Why the U.S. carrier group is scrap metal

WN stitches together real facts, out-of-contexts facts and completely made up "facts" in about equal proportions, and comes out with "analysis" that has zero value - but since it does contain some truths and is written in an authoritative and original tone, manages to create the illusion of "no BS".

As do I. And don't forget the classic "brutal Afghan winter", endlessly discussed in the mainstream media, that was going to prevent the US from seizing Kabul et al. Except, you know, when the US and its Afghan allies took it in less than three weeks.

In so far as it is a bid to get more money for advanced missile programs, it is entirely about getting Republicans back in power. Having been in the military under Democratic and Republican regimes, it's pretty clear which causes money to run freely.

I wasn't really trying to make a political point. I was trying to offer an object lesson in taking the wool off one's eyes. Obviously I failed.

The article being discussed here is the one about new Chinese ballastic missiles as the newest threat.

The invention of the tank as a self-sufficient mobile force was also an incredible blow to known combat tactics at the time - the Nazis wielded this to incredible effect in Poland. The onslaught of fast-moving tanks made the cavalry-heavy Polish military look downright pathetic.

While I'm a bit skeptical of the article, I have to accept that it's entirely possible for a single technology, if disruptive and innovative enough, to complete obsolete the aircraft carrier in only a few short years.

Except that battleships didn't become useless with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes any more than bombers became useless with the advent of good fighters. Carrier-based planes just meant that battleships were vulnerable to a another threat. (They were already vulnerable to other battleships and submarines.)

Battleships are still incredibly useful for dropping lots of ordinance on a target that isn't too far from water. They can take damage that would sink other ships and still fight. They just can't launch planes to protect themselves, but they can be paired with ships that can.

I had coworkers that worked on standard missile. When I asked them why we don't have missile plumes to take care of lots of low-value targets (as mentioned in the article), I was told that the back fire from one missile might destroy the other, and they would also travel at undetermined speeds, as they might hit each other.

Do you know more than them?

The local active sensing capability required to out-maneuver one or more interceptors would negate any low-observable qualities of the kill vehicle.

The likelihood of the kill vehicle possessing a passive tracking capability sufficient to outmaneuver the active sensing and tracking system aboard an interceptor is clearly very low.

My point is that neither maneuverability nor low observability are guarantees of success due to compromising other aspects of the vehicle; which may ultimately make it more vulnerable to defensive measures than is apparent at first glance.

Why didn't this happen in the first Gulf War? Ballistic missiles and small boats aren't exactly new technologies.

A ballistic missile is basically a bomb with a different delivery mechanism. Instead of being dropped straight down from a plane (like dive bombers of WW2) or diagonally down (like laser-guided bombs of today), it's boosted to altitude with a rocket motor, and then gravity takes it back to earth. The flight path at the end is basically the same, though. That's what makes it "ballistic".

Carriers have never had a defense against bombs - they certainly didn't in WW2. But y'know what - they usually didn't need one, because the bombs would often miss on their own. Or if they hit, they wouldn't cause serious damage, instead being stopped by the carrier's armor plating. The Harpoon doesn't pop-up to avoid CIWS (it's usually easier to hit something coming down at you from above than something skimming just over the waves - there's less radar glare from the water, and the angle of attack changes less as the missile moves in closer.) It pops up so it can hit the more lightly-armored superstructure instead of the armored hull, potentially causing fires and knocking out critical electronic systems.

We moved to cruise missiles for a reason: they have a much higher chance of scoring a hit than ballistic weapons. If 80% of your weapons will miss on their own, you don't need to worry about getting through the enemy's defenses, you need to worry about increasing your accuracy. Cruise missiles aren't particularly easy to shoot down either.

As for nukes - yeah, they'll take everything out, as the U.S. found out at Bikini Atoll in 1946. The defense against nukes is the knowledge that if you nuke a U.S. carrier battle group, you will have a few hundred incoming SLBMs within a couple minutes, ready to blow up every single major Chinese city.

Personally, I think the real threat to carriers is the cruise-missile swarm, coming from dozens of small fishing vessels. Cruise missiles are cheap, they can be mounted on relatively small vessels, and if they come at you from all directions, they'll totally overload all your air defense systems. It's not hard to find a couple hundred private boats and put 1-2 cruise missiles on each of them.

I wholeheartedly agree. In my most humble opinion, an emerging fad is to announce the collapse of all things American. This meme has been gaining momentum for years. Now we hear stories like:

- the U.S. dollar will soon be worthless and the American economy will collapse.

- the U.S. will disintegrate into a bunch of smaller countries.

- all American technical jobs will move overseas, mainly to India and (guess what?) China!

- the U.S. Military is at its most vulnerable point in History.

I will believe in doomsday scenarios when I have the numbers to analyze. Like John McCarthy once said: "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."

If you were talking about nucler first strike, you should note that this article is about conventional warfare.

Now suppose that the Chinese come up with an Exocet-like missile with 10x the Exocet's range. You fire it at where you think a carrier group is located. How does the missile distinguish a carrier from a destroyer? Optical signature alone? Still, the missile would have to go through all the protecting ships of the carrier group.

Swarms of small boats and planes launching 100s of such missiles would be a big problem indeed. But the response could be to have swarms of UAVs equipped with anti-missile technology, covering an area within 500 Km of the carrier group.