5 Ways Russia and China Could Sink America's Aircraft Carriers
The modern aircraft carrier is a global symbol of US dominance, hegemony, peace, even empire.
But at over 300m long, and displacing more than 100,000 tons, is it a sitting duck?
Is the massive emblem of American greatness just an obsolete, vulnerable hunk of steel?
There's a lot of consternation about whether or not the United States should even have
massive supercarriers anymore.
Obviously, the answer here is "depends on how much explosives you've got."
But while sinking an aircraft carrier is difficult, it's not impossible.
The key is what it's used for, and who it's used against.
But if you wanted to sink one, here's what you'd have to do, and what you'd be up against.
The Importance Of Aircraft Carriers The core problem for every system dedicated
to sinking aircraft carriers is the link between reconnaissance assets, or the things that
can spot a carrier, and shooters, the things that can take one down.
Submarines, aircraft and surface vessels can't kill carriers at range if they don't know
where those carriers are, and one of the notable differences between an aircraft carrier and
an airbase is that the former, obviously, is mobile.
Even a supersonic cruise missile can take twenty minutes to reach its target area at
maximum range, and a carrier manoeuvring at high speed can move ten miles in the same
period of time.
A massive aircraft carrier can move surprisingly fast for something weighing over 100,000 tons,
with a top speed of more than 30 knots, or about 56km an hour, which is what you get
when you go for nuclear power.
The problem is complicated by the fact that the surface ships and submarines firing at
such ranges cannot detect the carrier themselves; they need to operate off data provided by
other assets, which tends to increase the time and uncertainty associated with targeting
decisions.
The United States has spent, essentially, 30 years developing and working out a reconnaissance
strike complex that includes multiple redundant systems of surveillance and communication,
resulting in a kill chain that transfers information in real time from advanced sensor platforms
(satellites, submarine listening posts, drones, patrol aircraft) through communications nodes
(satellites, aircraft) to ships, planes, and submarines that can launch and guide missiles
to targets.
No other country has similar capabilities, even Russia and China.
Nevertheless, the Russians and the Chinese continue to try.
Here are some of the measures that foes have taken to destroy aircraft carriers, and the
countermeasures intended to defeat those foes.
Torpedo On September 17, 1939, the German submarine
U-29 torpedoed and sank HMS Courageous.
Courageous was the first aircraft carrier lost to submarine attack, but would not be
the last.
Over the course of World War II, the United States, the UK and Japan lost numerous carriers
to submarines, culminating in the destruction of the gigantic HIJMS Shinano in 1944.
Submarine-fired torpedoes remain a critical threat to modern carriers.
Russian and Chinese submarines regularly practice attacks on U.S. carrier groups, as do those
of allied navies.
Modern torpedoes cause damage by exploding beneath a ship, an impact that can break the
ship's back with dramatic effects.
Fortunately, no such torpedo has ever hit a ship the size of a U.S. supercarrier, although
the U.S. Navy did conduct a variety of tests on the hulked USS America in 2005.
Those tests, which may have involved underwater charges (of the sort that damaged USS Cole)
did not result in America's sinking; she was scuttled in the wake of the process.
The short answer is that no one knows how many modern torpedoes a U.S. carrier could
take before sinking, but we can estimate with little doubt that even a single torpedo would
cause extensive damage, and severely impede operations.
Cruise Missile In 1943, the Germans used a precision-guided
bomb to destroy the Italian battleship Roma.
Such bombs soon gave way to self-propelled cruise missiles, which could launch from aircraft,
ships, submarines, or surface installations.
During the Cold War, the Soviets developed a dizzying array of platforms for launching
cruise missiles at carrier strike groups, ranging from small patrol boats to massive
formations of strategic bombers.
Today, China, Russia and several other countries field a wide variety of cruise missiles capable
of striking U.S. carrier battle groups.
These missiles vary widely in range, speed and means of approach, but the most advanced
can fly at high (often supersonic) speeds while offering a very low radar profile.
As with torpedoes, the available evidence on the effectiveness of cruise missiles against
a modern supercarrier is virtually nil.
Much smaller ships have survived such hits, as have civilian tankers similar in size to
CVN-78.
Nevertheless, even a nonfatal cruise missile hit would probably result in severe damage
to the flight deck, impeding or completely stopping flight operations.
Ballistic Missile The most important development in carrier-killing
technology over the last decade has been the antiship ballistic missile (ASBM).
The Chinese Df-21 has the potential to strike American carriers from heretofore unrealizable
ranges, and threatens to penetrate existing defense systems.
The missile can maneuver in its terminal phase, targeting a moving carrier on a high-velocity
final approach.
The kinetic energy alone of the weapon could inflict devastating damage on a flight deck,
putting a carrier out of action if not sinking it entirely.
The development of the Df-21 has forced the U.S. Navy to significantly step up its ballistic-missile
defense efforts.
However, the ability of a U.S. task force to manage a large barrage of ASBMs is in great
question; more than anything else, the development of the ASBM has forced the U.S. Navy to reconsider
the role of the carrier in high-intensity warfare.
Cost Overrun The new Ford class (CVN-78) carriers cost
somewhere around $13 billion, a price that does not include the air wing.
With a contingent of F-35Cs, F/A-18E/Fs and various support aircraft, the price of an
individual carrier is simply staggering, and the numbers go higher when accounting for
the escort group that a carrier requires.
Although the per-unit cost will go down as more ships are acquired, the Fords take so
long to build that each new ship will need to incorporate a host of new technologies,
just as with the Nimitz class.
The tolerance for large defense expenditure in the United States has varied considerably
over the past three decades.
The Trump administration has combined a fondness for increased spending with a grand strategy
of retrenchment, an odd pairing.
If retrenchment takes hold, then generating enthusiasm for defense spending may become
increasingly difficult.
And at some point, the military utility of an aircraft carrier may become literally irrelevant,
relative to the cost of building, maintaining and effectively deploying the ship and its
air wing.
Excess of Caution Maybe China and Russia don't need to kill
a carrier to drive the species to extinction.
All of the factors above—the weapon systems that can kill carriers, and the costs associated
with the ships themselves—come together to create caution about how to use the ships.
In the event of a conflict, U.S. Navy admirals and the U.S. president may grow so concerned
about the vulnerability of carriers that they don't use them assertively and effectively.
The extraordinary value of the carriers may become their greatest weakness; too valuable
to lose, the carriers could remain effectively on the sidelines in case of high-intensity,
peer-competitor conflict.
And if aircraft carriers can't contribute in the most critical conflicts that face the
United States, it will become impossible to justify to the resources necessary to their
construction and protection.
That, more than anything else, will lead to obsolescence, and the end of the aircraft
carrier as the currency of national power.
Do these factors mean that the aircraft carrier has become obsolete as a platform?
No.
China and Russia have worked relentlessly on ways to kill aircraft carriers because
they perceive those ships as critical security threats.
Moreover, China and Russia have developed the array of systems they now deploy because
aircraft carriers have good answers to many of these weapons.
Finally, China has embarked on its own carrier program; the PLAN will soon operate the second-largest
carrier force in the world.
Nevertheless, aircraft carriers face real dangers from advanced military technology.
The greatest threat, though, probably comes from the procurement process; unless the United
States can restrain cost growth in the carrier and its air wing, the ships will struggle
to retain their place in the overall architecture of U.S. defense policy.
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