[snakke]

Your hunch is correct. There is a quote from a british naval officer that roughly says that -if they were right [on aircraft carriers being the next best thing and battleships being obsolete] they'd win the war. If they were wrong, they'd lose the empire.-

The exact quote escapes my google-fu sadly. I'm quite postive I've seen it in either one of Indy Neidell and his team's WW2 week-by-week episode[0] or one of the many excellent Drachinifel's videos about all things naval history[1].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP1AejCL4DA7jYkZAELRhHQ [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw

[willhslade]

Just to play devils advocate isn't this happening right now with the US army's dependence on aircraft carriers vs the Chinese and Russian supersonic missiles?

[onepointsixC]

No because Aircraft carriers are mobile and thus significantly harder to hit. Supersonic and Hypersonic's are most effective against fixed assets like airfields and bases who's locations are known ahead of time. China for example likely has missile right now aimed at Okinawa and Guam, just waiting for the order to launch.

Compare that to trying to hit say the USS Ronald Reagan. It is capable of moving 700 miles a day. They need to track its location, have a firing solution, and continuously update the tracking to ensure they actually hit it as opposed to a near miss. All of these stages could be disrupted by US assets.

[ericmay]

Well it would be the U.S. Navy, but not quite. First, how do you even locate the carrier groups? Let’s say you do get lucky and find them. Ok. Now let’s say you launch missiles - ok the carrier group can move and also shoot down missiles. Oh and once you do launch those missiles you’ve committed to a big time war, and you’re open to counter-attack by American forces - not just the carriers but also land-based strike forces.

It’s not like the United States is sitting around saying well jeez I guess China built these missiles and we can’t do anything.

[hef19898]

Locating carriers to day? Easy, satellites and radar. Tag the group leaving port, track it 24/7. Or sonar. The days a surface fleet can hide are gone.

[ericmay]

Ok let’s say you have a satellite and you somehow find US ships. Then what?

And how far is the radar range? Can you truly detect ship signatures with radar without the CSG being out of your range? Maybe a war started and the USAF bombed the Chinese radar stations? Idk.

Anyway, let’s say you launch missiles. Ok? Ships move. Ship missile defense shoots down some missiles, etc.

Now what do you do?

Idk why people think that the U.S. Navy hasn’t considered these things. As if China is going to just build some missiles and launch them and that’s that. Whenever you think things are that easy, you should wonder if you have a grasp on the scenario.

[kovacs_x]

I'm sure all the US carriers are accounted by China 24x7 already! :D

+ if I had to bet, then I'd bet that modern submarines, smart mines & rockets can take out any carrier, ship or whatever, it's just that no one has done it yet for obvious reason of not starting a new WW. It's stealth & speed that gives an edge these days, instead of displaying big, slow chunks of metal in a middle of big swaths of water + even 1 "missed" rocket can make the any ship incapacitated or sunk.. & now imagine 100 hypersonic missiles launched as a swarm.

Imo carriers and ships in general are the "battleships of WW2" (considered supreme, failed miserably). Yes, still works against small countries, with limited capabilities and as a "display of power", yet practically I'd assume they'd be sunk during the first days of a REAL full scale conflict. One should never forget the level of technology during WW2 compared to these days.

ps. it's interesting that China is always considered agreesor, though it's the US that's been involved (directly & indirectly) in most of the wars of the 19th, 20th & 21st century + is the TOP1 seller of the weaponry in the world as of today.

[RugnirViking]

> And how far is the radar range? Can you truly detect ship signatures with radar without the CSG being out of your range?

yes.

