Aircraft Carriers = floating coffins?

[Meat Grinder]

A couple of days ago I saw someone on an internet forum make the claim that, in the present day, aircraft carriers are basically expensive floating coffins. He claimed that with modern missile technology, a carrier would have little chance to survive a conflict VS "superpowers". I admit that thought had never occurred to me. Is there any truth to this?

 

[julianj]

I think this is right. Modern missile technology seems, theoretically, very deadly, and with the massive numbers of missiles that can be launched from sea, submarines, air and land (not to mention the DF21 from space) carrier's days are done. Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov wrote a book about this recently.

One other thing, about 20 years ago I was friends with a RN submariner. (this is a bit anecdotal but you either believe me or not) I'd read some stuff in the papers about US CBGs being too protected for hostile submarines to approach. He started laughing, said, "I can't tell you anything classified" and mimed a carrier sinking. I assume he meant that his submarine had been on exercise and penetrated the ASW screen and got a firing solution on the carrier.

 

[jobu88]

I have had this argument a thousand times in school and at work. In my view, all of the "carriers are dead" arguments start from a misconception that only our adversaries are fielding new technologies while our technology is stuck forever at the same level.

Example: 20 years ago in school one of my professors posed the problem of orbiting kinetic penetrators, basically a huge dense spear, that could be de-orbited and hit a ship and go straight through it from deck to keel. Being in orbit, their launch basket would be very large, and coming down at Mach 10 they would be virtually impossible to stop and would deliver so much kinetic energy that the ship would be mission killed if not sunk outright. So if the orbiting weapon could reach its launch basket over the ship, the carrier was as good as dead.

My reply was: replace the words "orbiting kinetic penetrator" with "Japanese dive bomber" and leave all the other words the same. Why didn't Japanese dive bombers make carriers obsolete? Because the carrier and its escorts and the rest of the military forces on our side don't have to just sit there fat dumb and stupid as the Japanese dive bombers approach. We can intercept them 100 miles out. We can put up a flak screen 30 miles out. We can preemptively bomb the airfields needed by the Japanese planes. In the modern age we can intercept orbiting enemy systems while they're still on the other side of the earth. We can use our own kinetic weapons or energy weapons (like the lasers the US Navy has already begun field testing) and shoot down the descending penetrator. We can kill all the DF-21 launchers we can find. And on and on.

I think it's fair to say that over the last 30 years the proliferation of anti-ship missiles have made it more dangerous for ships facing even lower-level nations like Iran, and I can even agree that at the moment the pendulum may have swung a bit in the offensive weapons' favor, but the offensive-defensive race constantly goes back and forth. Lasers are coming soon and have the potential to negate the cruise missile threat. What will come after them? I don't know, but something will be coming to replace lasers one day.

 

[Hapless]

What @jobu88 said: the attack-defence seesaw is not static and comes with the added spice of tactical employment.

The part nobody ever seems to consider is how mad the Americans would get if someone sank one of their carriers.

The US spends about three times as much on defence as China and Russia combined... in peace time, at a measly 3-4% of its GDP. If someone was dumb enough to kill several thousand US servicemen by taking out a supercarrier, then God help them when the US Navy gets an increased budget!

 

[Meat Grinder]

The part nobody ever seems to consider is how mad the Americans would get if someone sank one of their carriers.

That's an interesting observation. By your "gateway to the Dales" forum location, I'm taking a guess that you reside somewhere near the Yorkshire Dales in northern England.

As an American, I can say with certainty that, yea, if one of our aircraft carriers were to be destroyed, there would be a call to arms.

 

[Gnarly]

As an American, I can say with certainty that, yea, if one of our aircraft carriers were to be destroyed, there would be a call to arms

Of course, if the US is already in a major war with say China, then this is redundant.

I think this discussion about carriers as coffins, has mostly recently stemmed from China's deployment of the ‘ship killer’ DF-26 missiles .. Google it, lots of media such as:

China activates ‘ship killer’ DF-26 missiles after ‘sink two carriers’ threat

Beijing has moved to make good on its threat to ‘sink two aircraft carriers’, stating it has activated ‘ship killer’ ballistic missiles in response to a US Navy challenge earlier this week.

www.news.com.au

 

[Louis]

The Aircraft Carrier Is In Danger Of Becoming the Next Battleship (As in Obsolete)

The Aircraft Carrier Is In Danger Of Becoming the Next Battleship (As in Obsolete)

Against any near-peer adversary, aircraft carriers are far too vulnerable to be of much use.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Rico]

I have had this argument a thousand times in school and at work. In my view, all of the "carriers are dead" arguments start from a misconception that only our adversaries are fielding new technologies while our technology is stuck forever at the same level.

Example: 20 years ago in school one of my professors posed the problem of orbiting kinetic penetrators, basically a huge dense spear, that could be de-orbited and hit a ship and go straight through it from deck to keel. Being in orbit, their launch basket would be very large, and coming down at Mach 10 they would be virtually impossible to stop and would deliver so much kinetic energy that the ship would be mission killed if not sunk outright. So if the orbiting weapon could reach its launch basket over the ship, the carrier was as good as dead.

