The Most Expensive Warship Ever Built Might Already Be Close to Obsolete

National Interest ^ | February 12, 2016 | Harry J. Kazianis

[C19fan]

The U.S. Navy’s latest and greatest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, when completed, will join the ranks of the world’s most advanced warships ever put to sea. It will carry an air wing with firepower second to none. It will be defended by some of the most powerful naval vessels on the planet. And yet, coming in at an astounding $15 billion dollars—the most expensive naval vessel ever—its time as the symbol of U.S. power projection and military dominance may be over.

Notice I used the words may be over. The simple fact is this: no one really knows for sure, but the trends all point to dangerous times ahead. We do know one thing with certainty—the mighty aircraft carrier is under siege, and without major changes to its capabilities, investing billions of scarce defense dollars seems a disastrous idea.

[DesertRhino]

“The air detachment doesn’t care how the snipes are boiling the water.”

Actually, they do enjoy not having an exhaust plume to fly through. And they enjoy the speed, and the fact that it goes 2 decades without needing to refuel.

[Loud Mime]

The enemy has missiles designed to defeat the Aegis defense system.

SIZZLER
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Klub Read the Terminal Supersonic Flight section.

And SUNBURN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22

[PapaBear3625]

The key sentence is 'their aircraft are too short-ranged. During the 1980s, the average aircraft range was 900 miles. Now it is 500 miles and will not get any better with the introduction of the F-35.'

Alternately, develop a carrier-based air-refueling tanker to replace the old S-3 Viking. Maybe a version of the V-22 Osprey

[Loud Mime]

PING TO ABOVE

[freddy005]

Actually the parallels between Commodus (185 AD) and Obama are scary! I can see where the US would have a temporary reprieve of its fall as the Roman Empire did when Constantine The Great took power in 310 AD but the writing was already on wall. I can not see the US (as it is today) going past 2100! I can see it fragmenting (like the Roman Empire did in the Third Century)!

[Pollster1]

If you look at Soviet (okay, Russian these days) exercises simulating a strike on a carrier, it is clear that this is no easy mission. They are willing to put a tremendous amount of resources into a strike, and it’s clearly a one-way mission either for most of the strike force or for all of it. It’s also clear that they think it’s worth trying because of the danger posed by a carrier, or they wouldn’t keep trying to figure it out.

Having been on carriers (after I left the Navy) and on subs (never as a carrier escort but I have played against a carrier), I know that taking down a carrier would be extremely difficult. A single attack could easily cost Russia almost as much as the carrier cost us, and their probability of success (defined as a mission kill against the carrier itself, not just a few aircraft splashed or a couple of DDGs taken out) would still not be good.

[central_va]

Operatically an alpha strike originating from either a CVN or a CV are identical.

[PreciousLiberty]

“That technology is not decisive in the carrier battle because you have to get within range not just to shoot but to shoot accurately, i.e., within ten miles. My money is still on the carrier battle group (including cruisers and destroyers with air defense capabilities and one or more SSN escorts).”

You should read about Sunburn missiles.

The warheads come in around Mach 3.

[Pollster1]

You should read about Sunburn missiles. The warheads come in around Mach 3.

The RIM 161 standard missile is Mach 10. CIWS is 4500 rounds per minute. You still have to launch the Sunburn from somewhere. Also, remember that a 500 pound bomb is not an automatic mission kill even if one or two missiles get through.

[riverdawg]

It was many years ago, but I read a report on the life-cycle cost of conventional and nuclear carriers. Conventional carriers were much cheaper as I recall.

[2001convSVT]

And then a full blown nuclear exchange will occur.

[Tallguy]

Yes, they are hard to sink. But if a carrier can’t make speed, or its catapaults or elevators go down its a “mission kill”. If she goes dead too far from home, your own ships will be sinking her as happened more than a couple times in WW2.

[rmlew]

It is hard to take an arguement seriously from someone who writes something as silly as

The era of the aircraft carrier dawned in 1912. At first, it was envisioned as a support ship for a fleet organized around the battleship. The carrier’s purpose was to launch airplanes to search for the enemy fleet and then act as spotters, reporting and correcting the gunnery fire of the battleships. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with carrier-based aircraft, naval strategists began looking at carriers in an entirely new light. Six months later, the massive strategic victory at Midway permanently cemented the carriers as the centerpiece of modern naval power. During the 1950s, the carrier evolved into the supercarrier in order to carry aircraft capable of striking deep into the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Ever since, it has remained at the fore of American foreign policy. It is the ubiquitous symbol of American power.

Theoreticians looked into using aircraft carriers to attack ports in the 1920s and practiced this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Problem

Pearl Harbor was not the first carrier raid on an enemies main base. The British did this at Taranto a year before Pearl Harbor. The Japanese copied this on a larger scale against the US and British Empire in 1941-42.

As to your and his point, people have been calling the carrier obsolete since 1945. No ICBM has ever hit a moving ship, and we have Aegis ships to prevent this.