Once AI improves, carriers are going to be gone except in the form of Helicopter carriers/amphibious ships. AI driven UCAV's can stand G's human pilots can't. You could launch a UCAV from a missile tube.
What makes you think that UCAV will not become politically incorrect and outlawed ? You know how it works, if it works then it's called obsolete or it's called politically incorrect and becomes illegal. Legitimacy and Drones. Investigating the Legality, Morality and Efficacy of UCAV http://www.en.ism.uw.edu.pl/new-publication-of-dr-patrycja-grzebyk-and-dr-marek-madej/ http://www.academia.edu/3547618/A_strategic_moral_and_legal_analysis_of_drone_warfare
Carriers are just too vulnerable and excessively expensive, and long range aircraft are not all that more expensive. In older times the limiting issue was fuel weight, but today aircraft are lighter weight and targeting has more precision so that also means aircraft do not need to carry as much. Advances in technology have also made individual aircraft much more effective, but also much more expensive, so fuel costs have become almost a non-factor in comparison.
The moral debate about drones won't go anywhere. There's no functional difference between a plane dropping a bomb with a pilot on board and one where the pilot is elsewhere.
"The Carrier obsolete" is nothing but hot garbage nonsense. If it was the case China wouldn't even bother building carriers.
The Submarine has to fairly stealthy. US subs like the Seawolf can get under 5 km of sonar without detection. The Chinese and Russian subs are fairly noisy since they haven't improved much since the Cold War. Of course it is typical CsG will be escorted by their submarines and have helos to guard a perimeter.
AI is a long way from replacing all manned aircraft. Aircraft like the UCAV are good for preplanned missions because they can fly (take risks) like a manned aircraft would not, and they have a small degree of flexibility. But they are a long, long way from taking on the fighter role in which they have to engage the unpredictable human enemy (or enemies). G's are not the issue. The issue is that AI is not actually intelligent, the vehicle is not actually observing, thinking, and responding appropriately. The AI in all its forms (machine learning, fuzzy logic, etc) is essentially a giant program of if-then statements, its not actually coded that way but functionally that's a good analogy. If the programmer does not provide a response, or provides the wrong response path, the "AI" fails. Present the AI with something the programmer did not plan for, and the AI dies. And you know what happens in war - the plan looks good until it meets the enemy.
Technically the US A-boats can guard Carriers fairly well, agreed. Chinese air power is much more formidable in the South China Sea against surface ships.
I concur, right now the U.S. Navy only plans to use it's MQ-25 Stingray as an air refueling tanker. -> http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1696720-carrier-launched-drones-to-change-navy-attack UCAV as a fighter ??? A fighter jock has to react to threats and respond in a fraction of a second. The problem with all UAV's is latency, the time an UAV sees or detects something, relays that information back to who's in control of flying the UAV and his reaction and transmitting back to the UAV on what action needs to be taken. Every wonder why the Predator UAV's have a high crash rate mostly during landings and take offs ? A 2 second latency from the time an UAV pilot on the ground moves the joystick until the Predator responds. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21352/how-do-drones-overcome-latency
Carriers are the most effective multi-role ships on the seas; they can do a wide variety of emergency missions, both civilian and military, and very effectively, and stay out for months, and not just launching aircraft. It would be a huge mistake to get rid of them. Mobile bases are a great asset. As I've said before, if people don't like the costs, then address the real problems with that, our own corruption. Singapore and other countries do quite well and become far better off financially when they launched determined long term anti-corruption campaigns; they're at #8 on the list of least corrupt countries, we're way down at #18, a disgrace.
Not necessarily. The Mig-25 Foxbat is capable of some great manuevers despite the air frame having a mere 3 G limit.
As we say in football, speed covers a multitude of sins. High speed makes the Foxbat very hard to take down with an air to air or SAM due to the fact all it has to do is go full burner and can often out range the missiles. Maneuverability is more than just turning. At any rate things like turn are highly dependent on wing surface area available as well.
It *used to be* hard to take down. Modern SAMs and AAMs are considerably faster and some are longer ranged than the distance a MiG-25 can cover on full afterburner before it drains its tank.
Historically SAM performance has depended more on the operators competence and proper strategies rather than missile capabilities.
MiG-25 can only pull 4.5 G while most aircraft can go 9 G. The MiG-25 has the advantage of being fast, at Mach 3 v Mach 2 for most aircraft. Overall IMO MiG-25 should be just as hard to hit since it flies higher than most aircraft and speed alone without manuvering is often to shake off a missile.