My reply was: replace the words "orbiting kinetic penetrator" with "Japanese dive bomber" and leave all the other words the same. Why didn't Japanese dive bombers make carriers obsolete? Because the carrier and its escorts and the rest of the military forces on our side don't have to just sit there fat dumb and stupid as the Japanese dive bombers approach. We can intercept them 100 miles out. We can put up a flak screen 30 miles out. We can preemptively bomb the airfields needed by the Japanese planes. In the modern age we can intercept orbiting enemy systems while they're still on the other side of the earth. We can use our own kinetic weapons or energy weapons (like the lasers the US Navy has already begun field testing) and shoot down the descending penetrator. We can kill all the DF-21 launchers we can find. And on and on.

I think it's fair to say that over the last 30 years the proliferation of anti-ship missiles have made it more dangerous for ships facing even lower-level nations like Iran, and I can even agree that at the moment the pendulum may have swung a bit in the offensive weapons' favor, but the offensive-defensive race constantly goes back and forth. Lasers are coming soon and have the potential to negate the cruise missile threat. What will come after them? I don't know, but something will be coming to replace lasers one day.

I listened to a talk recently discussing that in future AI driven autonomous underwater drones acting as mini attack submarines and self-deploying mines will be a true game changer in naval warfare.
Figuring how to communicate with them is the real hurdle at moment.

 

[Hapless]

By your "gateway to the Dales" forum location, I'm taking a guess that you reside somewhere near the Yorkshire Dales in northern England.

Yep. I'm inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park by about 100m.

Another carrier vs missile point is that things don't become useless because they are vulnerable. Infantrymen started being vulnerable when the first caveman threw a rock at another- it doesn't mean that you don't still need boots on the ground. Carriers have always been vulnerable- torpedoes, aircraft, anti-ship missiles and nuclear weapons are all up there as anti-carrier weapons.

Carriers are all about force projection, which is necessary for the US because it has to cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific if it wants to fight anyone. If they need to demonstrate support for an ally (Taiwan, as a non-random example) then they can send a carrier group... which is a much more significant demonstration of intent than sending a fundamentally passive air defence (or anti-ship) missile system. If they need to invade somewhere then even if friendly ground bases are available, the presence of a mobile airfield somewhere off the coast is a massive pain for defence planners. So America has a fundamental geostrategic need for carriers or something like them that isn't going to go away any time soon.

Plus... they must be really scary. The Russians are constantly going on about how amazing their fancy new weapons are and the Chinese are so terrified that they're actually building a screen of island fotresses to cover their coast and keep the US Navy at arms length. If carriers were obsolete it wouldn't make much sense to invest in so much R&D, propaganda and physical effort to counter them or deter their use. Not to mention that the US has a far more considerable anti-ship capability than its "near-peer" potential adversaries yet the Russians keep the Admiral Kuznetsov running (somehow- part of it is probably on fire right now) and the Chinese are actually building carriers.

 

[Rico]

Yep. I'm inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park by about 100m.

Another carrier vs missile point is that things don't become useless because they are vulnerable. Infantrymen started being vulnerable when the first caveman threw a rock at another- it doesn't mean that you don't still need boots on the ground. Carriers have always been vulnerable- torpedoes, aircraft, anti-ship missiles and nuclear weapons are all up there as anti-carrier weapons.

Carriers are all about force projection, which is necessary for the US because it has to cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific if it wants to fight anyone. If they need to demonstrate support for an ally (Taiwan, as a non-random example) then they can send a carrier group... which is a much more significant demonstration of intent than sending a fundamentally passive air defence (or anti-ship) missile system. If they need to invade somewhere then even if friendly ground bases are available, the presence of a mobile airfield somewhere off the coast is a massive pain for defence planners. So America has a fundamental geostrategic need for carriers or something like them that isn't going to go away any time soon.

Plus... they must be really scary. The Russians are constantly going on about how amazing their fancy new weapons are and the Chinese are so terrified that they're actually building a screen of island fotresses to cover their coast and keep the US Navy at arms length. If carriers were obsolete it wouldn't make much sense to invest in so much R&D, propaganda and physical effort to counter them or deter their use. Not to mention that the US has a far more considerable anti-ship capability than its "near-peer" potential adversaries yet the Russians keep the Admiral Kuznetsov running (somehow- part of it is probably on fire right now) and the Chinese are actually building carriers.

...and you need to get close enough to them... and they can reach out very far to touch you in return.

Attack submarines are probably greatest danger to them.

 

[holoween]

Aircraft Carriers are in the same situation battleships were in the 1920s. Not obsolete yet but the technology that will make them obsolete already exists.

 

[mcmortison]

a friend of mine works for the ETH and told me that they are working on a concept to "fight" aginst drones with concentrated microwave beams "fired" in mutiple frequences and Intervalls. according to him they are talking about taking the concept even furter so it could be used to cripple a incoming missle.

