Why Aircraft Carriers Still Rule the Oceans 718
An anonymous reader writes "Despite being created during World War I, the modern carrier has evolved to be the pinnacle of modern warfare's best and most visible symbols of power. Nothing says 'show the flag' more than a carrier off an enemy's coast. Some, though, have called the carrier a 21st-century version of a battleship — high on looks and weapons but vulnerable to modern weapons. Critics note air-power killed the battleship; people now suggest super-sonic 'carrier-killer' missiles will make the carrier a relic of the past. With their cost in the billions of dollars, some point to killing off carriers as an obvious cost saving measure. Carriers though still have a lot of uses. Many navies, like India and China, are adding them to their arsenal, and they are still feared by many. While carriers might be old, they are a symbol of power that no missile or submarine below the surface can match yet."
Not sure about the thesis of the article, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the reason that carriers remain relevant is that, while they do have their own weapons, their MAIN weaponry is the planes that they carry. And it's easier to upgrade those planes (subject to limitations such as the elevators, etc...) than it would have been to upgrade a BB's weaponry.
Force projection, not a symbol of power (Score:5, Insightful)
Aircraft carriers are force projection, not a symbol of power. It's incredibly useful to have a bouyant, nuclear city able to go where it's told to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection
So what replaces them? (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't it seem more likely that people who run carriers will instead look to develop ways of stopping those supersonic missiles? That is the general idea behind the carrier battlegroup already. The carrier is in the middle projecting force, and everybody else is there making sure it stays safe. Besides, the kind of enemies that the Navy is fighting today are the ones that have ramshackle fishing boats and maybe an RPG to scare freighter captains with, not highly technological nation states. The nations they fight are the kind that don't even have a Navy and the only missile danger is losing fighter planes to SAMs.
Sunk? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which carrier has been sunk by a super-sonic 'carrier-killer' missile? Let's wait until a carrier is actually killed before declaring the end of its day.
A carrier lets you park a military city 10 miles off just about anyone's border just about any time you want to. Until something either replaces that function or ends its utility the carrier will persist.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Aircraft carriers == countries grandstanding about how big & strong they are. Politicians like Romney brag about "showing strength to discourage attack" and the voters eat it up.
Of course a better projection of power instead of obsolete battleships or airplane carriers would be the Arsenal Ship I worked on in the 90s. It was filled with nothing but self-guided missiles & required very minimal staffing. Just enough to watch the radar and load targeting solutions. Nothing says "power" like a ship that can launch 500 nuclear-tipped tomahawks in less than ten minutes. Or a barrage of ship-to-air missiles to shoot aircraft carrier attacks from the sky.
Aircraft carriers? Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are we even talking about the aircraft carrier when we should be out building helicarriers! [wikipedia.org]
How many do we need? (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely 10 groups is enough. Perhaps even 8.
Re:Author obviously knows nothing about the Navy (Score:4, Insightful)
them> yay we sunk a carrier
them> what's that sound? it's a thousand inbound tomahawks?
Re:So what replaces them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the reason that carriers remain relevant is that, while they do have their own weapons, their MAIN weaponry is the planes that they carry. And it's easier to upgrade those planes (subject to limitations such as the elevators, etc...) than it would have been to upgrade a BB's weaponry.
It probably also helps them remain relevant that nobody has let a single one get any closer to something dangerous than they absolutely had to since the second world war... The concern is not so much that aircraft carriers are not powerful; but that they are so questionably survivable in the face of today's more sophisticated missiles that there may or may not be an aircraft carrier to come back to within the time it takes for the aircraft to go out and back.
They are better than battleships for beating up on hilariously outmatched little countries, since their range is longer; but that, along with saber rattling, is all they've been used for for quite some time.
Re:Their vulnerability is not demonstrated (Score:3, Insightful)
Akagi.
The vulnerability of carriers has been proven. A very long reach may allow them to outclass other surface ships in a duel, but they are still just very long armed boxers with glass jaws. We know what happens when carriers meet carriers. We expect must the same when surface-based craft hunt carriers.