> Anyway, let’s say you launch missiles. Ok? Ships move. Ship missile defense shoots down some missiles, etc.

ships move means nothing at all, the missiles are tracking the ships with radar. missile defence shoots down some missiles yes, but usually the idea with these types of attacks is overwhealimg air defence systems with volume of fire, so you fire on the order of 30 missiles at once, and use a probabalistic attack to ensure one or two make it through

Overall, you seem to be the one that isn't very up-to-date. Missiles have been around for almost 80 years, but people are saying things are different now - maybe have a look into why. Hypersonic boost glide missiles can manouver sharply, travel at speeds of up to mach 5, have next to no radar signature, and can time their attacks and manouver such that they come at a carrier group from all angles at once. Many people in the pentagon are sounding the alarm - the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering recently said that such weapons hold carrier groups at risk, and ordered a review into how to defend against the threat. The department of defence has said several times that hypersonics are their "top priority". Just because you don't hear them besides themselves in the media doesn't mean they aren't seriously concerned, but this kind of thing naturally tends to be kept muted in order to not make it obvious if they are defenceless.

The biggest saving grace is that the current systems of this technology have on the order of 1000kms range. terrifying, but can be worked around. However, that range will inevitably increase with time.

[ericmay]

> ships move means nothing at all, the missiles are tracking the ships with radar. missile defence shoots down some missiles yes, but usually the idea with these types of attacks is overwhealimg air defence systems with volume of fire, so you fire on the order of 30 missiles at once, and use a probabalistic attack to ensure one or two make it through

I think you're misunderstanding how these missile systems work and overestimating their ability to "lock on" - it's not a video game where they have near-perfect accuracy.

> Hypersonic boost glide missiles can manouver sharply, travel at speeds of up to mach 5, have next to no radar signature, and can time their attacks and manouver such that they come at a carrier group from all angles at once.

Launch of these missiles can be detected by U.S. space-based assets via their thermal signatures, so the CSG would probably know they are coming (obviously anything can happen in war and maybe this doesn't happen, but it's likely to be detected).

Once detected the CSG can begin evasive maneuvers - spreading out for example. These ships are pretty quick and even small course adjustments may render the missiles ineffective. While the hypersonic missiles can adjust in-flight somewhat, it's much more difficult to be accurate with them. Think about it - they're launching missiles from hundreds of miles away to hit tiny ships in a gigantic ocean at a high rate of speed and those ships can shoot some of the missiles down (or at least the research is being done) and move around. It's difficult for the missile to adjust.

Think about it like this: China launches these missiles, and they're very fast but they're detected. USN ships start immediate evasive maneuvers. They don't have much time, but the missile is so fast it also doesn't have much time to adjust. It's never "locked on" in any sense you may be thinking. So can the ships get out of the way? A near miss might as well be a miss by a million miles. It remains to be seen.

There's also something to consider that they aren't cheap, and there aren't very many of them. These aren't simple cruise missiles, and a Chinese launch of such hypersonic missiles is likely to not be a repeatable attack - even so you open the launch sites up to response from the CSG or air assets from other locations. In many war game scenarios I've read, China essentially launches all of the missiles and damages USN assets in the region, but the U.S. just brings more while also retaliating and destroying Chinese assets. A quick and violent war is the best hope that China has (maybe the U.S. will back down) - but long term it loses a war of attrition based on the chess pieces and what's on the board.

So even if China launched missiles and they were wildly successful, it's not going to end the war but at best buy China some time and a moral victory.

Overall, I highly question the ability of Chinese capabilities to effectively track and put missiles on targets. These capabilities will probably improve over time (unless the Chinese nation collapses due to economic factors) which will basically mean that the U.S. will think twice before attacking China due to a serious concern about damage to naval assets.

> The department of defence has said several times that hypersonics are their "top priority". Just because you don't hear them besides themselves in the media doesn't mean they aren't seriously concerned, but this kind of thing naturally tends to be kept muted in order to not make it obvious if they are defenceless

When you read articles about the U.S. military "sounding the alarm" I would not take that at face value.

As an aside - if you're interested in further reading the Rand Corporation and others put out some pretty fascinating in-depth discussions about topics like these.

[jabl]

> First, how do you even locate the carrier groups?

Perhaps by these SAR satellites China has been launching? SAR satellites have AFAIU been fairly effectively miniaturized recently, enabling a wannabe-superpower like China to send up hundreds or even thousands of them if they want to, making it infeasible to destroy them all cost-effectively at least with today's technology.

