Why Aircraft Carriers Still Rule the Oceans

Originally posted by Orwells Ghost
reply to post by GakunGak

 

Obviously my internet sarcasm leaves something to be desired...

Then tell us how a carrier group can be defeated. Maybe China or Russia will pay you for the information since no country in the world has the answer.

reply to post by schuyler


China's "carrier killer" missile is completely untested and I highly doubt China has anything other than nuclear missiles that will be effective at sinking a carrier. Using a nuke would mean a very bad day for China. Are carriers invincible? No. Is it likely they would be sunk though? No. Possible not probable. Very soon we will have FEL onboard carriers which will offer them another layer of defense and offense which I don't believe any nation will have an answer to for a while.

reply to post by jcarpenter


Yes, after carriers enjoy a long life ruling the seas with near impunity they do serve a wonderful purpose.

Originally posted by gladtobehere
reply to post by travis911

 

They should all be decommissioned and used for scrap metal.

Enough with these weapons of mass destruction.

The US is $16 trillion in debt. Sure as hell cant afford their trillion dollar a year war industry.

As for other nations, their governments are collapsing due to their debt burdens. They dont know where their next meal is coming from but luckily for them, they have a multi-billion dollar air craft carrier...

edit on 18-9-2012 by gladtobehere because: (no reason given)

We could always turn them into Cruise liners.

The retro fit would be a bitch though.

Carriers are far from becoming useless.
It's a priceless ability to launch a prolonged full scale air assault anywhere in the world.
Without the carrier you would have to have air fields nearby for rearming, maintenance and refueling of all those aircraft.
Until the U.S has a military base in every other country or aircraft become obsolete in warfare we will see carriers.

reply to post by thatonedude


Pretty much everyone here talking about them being useless can't form a detailed post about how they could be taken out, only that it would be easy to do so.

reply to post by travis911


Who would win between a a modern aircraft carrier and a nuclear sub? and why?

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04

Originally posted by Orwells Ghost
reply to post by GakunGak

 

Obviously my internet sarcasm leaves something to be desired...

Then tell us how a carrier group can be defeated. Maybe China or Russia will pay you for the information since no country in the world has the answer.

You're far too obstinate for me to expend much effort on an explanation of what should be patently obvious. Anything man has done, man can undo. Carrier's are imperfect machines built and crewed by imperfect men; they are not invincible. In the event of a full scale war, carriers WILL be sunk. If you think that China and Russia don't have plans in place to do just that with whatever means are available to them, then you are deluded. Go read a history book or two, they are full of invincible super weapons that weren't as super as the minds of those determined to defeat them. They are also full of stories of men and nations who had become so blinded and complacent in their hubris that they lost everything.

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04

Originally posted by Orwells Ghost
reply to post by GakunGak

 

Obviously my internet sarcasm leaves something to be desired...

Then tell us how a carrier group can be defeated. Maybe China or Russia will pay you for the information since no country in the world has the answer.

Google "Noshir Gowadia". The man from India who Northrup Grumman hired to work on the B-2 and other top secret projects.

He designed China some Stealth Cruise missiles. The thing to sink America's aircraft carriers was paid for and designed with US Taxpayer dollars when Northrup Grumman brought in that man from India to work in the top secret projects....and he handed them over to China for free.

So essentially....America sank her own aircraft carriers using the H-1 Visa program bringing in foreigners to work on top secret things....and those foreigners handed it over to China.

Originally posted by r2d246
reply to post by travis911

 

Who would win between a a modern aircraft carrier and a nuclear sub? and why?

Carriers aren't lone wolves stalking the sea. They are the primary asset of a Carrier Strike Group that includes about ten ships (more or less, depending). These support ships include at least one destroyer squadron composed of Arleigh Burke class destroyers, at least one Ticonderoga class cruiser, several smaller picket-type ships such as frigates. Oh, and a few fast attack submarines lurking beneath the carrier.