In today's world there are many weapon systems that can match the long reach of a carrier, although it is (so far) unproven how accurately they can target a ship 400-600 miles out to sea. Targeting will inevitably improve, and then it becomes a matter of numbers where the missiles are cheap going up against an expensive carrier.
The US can do a lot more for vastly less money with 4 supercarriers and 10 pocket carriers designed for helicopters and UAVs than 11 supercarriers. And we still get the prestige of the supercarriers.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or just allow for assassinations again.
"We're not bombing civilians anymore. Fuck with us and we'll murder you in your sleep. One of your guards will have a price. A million US to poison your coffee? 500 million? At some point, they'll crack and you'll die. Quickly, painlessly, and then you're over."
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:4, Insightful)
A better solution is a ship full of drones. Nothing says power like, "We just killed each and every one of your war-mongering generals. Please feel free to loot and pillage your weaker neighbor." Which is what tends to happens when an uneducated populace is released from their war-mongering generals, and something we have the habit of doing. But, only after we have supported the war-mongering generals for a few years.
Re:That's simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
when was the last time a carrier was used against an enemy which had battleships? since ww2 pacific campaign when was the last time aircraft carriers were even used in battle against anyone with comparable fleet? . falklands war is the exception and even there the carrier groups didn't go head to head.
the modern aircraft carriers aren't meant for fleet vs. fleet warfare, that's not their purpose. they're floating islands not meant to be even anywhere near where they could be shot. for now most important thing why they rule the oceans is that they come with a big ass fleet with them and they're useful for launch bases on adversaries who can't project their firepower thousand kilometers away(where it sits).
Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score:2, Insightful)
It probably also helps them remain relevant that nobody has let a single one get any closer to something dangerous than they absolutely had to since the second world war... The concern is not so much that aircraft carriers are not powerful; but that they are so questionably survivable in the face of today's more sophisticated missiles that there may or may not be an aircraft carrier to come back to within the time it takes for the aircraft to go out and back.
Also, they haven't gone up against another navy of similar strength since the second world war. If that ever happens, a lot of theories about what works will bite the dust, just like how the battleship is now irrelevant.
They are better than battleships for beating up on hilariously outmatched little countries, since their range is longer; but that, along with saber rattling, is all they've been used for for quite some time.
Actually, they are also useful as a portable airport and support vessel. They can desalinate huge amounts of water, and have medical facilities. That's why the US sent a carrier to Indonesia [nytimes.com] after the tsunami. There's more to foreign relations than saber rattling.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right that would be a better show of strength, but then you have the type of foolishness perpetuated by the Obama administration where we essentially go around appologizing to our enemies inviting them to attack us. They know well that Obama would die at the hands of the enemy before he goes to war over anything. Our enemies know that too. See our foriegn embassies for evidence. So all of the posturing in the world isn't going to help when you've already shown your hand.
Really? You know, to us in the rest of the world, there is no noticeable difference between Obama and Bush. None. The Obama government's foreign policy is much the same as Bush's. Same offshore oil wars went on. Same idiotic sabre-rattling about invading Iran, which would be a total disaster and another oil war. It's republicans and democrat voters that differ. Your politicians are all the same underneath, pandering to the low common denominator in the US for votes, and you end up with the same policies regardless. It's a pseudo democracy, and the UK and Australia are not much better. And patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel (that's a quote). Hence I expect no genuine changes no matter who is elected, just a different tone to the rhetoric.
Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
They are better than battleships for beating up on hilariously outmatched little countries, since their range is longer; but that, along with saber rattling, is all they've been used for for quite some time.
That's what all US military technology has been used for for quite some time. Last I checked we haven't gone to war with China or Russia recently, and the rest of the world (not counting our allies) is pretty much made up of hilariously outmatched little countries.
Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I stopped reading when he suggested that current air carriers could be destroyed by "a swarm of iranians flying Cessnas" (I didn't know Iranians had that many Cessnas) or with a German V2 (yes, really). That guy is a joke, and presents any information as if he had a personal issues with aircraft carriers (maybe one of them ran over his mother?)
