So this demonstration looks likely a response to that, not specifically about WMD threats this time
Probably both these tests were under ideal conditions, as usual, but they're about sending a message as much as anything practical
Moreover, the Chinese test was an intermediate range missile, not an ICBM. The scenario tested here is more like NK taking a single shot at the west coast.
EDIT: I'm not saying the US should ever go to war with North Korea, only that there is no possible outcome where North Korea goes to war with the US that does not result in the total decapitation of military capacity of North Korea. It would be like when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to "demoralize the American people". It just doesn't work that way.
South Korea would obviously wants support from the US and the rest of the world, but I'm pretty sure they can flatten North Korea right back if they're fired upon.
A deterrent is not very effective if the thing it's intended to deter actually happens.
- NK has a LOT of artillery, but the majority of this artillery doesn't actually have the range to target Seoul from within NK.
- To significantly damage Seoul, NK would have to concentrate most of the necessary artillery into a rather small area. That would make the artillery easy for the south to target, and difficult for the north to mobilise away quickly (say if they needed to retreate for whatever reason). It would also leave this force more vulnerable to something like an encirclement.
- Assuming hostilities are unavoidable, there would be little military benefit to NK doing this. It would leave military assets in the south free to retaliate in any way they see fit rather than having to recoup from damage a bombardment would bring. It would also further jeapordise any attempts for a peace settlement, or international aid (which NK would surely need due to its military inferiority when compared with the south).
- It is likely that the north would be unable to hold the border for that long, and would be pushed back, so any potential artillery barrage wouldn't last for long.
- NK has a very weak airforce compared to the south, so the amount of functional artillery it could field would drop quite quickly due to airstrikes.
That said, Seoul being targeted is a terrifying prospect, and it would likely happen in a conflict, but I think you are slightly overstating this scenario.
Also, any attack on Seoul would also hurt the economy of SK yes, but a war with the north probably wouldn't last long enough for that to be a factor (although admittedly this is hard to predict with any certainty). And even if the souths economy contracted, say, 50%, it is still larger than the north by an order of magnitude).
If we assume Seoul is largely destroyed, the economic damage I'm thinking of comes from a few different places, not from the war going on but from the aftermath. Many people could die, causing both a loss of expertise and simple manpower. Housing would be destroyed, such that those that did survive would need emergency housing. The massive destruction of property would burn up trillions of dollars in real estate investment. And lastly, specialized commercial and industrial properties would be destroyed. I don't know to what degree Seoul is an industrial capital, but there's likely some of this at least.
This can definitely be done in both directions.
There are, of course, other considerations, but Seoul would be very difficult to defend from 'simple' weapons like artillery. The US is very proud of it's ability to fire artillery 40 miles (64km), but Pyongyang is much further than that.
Everything I've read suggests the Seoul is a casualty of any conflict. Regardless of the eventual 'winner'.
Once someone on either side has been killed in war, both sides permanently lose. There are no take-backs, only damaged soldiers on both sides and casualties.
Both Seoul and Pyongyang are within range of their adversaries' weapons.
The point oblio is maintaining upthread is that because SK and her allies have much more advanced weaponry NK doesn't have a chance of standing against them in a conventional conflict. That's true, but misses the point.
Before NK had nuclear weapons one of their main deterrents was that they'd had years/decades to fortify conventional artillery at the border pointed at Seul. So even if their military couldn't stand a chance in a conventional war they could plausibly threaten MAD by holding Seul hostage.
That's the context in which the border proximity is brought up. Replying to that by saying that Pyongyang is 150 km from the border or whatever is irrelevant.
Yes of course the US could win an all-out conventional war with an enemy 50, 150 or 1500 km from its border. That was never in question.
The question was whether a relatively weaker enemy could present an outsized threat due to some strategic geographic position.
That's been the case with NK precisely because mid-century artillery technology can be dug-in close enough to the border to matter.
Whereas if the border happened to be 150 km away those assets could be taken out by missiles once they tried to move in position to shoot on a major target like Seul.
Whether the NK artillery actually poses a strategic threat is another matter. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all mapped out be the US/SK and would be taken out in the first 5 minutes of a conflict by targeted missile attacks.
But it's not just a strategic question, but whether e.g. NK can make threats that are taken seriously by the SK population for it to pressure its government to make some concessions to NK.
Sadly no. There are so many UGFs (underground facilities) on the JIPTL (Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List) and we don't have anywhere near enough ordnance of the right types staged to hit them all before Seoul is a smoking crater. I've participated in 5 or 6 of the big Korean Theater exercises[1][2], working at a Corps-level HQ. The entire country is a reinforced underground fortress. Remember how we shelled Iwo Jima for several days and still barely scratched the defences on Mt Suribachi? NK is like that, but worse. They've had 60 years to dig in, and instead of a small island a few miles wide, the fortress is the size of Indiana.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Resolve [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulchi-Freedom_Guardian
This is not 1945.
Thats why diplomacy is the way forward. Our species cant go through a global war with countries outdoing each other to kill civilians.
I think we are in agreement here.
You are right that they might not use the same weapons, but long-range precision guided artillery is expensive. Because the shells are expensive, not all countries have enough to use them without limit as was the case in WW2 - where in the last few months of the Western Front the allies preferred to expend munitions rather than their own soldiers' lives.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/mapping-t...
NK has enough completely conventional artillery in range of Seoul to deliver a Hiroshima level attack. Their WMD programme is about deterring outsiders.
As crazy as North Korea is, if they fire first, South Korea isn't just a sitting duck.
North Korea would probably be obliterated just from South Korea hitting back, let alone if anyone else allied to South Korea jumps in.
Micro scale MAD. North Korea is just grandstanding for food, it doesn't really mean that they will follow through. I mean, they're a dictatorship, so who knows.
There's no doubt the US and allies will be victorious, barring massive strategic blunders, but there's also no way to prevent horrific levels of destruction.
To say nothing of China stepping in and kicking off WWIII.
It’s not clear the regime is prioritizing this aspect of their military beyond paper tiger levels.
People actually have to keep loading and firing those guns. And not run out of ammo. And the guns have to not break down.
Then, maybe North Korea can get to millions of casualties.
That, combined with how quickly and effectively the US and South Korea can start firing counterbattery missions and establish air superiority to attack the Northern batteries from the air.
The idea is to deploy, fire a few shots and the GTFO as quickly as possible, as the other side has detected your projectiles via counter battery radar and likely sent their own, all possibly within seconds of your first round being fired & often in an automatic manner.
Its reportedly even crazier for mortars - mortars shells move much more slowly than artillery shells, yet you can platform the origin of their trajectory just as well.
This can theoretically result in the mortar being destroyed by a counter battery artilery shell before the first mortars shell it fired even impacts.
So no wonder fixed artilery emplacements might be considered less viable when cutting edge artillery tech is considered.
Hardly. NK nukes don't really change SK's MAD vulnerability calculus; it's more of a factor for the US. I worked with a guy who was present in 2010 during that year's Key Resolve....when the "exercise" suddenly became very real due to the sinking of the Cheonan.[1] He was dialed into the video teleconferences that were held by the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the ROK military leadership was absolutely furious and was legitimately ready to basically re-start the war, and that it was the USFK Commander (the US military 4-star who would command the fight) who had to talk the ROK generals down from the ledge.