Note that the Burkes aren't your average WW II class destroyer. They are four times larger in terms of displacement (10,000 tons versus 2,500 tons), longer (500 feet versus 350 feet), and much bigger than a WW II class cruiser. Even a Los Angeles class fast attack submarine is twice as big as a WW II destroyer.

While underway these support ships form a defensive shield around the carrier, both physical and electronic. They have a vast array of anti-submarine warfare systems including towed sonar arrays, anti-submarine rockets, and anti-submarine helicopters. If you've seen the movie "Red October," that is a fair representation of how anti-submarine warfare works. Just one homing torpedo dropped from a helicopter can ruin a sub's whole day. Think of this defensive shield as a bubble around the carrier extending into the sky, but also to the ocean floor. The plan is that nothing gets through the bubble.

I don't claim to be able to predict what would happen in an actual hostile encounter between a Carrier Strike group and a submarine, nuclear or not, but there is an extremely good chance that Captain Bart Mancuso of the USS Dallas would blow that sub to Mars. It's not as if the US Navy has never thought about these issues. Given the odds if I had to pick a place to be during a battle like that, I'd want to be on the carrier, not the attacking submarine.

Originally posted by r2d246
reply to post by travis911

 

Who would win between a a modern aircraft carrier and a nuclear sub? and why?

The aircraft carrier, every day all day.

Each of the Navy's 12 existing carrier battle groups consisted of an aircraft carrier; an embarked carrier air wing; cruisers, destroyer, and frigate units; and two nuclear-powered attack submarines

The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 15th ed.. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 32, 36 (Table 6-5). ISBN 1-55750-675-2.
en.wikipedia.org...-4

Even if the sub somehow evaded destruction from air based anti submarine strikes it would be destroyed long before it got near the carrier.
Next.

Originally posted by Orwells Ghost

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04

Originally posted by Orwells Ghost
reply to post by GakunGak

 

Obviously my internet sarcasm leaves something to be desired...

Then tell us how a carrier group can be defeated. Maybe China or Russia will pay you for the information since no country in the world has the answer.

You're far too obstinate for me to expend much effort on an explanation of what should be patently obvious. Anything man has done, man can undo. Carrier's are imperfect machines built and crewed by imperfect men; they are not invincible. In the event of a full scale war, carriers WILL be sunk. If you think that China and Russia don't have plans in place to do just that with whatever means are available to them, then you are deluded. Go read a history book or two, they are full of invincible super weapons that weren't as super as the minds of those determined to defeat them. They are also full of stories of men and nations who had become so blinded and complacent in their hubris that they lost everything.

edit on 2-10-2012 by Orwells Ghost because: Spelling

Translation, you have no idea but you WANT them to be easilly sunkable so you're sticking with it. Gotcha. Now show me where I said they are invincible. I have said numerous times they can be sunk by a nuclear strike, although they do have significant defense against that as well. However, the first nuke that was launched would turn China into the worlds largest supplier of glass.

reply to post by Pervius


I know all about him. B-2 is old technology, we are far advanced beyond that. When was the B-2 developed, that's how far behind in tech China is. Their stealth missile will work wonders against most nations. The US has far more advanced detection techniques which render the tech obsolete. Not useless, but very obsolete.

They can detect stealth aircraft using advanced techniques that do not look for what IS there, but have found out how to see what ISN'T there. They find gaps caused by stealth technology.

reply to post by schuyler


Well thought our reply. Some people have this image of a lone carrier sent out to the wolves. The carrier is a mobile army unto itself.

In an exercise an Australian Oberon class SSK diesel electric sub scored a hit on a US Nimitz class carrier with MK-48 torpedoes. It was protected by a CVBG battle group but still got hit by multiple MK-48s and if it was real would've been sunk.
A modern attack sub moving slow hiding under a thermal layer is very quiet and hard to detect and track. The CVBG moving at 20-30 knots makes a lot of noise.
Also if you shoot enough anti-ship missiles at a US CVBG some of them will get through and score hits, 30 or 40 anti-ship missiles at mach 3+ is hard to stop. The Russian Kirov class CGN and Oscar class SSGN or top line SSK or SSN can give the CVBG some big problems.
In the PC sub sims Sub Command and Dangerous Waters you can try to sink the CVBG it's pretty hard.