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how Ghaddafi feels about Obama's use of projected power.
I do love partisans though. If Obama doesn't thump some Arab leader with a big stick, he's an apologist pussy. If he does thump some Arab leader with a big stick, why he's a warmongering Congress defier. One gets the sense that it is irrelevant what a sitting President does. If he's wearing your team's colors, he's 100% great, if he's wearing the other team's colors, he's 100% bad.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
And once you run out of non nuclear missiles how are you going to bomb ground targets?
Carriers don't rule the oceans. Submarines and missile cruisers rule the oceans. Carriers rule the land near oceans, they are portable airpower, which makes them more cost effective than missile boats for air support and air superiority roles.
Big ships are just platforms. If you put large very heavy guns in them they become of significantly lower versatility - you need to completely rebuild the ship to have something without the guns. Aircraft carriers are as versatile as the aircraft you put on them. Need helicopters to support a naval invasion? Use a carrier. Need airborne surveilance and control? use a carrier. Need some combination of air superiority and ground attack? Use a carrier. In this sense a carrier is just a specific variant of big ship, that happens to be more versatile than the previous two iterations ('pre-dreadnought' battleships that were a mish mash of guns, post dreadnought 'big gun' battleships).
Granted, it depends very much on the type of war you have to fight. But that's the problem. Your 500 nuclear tipped tomahawks is a job for war no one is fighting at the moment. You're not going to nuke Damascus or Tehran to get Assad or the Ayatollahs out of power (in fact using nuclear weapons in this case would be almost diametrically opposed to that goal).
Also, it's not like navies are composed entirely of aircraft carriers. The US has about 50 in total, of nearly 300, and carriers (especially the big ones) are hard to make in a hurry, so you tend to be top heavy and have a disproportionately large inventory of large assets - if it turns out you need 50 destroyers by the end of next year 50 shipyards could probably pull that off, if you need 5 aircraft carriers by the end of next year it isn't going to happen. The Royal navy has 80 ish ships, of which two are supposed to be full blown aircraft carriers, a heli carrier and then some 'landing ships' which are like half heli carriers. With that diverse collection of assets some can be carriers, some can be 'arsenal' ships, some can be all sorts of different things, until you know what war you're fighting it's a matter of being reasonably prepared for whatever.
Carrier operations off pakistan for example, related to Afghanistan, are because Diego Gracia (which doesn't actually belong to the yanks) is the nearest US allied base, and it's in the middle of nowhere. Ok for staging disaster relief and nuclear weapons, not so good for ground support in north western afghanistan. And as we just saw the hard way, aircraft based on the ground in theatre can get blown up.
One of the lessons sept 11 should have taught americans is that their notions of 'power' are outdated and whimsically useless, you could have nuked Kabul or Riyadh into the ground in retaliation but what would that have gotten you? Capabilities matter, but being capable of doing something useless doesn't translate into power, and sure, a boat with 500 missiles can hit 500 targets - if you're lucky - but those missiles take a long time to go from off shore to wherever you need them, even if they land in the right place the thing you want destroyed might not be there, or might be too well fortified against the size of missile you can launch. They aren't useless by any means, but they aren't a panacea, nor are carrier based assets.
Anyone who you could seriously want to nuke can nuke back (russia, china, north korea, pakistan), and if they can't nuke you they can at least kill millions of your allies. MAD sort of implies *mutually* after all. And anyone else you don't really want to nuke because you're more likely to get something out of conventional overthrow of the government.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:4, Insightful)
How is "a ship full of drones" not an "aircraft carrier", again? They already carry drones, you know.
Decentralizing the big CVA into several smaller ships might help, or might not, that's a very technical subject. Either way you staill have a carrier group that will operate much like today's carrier groups, but perhaps without the symbol of strength.
But ships that just fire missiles, not drones with a camera and some loiter time, are no substitute for a carrier group. There hasn't been a high-intensity naval conflict for nearly 70 years. Without the ability to observe the target, and attempt to warn the target off if appropriate, it's not a weapon for modern times,
Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been done, it was called WWII.
