Aircraft Carriers have been obsolete for a long time

reply to post by roguetechie


I've never been told the exact speeds of a Nimitz class carrier as well. Nor of the fastest of the Nuclear Carriers..the USS Enterprise.

But I have been in the engine rooms of both classes ..also in the reactor spaces of Both carriers. I know how the hulls are built on both and the differences. Even in the steam systems.

You do know ..that there are different kinds of wheels on these ships..yes?? There are speed wheels and other types. Various wheels have been put on these classes of carriers as well as the olde boiler fired carriers now decomissioned.

It is the same on submarines...various wheels or propellors tried out over the years.

Obviously a speed wheel is different from say..a working wheel as on a tugboat.

I will tell you this...it is not practical for carriers..any of them to run at these speeds or high speed ...it is unecessary and even dangerous to the crews and equipments. You might call this "Red Lining." Mostly in an emergency will this be done.


I do remember an incident many many years ago when on the USS Nimitz..down off the coast of Florida..doing night operations and an aircraft crashed on the deck killing some 13 sailors.
This happened at some 10 pm at night. By 1 o'clock in the morning conditions had stabilized/brought under control and the ship turn up to head back to Norfolk, Virginia. By one o'clock that afternoon she was pulling up to the piers at the Norfolk Navy Base. Of course she was given immediate clearance to enter the harbor and everything else waited.

But nonetheless..do the math...how fast were they going to make it back up here in 12 hours?? You cannot run a carrier at speed up close into shore and wipe out allthose expensive beach front property with a large wake...nor other vessels she might pass. But nonetheless..she was flat moving to get up here that fast. I was astonished at this and have never forgotten it.

Thanks,
Orangetom

reply to post by MConnalley


www.howitworksdaily.com... this is all i could find and it was tested on a decommissioned battleship and it took two of them to take it out

reply to post by RalagaNarHallas


Too bad that's not a battleship. It looks like a frigate of some kind.

reply to post by Zaphod58


yeah defiantly not the best link as i wa going off of what the link said not what it actually was (hms Sheffield i think it was?) and dispite looking for about an hour i could not find a test of a exocet against a battleship


news.google.com...,1618766 but i did find this which is a captain boasting the amour belt would stop it what do you think on the matter? as you are obviously much more informed then i am on the issue

www.militaryaerospace.com...
www.dtic.mil... unclassified pdf on the matter(65 pages) and talks about the effectiveness of anti ship missiles in littoral waters

This thesis examines the historical effectiveness of anti-ship cruise missiles used in littoral warfare. Missile leakage rates, probability of hit on a given target, and small combatant staying power with respect to Exocet missile equivalents are derived from historical data. These parameters are extended to modem U. S. warships displacing 7,000 tons or less, which are expected to operate in littoral waters, to determine the number of missiles needed in a salvo to inflict a combat kill or sink the warship

so could be interesting to people who have been following this thread

Jepic

Originally posted by Hopechest
Seeing a fleet of ships that size is extremely intimidating when they are parked off your coast.

It is a very effective propaganda tool because they represent the military power that the US holds over any given country.

What can do that better?

Nothing can intimidate a well prepared and equipped general. A smart general will see a big chunk of steel that he can blow up nicely with destroyers.

Keyword, destroyer. A destroyer is much more intimidating.

RalagaNarHallas
reply to post by MConnalley

 

www.howitworksdaily.com... this is all i could find and it was tested on a decommissioned battleship and it took two of them to take it out

Not surprising. The ship, which had to be less than 10,000 tons, was just cruising along saying, "Hit me here." It wasn't defending itself, nor was the USS Stark, 1 4000 ton frigate, which was hit by an Iraqi Exocet in 1987. The only other casualty of an Ecocet was the lightly armored 4800 ton HMS Sheffield during the Argentine war. This missile (and one of the two that his the Stark) did not even detonate.

Compare that to a 100,000 ton carrier surrounded by Arleigh-Burke destroyers with the Aegis anti-missile system. Well, actually there is no comparison, which is to say that comparisons like this aren't valid.

reply to post by edharold


Ships at sea are not usually under the command of a general, at least not since the days of McArthur and Eisenhauer. And only a missle cruiser would have a chance against a carrier and then a_javascript:icon('') very small chance.

Jepic

Originally posted by totallackey
reply to post by Jepic

 

The ocean.

There is no other weapon that possesses the combined might of an aircraft carrier.

A couple of missiles from a destroyer and your carrier is as I said above just a big sinking chunk of steel filled with precious, wasted and lost "could have been" resources that may cost you big time during a war.

