Aircraft carriers gain clout in naval power

The Associated Press ^ | May 8, 2011 | SLOBODAN LEKIC

[ScreamingFist]

“It’s not that the movie was all that bad, it’s just ... nevermind, it really was that bad.”

Oh man come on, when they splash the Zeros, I still get goose bumps.....how often do you get to see F-14’s flown like that anymore.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GI_Q-HX3f0&feature=related

[Emperor Palpatine]

Aircraft carriers have reigned supreme on the high seas since Nagumo's six carriers launched their planes 200 miles off the coast of Oahu that fine December morning back in 1941.

[King Moonracer]

A limited nuclear exchange could happen. Let’s say a carrier battle group heads off to defend Taiwan, and God help us, some ChiComm Admiral or General has a hemorrhoid attack that day. Let’s say they go for an EMP burst first, or some other blinding fireball a couple miles overhead. Would Barrie lift a finger?.... I’m not against carriers, I just hope we can survive losing them. Imagine how long we’d have fought the Japanese if they found our carriers.

[Tallguy]

Carriers. IMHO, they are the modern equivalent of big-gun battleships. Instead of bombarding Benghazi and Tripoli from 1 mile offshore, ala 1911, the carrier can stay 100 miles out and take out (or at least attack) anything in all of Libya.

Aircraft & aircraft carriers displaced battleships from the capitalship role, but battleships continued to have some utility as bombardment & anti-air platforms. What really killed the battleship from continuing in it's reduced niche was cost. A guided-missile cruiser or destroyer did all those jobs with the exception of heavy shore bombardment. (Can't have everything, I guess).

A similar thing may happen to large-deck aircraft carriers. Small drone aircraft may give a potent punch to small-deck carriers of which we have many in the LHD/LHA category. If naval aviation makes a sudden shift, you could see an early mothballing of several Nimitz-class carriers. Naval experts will bitch, but it's hard to argue against the economics.

[SW6906]

Carrier ping!

[Tonytitan]

Small drone aircraft may give a potent punch to small-deck carriers...

Armed with what that gives it firepower equal to a Nimitz-class?

[blueunicorn6]

OK OK I surrender. What is this, the third time this has been up in the last three days?

Carriers are invincible
Carriers are cool
And if you don’t like carriers
Then you’re a mother___ing fool.

Can we have some more plane pictures now? Or kittens?

[Thunder90]

The Iskander-M, and the Chinese copy, are designed to attack carrier groups.

[Thunder90]

You could build a drone and missile ship. Pack it full of Tomahawk type missiles and/or antiship missiles depending on the mission, and medium to heavy drones (which themselves can also be packed with explosives to be used as kamikaze drones) And make it Ageis compatible.

[Tallguy]

You wouldn't need a lot of fancy stand-off weaponry as the drone itself could be expendable. I'm not saying that the technology is necessarily ready -- though it will probably be a "Black Project" that will be sprung on the world very suddenly. Plus 1 clarification: Once the concept is proven the big carriers will be around for a period (perhaps a couple of decades), just as the fast battleships acted as escorts to the Essex-class carriers in the latter stages of WW2. But once the autonomous drones prove their worth congress won't be able to justify the expense of further CVN construction.

[castlegreyskull]

The USS ENTERPRISE also had a major fire in that same year, not as bad as the USS FORRESTAL.

[Tonytitan]

... as the drone itself could be expendable.

I have read where that is one of the features of the swarm weapon systems that may be in development, such as the Air Dominator and LOCAAS. Too small to be picked up on radar, having hive-minded AI, armed with the same skeets used on the SFW, able to provide instantaneous BDA, reasonably priced. What's not to like?

They could turn any carrier, big or small, into a different kind of strike platform.