It came up in conversation I think during 2016's Ulchi Freedom Guardian because the NKs were launching ballistic missiles during the exercise and we all experienced a "pucker factor" for a moment because we weren't sure if they were escalating the conflict or not. Then the missile trajectories indicated they'd land in the ocean and we could breathe again. Fun times.
No-one is going to start an actual war.
If China will say "jump" to Kim, he will, for as long as the physical security of Kim's family is provided (which is pretty much the one, and only carrot China been using with them)
Humans don't reason, they rationalize.
The US had already effectively declared war on the US at that point from the point of view of Japan. They'd demanded an unconditional withdrawal from China.
There's some alternate history where Russia never sold Alaska and Japan military bases there. What do you think if the US had done in 1941 if Japan demanded it withdraw from the "occupied" territory West of the Mississippi and return it to native control, while amassing a fleet in Russian/Japanese Alaska?
Furthermore, maybe Japan just wanted the US withdrawn from New Mexico & Nevada[2] (post 1937 occupied territories), but left the demand delibirately ambiguous so as to suggest everything west of the Mississippi (Manchuria)[2] (search for "was later deleted").
I'm not suggesting those are morally equivalent, but merely that Japan at the time pretty much saw it that way. Manchuria was around half of the empire's territory.
So suggesting that Perl Harbor wasn't reasonable is a pretty big stretch. Unless one of your options is to effectively become a vassal state of the US (unconditionally abandon >50% of your territory) war was inevitable.
At that point they could either take the initiative at Perl Harbor, or wait until the US attacked them at its leisure.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Diploma...
There's no way to paint the conflict in the region as justified. The Japanese were clearly seeking to expand their empire, after having tasted victory defeating Imperial Russia. Just because countries stood in their way doesn't justify their actions, and simplifying it down to fighting Mike Tyson isn't very critical thinking.
I'm not suggesting anything about Japan's moral right to engage in those campaigns.
I'm replying to fatbird's upthread comment to the effect that a general in the Empire of Japan could realistically decide on either of "how about we let them attack first?" or "how about we just do what they're suggesting for nothing in return, and stop being such dicks to everyone?".
Which is essentially what the suggestion that the attack on Perl Harbor wasn't "rational" from the Japanese perspective amounts to.
The whole problem of how they ended up in the situation that culminated with their defeat in WWII is pretty much that no one person could steer them off the course of inevitable destruction.
So a general deciding to attack Perl Harbor is making the best and most rational decision he can make and has power to make, within a framework of decision making that amounts to steering the country into the iceberg.
I do take back that they would have become a "vassal state of the US". Vassal states get something tangible in return, the US wasn't offering anything except implied war and destruction in return for unconditional demands. I think "puppet state" or "satellite state" is a more apt description in that context.
The Japanese military establishment in the 1930's was hellbent on expanding their influence. They had defeated Imperial Russia, and felt like it was their time in the sun. They had complete dominance over the government, and chose, yes chose to undertake a path of aggression towards their neighbors. First they started with Manchuria, and installed a puppet government. Then they moved on China.
Unsurprisingly, this provoked concern amongst other countries that had interests in the region. The Dutch (Indonesia), the British (Singapore and Malaysia), and the US (Philippines) realized the threat posed by the expanding Japanese empire. At the time the US was still in the midst of the Great Depression and was in no state to challenge Japan militarily, so they used an oil embargo to try and persuade the Japanese to adhere to international agreements.
It wasn't until 1941 that the US cut off oil to Japan. At this point, Japan had already invaded and controlled Manchuria, invaded and controlled a majority of China. When Japan seized control of Indochina, the US and allies attempted to influence Japan to leave Indochina by seizing US held assets, and embargoing oil. Japan had anticipated this and began a regional war attacking both the US, Dutch and UK territories.
You seem to imply that these things just "happen" and that no one is in control or making decisions. While history often seems to have an impetus of its own, it's the result of choices leaders and people make. Tojo and his warmongers sought out conflict in the region, dismissed counsel from wiser heads, and set Japan on a course to ruin.
Hirohito made a choice to continue to allow the militarist factions in the Japanese government to hold sway. But to point to the day the go ahead was given to Isoroku Yamamoto as the crux of the issue is to miss the point; he holds responsibility, as did the other military leaders and the Emperor. They knew the risks when they invaded Indochina; they knew the latent power of the US, but they underestimated their foes, and overestimated their own ability to wage war.
Attacking Pearl Harbor was irrational, both in hindsight, but also in terms of what the Japanese knew at the time. It was less than a year before the IJN began to experience catastrophic losses, and after Guadalcanal, there IJN was on its back foot for the rest of the war.
What could Japan have done differently? They could have restrained themselves from invading Indochina and prompting the expect oil embargo. If that wasn't feasible, they could have relinquished control of Indochina, though that would have caused a tremendous loss of face. They could have attacked and invaded the Dutch East Indies to gain oil, and odds are the US wouldn't have gotten involved. Great Britain was pretty busy with fighting Germany at the time and wouldn't have been able to help the Dutch much. If they did, the Japanese would easily defeat them in Singapore, as they did on Dec 8th.
The isolationist sentiment in the US at the time wouldn't have allowed the US to intervene. We weren't intervening in the European war, despite Lend-Lease, and sure wouldn't have intervened in Asia unless directly attacked.
Uh, no, I did not imply that in the least.
I think you're just on some rant against a strawman view that the Empire of Japan wasn't militaristic or an aggressor nation in Manchuria or Pearl Harbor / WWII.
I didn't suggest anything of the sort, I was merely replying to the narrow question of whether an admiral on Isoroku Yamamoto's staff could be considered irrational for going along with the Pearl Harbor attack.
I don't think that's the case for exactly the reasons you seem to agree with and are arguing for.
What options do you think an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan at the time when, as you've noted, his boss's-boss's and boss's-boss's-boss's etc. are clearly in favor of that general strategy?
The idea that the Hull note was perceived as a casus belli isn't some fringe conspiracy theory. If you e.g. read the Wikipedia articles involved such as [1] and [2] they cite scholars who agree (and others who disagree) with that view.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...
<demanded unconditional withdrawal from China.>
This is factually incorrect. The goal of the oil embargo was to get Japan out of Indochina, not China or Manchuria. Japan could have finessed this by installing a puppet regime (ala Manchuko), but their arrogance wouldn't allow that.
Now you move from
<a general deciding to attack Perl(sic) Harbor is making the best and most rational decision>
to
<an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan>
Yamato is the architect of both the tactical plan of attacking Pearl Harbor, as well as the strategy of reducing American seapower (by attacking PH) and then defeating them in a decisive battle (Midway). He's not some lower ranking officer, he's the intellectual and martial spirit of the IJN.
This also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the power and influence of Yamamoto. Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family. Yamamoto could have used this influence earlier, to moderate Tojo's ambitions, and to avoid conflict with the US. He knew that Japan could never defeat the US over time, but still acted irrationally in a way that failed Japan.
