Nah, the Russians and anyone they’ve shared the tech with could easily sink a carrier or any other surface ship with hypersonic anti-ship missiles[1]. That’s assuming they don’t just ram into another ship on accident. The US Navy is in a very bad place now and the next war that isn’t just picking on some totally helpless country will show it.
The Naval Gazing blog has a four-part series called "Why the Carriers Are Not Doomed" in which he makes the case: "Claims that US carriers are very vulnerable to missile attack, and will be sunk immediately in any upcoming war, are quite common. They’re also wrong. The carriers are surprisingly survivable, and the prowess of missiles is usually grossly exaggerated."
I don't have the expertise to fully evaluate the arguments, but it's worth a read before you fully swallow the "carriers are pointless because of anti-ship missiles" line.
This guy seems to be under the impression that carriers can manueuver quickly enough to dodge and/or outrun submarines and/or the torpedoes they launch.
Torpedoes are not that much faster than
their targets. The Yu-6 is capable of
65 kts in attack mode, but the range figure
is for cruise mode, which doesn’t have an
associated speed. Even a 65 kt torpedo is
only about twice as fast as a carrier, and
the sound of the torpedo being fired is
enough to alert any ship with a live sonar
operator. This means that the target ship
is likely to be running away...
Not sure how credible that is.
My guess is that sinking a US carrier would be treated as justification for opening a bottle of tactical nuclear whoopass. If so, that probably constitutes more meaningful deterrence than sonar arrays, Aegis defenses, ASROCs, and so on.
why did you only quote that part of the paragraph? here's the rest:
> Torpedoes are not that much faster than their targets. The Yu-6 is capable of 65 kts in attack mode, but the range figure is for cruise mode, which doesn’t have an associated speed. Even a 65 kt torpedo is only about twice as fast as a carrier, and the sound of the torpedo being fired is enough to alert any ship with a live sonar operator.7 This means that the target ship is likely to be running away, and the submarine has to close to within half of the effective range before launch. Furthermore, the target and its escorts are likely to counterattack, forcing the submarine to evade and cut the torpedo’s wires. A torpedo has limited space for sonar, and without guidance updates from the launching submarine, it can be evaded. All of this is likely to limit submarines to launch ranges of 8 nm or less.
he's saying that the effective range for the torpedo is much shorter for a moving target, forcing the sub to get dangerously close. then after being detected, the sub would have to disengage and stop guiding the torpedo, at which point it could possibly be evaded.
I was addressing just the issue of speed. The torperdoes aren't intended against carriers really. The carrier groups are supposed to be attacked by something like submarine launched self organizing packs of antiship supersonic missiles like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-800_Oniks. An attack submarine like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasen-class_submarine carries 32 missiles and can launch 8 per salvo (the VLS launchers are revolver type, so the delay between salvos is very short) from 100km distance in the low-altitude sea-skimming mode. Such an attack would present serious challenge to the carrier group defenses. It is basically machine against machine - automated CIWS vs. the missiles incoming at 2.5Mach (and the new generation of hypersonic missiles is coming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahMos), and humans have no role in such engagement.
the basic claim that effective range is halved or more against a target moving half as fast as you seems to make sense. I have no idea to what extent torpedoes need guidance from the launcher.
An obvious counter example is Aircraft carriers need to refuel for their aircraft regularly and can’t travel quickly during this process. Nor can they accelerate quickly if caught in such a situation.
Further, to be useful aircraft carriers need to stay near their targets and a few subs acting in concert can lie in it’s probable path. Think one sub every ~30 miles in a line sweeping slowly and they can close the trap.
On top of that subs can also launch missiles not just torpedo’s.
> On top of that subs can also launch missiles not just torpedo’s.
From the blog post:
"Or can they avoid this by using missiles? Unfortunately, this is not likely to be a healthy choice. At best, an SSN might be able to fire 18 missiles in a single salvo. Even with the benefit of popping up close to the target (which requires going through a lot of those same defenses they’re trying to avoid), this is unlikely to be enough. Launching missiles is extremely noisy, and Aegis is set up to take cues from sonar. The missiles will likely be shot down, and the patch of sea the submarine launched from is not going to be a safe place."
