The world's newest aircraft carriers

MAD only applies to nuclear deterrence. Not to use of conventional weapons. The U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War both showed their willingness to suffer tens of thousands of fatalities in conventional conflicts without even considering the use of nuclear weapons.

And why do you claim a carrier would "light up like a xmas tree"? Read about the NATO exercises I linked to. U.S. carriers conducted flight operations near (within 1,000 miles) of Soviet territory without "lighting up" or being detected.

 

And those planes would be shot down (most of them most certainly) by the carriers combat air patrol (CAP) before they even approach effective missile range.

 

If planes are launched from all directions (your idea makes no sense) then ships and aircraft in all directions will shoot them down.

 

From 2006:

https://m.warhistoryonline.com/hist...-in-the-middle-of-a-carrier-battle-group.html

On 26th of October, a Chinese Song-Class submarine surfaced within five miles of the USS Kitty Hawk airplane carrier in the Pacific Ocean. Several weeks before the US delegation met with their Chinese counterparts, ships from the Pacific fleet were stationed in international waters between Taiwan and South Japan.

The carrier was surrounded by a dozen of ships in a protective formation, but nevertheless, the Chinese sub managed to slip through unnoticed. It came as a surprise that the Americans were unable to detect the lone submarine earlier, for their extensive defense screen included a submarine and anti-submarine helicopters, all responsible for protecting the battle group from an underwater attack.

 

You know that is an order of magnitude easier to do in peacetime than in a war situation where U.S. vessels would simply declare an exclusion zone around the carrier and fire on any submerged possible contact that they thought might be there.

 

Umm .... maybe so, maybe not.

You'll notice from the link that the CSG included a submarine. One might think that looking out for other subs is a full-time job for a sub.

Then, more recently, we have destroyers that keep getting into traffic accidents.

I'm not as confident as you seem to be.

 

Yes, but in peacetime our submarines can't do anything to keep other submarines away from a battlegroup.

And probably wouldn't try as from what I've read, American forces do not like to show to potential threat forces the full extent of their capabilities.

Which is why the U.S. Navy does little or nothing when the Russians or Chinese overfly U.S. ships with little or no response from the U.S.

 

Once they let fly the first found, fight back with enough to take them out, however. And to hell with international shock. Fight back.

 

You're creating a strawman. The point is not whether or not we could/would do anything about the sub. Rather, it is the failure to notice it in the first place!

 

Actually from what I've read American attack submarines have standing orders to sink a potential enemy submarine if they flood their torpedo tubes while within range of a U.S. ship or in the case of nuclear missile submarines if they flood their missile tubes without announcing such actions beforehand as part of a drill or exercise.

 

And you fail to see the point there is a world of difference in peacetime vigilance and wartime alertness.

 

Having a Chinese sub pop up unnoticed in the middle of a CSG is the opposite of vigilance, peacetime or otherwise.

Last word is yours.

 

Peace is just the temporary absence of war.

 

In an all out war aircraft carriers and aircraft themselves will be useless.

 

If you mean all-out nuclear war who knows if anything will survive?

But a limited war may be contained to tactical battlefield nukes only

 

INTERMISSION
Time to bust open the PopCorn - Everybody in HELL loves PopCorn -
Lets all Read Up on the Issue - & get an edumaykation on PENTAGON Hubris


Do We Need The Pentagon's New Fleet
of 10 Aircraft Carriers at $13 billion Each?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-10-22/aircraft-carriers-are-the-navy-s-sitting-ducks

So what do we get for all the billions? The goal is a hyper-capable, multipurpose combat
platform that can react to virtually any expected crisis. The reality, increasingly appears quite
different: a lumbering white elephant that’s easy prey for a Chinese rocket or a terrorist in a
motorboat.

A Navy war game in 2002 that simulated a swarm attack by speedboats of the type Iran has in
the Gulf had devastating results: 16 major warships would be destroyed, including one aircraft
carrier. Anti-ship weaponry has only grown more potent since then.

America Insists
On A $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier That's Easy To Sink
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/america-insists-on-a-13-billion-aircraft-carrier-thats-1793233401

From The Article:
American aircraft carriers are extremely expensive, but they are also incredibly vulnerable to a wide range
of enemy fire. China and Russia, America’s most powerful adversaries, have been building precise and
sophisticated anti-ship weapons for decades

The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake – Building Tons of Supercarriers

From The Article:
The Pentagon behaves as if aircraft carriers will rule forever… they won’t
https://warisboring.com/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-building-tons-of-supercarriers/

Here’s Why Aircraft Carriers Are Ready To Go The Way Of The Battleship
https://taskandpurpose.com/heres-aircraft-carriers-ready-go-way-battleship/

From The Article:
Against any near peer adversary, aircraft carriers are far too vulnerable to be of much use.
&
The advantage a carrier has over an airfield is that it can move. Its disadvantage is that
it can be sunk. That’s becoming more likely as the weaponry employed by potential
adversaries becomes more and more capable.

In 2015, a 30 Year Old French Nuclear Submarine
'Sank' a U.S. Aircraft Carrier
.http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...ench-nuclear-submarine-sank-us-aircraft-18912

From The Article:
The Saphir, a French nuclear attack submarine, reportedly penetrated the defenses of the aircraft carrier
USS Theodore Roosevelt and scored simulated torpedo hits on her.

 

You brought up the all out war. But in any war except perhaps with third world countries aircraft carriers and even aircraft are irrelevent or worse. Drones are the next generation.

 

The next generation meaning drones is not here yet

And when it is I wonder if china will sell us the parts we need to build them with?

 

A plane can launch from 400 miles. .. which means that the carrier would have to be able to detect the plane coming at 600-800 miles out.

What is the detection range of a carrier (that is running silent which means the planes have to do the detecting) ??

 

Assuming that a we will succeed - a big assumption but OK. What is the range at which one of our planes can detect a Russian fighter ?

 

https://www.naval-technology.com/projects/e2-hawkeye/

According to this the E-2 Hawkeye can detect aircraft from more than 550 kilometers away. The E-2s from what I understand about US carrier operations routinely operates about 300 kilometers from their carrier. Meaning they would detect incoming aircraft from as much as 850 kilometers away or more than 500 miles.

Well before they reach missile range. And effective missile range (range at which a bomber can get a decent fix on a U.S. Navy vessel well enough to risk a missile launch) is probably on the order of 100-200 miles at most.

 

Russian fighters don't normally carry anti ship missiles or have the range for major antishipping attacks. It would be Russian bombers. Mainly Backfires.

And U.S. carrier based fighters , F/A-18s wouldn't have to detect approaching Russian or Chinese bombers. It is my understanding that the F/A-18s can take their targeting information from the E-2 Hawkeye.

 

Likely about 500 miles but that is not relevant considering AWAC and ship/static systems.

 

Not to mention, Sheffield had no CIWS.

 

“Oh man, we had one single failed conventional attack. Better escalate immediately to nuclear war.”

Said no military planner ever.