challenge the US fleet any day.

A swedish sub managed to take out a whole US carrier fleet without being spotted more then once. That is including the carrier fleets subs.

[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

I think that other countries can destroy as well

Originally posted by fritz
reply to post by Brother Stormhammer[/url] Oh dear, I am undone! You are probably right. Hands up, I'll admit it. Nuclear missiles do not travel at 11,000 miles per second. My mistake. Buggar!

Now the shooting down bit.

Take one carrier battlegroup. Take one neutron device. Launch missile.

Carrier groups get warning and starts to make an evasive course. Missile makes terminal velocity along predicted course.

Carrier group continues to alter course, randomly. Missile reaches separation height and disgorges warhead.

I can only assume at this point that you're hypothetical weapon is a ballistic missile, since those are the only types that intentionally separate their warheads from their boosters.

There are a few steps here that are being overlooked. As soon as the missile (or its warhead) becomes visible to the carrier group's radar (or the radar in the early-warning aircraft), the missile will be open to engagement by the Standard-ER long-range SAMs that make up the bulk of the escorts' missile load. While the exact performance envelope of the Standard is classified, it's been shown that at least *some* versions have envelops that reach orbital distance. It seems reasonable (if not verifiable) to assume that the ICBM / IRBM warhead would be a valid target long before it's within danger range of the carrier. Given that the 1960s-era Nike-Hercules could score contact kills against missile warheads, a successful engagement isn't out of the question by any stretch. On the other hand, it's not a sure thing, either, so let's assume that in spite of multiple shots at a single target on a predictable course, the warhead reaches its initiation altitude....

Carrier group turns to evade. Warhead detonates several miles above carrier group blanketing the area with neutron radiation.

Aftermath: Carrier battlegroup is left deaf, blind and dumb - as is every other vessel for hundreds of miles.

More realistic scenario: Warhead detonates several miles above the carrier...electronics in the CIC do exactly what they're programmed to do at the first sign of an EMP-induced current surge, and shut down for anywhere from a half second to five seconds. Crew members swear creatively while various electronics reboot, and a few very unlucky crewmen who ignored their training and looked up get hauled to sick bay for a chewing-out and a crash course in Braille.

You might give this a read:
Short essay on EMP effects by someone in "the business"

The author is a professional defense analyst with some rather technical publications and several decades of experience under his belt. I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows what he's talking about.

Enemy lofts second missile with conventional nuclear payload. Result, as per my post before you replied.

If the second missile is a simple ballistic weapon, its odds of hitting the carrier group, even if said group can't engage it, are fairly small. You do realize that ballistic weapons (namely, battleship guns) firing at much shorter ranges (a few thousand yards, vs a few thousand miles) had hit rates in the 3-10% bracket? Even assuming guidance on a par with the open-source figures for the latest generation of US and Russian ICBMs, you're looking at a CEP measured in hundreds of feet. That's remarkable accuracy when the payload is nuclear, but it's pretty much worthless if you're lobbing a few thousand pounds of conventional explosive.

I was just trying to make certain people understand that there are more ways to kill a carrier battlegroup than torpedoes, missiles and bombs.

Would my secario work? Of course it would!

When the Russians detonated an exo-atmospheric device over European Russia during the early 70's, there was a widespread radio, television, radar and electronic blackout ovcer most of Europe.

That was a small device of a couple of kilotons. Imagine a refined device like a 500 Kt Neutron warhead detonating in low space orbit.

The best way to kill a carrier group with a nuke isn't to play Buck Rodgers and try to EMP the task group to death. If you're going to use a nuke, use it for what it's best at...massive shock. Detonate it about a mile over the center of the group (if you can get it there), and let the blast wave and the heat do your damage.

The Russian test you mention really isn't as enlightening as you might think. The fact that it blacked out radio and television is really meaningless in the context of a carrier group...a good thunderstorm can raise hell with civilian radio and TV. Military hardware is built to far more robust and fault-tolerant standards. Add in four decades of R&D on hardening systems against those effects, and the results of the blast in 2010 will be a lot less spectacular.

As for a neutron warhead initiating in low orbit, let me know when someone's going to try that...I want to be sure I have my camera set up...the light show should be beautiful. Neutron warheads are the *worst* types of nuclear device to use against carrier groups. They don't generate as much blast, or as much gamma radiation (the root cause of EMP) as a standard device. They do most of their damage by induced radiation...and from orbital distance, they'll do little more than provoke a flare in the upper atmosphere. At lower (and more effective) altitudes, they have the distinct drawback that while they will *eventually* kill the crew of a carrier, it'll take several days for them to die, and in the first few days after the attack, you'll find yourself dealing with the worst of all possible problems...a shipload of highly trained, nuclear capable aircrews who have nothing to live for except revenge, and the satisfaction of taking a large honor guard to Valhalla with them. As it was with EMP, so it is with the neutron bomb...keep it simple, go for the quick kill.

Another well known strategy is to deploy an ICBM with multiple warheads + multiple decoys.

By the time it comes over the horizon there are so many incoming targets visible on the warning radar, that is simply not possible to deploy against every single one in the time available.

And saying a whole fleet can just run away from an incoming missile is laughable. Yeah, a carrier can do five miles per minute, or 300 miles per hour at top speed. Sure it can...........
Even if a whole fleet could run away at 300 Mph, moving only five miles away from ground zero in that minute, you are still dead.

Likewise with sea skimming missiles or torpedoes. You don't just fire one, but a salvo at a very high value target.