Limits like 18 missiles are very easy to change in a war. Firing 100 vs 18 does not involve some huge leaps in technology, just a different focus.
Subs are extremely dangerous places or be in a war and should expect heavy casualties. However, from a military standpoint if the sub is destroyed after taking out an aircraft carrier that’s a major win.
Several ways around CIWS. Simply having enough missiles in the air works, but you can also do things like add armor or even forgo high explosive payloads relying instead on kinetic energy.
Aircraft carriers are huge targets and it's the weapon systems you don't know about that are the largest risks.
No, I don't, but I'm pretty sure a carrier that's presumably not already "running away" can't hit the gas and accelerate meaningfully when it detects an enemy torpedo launch less than an hour away.
Intuitively, evasive maneuvers don't seem to be a useful tool in a carrier's defensive arsenal, but I'd be interested in hearing otherwise.
At the moment I can't find how long it takes them to step on the gas, maybe that's classified or something, but it's pretty clear they can at least turn around quickly once they're going fast. Of course, deck operations,etc might delay such maneuvers.
My guess? If modern warships can't maneuver effectively against traditional torpedoes, Russia would not have spent the money developing supercavitating torpedoes.
Step on the gas? They never stop moving! By constantly moving, the airplanes have 30 knots less to accelerate to reach flight speed and 30 knots less to deaccelerate when landing. They're also nuclear powered so it's not like that extra energy actually costs you much.
That looks impressive, but costs a lot of speed. It’s mostly useful for an aircraft carrier to hide behind another ship rather than directly avoiding torpedoes in open water.
As to acceleration they are something like 2.5 HP to the long ton. So picture a 5 HP car on ice.
There are scenarios where simply being able to stop quickly is evasive. If the torpedo has a 50 km range and the submarine captain assumes it takes you a 1 km to stop, the submarine could attack from 51 km away. When your target is slow to decelerate or change course, you have a greater effective range when attacking from from the front.
All forms of acceleration (be it speeding up, slowing down, or turning) will modify the effective range of enemy torpedoes as a function of launch position relative to the ship.
Consider even a ship moving at a constant speed and heading. If you draw a line around the ship to represent the maximum range of a constant speed torpedo aimed at the ship, that line won't be circular. If you abstract away water drag and assume submarines can move as fast as carriers, then the line would be circular. But in reality drag on the torpedo means that sub can't simply match speeds with the carrier and expect the speeds of the torpedo and the sub to add up. The torpedoe's top speed is relative to the stationary water, not to its launching submarine.
The way I read it, that concerns an attack by a single submarine. So what if there are a dozen or more enemy submarine. Is taking out a carrier for 2 or 3 subs a meaningful war exchange?
A dozen submarines would be an enormous group: China and Russia each only have about a dozen nuclear attack submarines, and non-nuclear submarines don't have the undersea range to get close to a carrier battle group undetected. It would be a huge gamble to throw them all in one attack.
The other problem is that the submarines would have no way to communicate without giving away their position. It would be very difficult to execute any sort of coordinated operation.
Carriers can move at about the same speed as submarines. And when transiting at high speed, submarines are very noisy and thus easy to detect. So if the carrier is operating in the open ocean it's tough for a submarine to get into firing position.
If the carrier is constrained to operate in a restricted area then the submarine has a much better chance of sneaking up undetected. Carriers are frequently "sunk" in exercises like that.
>My guess is that sinking a US carrier would be treated as justification for opening a bottle of tactical nuclear whoopass.
A problem appears when you don't know who sank the CV. I think the possibility for such a scenario exists with submarines and torpedoes. The US can't exactly nuke someone based on circumstantial evidence.
Combine that with disinformation campaigns by less-friendly nations and it's difficult to tell what the populace would think.
And those weren't countries that people held in high regard nor did they run disinformation campaigns in the US. I really don't believe that the US could nuke someone as a first strike without there being overwhelming public evidence to give cause. The US populace probably wouldn't approve regardless who's in charge.