You're also confused about the timing of the oil embargo, and the Hull note. The oil embargo (along with other trade restrictions and confiscation of Japanese assets) began immediately in July 41 after the Japanese began to make obvious preparations to attack either the British in Malaya, or the Dutch in the East Indies.
The Hull note was a last ditch attempt in late November to forestall war. At this point, war was inevitable; the attack on Pearl Harbor had been planned since Spring of 41, and the Kido Butai had already departed before the Hull note was sent.
Where did I mention anything about the oil embargo? You're the one who brought that up, and now you're arguing with yourself.
The historians who are of the opinion that the Hull note amounts to a declaration of war aren't talking about the aspect of it that relates to oil.
Nobody thinks a refusal to trade goods amounts to a declaration of war, rather the part where the US implicitly threatens "or else" if Japan doesn't sign on to some version of a wide ranging policy agreement it didn't find palatable.
> Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family.
It sounds like you're in agreement with my point then.
This whole thread is about the supposed irrationality of Japanese admirals subservient to Yamamoto. Not about what Yamamoto could have done.
I invite you to re-read fatbird's upthreads comment while you're looking for some place where I directly or indirectly mentioned anything about oil (I didn't), I.e.:
> "The Japanese generals and admirals agreed to the attack on Pearl Harbour despite the admiral leading it[...]"
Easy to claim what "a sane person" would do from the arrogant POV of a western average citizen, but reality looks very different.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-an...
I've even had people on HN arguing with me that such a war was the "rational" thing to do - which I found rather disturbing, to say the least.
On the other hand, it does feel threatened, and having a dangerous weapon and acting reckless keeps possible attackers at bay.
But if an all-out war between NK and the US started, it would be started by the only ones who can possibly think of winning it, that is the US.
This is, after all, what American presidents have been doing for the past few decades.
1. NK is not expansionary.
2. NK has nukes. US does not want anyone to use nukes, even a little one.
3. Any attack on NK means many deaths in SK.
4. Bad press.
War was desired by all parties - at least in the beginning. People celebrated when war started - look up archive photos and movies. Everybody thought that they'll have a nice fight, down a beer at the pub afterwards and be home by Christmas - effectively rehashing the last Prussian war 30 years before.
What nobody perceived at that time is technology changed enough to make the war catastrophic, and it took 2 world wars for that perception to sink in.
I"m pretty sure though that a determined effort to overthrow NK by sneakier means would move the needle a lot.
E.g. making small scale incursions, or military maneuvers that 'mistakenly'cross the border by about 10 km, but now we refuse to budge.
oops we landed on this small shoreline here, but we'd like to stay.
What, You're all starving? We sent a massive peace mission backed by unarmed troops, and lots of food - win hearts and minds.
Basically play a constant game of chicken with them, call their bluff and needle the regime whilst taking chunks of territory at the same time.
It might soften the border enough and cause so much stress to the regime that it collapses by itself.
Yes, winning at politics requires some skill and intellect, but it doesn't mean that the winning actor is intellectual or rational.
You lost me here.
The broad framework of Communist states at the time was establishing world dominance through force and persuasion, although they couldn't agree on the exact pace and methods. NK was in this respect not an outlier, the Kim v1 likely seeing his role in the new world order less marginal than ruling half a peninsula. In particular, anti-Japan sentiment was and still is cultivated throughout society. In 2020 it can not be ascribed to realistic self-preservation interest.
And in either case, the very fact they do have ideology means a lot. Certain decisions are going to be made not due to strategic and personal interest but to an abstract rulebook not necessarily in sync with reality. Therein lies a huge danger not covered by assumptions of rational actor model.
Without anything motivating themselves besides just trying to survive, the motivation of everyone to fight is very low. That doesn’t make for a good dedicated army. Most NK soldiers would surrender as soon as they could.
The one where a million Chinese soldiers turn up at high speed, just like last time, leaps to mind.
MAD works because everyone knows that starting or joining a nuclear firefight is literally suicide. What would compel them to fire if they're clearly not being targeted?
The book The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel describes such a scenario.
Chilling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light_(novel)
And, of course, for cases of a war starting because of a false belief that they were about to be attacked there is the real life case of Able Archer 83:
A thinking that they can win: Tojikistan, Karabag, Transnistria, Georgia, Donbas, Crimea, Syria, Libya — all set a very damning precedent of the West conceding to use of force.
If China decides to shoot back, all bets are off. It would be exactly the error the Japanese made when they attacked Pearl Harbor and thought they can get away with it. That would directly affect the West and our leaders could not say anymore "will be fine, we're taking the high road here" unless they want to be lynched by a mob.
Also everyone knows that the US is both highly militaristic and highly jingoistic.
That was certainly true up through the early 2000s, but this stereotype is by now out of date. On the left, America is self-loathing, and on the right it's become quite isolationist.
Terrorist attacks like 9/11 leave doubt about who to go after and at what scale to retaliate but a clear attack on a city by a foreign state as an act of war is a different thing. Gloves would come off and the complete full force of every resource ( military, political, economic, etc ) would be brought to bear.
It depends on the specifics, of course. If a specific country directly attacked the US, of course I'd expect (and even demand) a military response. But these days, I wouldn't expect a non-state's terrorist attack to lead to the sort of misguided, ill-informed adventurism that ultimately led us to invade Iraq.
Also ++ for the use of jingoistic. :)
See also: Korean War, where Chinese intervened to stop the US-allied South from winning against the North.
You remember Kim's brother VXed in Malaysia? He was China's bid on NK throne. China was trying to launch a coup in NK.
China been trying to seize power in NK for decades.
NK-China relations are complicated ones. China wants NK, but is afraid of losing NK if their machinations flop, and push the NK towards the West.
>A thinking that they can win
The only way to talk about war is to be prepared to understand 'the other side' of your argument. In this case, you're setting yourself up to have to answer the question: in the 21st century, which nation state has started the most wars, committed violent hostilities, and murdered innocent citizens at massive scales, the most?
That's unlikely to be the scenario. The big problem for China is that they're responsible for the current North Korea regime existing. China has been directly, intentionally propping up and protecting North Korea from day one. The American people will not find it acceptable to exchange Pyongyang for Los Angeles or New York, much less trade several of North Korea's cities for several major US cities.
The American public would demand a nuclear strike against China in retaliation, a more equitable outcome - Shanghai for Los Angeles, Beijing for New York - for those ultimately responsible for what North Korea is today.
That's where hundreds of millions of people could die from a North Korean strike. It's why China should have never enabled and tolerated the Kim regime in the first place, and now it's too late to fix that historic blunder. Any nuclear strike from North Korea will likely result in a nuclear strike against China.
This is equivalent to the Israeli Samson option (which is why you don't want Iran getting nukes).
If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.
It's also notable that the USA has also tolerated the Kim regime, because it gives them an excuse to be present in force in South Korea. It's not like the CIA couldn't have the Kims removed if they put some effort into it. PRC would have to pretend to be angry about it, but it would also get them out of the awkward situation.
Unfortunately, the stable genius in the WH does.
Which part of this is the President "trying" and the Iranians "declining"?
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734683701/trump-reportedly-or...
He's probably the only Commander-in-Chief I've had so far to say "I don't think it's proportionate to bomb a bunch of people because we lost a drone."