And the deciding factor was who's carriers got caught with their pants down.
Re:How vulnerable are they really though (Score:5, Insightful)
Missiles alone can not project power. They have to be launched from somewhere - a land base, a ship or aircraft.
Carriers are effective at controlling large areas of ocean and land due to their ability to launch long range aircraft. This allows them to stay out of range of anti ship missiles while it's aircraft destroy the enemy's ability to launch attacks. When you consider that fact that a US supercarrier has a larger air wing than most nations, and that the US possesses twelve of them when no other nation has even one, it becomes clear why carriers rule.
The real weapon is, as always, knowledge. The decisive carrier battles of WW2 were decided by the ability to place the assets where they were needed to destroy the enemy. Lose the knowledge battle and carriers are just great big targets.
Of course, when you need to gather knowledge about the enemy, aircraft are extremely useful. So are submarines. Float a ship loaded with deadly anti ship missiles and threaten a carrier group with it. You'll know a submarine is in the area when your ship unexpectedly explodes and sinks.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand me and re-reading my post, which in retrospect was a bit over the top, I can see why. Please allow me to qualify that. I'm no US-hater. Quite the opposite. Yours is a great country. I know and have worked with many US citizens and have high regard for them. US technology, culture, entrepreneurship and sheer energy are second to none and I will argue with anyone who says otherwise. The US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are inspiring, great works. It's fair to say that I love your country.
That is why it saddens me to see what the workings of your political system seems to have become. And I don't want to single out the US alone as I said. Democracy is imperfect, and unfortunately vulnerable, but it's far better than the alternatives. I'll take imperfect democracy anytime over any other system. And it requires vigilance to maintain, as Jefferson stressed. That is why, whatever the political persuasion, Americans (or others) really have a duty to speak up when it's obvious that, for example, something's broken eg when foreign policy isn't really much different when the party in power changes. How many presidential campaign promises are ever fulfilled, I wonder? I tend to think John Ralston Saul is right when he says that the old left/right divides of two dominant party systems, like Republican versus Democracy, are really just theatre now, and that all we really get is more of the same.
Re:US should have fewer carriers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what replaces them? (Score:4, Insightful)
You might have a point if you had mentioned the possible toxicological conerns about DU (caused by its chemical activity, not nuclear), and you might have a point if you cited the linear no-threshold model for radiation increasing the chance for cancer or birth defects - although the latter is certainly much more controversial. However, both of these concerns regarding DU have absolutely no relationship to nuclear weapons, so there's still that.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:4, Insightful)
A carrier is a toy for the big guy's because it needs a whole squadron around it to protect the carrier
Modern navies are centered around carriers, and 90% of the fleet's firepower is devoted to defending the carriers. If you eliminate the carriers, you also eliminate most the need for a navy. The only thing that is left is the gators (amphibious ships) and subs. As for the subs, SSBNs [wikipedia.org] are even more obsolete than carriers. There has been no justification of them since the introduction of SLCMs [wikipedia.org] decades ago.
Huge special interests are opposed to elimination of carriers. Don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:3, Insightful)
"The Obama government's foreign policy is much the same as Bush's."
Te you haven't been paying attention.
Bush got us into a country for no good reason except to show up his dad in a vain attempt at parental approval.
Obama has been extracting us out of those wars.
Do you think he should of just pulled those troops out and left a great big vacuum behind?
Obama has used Peace and negotiations, Bush used Shock and Awe.
"n. Same idiotic sabre-rattling about invading Iran,"
Are you kidding me? Obama keeps taking a hit becasue he doesn't want a war with Iran; meanwhile top republican people have all but said they would attack Iran.
You're an ignorant fool. read the fuck up.
Re:How vulnerable are they really though (Score:4, Insightful)
No. If a carrier wants to control the straits it wouldn't sit in them. It would sit 100 miles outside in the Indian ocean and launch planes over the straits. This is what's so silly about Iran's blustering. Yes they could close the strait, for a week or two during which the carrier groupings sitting outside the gulf and based in Bahrain, and UAE would destroy every coastal harbor in Iran from which they could launch a dingy. And once the coast has been annihilated the strait demined the whole thing would be over and Iran's abilities would be severely hampered.