I'm not sure what the current level of coverage these things have, but it seems that today the technology exists to track surface naval assets day and night, and through clouds, at a somewhat affordable cost (for a superpower wannabe). So the trick of hiding a carrier battle group in the vast ocean might no longer work.

> the carrier group can move and also shoot down missiles.

Considerably more difficult for ballistic missiles. I would also imagine that missiles in principle could be relatively affordable if they were mass-produced; today they are expensive because they are expensive to develop and there's no demand for a huge number of them. So you could saturate the defenses with enough missiles that even if many were shot down, at some point a sufficient number of them are going to get through.

> Oh and once you do launch those missiles you’ve committed to a big time war, and you’re open to counter-attack by American forces - not just the carriers but also land-based strike forces.

Of course, but that goes the other way as well; if those carriers launch strikes against a big modern opponent you're also in for a big time war. I just hope neither side commits such a folly.

> It’s not like the United States is sitting around saying well jeez I guess China built these missiles and we can’t do anything.

Of course not. Then again, China probably doesn't build those missiles because they think US carrier groups will easily shoot them down. Both sides certainly have smart people, as well as ossified bureaucracies gunning for the last war.

Note I'm not saying the time of carriers is gone. But it's been 80 years since carriers became the kingmakers of naval force projection, and technology has developed quite a bit since, and there (luckily!) has been no major conflict testing out these new developments. I just think it's foolish to be very certain one way or another.

[ericmay]

> Perhaps by these SAR satellites China has been launching? SAR satellites have AFAIU been fairly effectively miniaturized recently, enabling a wannabe-superpower like China to send up hundreds or even thousands of them if they want to, making it infeasible to destroy them all cost-effectively at least with today's technology.

Sure it's possible. I think it's challenging overall but it seems neither of us are completely sure.

> Considerably more difficult for ballistic missiles.

Kind of. Ballistic missiles follow a predictable trajectory - the difference is these hypersonic missiles while mostly following predictable trajectories they can adjust a little bit more at the last second to hit a target.

> I would also imagine that missiles in principle could be relatively affordable if they were mass-produced; today they are expensive because they are expensive to develop and there's no demand for a huge number of them. So you could saturate the defenses with enough missiles that even if many were shot down, at some point a sufficient number of them are going to get through.

Potentially, but then the U.S. may have its own counter-measures. As I think about the costs, the cheapest the cruise missile got to was around $1,000,000. So I wonder how cheap you can make hypersonic missiles in order to create enough of them? They'd have to be hypersonic too b/c the U.S. is likely shooting down others that get too close to the CSG.

But also, what if China goes and builds all these missiles for a war that never comes? Or rather, what if the U.S. just keeps the fleet out of range and just chokes off Chinese supply lines from the sea?

> Of course not. Then again, China probably doesn't build those missiles because they think US carrier groups will easily shoot them down. Both sides certainly have smart people, as well as ossified bureaucracies gunning for the last war.

I agree.

> Note I'm not saying the time of carriers is gone. But it's been 80 years since carriers became the kingmakers of naval force projection, and technology has developed quite a bit since, and there (luckily!) has been no major conflict testing out these new developments. I just think it's foolish to be very certain one way or another.

My bias here is not so much with carriers or the U.S. Navy but by overestimating these missiles and their effectiveness. Whenever I hear all of the armchair generals talking about something (myself included) I immediately have to wonder how we're wrong and why we're wrong. It's like everyone predicting the next market bubble - they latch on to a relatable idea (China has so many missiles they can blow up all of our ships) and stick to it and then barely question that assumption.

[jabl]

> Sure it's possible. I think it's challenging overall but it seems neither of us are completely sure.

I have no idea about the exact capabilities of the Chinese military SAR satellites. But considering that a dinky little startup with a few tens of millions in funding like Iceeye is able to launch half a dozen smallsats with SAR's that have been used for, among others, tracking fishing vessels that have gone dark (shut down their AIS transponders), it seems almost obvious that a high-tech wannabe-superpower would be able to launch boatloads of similar things in order to track foreign naval surface vessels.

