Is the aircraft carrier obsolete?

[Eddie Teach]

You also want more voicemail. Unfortunately for you, the times they are a-changing. 

[celedhring]

:timmah: The answer is giant submarine carriers!  :timmah:

Well, the Japanese worked on that concept. War ended before they saw action, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=I-400-class_submarine&redirect=no

[The Brain]

If the opponent can break US comms crypto like that, drones will be the very least of your worries.  They'll be sending false orders to every US unit, and false information to every US headquarters unit. 

Let me guess: orders to invade Iraq and information that Saddam supported Al-Qaeda?

[grumbler]

And the Tomahawk is great for the sorts of operations that the USN finds itself in now, whether that means blowing up a terrorist stronghold or glassing a baby formula factory/weapons plant.  But in a wartime situation, where the intensity of your operations goes way, way up, are they cost effective?  Will you end up with a production bottleneck?  I'm also a little more leery of the Tomahawk, since once it's fired, it is expended.  The advantage of an aircraft, be it UAV or convention airplane, is that if you launch it, you have the ability to call off an attack without having blown a million and a half dollars.  It's not a bad idea, when you're using missiles on terrorists.

Agreed.  My point, though, is that you don't need to have a single platform that can do all the things a manned aircraft can do.  That's the point of a distributed system: it seeks to accomplish all the tasks, but not all the time and with all the same assets.  Maybe we want our weapons delivery platform to be survivable and/or re-usable, and maybe we don't.  Without a man involved, that decision becomes a lot more about cost-effectiveness than about OMG think of the pilot.  And, of course, the fact is that, to launch that strikefighter mission, you've already blown a million and a half dollars.

Cost-cutting times are always interesting times in naval design.  The treaty years were the same.  Still, it's nice of the USN to leave it to the USAF to waste American taxpayer money on white elephant aircraft.  After all, if the USN made a successor to the F-14, what would it do?  It's not like the terrorists have Backfires to splash.

Agreed about the interesting nature of cost-cutting times; I've always had a weak spot for the York and Arethusa class cruisers, as stringent economies forced both to be someone innovative (the latter being far more successful at innovation than the former, but even failure is interesting).

An F-14 follow-on would presumably do air superiority missions for a serious deep strike aircraft like the A-12, in places like Iran.  But, it seems, the USN cannot develop two aircraft like that and so must cede those Iran missions to the USAF.  Puddle-jumpers like the F-18 and F-35 will perform most sea control and amphib support missions about as well as longer-ranged aircraft.

[grumbler]

If the opponent can break US comms crypto like that, drones will be the very least of your worries.  They'll be sending false orders to every US unit, and false information to every US headquarters unit. 

Let me guess: orders to invade Iraq and information that Saddam supported Al-Qaeda?

  Well-played.

[grumbler]

Well, the Japanese worked on that concept. War ended before they saw action, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=I-400-class_submarine&redirect=no

Like most Japanese WW2 concepts, the I-400 class was total fail from the brainfart that initiated it to the attempt to build it.  The designers didn't understand enough about either submarine ops or air ops.  How long do you think it would take that pig to submerge?  How did the designers not expect the slow-ass seaplanes to be simply followed back to the sub (if they weren't shot down by virtually anything)?

Sir, enemy aircraft off the port bow!

Clear the bridge!  Emergency dive!  Diving officer, take us to 300 feet!

Aye, sir!  300 feet, aye, sir!

COB, how long will it take us to get to 300 feet?

We should be there by this time tomorrow, sir.

[Zoupa]

[quote author=MadBurgerMaker link=topic=12601.msg854113#msg854113
I think the...Rafale?  I think that one has a way where if there's a catastrophic computer error or something that causes it to not be able to fly, the canards will adjust to make it aerodynamically stable and generally controllable.  Maybe it's the Eurofighter.  One of those Euro-canard planes.
[/quote]

The Rafale has an all analog backup computer.

Just kidding. I have no idea

[dps]

According to Wiki, the U.S. did some design studies for submarine aircraft carriers from 1946-52.  At one point, they envisioned 34,000 ton subs that could carry 4 Banshee fighters.  That's pretty nutty--keep in mind that the largest subs ever actually built are about 24,000 tons.  At least it was just a study;  we didn't actually try to build the things.

[grumbler]

According to Wiki, the U.S. did some design studies for submarine aircraft carriers from 1946-52.  At one point, they envisioned 34,000 ton subs that could carry 4 Banshee fighters.  That's pretty nutty--keep in mind that the largest subs ever actually built are about 24,000 tons.  At least it was just a study;  we didn't actually try to build the things.

Those were feasibility studies, not design studies per se (in other words, they weren't intended to produce a design, but rather to decide if the effort to do a design was worthwhile).  The conclusion was that no such design could be successful, for a whole host of reasons.  This was found to be true even when the mission was a one-way nuclear strike mission (which was undertaken by unmanned Regulus missiles, instead - is this starting to sound familiar?).

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Only eight tankers?  Huh.

Only eight Il-78 tankers.  The article also indicates they have 10 H-6 tankers.

[Siege]

If the opponent can break US comms crypto like that, drones will be the very least of your worries.  They'll be sending false orders to every US unit, and false information to every US headquarters unit. 

Let me guess: orders to invade Iraq and information that Saddam supported Al-Qaeda?

He didn't?
Why do you always subscribe to all those fringe conspiracy theories?