This... doesn't seem likely.
> If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.
Okay, I see where you're coming from, but this was not the scenario being discussed. The scenario presented was "NK lobs a single nuke at Los Angeles." The expected response is closer to "US decapitates NK before they can fire any more, everybody shits their pants, but no additional nukes are fired."
Decapitating NK in one fell swoop might be possible... decapitating China is highly unlikely. The US should therefore not initiate firing nukes at China unless a substantial number of US cities have already been hit, because doing so would all but guarantee that those cities would be hit by China in the next volley.
A ballistic launch towards NK looks an awful lot like a ballistic launch towards China, is the problem there. Will China "wait and see" where it lands?
In this case, the context would be:
"Holy shit guys, NK just launched a rocket that looks like it's headed for LA!"
[3 minutes later]
"And now the US just launched 14 rockets, and they might be headed for us, but they're probably headed for NK."
China's best option is to wait and see, because if they decide to fire, and were wrong about China being targeted, they'll see another round of launches three minutes after that one, and those will be headed for China.
They've played this all out. MAD really does work.
China doesn't want to enter WWIII any more than the US does. And the US response to an NK attack is very predictable.
Any strike on NK has to decapitate it instantly, or the conventional artillery along the border will pound Seoul into rubble in the meantime. Ballpark figures are 10,000 pieces, some dug in, some mobile, each capable of firing 10kg high explosive and keeping it coming until their ammunition runs out. It's a hard problem for any military planner.
If the SK capital was on their south coast and it was only farmland within artillery range of the border than NK would be an easy problem to solve (obviously if that were the case NK would have developed other weapons to compensate). Notwithstanding China of course.
A prospect of USA trying to win a land war in China is mind boggling, and equally so for China launching a land operation in the USA.
It’s my understanding that they have designed and produced only fission weapons. I’ve never heard a single piece of information ever that suggests that they can, could, or would produce a fusion bomb.
“possible, even likely” in the context of a DPRK fusion bomb, given what I have seen and read thus far, seems like complete fantasy to me. Do you know something I don’t?
The first ever (and presumably smallest?) one the US ever did ("Ivy Mike") was two orders of magnitude larger than that (~10MT).
There is no question that the DPRK has fission weapons, but ojbyrne asserted a thermonuclear attack, which I have never seen any indication is within the present or predictable future capabilities of the DPRK.
Oh, hang on. It would appear the DPRK has actually made this claim, according to WP, but it seems to be disputed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#North_Kor...
Yes, and in fact most thermonuclear devices nowadays are in that range as its more efficient than a smaller number of megaton range bombs. Eg the most common US warhead (fitted to Trident) is the 100 kiloton W76 and each Trident missile can carry 14 of them, each independently targeted.
That doesn't seem smart at all. I think that a nuclear explosion on the ocean, right in front of a major city (NY, LA) but at safe distance, would be a better start. It provides the same amount of threat with no victims and no pressing need for blind retaliation.
What NK needs is to make clear that the cost of attacking it can be unsustainably high, while provoking the least possible response.
NK doesn't need to fire anywhere close to the US in order to do this. We're already watching them, and for the most part, they've already made it clear that attacking them might cost us a city or two.
Putting on a nuclear waterworks in front of Los Angeles would be psychotically risky, because the US would need to decide whether or not to return fire before the US target is known. "Vaguely near Los Angeles" might as well be Los Angeles because of measurement uncertainties, late-stage course corrections, and MIRVs.
As usual, the winning move is not to fire anything that might be construed as a nuke towards any of your enemies, unless you are prepared to die.
2. I don't have numbers, but say NK starts 40 ICMBs, the US shoots down 95% then 2 ICBMs would reach the US, at least California and NYC wouldn't be livable for decades.
3. I don't think this balances out "decapitation of military capacity"
I have no detail knowledge of the fallout radius or radioactive decay, I would assume an ICBM hit would render the valley and Manhattan unliveable, but I haven't been in both places for more than five years so I might be wrong.
The times make the people.
Whenever I see someone do this, I generally stop talking immediately, but I am sticking up for GP on this one.
The comment you are replying to in no way made a statement about what is or isn't awful. Simply a comment about the size of various things.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly hope the USA strategic and tactical defences are capable of facing even the worst case estimates; but, as a civilian, NK nukes and ICBMs never put me off visiting the USA and played no part in my ultimate decision to not bother trying to move to the Bay for work.
Besides that, please don't do the dumb US jingoism, it is just so tiring overall
Hold on, it didn't "almost work." The carriers being out of port made the attack much worse for Japan, but the operation was a fairly dramatic strategic failure. Japan knew that the US industrial capacity at the time could produce new ships quickly, so the main aim was to buy time to gain a larger foothold in Asia that could withstand a total US war (especially because US strategy clearly regarded Germany as the bigger threat).
The US Atlantic Fleet had four carriers at the time (Yorktown, Ranger, Wasp and Hornet); the Pacific Fleet had three (Enterprise, Lexington, Saratoga). Notice something about those names? Shortly after the US was attacked, the Yorktown and Hornet were transferred to the Pacific Fleet. After the Lexington was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Wasp was also transferred. At the same time, new carriers were entering service in the US at a fairly quick rate. The Essex was commissioned in December 1942, and then the Essex-class Wasp, Yorktown and Hornet were all commissioned in 1943 (after the aforementioned were sunk in battle).
Also, if you look at the tactical situation at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombers and torpedo aircraft were heavily biased in targeting lower-value battleships instead of the high-value cruisers and destroyers. Battleships had the prestige at the time, however, and pilots who knocked one out would receive greater glory than those who knocked out a more pedestrian destroyer or cruiser or even submarine.
Finally, one of the aims of Japan was to undermine US morale. It may not have been the main strategic aim, but it was an explicit goal. In fact, that's often an aim of "decapitation" operations: sow chaos and prevent your enemy from organizing.
So, no, it's not "US jingoism" to point out these fairly obvious facts. The US was simply better prepared for a conflict. It probably is today, too.
There are few circumstances where this refrain, so often repeated, would be so stupidly ignored by any of USA's enemies.
Presumably, a feeble opening shot such as this would be a precursor for a counter-, counter-attack, for which USA is not prepared. Because, after all, the USA is sure it will obliterate its enemies - and thus, the 'eye for eye' response would have to be something USA is really, really not prepared for.
Such proclamations as are allowed here, lend me to the thought: I wonder what that is?
You can't win a guerrilla war against a motivated foe (which is what the situation in Afghanistan is), without a long-term total occupation and cultural cleansing.
The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. The US hasn't primarily been trying to destroy the Taliban (the US can't do it without that mass force and it knows that), it has been primarily trying to hold the Taliban at bay while trying to build up the central government of Afghanistan. This is sort of a replay of the same failed strategy in Vietnam (when the US left Vietnam the south held the extreme majority of territory and population; the south folded rapidly regardless, which is exactly what is going to happen to the government of Afghanistan, unfortunately).
Kabul in the 1970s was a groovy, swinging place with women in miniskirts and men wearing tie-dye (as was Tehran). It's the Taliban who imposed the present culture after ejecting the Soviets (with US help). Western strategy should have been to revert it to that, but instead it was to somehow replace the Taliban with a regime that was equally religiously hardline but just happened to be US friendly, and that was obviously never going to work...