Hell, the US navy already has the battle plan written.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget, 90% of the fleet's firepower comes from carriers (in the USN at least). The four squadrons of SuperHornets plus helos and EA-6 (or Hornet G) on each carrier can perform all sorts of missions (land/naval strike, interdiction, recon, CAS, BARCAP, sweep, SEAD/DEAD. elint, ew, SAR, anti-sub, etc etc) and they can do it thousands of kilometers from the fleet.
As far back as the 60s the US thought that perhaps carriers were obsolete and too expensive and should be gotten rid of. However, the various wars and skirmishes (eg El Dorado Canyon/Libya) have shown the US time and again that the carrier strike group is still unparalleled in mission range, variety, striking power and capability. Hence, the US has 12/13 (depending on the rate of building) and lots of other countries want them too. The UK also though of getting rid of its carriers but fortunately they were around when the Argentinians occupied the Falkland Islands. Without a carrier the UK would have had zero chance of restoring sovereignty to the Falkland Islanders (who govern themselves but cannot defend themselves).
However, on Slashdot the uninformed start with purile "penis" comparisons as if US defense policy was based on this (prestige follies happen in banana republics like Chavez's Venezuala or Qadaffi's Libya - but not in the US; the US follies are based on the economic benefits of the military-industrial complex in each State, but not braggadoccio as the posters suggest).
Aircraft carriers are an important part of global power projection. Without a carrier you simply cannot enforce your will around the World (unopposed aircraft can defeat all ships and submarines; if you don't have a carrier to counter this then your Navy is useless - which is why the Russian and Chinese Navies have carriers mostly tasked with protecting their fleets).
nb: with regard to carrier killing missiles. The US purchased advanced hypersonic Russian missiles and tested/developed defenses against them. Work is ongoing on improved versions of the Standard Missile against ballistic missiles like the DongFeng 'carrier killers' and lasers are being tested against Brahmos and other hypersonic sea skimming missiles. As a result the greatest threat to carriers is not missiles, it is submarines (especially those with Air-Independent-Propulsion, that are very difficult to detect). A torpedo from a submarine also contains a far greater payload than missiles (this includes nuclear tipped torpedoes, Soviet attack subs were issued with two nuke as carriers are so valuable [because they are so powerful] that bagging one was worth the risk of escalation).
So, the manhood insults about navies may be cheap lurlz but show considerable ignorance about modern military affairs and why there is so much activity around developing both naval aviation and counter-carrier capabilities.
Re:Useful for the same reason we have troops in SK (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get it at all. The people in power or their kids aren't in South Korea or on the carrier. They get to bet with other peoples lives and if they start a war they get more money and power.
Re:Behold, our huge, mighty penises!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, I'd be the first to say Big O is scoring about a C- right now, but you've left out so many fact, your comments simply don't hold water. Baby Bush got us into Iraq to prove something to his DAD. He was put up to it by Dick Cheney who saw endless no competition contracts for Halliburton, and Rove who had wet dreams about building a military base in a country flush with Oil and managed with a puppet government installed by the U.S. Did I miss anything... Oh yeah, the "Yellow Cake" cluster fuck they dreamed up and the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that we never found. Lies and more lies. Are we clear yet? There is NOTHING in the Obama administration to compare, not even vaguely. Even a cursory revue of the Bush Presidency would certainly turn up events that would justifiably end with a firing squad. Obama's a jerk, but he's no traitor. Nearly everything he's done, has been dancing between getting us unstuck from the disasters that Dubya impaled us on, and trying to keep all the moving part inside the bus... (ie. Working inside the disaster that is re Democratic Party) not an easy dance, especially with folks from the right side of aisle taking frequent pot shots at you. The real problem is he should have let go of trying to get people to like him, and pressed on kicking ass and getting jobs done. Of course, it is D.C. and you have to play the game or they make you go away. Strange place we live in.