I would be surprised if signal intelligence was unable to discern who the guilty party was in this case even in the absence of hard data from the incident itself. I find it hard to believe any entity capable and willing of initiating such an attack could keep it quiet for long.
I imagine that's one thing that sonar technology does guarantee. They'll have exquisitely-detailed acoustical profiles for everything in the water that's bigger than a tuna.
The author is certainly correct in saying that as soon as a missile or a torpedo gets fired, the stealth game is over. There won't be any question about who did the deed.
But there are delayed weapons and it's also possible to use weapons that other nations use. Even if the military thinks that know who did it doesn't mean the people will believe it, especially when there are disinformation campaigns. You can't fight a war if your own population doesn't support you/it. A hostile nation doesn't have to be able to do this completely undetected, they simply have to create enough doubt.
> could easily sink a carrier or any other surface ship with hypersonic anti-ship missiles
There is a tradeoff between speed and maneuverability. Ballistic missiles are hypersonic, for example, and have almost zero post-launch maneuverability. Cruise missiles are subsonic, but have a tremendous amount of maneuverability.
Low-speed projectiles are vulnerable to jamming and shipboard defenses. High-speed projectiles are vulnerable to targets leaving the strike zone.
Anyone claiming a carrier strike group can "easily" be sunk misunderstands not only anti-ship missile technology but also the strategic role of carrier systems. (The ships hold back at a safe distance from which they monitor for incoming projectiles. Planes and missiles do the close-range work.)
The Russians can't force project for shit. They struggle with Syria and that's practically their next door neighbor. Their surface fleet in particular is abysmal and has been since... basically forever.
Rather than actually shooting at each other, America and Russia seem to compete to sell weapon systems to other countries, or to prevent the other from doing so. Two competing but symbiotic MICs whose mere existence serves to justify the existence of the other, creating an opportunity for profit across the board.
The above commenter has exaggerated, but large aircraft carriers are indeed regarded as increasingly vulnerable to high-speed missiles. E.g., from [1]:
"More controversially, the navy remains wedded to new aircraft carriers, but at $13 billion each they are arguably more an outdated symbol of twentieth-century power than an effective weapon system for a future in which they will be increasingly vulnerable to attack by high-speed, maneuverable missiles that can be bought for a minuscule fraction of what a carrier costs."
"they will be increasingly vulnerable to attack by high-speed, maneuverable missiles that can be bought for a minuscule fraction of what a carrier costs."
Except that assertion is far from proven. Missiles of that type have been around since the 70s and 80s, and the Navy was planning for it then. They are a threat, yes. But they're not assuredly effective. Finding the carrier and then delivering a missile that has the range, sensor coverage, lethality, is not a trivial problem to solve, and there's trade-offs in every area.
Discussing all of this in context is not easy, which is why this article is a nice one. Places like the NYtimes and others, while great in many areas, consistently seem to oversimplify defense issues. That's not to say that the threat from missiles to carries is one to be disregarded. But it needs to be understood that the defense against a carrier is not an easy one either. And while anti-ship missiles is a logical direction as far as cost vs. effectiveness, success is far from guaranteed.
That completely ignores their logistical utility. There are cheaper alternatives to aircraft carriers if you want to attack something but if you need a cargo plane to land near enemy territory for resupply then you either need an ally who provides you access to their airbase or you need an aircraft carrier.
Nonetheless, it seems the US Navy is still fighting the last war. Carriers are extremely vulnerable to missiles. I think fast missile boats and land based launchers probably make large warships obsolete. Tough to say for sure since that hasn't happened, but it seems likely to me.
Killing a carrier isn't like a video game where you see a carrier on screen and issue a launch command. Killing a carrier involves a chain of events; break anyone of the links and the carrier is safe.
First you have to locate the carrier. Easy to do in peacetime, in war time much more difficult. If you want to kill it with a ballistic missile, you need to locate it within a few square kilometers. This means either a radar location, or a satellite overhead.