The Northern Alliance was able to very rapidly smash the Taliban with the help of the US (the Taliban can't easily hold Afghanistan as a military force, so chaos and civil war is guaranteed in the near future). The challenge now and in the future is how to make any positive progress stick. The various powerful groups there, and their perma foreign sponsors (eg Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc), are not going to stop trying to topple eachother. The only thing giving Iraq a shot at being an independent, functional nation is their oil resource providing considerable funding to support a central government; Afghanistan of course lacks anything comparable. I don't know where the economy is going to come from to fund a potent central government in Afghanistan (while the Taliban operates on the cheap in comparison). It obviously takes a very long time to build up an economy from scratch in a location like Afghanistan.
The Afghans have a saying, "you have watches, but we have time". No American or Western electorate was or is willing to commit to a permanent presence. So here we are!
Afghanistan is only about 25% urban. The Cold War era led to a couple of decades of countries trying to figure out their alignment and less internal strife, but by the 70s the internal rumblings were becoming clear.
We could keep Cairo, Tehran and Kabul groovy as long as we're comfy keeping the boot on the majorities necks.
Imagine thinking you have a coherent picture of what the culture in Afghanistan and Iran was like in the 1970s just because you saw those half-dozen photos people post over and over on reddit.
Imagine thinking you have something to contribute to this discussion, if you’re not going to enlighten us...?
You seem to think that a small number of photographs showing young people in popular western attire from a largely rural country's capitol in 1970s implies that the country at large had something approaching a liberal western mindset on culture and religion at the time. You also seem to be incorrectly conflating the Afghan Mujahideen, the Taliban, and the Northern Alliance.
I'm not going to write a dissertation on the topic on HN, but I'll just say that it's very clear that you don't know as much about it as you think you do, and I implore you and anyone reading the thread to go and read on this 40-year conflict in some detail if they want to gain a meaningful understanding of it.
That's one way to look at it. Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion), and will lose again in 10-20 years as the Iraqi elites wait it out and things revert to the mean. Oh, and we lost in Syria as well, although not funding and not arming ISIS did help to alleviate some of the problems in the last few years. Assad is still right where he was, and he will remain there for decades to come.
This is much like Napoleon "winning" the war against Russia in 1812. Captured Moscow. Pissed on the floor in the Kremlin. And then he got chased back all the way to Paris and exiled.
Except in the Middle East it's even worse than that. The US tends to forget that those folks represent much older civilizations and they live on a different time scale. They can literally sit it out for 20-30 years while we sink trillions of taxpayer dollars there and while our soldiers are torn apart with an occasional IED. They also culturally don't give a flying fuck about "democracy" or whatever. There's really not a hell of a lot that can be done about that, and there's no way to "win" under such circumstances.
If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.
That's why there won't be a permanent "victory" there, in any sense of the word.
Your history is badly mixed up. There wasn't a first invasion, so your premise is wrong from the start. The first Iraq war wasn't meant to topple Saddam at all, which is why George HW Bush wisely didn't attempt to invade Iraq with an occupation force. The first Iraq war was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and smash the Iraqi military to reduce them as a regional threat (eg to Saudi Arabia). It was a huge concerted success (the US was joined by a very strong, diverse coalition). Saddam's once vaunted military was left in shambles, their hardware and capabilities were dramatically reduced. And then aggressive sactions prevented Saddam from rebuilding the military effectively.
> Oh, and we lost in Syria as well
The US didn't lose in Syria. From the position of the warmongers in DC, it was a stellar victory. On the cheap Syria was reduced to rubble and is a non-actor now, they've been almost completely destroyed. Russia is still the dominant big political-military ally of Syria, so nothing changed about that. At worst the US neither gained nor lost, at best - again, from the perspective of the hawks in the Pentagon - Syria is crippled as a regional power. Israel and several other regional powers are also thrilled with Syria's situation, to say the least. It'll take decades for Syria to just get back to where they were before. As a player in the Middle East, they got almost entirely neutralized.
That's like saying we "won" in Afghanistan just because the Taliban temporarily moved elsewhere. As long you don't have permanent control of the country, you haven't really "won" anything there. And I don't think you will argue that we have any kind of permanent control there, then or now, or can realistically get it in the future.
At least the Gulf War achieved something worthwhile. Later Iraqi and Afghan wars achieved nothing whatsoever.
In North Korea, on the other hand, the endgame is clear: the downfall of the Kim regime, mostly likely followed by integration into South Korea (if China allows, and that's a mighty big if). You're not going to have ordinary North Koreans head for the hills and turn into partisan guerrillas fighting for Juche.
Maybe, but they might be willing to fight invaders. The Korean War that killed 2-3 million civilians doesn't make the US seem like the good guy. The US will be seen as imperialist invaders by the ordinary citizen of the DPRK.
The fall of East Germany is instructive: while that imploded internally instead of being triggered from the outside, there was absolutely zero violent resistance to West Germany coming in and essentially taking over. North Korea isn't going to be same level of cakewalk, but it's closer to this end of the spectrum than Afghanistan or Iraq.
Famous last words preceding every single failed US military intervention. In fact, preceding most other military interventions in other countries. Probably what Hitler thought as he was invading the USSR. Or what the USSR thought when invading Afghanistan (where, by the way, one of my uncles served, and got his right arm blown off).
Truly, those who have not studied history are doomed to repeat it.
The most realistic, and highest success chance scenario is that North Korea will coordinate attack with China.
In all conceivable scenarios, NATO will have more resources even after 100% one sided nuclear attack on it (3000-4000 warheads,) and be able to subdue both China, and NK with conventional forces, and standing armies alone.
Not to say, China's neighbours will not stand still too.
Even a whatever pyrrhic victory will likely be the end of political regimes in both NK, and China.
If they will attack, they will weight in that price first.
If China does support NK in such a situation, that support would be limited to things which are entirely deniable- material and perhaps some light cyberwarfare. Certainly no extra ICBMs, and nothing that would stop the U.S. from rolling over NK in short order (for all that it certainly increase the cost for the U.S.)
It would be extremely disruptive to the region which would result in opportunities to use the Chinese army to make gains on disputed territories while the world was occupied with the big war elsewhere. I did not say this was likely.
In all scenarios I see, it will work the other way around. I doubt that NK military would move a centimetre without Beijing's explicit authorisation.
In any big war, China will use NK as a cannon fodder.
To all outside observers, this looks like North Korea did it. But Beijing is now turned to glass, and the Chinese command is transferred to the military division in Chengdu. The world is tense, as it awaits China’s retaliation.
However, China doesn’t fall for the bait. They begin their investigations in earnest, and discover the true mastermind behind the nuclear attack: The United States.
World War 3 begins. China launches 1000 ICBM missiles at the United States. Thus ending all known life as we know it on American soil. The American military counterattacks and launches all their nukes at China. Both sides are turned to glass.
The world gasps at what just happened. Russia now proceeds to take over the world. Well played.
Chauschesku was bas a bastard, bit it was their bastard, unlike Enver Hoxha.
