Is the aircraft carrier obsolete?

[Eddie Teach]

That is Dangerous.

[The Brain]

You're so vulnerable.

[Josquius]

From the perspective of fighting a 'real' war; very much so.
For doing what western militaries do in the modern day: not entirely suited to purpose but useful.

[DGuller]

Then there's this, though I have no idea how credible it is:

http://www.news.com.au/world/us-supercarrier-sunk-by-french-submarine-in-wargames/story-fndir2ev-1227250666936

Submarines are the biggest threat to carriers, no question.  But the results of wargames like this are often not what the bubbleheads pretend - I never, as an umpire in three fleetexes, ever had a sub acknowledge that it had been sunk, or that it's weapons ever missed.  So, it's possible the Saphir did what it claimed, but its equally possible that it didn't, or at least didn't make quite the sweep that it claims.

How do wargames work anyway?  Does the sub commander go "pew, pew, you're dead", and the carrier commander go "no, kaboom, you're dead".

[mongers]

Then there's this, though I have no idea how credible it is:

http://www.news.com.au/world/us-supercarrier-sunk-by-french-submarine-in-wargames/story-fndir2ev-1227250666936

Submarines are the biggest threat to carriers, no question.  But the results of wargames like this are often not what the bubbleheads pretend - I never, as an umpire in three fleetexes, ever had a sub acknowledge that it had been sunk, or that it's weapons ever missed.  So, it's possible the Saphir did what it claimed, but its equally possible that it didn't, or at least didn't make quite the sweep that it claims.

How do wargames work anyway?  Does the sub commander go "pew, pew, you're dead", and the carrier commander go "no, kaboom, you're dead".

No, more along the lines of you lost because the 2nd pew wasn't necessary, they should be divided by dots rather than a comma and you didn't include the regulation Kapow*.



* not correct capitalisation.

[grumbler]

How do wargames work anyway?  Does the sub commander go "pew, pew, you're dead", and the carrier commander go "no, kaboom, you're dead".

In naval war games, each unit has an umpire (or team of umpires), who have their own radio network and crypto so they can communicate to one another where units are and who is firing what at whom.  A lot of that is handled by computers, of course.

[Ed Anger]

Grumbler was the Dungeon Master.

[Neil]

The aircraft carrier is clearly not obsolete, but neither is it the wave of the future.  The DF-21 doesn't really offer that much capability against carriers to the Chinese arsenal, because it is still reliant on external sensors to hit anything moving, and that opens up a lot of opportunities for spoofing and jamming.  Its warhead size is the big improvement over cruise missiles.  What is going to make the CVN obsolete is distributed deployment of drones to carry out the strike missions that the CVN currently has a lock on.  Building more CVNs seems like following in the footsteps of building the last dozen or so battleships (Vanguard, the Jean Barts, and the South Dakotas and Iowas) - yeah, they had some utility, but weren't worth the cost.

Its hard to fight against the entrenched interests favoring more CVN orders, though.

I'm gonna certainly defer to your knowledge in this, but surely drones need to be parked somewhere near the area of conflict to maximise mission time?

Every mid-size ship in every navy in the world has helicopter facilities which could easily be adapted to the launching of the smaller drones.  The bigger ones, like the X-47s that the Navy is fond of, would require something like a carrier.  So long as you're making small strikes, you wouldn't miss the carriers, but to drop the heavy stuff, you're going to need a carrier or something like it.

The CVNs will always have a role, but there won't be a need for as many of them.  \They wouldn't be using them for the war on terror, but they'd be docked in Japan and the Med, awaiting the war with China or Russia.

[CountDeMoney]

Shut your dirty whore mouth Seedy and ElevenB!

Fuck you, Nanook of the North.  I want more carriers.

[Neil]

Shut your dirty whore mouth Seedy and ElevenB!

Fuck you, Nanook of the North.  I want more carriers.

Why do you hate America?

[grumbler]

Big carrier size is dictated by the weight of modern aircraft, not their wingspan.  Carriers have to be able to accelerate 50 tons of aircraft to 160 knots for launch and slow 150-knot 50-ton aircraft to speed zero for landing.  That takes room, even with catapults and arresting gear.   Once you are committed to that kind of room, you might as well go super-carrier because the marginal benefits outweigh marginal costs.