Radar is problematic because it has to deal with the curvature of the earth. This is typically solved by using airborne radar. Well, carriers and their airgroups are very well versed in both detecting this surveillance and killing it. Either with aircraft, with SAMs, or with cruise missiles that target that airfields of the surveillance (ISR) aircraft.
So say that you somehow manage to get a location fix on a carrier battle group. Now you have to prep your missiles for launch which takes time. Let's say 30-60 min. The carrier can steam at over 30 knots, so now your targeting data is out of date. Again, not like push button warfare. Your ballistic missile now has to find the carrier in a roughly 1000 sq mile area. Fine, missiles are relatively cheap. So you just target each square mile with a missile and hope its internal radar can pick out the CVN.
So you launch 1000 missiles, and just like in Battleship, one of your missiles manages to be in the right spot. Now it has to deal with the SAMs protecting the CVN. Aegis is pretty good these days, so you've got to make it past them. That'll be tough. Then you have to make it past the ESSM missiles, as well as the ECM jamming suite of every ship in the carrier group. Fine, you have robust electronics.
BOOM! You've hit. But it turns out that your radar on the warhead was small, with insufficient processing power to discriminate between a carrier (especially with all the jamming going on) and an escort ship. You've sunk an LCS, or a refueler (they're big and have a big radar image), or maybe even an Arleigh Burke DDG or Tico cruiser. Sucks for those crewmates, but that's their job. Protect the carrier.
And what has this failed attack cost you? Well, ballistic missiles are cheap compared to a CVN, but not that cheap. Say $5M a piece since it makes the math easier (though the DF-21 and DF-26 will cost much much more). 1000 missiles is $5B, plus the cost of all the ISR assets used to locate the CVN.
Now if hypersonic missiles start to take off (pun intended) and become deployable weapon systems, it will make things more difficult. But that's still in the future.
>> Now you have to prep your missiles for launch which takes time. Let's say 30-60 min.
China's DF-21D and DF-26 are solid-fueled and fired from mobile launchers. In a deliberate carrier-hunting attack the sensor-shooter killchain is also likely to be streamlined, even taking into the account that the Chinese still suck at Command & Control. Overall preptime and killchain delay should be negligible (<30 minutes for the Chinese).
>>> So you just target each square mile with a missile and hope its internal radar can pick out the CVN.
No. These long-range anti-carrier missiles have an almost vertical terminal trajectory and are looking down from high altitude. AN AESA's fast scanning should be able to find and fix a target with a signature as gigantic as a carrier's over a 30km-radius circle without too much difficulty. I haven't crunched the numbers on this personally, but I'll add it to my list of "radar scenarios to do the math on"...
>>>But it turns out that your radar on the warhead was small, with insufficient processing power
The DF-21 and DF-26 are both about 1.4m meters in diameter. You can stuff an AESA as good as any on a fighter into a nosecone that large.
>>>Aegis is pretty good these days.......Then you have to make it past the ESSM missiles.
Even in controlled tests we don't have that great of a pK (probability of kill aka "intercept") against high-speed ballistic missiles. The ships need to use SM-2s and SM-3s. 1x Tico + 2x Arleigh Burke are packing about 300VLS total, and that has to include Harpoons and Tomahawks. Let's assume ~250 SM-2/3s for air and missile defense. It's customary to launch 2 missiles per incoming threat (again, due to that low pK we've demonstrated) but that is still enough to stop 100 incoming (probably bigger than any realistic incoming salvo anyway). Assuming you can LAUNCH the SM-2s fast enough. Each ship would need to fire off 80+ missiles in probably 30 seconds, and I think there is a practical limit for how quickly you can fire from VLS (due to the exhausts and whatnot). It's probably something like 1-2 missiles per second, from non-adjacent cells.
>>>> Say $5M a piece since it makes the math easier (though the DF-21 and DF-26 will cost much much more). 1000 missiles is $5B, plus the cost of all the ISR assets used to locate the CVN.
I've seen estimates of $10-20M for DF-21/26.