The most realistic scenario is that the nukes are not used to initiate an attack. They are there for defense, not to start a war.
You don't need to defend your ballistic missiles if you already fired them.
Ballistic missiles are an inherently offensive weapon.
By making the chance that someone would even be willing to attack you a lot lower. MAD is a defensive strategy, not offensive.
The Chinese Anti-ship ballistic missiles (AShBM) are veery different beasts. First of all, they have a different trajectory that is more difficult to intercept, so that they can maintain lower altitudes.
These lower altitudes allows the ballistic missile to maneuver. This makes their trajectory unpredictable, which makes missiles like the SM3 almost useless.
In combination with this, China also has hypersonic glide vehicles, which are not only harder to target, but also fly on non-ballistic, fully unpredictable trajectories at such altitudes that the horizon becomes a real issue.
To top it all off, China and Russia are both in the advanced stages of construction (Russia is farther ahead and should Comission them soon) hypersonic cruise missiles, with possible sea-skimming terminal modes.
All in all, the SM3 missile is pretty much useless against that threat.
The better explanation is that this is a test that congress asked for, and that if anything is more suitable to target North Korea, not that it's very likely it would be perfectly effective against North Korea as they have second-stroke capability and sure as hell won't send a single missile with a single warhead, more like 15 real missiles with a mix of decoys and nukes plus multiple dummy missiles with no real payload. But it's a start against a North Korea class threat.
Anyways, here's a lesson from modern warfare, never rely on countermeasures.
That's not to say they can't help you win, but even if it seems that they are perfectly effective history shows that they generally aren't.
Aircraft carriers are great if you need to project force into a territory occupied by groups over which you have superiority. Against an enemy with state of the art anti-ship missiles deployed along the coast, modern radar and satellite capabilities, all bets are foo.
Some people think in such a conflict, aircraft carriers are overpriced targets that can be disabled or even sunk in the first hours of a conflict for the cost of a few missiles and a few light ships to launch them. IIRC a red team managed to disable most of the US Navy in that fashion in an exercise a few years ago.
There are countermeasures deployed, several layers of them, and missiles have counter-counter measures. Only very few are actually deployed and really tested on the field.
We know in good conditions, they work, on some missiles. In a real conflict, how many will they stop? 100%? 99%? 50%? 20%? How well can missile decoys fool countermeasures? What hidden tricks have different sides kept in their sleeves in preparation?
We will learn it on a very fateful day that could either see the record on tonnage sunk on a single day or a very fast conflict deescalation from the attacking side (assuming US would be the defending one, credible in the case of China)
"After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
So yeah lots of the big ships might not be that useful in a present-day conflict if they can get destroyed by suicide-attack boats. Of course that puts the whole need for the amount of military funding/pork into question and that makes the military-industrial-congressional complex very nervous.
- It was 18 years ago. Deployments, new technologies, RCA's and congressional studies have impacted the current military force in substantial ways. A lot has happened since then.
- US FoF exercises are largely augmented during runtime to simulate "unforseen" battlefield conditions. The purpose of these rules/scripts/interjections is to artificially insert some degree of randomness into the scenario that demonstrates the individual/leadership's ability to react.
- A large component of US FoF exercises, plans, and results and analysis are classified. Though admirable, the Wikipedia article pulls its sources from secondary sources at best.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25904/china-wants-u-s-...
Very regular modern antiship missiles have very good chance overwhelming the carrier formation defences.
Like you said - maybe anti-missile countermeasures can deter a missile. Or two. Or a dozen. But what if you have flotilla of cheap corvettes and frigates slinging swarms of hypersonic missiles at your valuable CBG?
When it comes to a shooting war though, the US Navy has an entirely separate war-time sub fleet. The carrier fleets would back off to a safe distance and provide logistic support until the subs and bombers decapitated enemy weapon and radar systems, and air superiority could be established. Then the carriers could move in to provide close air support missions and targeted air strikes.
The US Navy has...10? nuclear supercarriers in service (IIRC there is a Ford becoming active soon and another in construction, but a Nimitz or two scheduled for retirement).
Plus the gator navy has more non-nuclear amphibious assault ships that are arguably carriers in all but name (and also arguably at close to if not equal to other nations' dedicated carriers)
Are so many carriers needed?
The US Military is ultimately reliant on naval domination for its logistics, and it's naval domination requires carriers and large surface vessels as submarines can't do area denial. If the US military loses that ability, it can't secure its supply chain, and it will be crippled.
The unopposed aircraft carrier caused an anomaly where the US was able to have supply chains of infinite sizes without any issues. If the current threat materializes, then the US Military Doctrine for force projection crumbles.
So far it's maybe remotely plausible in the second American Civil War, because no foreign enemy yet posses this capacity. No stealth bombers, and no hypersonic cruise missiles.
Otherwise yes a lot of hypothetical tech that can disable carrier fleet. Photon torpedoes, Yuri's mind control, genetically modified Krakens..
Bottom line is that carrier groups are already sitting targets and unlikely to last long in a superpower conflict.
Is a goon-swarm free-for-all really the future ruler of the seas?
Also, the Russian 3M22 Hypersonic Cruise missile is in testing as of today, so they definitely do have one. China is also working on it.
It seems to me that you're seriously overestimating the technological lead of the US.
10 000km is a very long distance.
And of course, air bases closer to the theater will be bombarded using missiles, and thus the US would be deprived of air support.
But the most likely wars are not ones of nuclear powers marching onto another's capital, but instead wars over bordering countries. Neither Russia nor the US would escalate an invasion of the Baltic's, Neither China nor the US would escalate an invasion of Taiwan.
Both of these hypothetical wars are potential conflicts because a victory for Russia and China in those conflicts would be extremely advantageous and desirable to the point that even a very low risk of nuclear esculation would be worth it to them.
I highly doubt it. Baltic states are part of NATO, assuming Russia blitzkriegs them (it's a really HUGE assumption since they have relatively little geopolitical or economical value for Russia, the Suwalki corridor would be nice to have, but not considering the associated risks), leaving occupation unanswered will mean that US leadership position in the world (together with NATO) will be effectively dead. So further escalation will be practically imminent.
I think China's invasion of Taiwan will not be left unanswered as well, in addition to the huge reputation hit similar to the scenario with Baltic states, Taiwan has a big geopolitical (cornerstone of the first island chain) and economical value (not only TSMC) for the US. Further escalation is highly probable as well. A contained clash could've happened in the South China sea, but since China got entrenched there, the US Navy got quite careful to not overstep itself in this region. And this balance will continue to tilt only further to China's favor.
A limited conflict could in theory happen with a limited invasion of Russia, since its current nuclear doctrine is quite defensive (esp. compared to the US'), but the "threatens the existence of the state" condition is a bit vague, so assuming that Russia will use all its available military to defend itself, it will either drive invading forces out using conventional means (which would include counter-attacks on "decision centers"), or in the end will use nuclear weapons.
He will seek a different opening. Passing birdies keep telling me that's Balkans.
Balkans also have a little of value for Russia in the current state. A more interesting target would be to take control over Georgia or Azerbaijan (not necessary using military means), to establish a better control over oil and gas routes from the Middle Asia.