If you like to be blown out of the water and have your fleet follow try sinking a US carrier. the US can arm B2s with anti ship weapons and go on a hunting trip for every ship of a enemy.

Countries like Iran could not survive a hunting trip.

reply to post by ANNED


The new LRASM stealthy anti ship weapon has entered testing and is ridiculously accurate. Already been dropped from B-1s.

ANNED
If you like to be blown out of the water and have your fleet follow try sinking a US carrier. the US can arm B2s with anti ship weapons and go on a hunting trip for every ship of a enemy.

Except the, uh, submarines?

Which time and time again in realistic exercises get firing solutions on every surface ship without being detected?

reply to post by mbkennel


Doesn't that hold for any submarine which ends up being part of a carrier support group?

I guess this is why the west doesn't fight enemies with comparable standing military might to its own.

TrueBrit
reply to post by mbkennel

 

Doesn't that hold for any submarine which ends up being part of a carrier support group?

Sure. And the only ones who have a chance against an attacking quiet submarine are the carriers' subs.

I guess this is why the west doesn't fight enemies with comparable standing military might to its own.

I saw a report about US/USSR war simulation; most of the US surface fleet (and presumably the USSR's) was eliminated in 60 minutes.

But obviously nothing can challenge a US carrier group in open ocean other than a nuclear attack submarine (discounting thermonuclear missiles as being unrealistic) and there are very few who have them, USA, Russia, China, U.K., France. India's working on a SSBN.

reply to post by Jepic


'Glad to see this thread with that specific title. I've been around ATS for even longer than my listed start date, and have repeated stoutly stated that same position in multiple threads that more or less invited, such comments, Perhaps I was the first to make that claim and offering reasons why carriers are obsolete for any future world war. (Important distinction there, "...world war.")

Maybe now we can get around to accepting that the US has orbital ships such as discovered by the hacker Gary McKinnon and put that data together with the thousands of reports of the mysterious triangles and conclude that water ships are entirely outdated, from another era, and have been for a couple of decades.

Even without space-based weapons systems (that according to treaty are not allowed) there are plenty of rockets and missile weapons systems that can target flattops. This old business of carriers fighting carriers and being the mainstay of a modern navy is hogwash these days.

A ballistic missile submarine fitted out with RADAC-equipped ASBMs could make light work of an aircraft carrier from a safe stand-off range.

reply to post by Aliensun

Maybe now we can get around to accepting that the US has orbital ships such as discovered by the hacker Gary McKinnon

Orbital ships?

reply to post by Jepic


Subs can be very effective if you aren't looking for them. I understand that we can or could ID the name of the sub by it's sound characteristics. There are other tricks carrier groups play to hide in the ocean. Until you have been offshore for a while it's hard to understand the real size and power of the ocean.

Been there and done that for 12 years on USS America and USS Coontz. Talking about the power of projection of a carrier we once ran a simulated attack run on an Admiral off the coast of Gibraltar. We were in the Red Sea at the time. The attack was simulated but the aircraft were real.

The carrier projects power and Aegis ships accompanying it project defense. Have a bit of old expertise with those systems as well.

Oh did anyone mention that the carriers may have some subs following them around as well. Wanna bet what their targets are?

There are other vulnerabilities that carriers have. I won't mention them here. Some information isn't available for sharing.

ANNED

Jepic

Originally posted by totallackey
reply to post by Jepic

 

The ocean.

There is no other weapon that possesses the combined might of an aircraft carrier.

A couple of missiles from a destroyer and your carrier is as I said above just a big sinking chunk of steel filled with precious, wasted and lost "could have been" resources that may cost you big time during a war.

If you like to be blown out of the water and have your fleet follow try sinking a US carrier. the US can arm B2s with anti ship weapons and go on a hunting trip for every ship of a enemy.

Countries like Iran could not survive a hunting trip.

Agreed. B2's are not obsolete.

Why bother with the carrier then? Just to have an expensive target?

reply to post by mbkennel


The risk is worth the reward, the ability to control an area gives great options for military commanders

Carriers are also designed to be tough, they know that its the command centre for fleet operations so it will be a target even with all the defense systems/escort vessels and even with the best will in the world theres going to be chance that something will get past all the layered defenses so it has to be able to take a few licks and keep on going and given these are the biggest military vessels in existence and well tied in to national pride they don't fancy having them on the sea floor unless its to help make a reef and even then it takes major work and structural weakening to get it to sink

Maxatoria
reply to post by mbkennel

 

The risk is worth the reward, the ability to control an area gives great options for military commanders

Might it not be better to control an area with 10x the B-2's and some long range interceptors + subs?

reply to post by mbkennel


And how do you plan to base the interceptors when there is no land within hundreds of miles or more?