-200(don't need 1000) x $20M = $400M
-3 x $100M(??) surveillance sats = $300M
-Sinking the centerpiece of your opponent's Navy, exploiting their Critical Vulnerability to defeat their Center of Gravity, AND achieve major Information Operation success (PR victory)? Priceless.
Warheads on the DF-21/26 aren't the same size as the missile diameter, especially if they're using MARV. So sensor size will drop. And the missiles won't have that much maneuverability.
Plus you're forgetting about SM6. This will eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Assuming that the DF21 can even burn through the ECM that will be blasting it.
And it'll take more than one direct hit to kill a CVN. An 1100lb warhead will be similar in effect to a Harpoon. You might get lucky and have a mission kill, but if you fire 200+ missiles at a CVN you better kill it.
And if we go to war with the PRC, we won't be using one CVN. We'll be surging 2-3 CVBGs, and they'll run out of missiles. I also think that it's more likely that the PRC will be using nuclear warheads on the DF-26 in a purely defensive posture. The idea of them using as conventional weapons is too risky.
>>>>Warheads on the DF-21/26 aren't the same size as the missile diameter
For some reason finding physical radar dimensions is not easy. Even if the warhead is ~1m to the DF-21/26's 1.4m, that's still enough to stuff in one of these: [1] one of the most powerful A2A radars ever. [2]&[3] are <60cm diameter. [3] is known Chinese tech, and is therefore most within the realm of feasibility for employment.
>>>And the missiles won't have that much maneuverability
They shouldn't need much, just enough to turn a near-miss into a full miss (assuming a frag detonation and not a more difficult kinetic kill anyway). Topol-Ms are rumored to have evasive maneuver capabilities, to establish precedent.
>>>>Plus you're forgetting about SM6. This will eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Nah I just lumped them in with the SM2/3. Regardless of the actual SAM used you're going to shoot 2 of them per incoming contact. The SM6 tests listed on the Wiki all used 2 missiles per MRBM target.[6]
>>>Assuming that the DF21 can even burn through the ECM that will be blasting it.
Ummmmm, pointing insanely powerful radio emissions into the upper atmosphere in an attempt to blind a ballistic missile is a great way to broadcast your position. If anything, might be a good idea to configure several DF-21s for passive direction finding. Not sure if the DF-21s have any kind of datalink, the speeds and atmospheric conditions will make that difficult, but P-700 Granit missiles have a networked cooperative capability and those things are decades old.
>>>>An 1100lb warhead will be similar in effect to a Harpoon.
A Harpoon has a <500lb warhead [4]. 1100lbs is closer to a Tomahawk. For reference, the P-700's warhead (and it's definitely considered "carrier killer" ordnance) is ~1600lbs.
>>>You might get lucky and have a mission kill
A 500kg warhead with a vertical attack profile, if it hits, is practically a guaranteed mission kill. The CVN will lose catapults or an elevator at the least, and suffer a gigantic detonation inside its hangar at worst. Either way it's a PR victory and its entire air wing is no longer contributing to the fight.
>>>>>And if we go to war with the PRC, we won't be using one CVN. We'll be surging 2-3 CVBGs, and they'll run out of missiles.
If they run out of anti-carrier ballistic missiles they'll send drone-converted 3rd-generation aircraft, which is a great way to burn up our anti-air ordnance.[5] If anything they'll use those FIRST to exhaust our defenses, then fire the DF-21/26s, then follow up with a land-based strike package to finish the task force off. China's land-based strike aircraft all outrange the combat radius of carrier aircraft + ordnance by a significant margin. We'll run out of ordnance within the Nine Dash Line / First Island Chain before China does.
Oh, not that I ever expect a 100-missile DF-21 salvo anyway. I don't think they have anywhere near that many launchers, and our best bet would be Tomahawk strikes from submarines against the launchers early in the war.
FYI: I've spent ~5 years in the west Pacific Theater, 3 of those at a Corps-level combined arms headquarters that regularly wargames ahem a "peer fight" against a fictional country with a ballooning blue water navy and an authoritarian government, if you catch my meaning. I've spent a LOT of time reading exercise AARs, intel updates, and threat briefs from the past ten years on this problem set, courtesy of the ///SECRET Intelink portal. But I'm arguing entirely from open-source info here.