But a more realistic, much more valuable and easier target is the south-east Ukraine. If degradation of the Ukrainian state institutions continues with the current speed and the ongoing cold civil war will not be cooled down by a more sensible cultural and language policies, I will not be surprised to see in 5-15 years a full collapse of the state, significant social and economic instability, with breakaway regions following the Yugoslavia scenario, some of which will fall under the Russian "protectorate" for gradual later integration. We already can see early signs of it in the results of municipal polls, weak central government, and totally unprofessional behavior of the "elites" (who in the *#!? right mind spends most of money from the COVID fund on road construction and other non-medical goals?! who launches a full-blown constitutional crisis using clearly unconstitutional means instead of slightly tweaking the law in question or trying to engineer a constitutional reform to restart the corrupted constitutional court? who pays a ton of money to "anti-corruption" departments which after working several years haven't return a dime to the budget? who effectively strangles small businesses when they are already hit by the pandemic? etc. and etc.).
But Putin's plan appears to be to destabilise the EU from within by promoting extremist far-right governments with more or less obvious Russian influence and anti-EU sentiments.
See also Brexit, Poland, Hungary, and the Ukraine, and the - so far - less effective far right movements being promoted in France, Italy, Portugal, and so on.
This is much cheaper and more effective than sending in the tanks. You can promote regime change with a few social media troll factories and by buying or otherwise persuading local politicians.
It's not a coincidence that the threat of a hypothetical EU army was one of the main pro-Brexit talking points sold to British racists, or that significant funding for Brexit came from Russia.
As for goals - for Russia it's partly about revenge, and partly about the destruction of Western liberal values. Putin has said as much in public on a number of occasions.
The almighty Russian meddling can only tip public opinion a bit in the desired direction, but can not create it from nothing.
To not repeat myself, I will simply link my old comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23743786
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_involvement_in_the_Syr...
The Kalibr and Oniks missiles are already available for sale if I'm not mistaken, and there is intention to sell the hypersonic Zirkon too.
All this revolves around the fact that launching and relaunching aircraft takes a lot of real estate, whether on land or on a floating metal island. Until there's a replacement everything that combat aircraft can do, maybe autonomous missile swarms that you can fire at a region and forget because they're intelligent enough to pick targets without someone in a plane handing them targeting info, then carriers will continue to be necessary.
Also, radar and wireless equipment powerful and sophisticated enough to detect and flag targets while bombarded with ECM is much more expensive than the missiles and we currently can't make enough of them to send on one way missions.
And while the US Navy is effectively like...the third? largest "air force" in the world, the very few other countries that even have fixed wing carrier naval aviation assets to begin with would be lucky to have a few dozen fighters at most.
I see most carrier projects as a prestige item at this point. They aren't completely useless (yet), but I don't think their return on value during an active shooting war against a peer state is worth it.
If South Korea was serious about using their proposed carriers in the manner you mention, they'd be replacing their remaining F-35A order with F-35Bs.
China is also in a position where it can use carriers like how the US uses them - as a big stick to punish third world countries that can't fight back. Most other countries aren't in that position.
Don't get me wrong, carriers absolutely have their downsides. They are very expensive, and if they are hit it will take them out of action (but not necessarily sink them, carriers can take a lot more punishment than you would think). A proper airbase on the other hand is cheaper, and can be repaired fairly easily and quickly if struck. It's also a much easier target since its location is known in advance and it isn't mobile. A good balance would be a series of small ad-hoc bases distributed around, like the Swedish Bas90 system or the USMC expeditionary advanced base concept, though both have their drawbacks.
In short, I don't think there's a decent replacement for the carrier if you need to carry out offensive operations. And I'd note that China, while developing some very advanced long-range anti-ship missiles, is also working very hard to develop their own carrier fleet, so the PLAN doesn't seem to think the idea is outdated yet.
Some interesting reads on the ideas of the future of carrier warfare: https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pd... and https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...
Nukes are so taboo, that so long as you don’t push too hard, you can get away with a lot.
I do think that drone carriers will be the future. A single command fighter alongside dozens of drones that do most of the fighting.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200303183928/https://www.usni....
Since then, it seems like his warning fell on deaf ears. His most recent article indicates they're still proceeding with building even more aircraft carriers.
Any fixed base has little to no chance surviving modern war. As demonstrated by Iran in the Saudi oil field attack, even a country which has been economically isolated for decades can develop accurate cruise missiles which can devastate a known coordinate.
At least a carrier can move 50 km/h, meaning that you need a sophisticated kill chain in order to hit it. Where as a fixed coordinate could have been pre-targeted years ago, and just waiting to be destroyed.
How often would a carrier get shot on the deck? Would the carriers be farther back than other ships?
If modern carriers have the same quality of damage control as previous ones, they should be able to survive some hits; we can see from WWII how carriers were able to survive hits by kamikaze aircraft carrying a lot more explosives than one of the Exocet missiles used in the Falklands war
To your actual question, if you look at the Battle of Midway at least the Akagi was fatally struck on the deck — carriers today are significantly more advanced in both technology as well as doctrine than those, though.
Along with the Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga!
Afaik the “carrier debate” is the argument among navy nerds. I certainly don’t know enough to comment one way or the other. But my take is that if we’re in a real war with someone who can credibly sink a carrier group, a much more important concern is going to be how to restore civilization from the ashes.
Commonly enough for people to plan for it before dive bombers became a thing. After the gunnery advancements of the early 20th century, engagement ranges could be long enough for plunging fire. Battleship shells coming down at 40° off vertical aren't that different than an AP bomb.
That's not to say that these defences were sufficient. Battleships were designed with an "immunity zone" - a range where incoming fire of the designed caliber (generally the same caliber as the main battery) would be at a high enough angle and low enough velocity to fail to penetrate your belt armor, and shallow enough angle to not defeat the relevant deck armor. 2000lb AP bombs at terminal velocity were very much not within the design specifications.
> carriers today are significantly more advanced in both technology as well as doctrine than those, though.
For that matter, even other carriers in that same battle show that damage control by a carrier against bomb hits was possible - the Yorktown survived several bomb and aerial torpedo hits before eventually being sunk by a submarine. She was able to make sufficient repairs to launch fighters again after the first set of bomb hits, too.
Modern carriers are probably better represented by the Yorktown than the Akagi, but no one will really know for sure until the shooting starts.
Did you accidentally switch belt and deck armor? Isn't deck the one protecting from high angle and low velocity, and belt armor protecting from shallow angles?
Which means that the belt armor is most effective at max range (though also the least likely to be hit) - shells coming in at 45° will bounce right off. And deck armor is best up close - 5° down angle is going to come up against quite a few feet of metal before managing to penetrate the handful of inches of thickness you could fit in a deck.
The trick to an immunity zone is to find the balance between the two.
The Japanese (3 of them) were caught with fuel and bombs being loaded onto planes in the hangar deck on top of already poor damage control.
The Yorktown on the other hand, had better construction and excellent damage control.
[0] https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/02/sm-3-block-iia-...
US wargaming had repeatedly found that escalation to nuclear exchanges is all but a given if serious attempts are made by either side to destroy naval and air base capability, and it's safe to assume their PLA counterparts reached similar conclusions.
