I'll point out a few of your errors, no time for them all. Those that are big enough to do major damage
to an aircraft carrier can be intercepted by aircraft
Quite a few in this sentence alone.Hypersonic cruise missiles exist. These are as fast or faster than air to air missiles, making interception tricky to say the least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_weapon#_China Ballistic missiles are also generally going to be traveling at hypersonic speeds. As they descend at steep angles from space. Even tricker than cruise missiles traveling somewhat horizontally. Third, a US carrier hosts about 40 fighters. During high tempo operations a single bird might be in the air up to 10 hours a day or so, but this tempo can't be sustained for long - it's not like you can have 40 simultaneous fighters in the air 24/7. Planes need maintainence, etc. Surely even you can understand that there is a limit to the number of simultaneous missiles these fighters and the rest of the fleet's defenses can intercept. There are a lot of variables that go into that number, and we're talking about classified and rapidly-evolving hardware, but I don't know that anybody thinks it's more than a near-peer could throw at a US carrier group. China is building aircraft carriers to contest
the seas around Taiwan against the U.S.
This is all speculation, unless one of us literally has access to what China's military planners are thinking.But: no. I'd suggest looking at a map. Taiwan is less than a hundred miles from China's mainland. They certainly don't need aircraft carriers to fight a war in the seas around Taiwan. Come on. They are, in all likelihood, primarily planning to use those carriers for force projection elsewhere in the world. (And/or for prestige purposes) There are some informative answers from others in this thread; you would do well to learn about this topic if it interests you. |