For maneuverability of the warheads, I was focusing more on them being able to adjust to a shifting target location, not avoiding SAMs. I don't think decoys and other countermeasures to ABM defences are currently relevant to non-ICBM platforms for the near future.
I think that the bigger issue with protecting the CVBGs isn't DF-21/26 but that lack of missile magazine depth and reloading. We can't even fill most of the VLS we have now, and as you mentioned, it'd be pretty simple to degrade our AD with threats that require a response but aren't as dangerous. And since replenishment at sea for VLS is not currently practiced, ships would have to cycle through Yokosuka (assuming it's still a functioning base after whatever the PLAN does) for reloads.
And since we have relatively shortlegged "interceptors" for the CVNs, with shortlegged AAMs (as currently deployed), I wouldn't be surprised if the PLAN decides that ALCMs still have tremendous value. Hell, we don't even deploy with full airwings these days.
At least the PLAN is pretty far behind in subs. For now.
And where are your fast missile boats and land-based launchers going to get the real-time targeting data they need to hit anything? The ocean is a big place, missile seekers have narrow views, and reconnaissance satellites are increasingly vulnerable.
That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of carriers today and going forward. They're not primarily for fighting a war with China or Russia.
The reason China is building them and looking to add more in the coming years, is for the same reason the US has them. China knows the US could sink a carrier and yet they're building them anyway. Why?
It's about global force projection. The point isn't to set them up in front of China or Russia as convenient targets and let them get sunk. You mostly want to use carriers directly against weaker adversaries. A war with China or Russia that involves sinking a US carrier, would be the start of WW3, and millions of people would probably die. Carriers getting sunk is not a primary concern at all in that scenario (it's down the list, with nuclear war jumping to the top).
You're touching on something unspoken but very present in the modern US military machine. It's great for wrecking anyone who isn't on the short list of China, Russia, the EU, Japan and maybe India. Every other nation could see their infrastructure and military devastated within a month, with little they could do to stop it. (See Libya for one example.)
But the American people aren't being sold a military that can act as the international equivalent of mafia leg-breakers. We're told, again and again, that we are paying for a military that is "the best" and that can, if needed, stand up to our global peers and near-peers and win. There's a disconnect between rhetoric and expenditures on the one hand, and demonstrated performance, capabilities, and operational plans on the other hand.
That seems like a huge problem to me. At the least, it's a massive fraud being perpetrated on the American public. And at worst, it might lead to a terrible conflict as decision-makers operate with very inaccurate assessments of what our military is really capable of.
I think a few other posters have touched on this, but: IMO there is no such thing as preparing for an extended physical war with China, Russia, or (worst case) current allies such as the EU. Any war of serious consequence between large nuclear powers is game over for both. Even if one "wins," they'll be left in such a state of devastation that every other country left on the planet will handily surpass them, if there's even a habitable planet afterwards.
I'd be surprised if our lawmakers, who mostly grew up in the era of MAD (mutually assured destruction) with the USSR, aren't aware of this. That's in part why there's such a focus on preventing unfriendly countries such as Iran from developing nuclear weapons... And it's why Iran wants them so badly: a large enough nuclear arsenal is a free pass from the "leg-breakers" you describe, because — one hopes — no one would be mad enough to start a war of MAD.
Currently, the military is still extremely useful in projecting force and securing access to important trade routes and resources. Threat of nuclear weapons isn't a good fit there, because you'd immediately destroy whatever you were trying to retain access to. Most of the global superpowers are thus locked in a giant Mexican standoff, where their militaries need to remain powerful enough to at least project the ability to fight and win small battles (and are stuck in an arms race against each other on that front), but can't reasonably expect to be able to topple each other — only gain relative advantage in the global economy via a long, slow game of securing access to better resources, trade agreements, or capital, and subtly undermining or attempting to destabilize each other via psychological warfare (election interference), economic warfare (tariffs, IP theft, etc), or hacking.
[1]https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25684396...