MILITARY - aircraft carriers are dinosaurs? Agree or disagree?

Hawkeye10 said:
The cost of a few missiles needed to sink a carrier compared to the cost of building and operating a carrier should be considered.
Click to expand...

the ability of a carrier group to not only deter, but prevent and survive missile attacks is severely underestimated..........but what do I know..........i'm only a Marine
 
SmarterthanYou said:
the ability of a carrier group to not only deter, but prevent and survive missile attacks is severely underestimated..........but what do I know..........i'm only a Marine
Click to expand...

Most likely you have been lied to.

The Empire is not worried about our carriers, they are sure that they have a plan that will work.
 
Not only is the Empire confident that they can find and sink our carriers quickly, but also the aircraft on those carriers are so short ranged that they will prove mostly useless before they are sunk.
 
If carriers are so useless, why are the Chinese, Japanese, and S. Koreans all rushing to build some of their own?

S. Korea
LPX-2-capabilities.jpg


Japan
image


Chinese (under construction)
type-003.jpeg
 
SmarterthanYou said:
the ability of a carrier group to not only deter, but prevent and survive missile attacks is severely underestimated..........but what do I know..........i'm only a Marine
Click to expand...

1) Aegis cannot even detect hypersonic cruise missiles.

'U.S. defense officials have stated that both existing
terrestrial- and space-based sensor architectures are
insufficient to detect and track hypersonic weapons'

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11623
(top of second column on Page 1)

And even the latest SM-6 interceptors cannot shoot them down either.

'according to MDA director
Vice Admiral Jon Hill, it would not have been ready to
transition into development until sometime in the 2030s.
MDA instead delayed the program and, in April 2021,
initiated the Glide Phase Interceptor(GPI), which is to be
integrated with the Aegis Weapon System.GPI seeks to
provide a hypersonic missile defense capability by the midto late 2020s.'

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11623
(near bottom of first column on Page 2)


2) The Russian 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missile can (supposedly) go Mach 8-9 at low levels for up to 270 nautical miles. These missiles can adjust their course during flight. And are rumored to have decoys.
Up to 72 of them can be loaded on each Kirov Class battlecruiser.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M22_Zircon

Until at least the end of this decade (it seems)?
The US Navy has no way to reliably track and shoot down a single hypersonic, cruise missile.
And if the Russians/Chinese launched salvos of them (say 20)?
Assuming they were accurate enough?
They would clearly sink/severely damage even a Ford class carrier.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
If carriers are so useless, why are the Chinese, Japanese, and S. Koreans all rushing to build some of their own?
Click to expand...

The Chinese have the need for showing the flag all around the world, the Koreans and the Japanese are desperate for anything they can find to give them leverage against the Empire. It is not that carriers are completely useless, it is that they will prove useless against the Empire.
 
McRocket said:
1) Aegis cannot even detect hypersonic cruise missiles.

'U.S. defense officials have stated that both existing
terrestrial- and space-based sensor architectures are
insufficient to detect and track hypersonic weapons'

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11623
(top of second column on Page 1)

And even the latest SM-6 interceptors cannot shoot them down either.

'according to MDA director
Vice Admiral Jon Hill, it would not have been ready to
transition into development until sometime in the 2030s.
MDA instead delayed the program and, in April 2021,
initiated the Glide Phase Interceptor(GPI), which is to be
integrated with the Aegis Weapon System.GPI seeks to
provide a hypersonic missile defense capability by the midto late 2020s.'

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11623
(near bottom of first column on Page 2)


2) The Russian 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missile can (supposedly) go Mach 8-9 at low levels for up to 270 nautical miles. These missiles can adjust their course during flight. And are rumored to have decoys.
Up to 72 of them can be loaded on each Kirov Class battlecruiser.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M22_Zircon

Until at least the end of this decade (it seems)?
The US Navy has no way to reliably track and shoot down a single hypersonic, cruise missile.
And if the Russians/Chinese launched salvos of them (say 20)?
Assuming they were accurate enough?
They would clearly sink/severely damage even a Ford class carrier.
Click to expand...

The Chinese are so confident that we must assume that they have a space based system connected to AI that always knows where the carriers are, and thus can sink them almost instantly with their new systems which were designed specifically to take out carriers.
 
Keep in mind that the Empires satellite killers will take out instantly the communication system that was supposed to make the F-35 so great, making them dead ducks as they are as an individual unit a pretty shitty plane.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
If carriers are so useless, why are the Chinese, Japanese, and S. Koreans all rushing to build some of their own?

S. Korea
LPX-2-capabilities.jpg


Japan
image


Chinese (under construction)
type-003.jpeg
Click to expand...

How should I know? I am not them.

But a guess?
Political ego (carriers REALLY impress the ignorant masses).
Congressional/government ignorance/stupidity/stubbornness.
Military lethargy.
Military stupidity.

There have been LOTS of examples in military history of countries continuing to build weapons systems even when it was obvious they were obsolete.
Like all of the battleships built in WW2 when it was plain to see that the battleship's use was over for anything but carrier support or shore bombardment.
And on and on
.

But alright.

Just to prove how stupid government military allocations can be?

The Brits just finished two, GIGANTIC (for them) 65,000 ton aircraft carriers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth-class_aircraft_carrier

Yet, outside of Pitcairn Island (with only 50 inhabitants)?
They have NO overseas territories in the ENTIRE Pacific.
And their only one in the Indian Ocean is shared with America (Diego Garcia).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...es)_in_the_World_(+Antarctica_claims).svg.png

So what are they going to do with them?
Plus?
They are V/STOL.
Only a complete dufus makes a 65,000 ton aircraft carrier V/STOL.
Especially when you do not even have any V/STOL combat aircraft (so they had to buy them from America).
Which means they will have NO decent AEW (airborne early warning) aircraft or COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery).
And the ONLY fixed wing combat aircraft they can use is the F-35B which has a far lower range and payload capability of any, major, carrier-borne combat aircraft today.

Anyone with half a brain in their heads (on this subject) could see that they would have been FAR better off to just build 2 or 3 amphibious assault ships of about 20-25,000 tons each.
They would have cost a tiny fraction of the QE's. They still could have flown the F-35B's off of them. They could launch amphibious assaults with heavy equipment (the QE's cannot). And they would be hugely more versatile.
But...EGO took over.
The Royal Navy wanted proper, BIG carriers.
And so - that is what they got.
 
I heard a rumour that we left a super top secret control system in Afghanistan, and that the Empire had never had one of those to reverse engineer.

I hope that is wrong.
 
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Surely if we realized it was not getting out we would have sent forces back to destroy it right?

My confidence in our military is so low now that I cant assume that we did.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
the point is that the cost of one or two missiles that will incapacitate or sink a carrier group is probably 7 or 8 times the cost of a durable carrier group
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Just the USS Ford aircraft carrier alone cost about $13 billion.

Throw in her aircraft ($6+ billion), 4 Arleigh Burke Destroyers ($8 billion for 4 - once the Ticonderoga's retire) and one Virginia class submarine ($3 billion)?

Off of the top of my head?

That is at least $27-30 billion for a Carrier Strike Group (without replenishment ships).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier


The anticipated price tag of the Russian 3M22 is only $1-2 million per missile.

https://oidagroup.com/russia-on-the-path-to-hypersonic-war/
(near the bottom of the page)

They are not that big.
About 25 feet long and weigh about 1,200 pounds.

Development is expensive (obviously).
But the missiles themselves are not.
 
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