(I am not sure if his clames are true, but he explaind the concept Relais on "Induktion" -> the the waves generate electricity which destroys vital parts of the flight Control System)

 

[A Canadian Cat]

LOL you could argue that any ship is a floating coffin. Any building is a pile of rubble waiting to happen. I'm sure there is merit to that in some sense. But to call them obsolete is a bit of a stretch. A carrier group is still single greatest way to reach out and project power anywhere you need to. And the central force in that is still the carrier itself. Weather it's muscling you way in to Syria (Russians and the US), making sure the international sea lanes stay free in the Pacific or combating pirates along the coast of Africa, there are substitutes but none that get things started faster and none that drop a large force right were its needed like a carrier.

 

[Meat Grinder]

Carriers are all about force projection, which is necessary for the US because it has to cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific if it wants to fight anyone.

Oh? You forgot Mexico and Canada!

 

[A Canadian Cat]

LOL we are on your side - mostly

 

[Meat Grinder]

yet the Russians keep the Admiral Kuznetsov running (somehow- part of it is probably on fire right now) and the Chinese are actually building carriers.

LOL, you made me look it up. The Admiral Kuznetsov, from Wikipedia:

In early January 2017, it was announced that Admiral Kuznetsov and her battlegroup would be ceasing operations in Syria and returning to Russia as part of a scaling back of Russian involvement in the conflict.[63] During her deployment off Syria, aircraft from Admiral Kuznetsov carried out 420 combat missions, hitting 1,252 hostile targets.[64] On 11 January 2017, Admiral Kuznetsov was conducting live-fire training exercises in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya.[65] The Russian defence ministry announced that on 11 January, Admiral Kuznetsov was visited by Libya′s military leader Khalifa Haftar, who had a video conference with Russian defence minister Sergey Shoygu while on board.[66][67]

On 20 January Admiral Kuznetsov was sighted passing west through the Strait of Gibraltar and six days later she was escorted back along the English Channel by three Eurofighter Typhoons of the Royal Air Force and the Type 23 frigate HMS St Albans (F83).[68] She arrived back in Severomorsk on 9 February.[69] On 23 February 2017, President Putin said that the ship′s deployment to the Mediterranean had been his personal initiative.[70][71] The carrier started an overhaul and modernisation in the first quarter of 2017. This is expected to extend its service life by 25 years.[72]

Admiral Kuznetsov is expected to undergo modernization at the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk between 2020 and 2021, upgrading the ship's power plant and electronics systems.[73]

On 30 October 2018, Admiral Kuznetsov was damaged when Russia’s biggest floating dry dock, the PD-50, sank and one of its 70-ton cranes crashed onto the deck leaving behind a 5-meter gash right across the middle of the flight deck. One person was reported missing and four injured as the dry dock sank in Kola Bay. Admiral Kuznetsov was in the process of being removed from the dock when the accident happened, and was towed to a nearby yard after the accident.[74][75] The cost for repairs of the damage was estimated to 70 million rubles (about 1 million dollars) and should not affect the timing of the currently undergoing overhaul and modernization of the ship.[76] Although it is unclear how the overhaul and repair schedule would not be affected with this dry dock sunk.[77]

 

[Gnarly]

@Meat Grinder if you do some more digging, you'll find that boat has a few issues, including the loss of two combat aircraft while doing Syrian operations due to serious issues with its arresting cables, and major propulsion problems....

 

[Nemesis]

I would answer the question "are carriers floating coffins?" by asking the question "how good are anti-missile technologies right now?"

If anti-missile technologies can reliably shoot down missiles, then carriers (and main battle tanks) are good to go.

If not, then carriers are floating coffins.

I suspect that, right now, anti-missile technologies are ascendant. Anti-ship missiles are also very expensive. But one technological innovation could change that equation.

And, of course, just nuking a fleet can also change this equation.......

 

[HOA_KSOP]

And, of course, just nuking a fleet can also change this equation.......

Which might be why Iran wants nukes so bad.

North Korea wants them so they can IMP over the West coast and destroy the US economy.

But if they can build active technology that defends tanks from RPG's and TOW's, I suspect they can do the same for air defense missiles. The problem is going to be hypersonic.

Lasers will work....in clear weather. If the weather is dirty, I don't think they work so hot.

Google Project Thor.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

Which might be why Iran wants nukes so bad.

Naw it's much simpler than that. They want to be an existential threat to Israel and there by ensure the US will not preemptively take out the regime. Mind you they actually did agree to pull back from their program in order to impove the lives of their citizens - well the political class managed to get a deal done over the objections of the republican guard that wants to continue to keep the spoils of the dictatorship in their hands.

North Korea wants them so they can IMP over the West coast and destroy the US economy.

Again the threat of such a thing will ensure the Kim regime will continue to be able to plunder the country.

But if they can build active technology that defends tanks from RPG's and TOW's, I suspect they can do the same for air defense missiles. The problem is going to be hypersonic.

Intercepting hypersoinic or sub sonic doesn't really change the math any. It just means all the components have to perform faster. In other words a solvable problem.

Lasers will work....in clear weather. If the weather is dirty, I don't think they work so hot.

I am not convinced that lasers will work actually. The power needed is pretty dramatic and unlike an explosion that just needs to be in an appropriate proximity lazers need to be spot on and maintain tracking. It is a solvable problem too just the power one doesn't have a current practical solution.