> Kind of. Ballistic missiles follow a predictable trajectory - the difference is these hypersonic missiles while mostly following predictable trajectories they can adjust a little bit more at the last second to hit a target.

I was thinking of this supposed Chinese anti-shipping ballistic missile (DF-21D) that has some mid/late course correction ability. The hypersonics everybody is excited about these days are of course a further step ahead of these kinds of things. But yes.

> They'd have to be hypersonic too b/c the U.S. is likely shooting down others that get too close to the CSG.

I think a stealthy subsonic (subsonic for fuel economy enabling long range without having to boost (almost) out of the atmosphere like a ballistic or hypersonic) missile could be an interesting design point - with a supersonic terminal stage. Not sure if such things are on the drawing board anywhere.

> But also, what if China goes and builds all these missiles for a war that never comes?

The same accusation can be leveled at all military spending. What if the US builds a dozen carriers and accompanying battle groups and a war never comes (not counting bombing some 3rd world tinpot dictator)? Oops, the US already did that. You can of course say they provide deterrence or whatever, but so can the Chinese.

> My bias here is not so much with carriers or the U.S. Navy but by overestimating these missiles and their effectiveness. Whenever I hear all of the armchair generals talking about something (myself included) I immediately have to wonder how we're wrong and why we're wrong. It's like everyone predicting the next market bubble - they latch on to a relatable idea (China has so many missiles they can blow up all of our ships) and stick to it and then barely question that assumption.

Fair enough. It's easy enough to get carried away speculating on the capabilities of weapons systems which are closely guarded state secrets.

[JackFr]

The vulnerability of aircraft carriers to cheaper weapons notwithstanding, there is currently no other platform which does what a carrier group does.

So they’re very expensive and much more vulnerable than they were 30 years ago — what else is available to project power 10000 miles from the US in a robust and flexible way? When that thing exists I think we’ll adapt to it quickly.

[magicsmoke]

The other uncomfortable possibility is that there will be no safe way to project force overseas in the face of overwhelming land based systems, and that the US will be limited to projecting force around where it has terrestrial assets and away from rival powers.

[ericmay]

Kind of - but that would just eliminate everyone from projecting power except the United States, who has basis in places like Guam, Germany, Japan, etc.

[jabl]

Well yes, but then again no surface navy comes even close to the USN in terms of power projection capability, so it wouldn't upset the status quo in any way.

But absent a major war proving the point (or not, as it may), that's sort of how the "end of the carrier" could play out peacefully over a longer time: Improved tracking of opponent carriers (be it through satellites, drones or whatever) and improved land-based weapons forces carriers to stand away further and further, necessitating longer ranged strike aircraft. Such aircraft need to be bigger to accommodate the required fuel load, requiring either bigger and more expensive carriers, or fewer planes carried and thus reduced strike capability. Rinse and repeat a few iterations, and at some point you start thinking "what's the point of a mobile carrier since the opponent keeps track of its location 24/7, and my strike aircraft have enough range to launch from land bases anyway?"

[ericmay]

Yes, but that's my point. You get rid of the carriers and then the U.S. is still the only country projecting power due to air bases and a sophisticated global logistics system.

But either way, even if you know where the CSG is, it can defend itself and the land-based weapons have limited range. So if you're China, the U.S. Navy can go harass your shipping lanes, and protect their own supply lines going to strategic locations.

[koheripbal]

Yes, absolutely. The US invests heavily in aircraft carriers because they've worked so magnificently at force projection around the world, without any need for regional bases.

...but with the advent of hypersonic missiles, drones, small attack boats, I have serious doubt how long they would last in any modern non-nuclear conflict.

[onepointsixC]

How long will any regional base last? China or Russia knows where they are and would launch against them in the first minutes of a conflict. CSG's are the most survivable force projection assets that the US has.

[nojokes]

They lost the empire anyway.