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Comment by jug6ernaut | Hacker News Reader

> While it's unlikely that this will allow the aircraft carrier to regain the place it once held...

Care to elaborate on this? I was under the impression aircraft carriers were still our best general purpose military tool? (wartime/peacetime/force projection/ect)

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They're great against a low-tech adversary, but against serious ballistic or (some) cruise missiles, they're just slowly-moving seaborne apartment blocks. Good writeup here:

http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carrier...

This is really informative. You should submit it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=547596 - should probably have searched before posting original link :)

Wikipedia has a good writeup of the Millenium Challenge 2002 wargames, where a large fleet was basically destroyed by assymetrical guerilla tactics (small boats, low tech communication):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Don't forget the cruise missiles.

(both for the Millennium Challenge wargames and as a general equalizer of sea power)

Admittedly, I have no special expertise. My understanding is that while for certain kinds of force projection, they are the only game in town, they are such a rich, fat target, a larger and larger portion of their operation (in terms of manpower, arms and electronics) gets devoted to defending the carrier, and this squeezes out the force projection capability. I believe the cost of production of an aircraft carrier is around $12 billion, and I'm not sure if that includes the ~$1 billion worth of aircraft on board.

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