However, drones are maybe a third the weight of a strike fighter, and so can take of and land from much, much smaller areas at much, much lower speeds.  Drones will never be as capable in any kind of air-air action, but they won't rely on air-air action for survival.  They will rely on stealth and numbers.  You can afford a lot of drones and destroyers (and cruise missiles) for $12 billion worth of carrier and another $8 billion or so in aircraft.

[Eddie Teach]

So if the Incans had invested in drones instead of torpedo boats, their quantity would have carried the day? 

[viper37]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the strenght of a carrier lies in its capacity at forcep projection, right?  The US sends a carrier group (carrier alone is a bad idea, IIRC?), and the planes fly ahead to intercept any ennemy before they even make it to be a dange to the carrier group.

Drones are good at bombing shit on the ground, not so good for air to air.

Can some sort of hybrid carrier, smaller, with a decent air-to-air force and drones for bombing ground be envisionned at a reduced cost compared to the super carriers currently built?  Could you have many of these hybrid, small carriers, rather than one big super carrier and still be efficient at what they do?

[MadBurgerMaker]

Big carrier size is dictated by the weight of modern aircraft, not their wingspan.  Carriers have to be able to accelerate 50 tons of aircraft to 160 knots for launch and slow 150-knot 50-ton aircraft to speed zero for landing.  That takes room, even with catapults and arresting gear.   Once you are committed to that kind of room, you might as well go super-carrier because the marginal benefits outweigh marginal costs.

However, drones are maybe a third the weight of a strike fighter, and so can take of and land from much, much smaller areas at much, much lower speeds.  Drones will never be as capable in any kind of air-air action, but they won't rely on air-air action for survival.  They will rely on stealth and numbers.  You can afford a lot of drones and destroyers (and cruise missiles) for $12 billion worth of carrier and another $8 billion or so in aircraft.

UCAVs, actual capable ones, aren't cheap, and they aren't all that light either when they're weighed down with gas and weapons.  That Global Hawk costs IIRC about as much as two Super Hornets (not including the cost of training a pilot, of course, which isn't cheap, although UCAVs will require those too.  They just aren't in immediate danger, which is a good thing.), and it doesn't shoot at anything.  We're talking F-35 price range for this thing.  Autonomous or semi-autonomous stealth UCAVs with a respectable payload?  Yeah, pony up some cash.  Even if they can get the price down to around what a Super Hornet costs, you still can't just send thousands and thousands of them to get blown up in a dronewave, because....damn that would be expensive and we still have to build the things.  Boeing and Lockheeed would probably be down though.  That's a helluva payday for them.

The size IS a factor when you start putting them on destroyers or destroyer sized ships.  Predators are cheap and light (and their 50 foot wingspan would prevent them from being kept assembled in a DDG hangar without some interesting modifications), but they also suck when you're talking about replacing the strike capabilities of a carrier air wing with a bunch of them.  You can't strap a 2,000lb bomb to something that weighs 5,000lbs and expect it to go anywhere except straight into the ocean after you roll it off the flight deck, let alone the kind of payload current planes like the Super Hornet can fly around with.

They also need a place to land.  A DDG flight deck isn't big enough to trap a UCAV coming back.  It would have to be amphibious, a VTOL, or disposable.

Also, are we just going to be getting rid of the helos that are currently on DDGs and CGs?  Because there wouldn't be any place to put those anymore, and those are pretty damn useful. 

Cruise missiles don't work like strike aircraft.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the strenght of a carrier lies in its capacity at forcep projection, right?  The US sends a carrier group (carrier alone is a bad idea, IIRC?), and the planes fly ahead to intercept any ennemy before they even make it to be a dange to the carrier group.

Drones are good at bombing shit on the ground, not so good for air to air.

Can some sort of hybrid carrier, smaller, with a decent air-to-air force and drones for bombing ground be envisionned at a reduced cost compared to the super carriers currently built?  Could you have many of these hybrid, small carriers, rather than one big super carrier and still be efficient at what they do?

For decent a/a from airplanes, you're going to need pilots, and to keep them from just getting offed by the first "real" land based fighter they come across, you're going to need to put them in something that's pretty capable.  That's getting right back in to the aircraft carrier range (not necessarily giant supercarriers though).  Something like the De Gaulle or around the size of our current big deck amphibs would probably work, I would think, but those aren't exactly small or cheap themselves.   Wiki says the new USS America was $3 billion, and they can only launch STOVLs planes like the Harrier or the shittastic F-35B.  Those are both better than drones in the air to air area though, so there you go.