The carrier battle group is not invincible but very hard to engage successfully and survive.

reply to post by JimTSpock


What were the ROE? Was active sonar used? (you know, the type that kills marine life) One torpedo also would not sink a carrier. Can you source this so I can read up on it.

ETA: It is common to create what if scenarios to FORCE enagagement, such as the recent Red Flag exercises where the Typhoon *beat* the F-22 after losing every single fight without a FORCED dogfight.

So if they place the Carrier basically on top of the sub the sub may have a chance, otherwise, I say no.

ETA2: I am looking for information and it appears it was a "mission kill". The Carrier was not sunk, only heavily damaged.

I am also reading it was not a war games exercise it was a sub that followed the Carrier for 2 days undetected. So I am getting conflicted reports on what happened with no reliable sources at all, only hearsay.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


I'll try to find something on that but I saw a documentary with the film crew on the Australian sub, they stalked and waited then attacked from the rear using the CVBGs noise for cover. I think it was in the Pacific in deep water in the middle of nowhere.
One MK-48 detonated under the keel would do considerable damage to the Nimitz class, multiple hits and it will sink. I've seen a few naval exercises and generally the sub has the advantage over surface combatants, that is why they need escort subs for protection.
The Oberon class SSKs are retired now we have the Collins class SSK. Supposed to be the most advanced SSKs in the world but 5 out of 6 are waiting for overhaul and they break down all the time.

In real war nothing is certain and it's clear the US CVBG can be hit by torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, and hopefully it never happens for real.

Originally posted by JimTSpock
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

I'll try to find something on that but I saw a documentary with the film crew on the Australian sub, they stalked and waited then attacked from the rear using the CVBGs noise for cover. I think it was in the Pacific in deep water in the middle of nowhere.
One MK-48 detonated under the keel would do considerable damage to the Nimitz class, multiple hits and it will sink. I've seen a few naval exercises and generally the sub has the advantage over surface combatants, that is why they need escort subs for protection.
The Oberon class SSKs are retired now we have the Collins class SSK. Supposed to be the most advanced SSKs in the world but 5 out of 6 are waiting for overhaul and they break down all the time.

I have heard from participating members in the exercises that unless you have a forced engagement Subs very rarely score a hit. The whole point of exercises is to improve and experience the what if scenarios that are unlikely but possible. There are a whole host of countermeasures that can be taken and the MK-48 targetting can be jammed. One shot and the sub is found and is more or less 100% dead.

As I have said the Carrier is not invincible, but it's very tough to score a hit on, and the odds of one sinking is extremely remote. In a wartime scenario active sonar would be used and no sub would ever sneak up on it.

ETA: Thats what you get for buying Swedish subs Terrible craftsmanship.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


That's right once the sub shoots the noise of the torp can give away it's position. One sub vs US CVBG small chance of success. Multiple subs could be a problem. Active sonar doesn't have very long range, not as long as passive sonar, ESM or the range of some torps, counter measures work sometimes and sometimes they don't. Multiple subs and surface combatants and aircraft shooting anti-ship missiles can overwhelm the CVBGs defense systems. Shoot enough stuff at it and it will be destroyed. It's a numbers game and hopefully nothing like that ever happens in real life. Quite a few countries have the hardware to engage a US CVBG.

Detecting, tracking and engaging a modern attack sub is not easy, they have counter-measures too and can dive deep below thermals and be almost invisible to everything but another hunter killer sub.

reply to post by JimTSpock


Each sub increases the odds of exposure though. And when one is detected a high level of alert will be activated. Multiple subs make the odds of avoiding detection almost impossible.