reply to post by SplitInfinity
There are a few factual and logical problems with your post there Split Infinity. Listening to you, the rest of the world might as well just
surrender now and get it over with, because they'll never be able to touch the US.
Let's start with the aircraft. The F/A-18 and F-22 are quite formidable when you look at basic numbers. Both carry long range missiles capable of
hitting aircraft 100 miles away. They both carry 8 air to air missiles, including the AIM-120, and the AIM-9X. The Super Hornet also has the JHMCS
that allows for high off boresight shots of the AIM-9X. Both capable of high speeds, high angles of attack during WVR combat, and highly
maneuverable.
Now, let's look at the fine print. The idea that any aircraft is going to be able to sit 80 miles away, and swat other aircraft out of the sky like
flies is laughable at best. The Israeli Air Force, which has more air to air combat experience than any other two air forces combined (almost), has a
BVR kill percentage of about 16% (I'm going from memory here, because I don't have my sources handy, but I'm pretty sure the numbers are close if not
right). That means that for every 100 missiles they fire they will hit 16 aircraft. The US BVR kill rate is in the single digits. And that's
against air forces similar in capability to the Iranians, so we can assume that it will be similar in a conflict against Iran.
Both the F/A-18 and the F-22 are quite capable in WVR (and the fight will eventually go WVR), but both have disadvantages that can be taken advantage
of. Both bleed energy during high AOA maneuvers, the F-18 has an extremely limited loiter time to fight, and the F-22 doesn't have a helmet cueing
system that allows for HOBS shots, and limits their LOAL shots with the -9X. The F-18 has the added disadvantage of a very short combat radius (less
than 400 miles).
As for a swarm attack, you aren't going to stop it with just ships, you're going to have to have aircraft and ships involved. Here's where it gets
interesting. I have every advantage here as attacker, because all I have to do is get one missile through and pop the carrier. I don't even have to
sink her, just take out her deck, and she's done. You as defender have to stop 100% of the missiles 100% of the time. That's mathematically
impossible. Sooner or later one is going to get through, and either pop an escort opening a hole in your defenses, or hit your carrier. You can use
your CAP to help with incoming missiles, but if you concentrate on the missiles, the escorts for the launching fighters concentrate on your CAP. If
you concentrate on the launchers and escorts, that leaves more missiles for your ships to worry about. So which will it be?
The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system is not capable of engaging ICBMs as you claim. It's capable of guiding other interceptors that target
ICBMs, but it can only engage theater ballistic missiles and short range ballistic missiles.
A standard carrier strike group usually has two to three Burke class destroyers, and a Ticonderoga cruiser. So being generous call it four Aegis
escorts. The Burke Flight IIA carries 96 missiles, the Ticonderoga 127 cells. So that's a lot of missiles for the group. What happens when the
attacks continue past the first one? How many of those missiles do you allocate for BMD defense, just in case? And again we get into the BVR/WVR
argument. Yes, they're much more capable at longer ranges, but the farther out you go, the better chance of a miss. So how far out do you engage
incoming?
Even assuming that the carrier has the FEL system installed, it can only target missiles on at a time per laser. That leaves the rest for SeaRAM.
The carrier has limited target ability for antimissile, so you're counting on the missiles doing most of it. That leads to its own problems, but I'll
just leave off with that.
And the Gerald Ford is not a stealth carrier, sorry to disappoint.
Want to throw the diesel sub into the equation too? That's a whole other fun discussion.
edit on 2/3/2013 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason
given)