As an example, in a Chinese move against Taiwan or Japan, anything that crossed into attack range would get destroyed, but there would be no counter-attacks against Chinese facilities and bases. Does that play out in reality? Let's hope we don't find out.
I think this is the key asymmetry in a US-China war, and whether US aircraft carriers can be sunk or not is irrelevant. At the end of the day, a carrier is a floating air base, and both China and the US need aircraft to provide targeting data for their munitions. In a sense Chinese airstrips are even more vulnerable to missile strikes as they can't move or hide, yet they can't be attacked because that could invite nuclear escalation. If sinking a US aircraft carrier posed the same risk of nuclear escalation would we even be worrying about their vulnerability to missile strikes?
This seems more like a strategic problem than a tactical problem regarding carrier defense. If China is more committed and willing to escalate than the US, then sooner or later there'll be a line where China's willing to cross but the US won't.
China or whomever attacking a carrier to destroy it with anything other than 1945 style surface warfare tactics leads to nuclear war, even if it's not the final decision point. The response to such an attack leads to nuclear war in enough projections.
In the same way, the US should keep strikes on Chinese military facilities on the table. But escalation is much likelier because those facilities are located in civilian areas and near nuclear missile sites. That's a perfect analogue of the strategic asymmetry. China and it's civilian population actually lives in the area. The US is just visiting with military assets, and losing a civilian is a tragedy but losing a member of the military is the job they signed up for.
It's a pretty hard problem to hit a carrier in the middle of the ocean.
1. It's difficult to locate a carrier group in the vast ocean, even with the help of satellites. The earth's curvature make surface level radars ineffective.
2. A carrier is not a sitting target. The carrier battle group is armed to the teeth to neutralize any threat from air, sea, and underwater within its defense perimeter. Its AWACS can detect objects upto several hundreds miles away.
3. Ships getting close need to overcome the barrage of fire power from the CBG's fighters, missiles, destroyers, and submarines.
4. Aircrafts getting close need to overcome the CBG's air defense - fighters and destroyer's AEGIS system.
5. Submarines are a realistic threat, but USN has lots of experience countering that.
6. Long range cruise missiles fired from outside of the defense perimeter could be a threat, but cruise missiles are slow and can be shot down. Also see 1 for guiding the cruise missiles thousands miles away toward a moving carrier.
7. Hyper sonic cruise missiles are a bigger threat but they have much shorter range. Their firing platforms would be destroyed trying to get close.
8. Ballistic missiles are the new threat but they have their own problems. Target location (see 1). Their terminal radar has a very short time window to locate and lock on the carrier after exiting the descent EM blackout. It takes time to fly to the general area. A 5000 miles/hour missile would take half hour to travel 2500 miles. Meanwhile the carrier is moving away, could be up to dozens of miles away.
U.S. have ballistic missile launching detection mechanism (radars and satellites) that can detect the missile at the moment of the launch.
The SM-3 test adds a new arsenal of defense against the ballistic missiles. It's certain that the laser based defense system probably is being tested or may be have already been deployed.
Edit: realistically drones will be a bigger problem for a CBG going forward.
- You don't need to sink an aircraft carrier to mission kill it. Even one hit to the deck will probably neutralize it's ability to launch/recover aircraft.
- Submarines and satellites are/will be enough to locate surface naval fleets.
- Once you've located your target, you can simply overwhelm it's defenses with massive missile barrage. Whether the missiles are ballistic, hypersonic, or traditional sea skimming AShm doesn't matter. The economics are in the attackers favor. Defenders must target each incoming with multiple anti missiles, and can only carry so many. The enemy will simply win by sheer numbers as they have no practical carrying capacity.
It seems pretty clear that carriers would need to be far, far away from any near peer adversary in a shooting war. At least until enemy subs and satellites are out of the picture. Even then you risk ballistic missile attack from the Chinese interior if your location is somehow discovered.
Satellites are very good at focusing at narrow strips of area. Searching over a wide angle of field of vision still is a hard problem.
You have to get close to the CBG to start the overwhelming campaign. The delivery platforms are likely to be destroyed long before they get close enough.
The CBG itself has a massive arsenal. It can deliver its own overwhelming firing. Besides carrying planes the carrier is a huge missile firing platform.
Not anymore, see ballistic anti ship missiles (range ~ 1800 miles), long range bombers equipped with long range missiles, and long range hypersonic missiles likely spotted on their long range bombers:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37662/chinese-long-ran...
https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/991832711013728256/phot...
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37465/new-images-of-ch...
> The CBG itself has a massive arsenal. It can deliver its own overwhelming firing. Besides carrying planes the carrier is a huge missile firing platform.
You can fit more missiles on the continent than you can on ships. That's really the end of the argument.
2.) All reconnaissance satellites are in much lower orbits. GEO is 35,786km. Huanjing, PRC's military radar sats, are at 650km. USA-234 is at 1,107km.
Seems wasteful, better to have root access (like via X-37b) to them now ahead of time and reroute attacks en route in real time if/when the time comes. Using enemy infrastructure to take out their own seems most efficient.
The whole "Hack A Satellite"[0] partnered with USAF and DDS seems like its leaning operationally in that direction more and more for at least recruitment.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37662/chinese-long-ran...
On the one hand you have many saying that the aircraft carrier might go the way if the battleship - more and more redundant in a world with landbase anti ship missile systems.
On the other hand there are some saying that ships will envolve to meet the threat.
That isn't really a replacement for a carrier, though, more of a supplement.
Along that same line of thought; What do you think about developing fighter sea planes and then have two or three fighters and a support boat at whole bunch of different/changing sea locations?
Another idea. For the expense of a carrier could we just keep planes in the air? Especially if they’re drones and don’t have to take care of pilots.
Re-arm and refuel as needed in the air.
For the drones, it's complicated. Airborne refueling has been a thing for decades, but off the top of my head there's never been airborne re-arming. But even if you had that you would still need to land for maintenance. But still you could probably keep these drones in the air for multiple days, maybe even a week at a time. But the logistics of managing so many tankers gets complicated fast. Check out the Black Buck raids for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck . And that's just for a bombing raid, if you want to maintain a combat air patrol you'll need even more tankers running continuously, and a bunch more fighters since for every one on station there will be multiples coming to/from a base or a tanker. I think long-range drones will definitely be a part of future warfare, but I think you still want a carrier to base them. I think all you need to do is move the carrier further away from anti-ship missile platforms, and increase the striking range of the air wing to compensate. There's a very lengthy write up on this if you are interested: https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pd...
But, yeah, when they do boost-back to the Cape, the analogy breaks down even more.
The exact numbers would depend a lot on the type of missile attacking, the angles they are coming in at, whether there are external sensors in the area, weather, etc. But a destroyer escort is more than capable of intercepting an incoming missile. In perfect conditions, where you detect and are tracking the missiles at extreme range, a single destroyer could likely take out dozens of cruise missiles. Scoring a hit on a carrier would require some combination of: advanced missiles (fast, stealthy, maneuverable, etc), multiple missiles, element of surprise, attacking from multiple directions at once, and jamming or otherwise degrading sensors.