Posted on 05/28/2015 10:37:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
That’s a big man.
Active Duty ping.
Not sure why it came out that large. But yes, Billy Mitchell was a big man.
Thanks.
You can ask the mod to remove it.
Carriers are mobile military bases.. attack one and it’s instant WAR...
UNLESS you have a treasonous coward in the White House..
With Barney Fife overtones.. and PeeWee Herman undertones..
The Air Force on the other hand wasted it's money on the B2 2 billion dollar bombers.
While it took a while for the writer to get around to this, some second tier actors in the world would likely use that capability.
The author makes sense, especially considering every major naval conflict was fought and won with new technology in the 20th century. When the Bismarck and Tirpitz were brought out, it was air power that resulted in their sinking. Ditto the Japanese Navy. The battleship era had ended during the war.
Now, considering carrier forces duked it out during that war, it makes sense that in the next major (global) naval conflict, it will be a different technology which prevails. Be that rail gun frigates, drones, submarines, or a combination of all of those, the numbers appear to doom the carrier to a support airfield which can be moved to the vicinity of land conflicts, much as the battleship became self propelled floating artillery.
YMMV
Barney Fife had more cajones than 0bama.
anti ship missiles travel at about 3,500 kph. A laser beam travels at 1,079,252,848 kph. That's the math that the ASBM will eventually have to overcome.
so this article is basically saying the aircraft carrier is the destroyer of the 21st century? vulnerable and expensive? and now this trouble with china over those islands. oh boy.
Mobile airports will never become obsolete..
rail guns and lasers is the next wave..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/or5nnq764wyjbkg/HighPlaces.avi?dl=0
The battleship era was probably over by 1920. Only a few knew it then.
I think the big deal now is the EM Rail-guns the US is starting to put on ships
Mach 7 projectiles with 200-300 mile range reduce the need for aircraft.
The right question is....... is the carrier obsolete ? or has America become obsolete.?....
We just elected a Moron as President twice.. and Boehner and McConnell have FINANCED HIM.. ON PURPOSE..
And Congress just re-elected them for new terms because of the good job both have done..
However; Carriers still do their job, with utmost efficiency.. and no nonsense...
lol
At this point, the carriers would probably outlast the CONUS.
Besides, they don’t have to always be at the tip of the spear’s furthest point (not saying you said that).
I agree that rail guns and lasers will be of paramount importance, but keep in mind that drones will be able to outperform and outnumber piloted craft, and possibly overwhelm more static systems. Advances in missiles would make a carrier platform difficult to defend, especially in a saturation attack. (Recall Kamikaze attacks, only now much faster and in far greater numbers).
Tactical nukes would change the equation even more, and the question of a strategic response would come into play. While condemnation of the first to use a tactical nuke is likely, there is a definite question about whether the will exists to use strategic weapons, and the possible responses (militarily and otherwise) to such an attack.
But, assuming that threshold is not crossed, and the conflict is confined to more conventional weapons, at some point the cost to overwhelm a defensive weapons system is far less than the cost of the target, not to mention crew, and the time to replace that asset would make the expenditure well worth making.
With a few advances in AI, a drone can be taught to fly as well as possible for the airframe in a couple of hours of uploading programming and targeting data.
A human pilot takes far longer.
Programming which would permit coordination between drones (or autonomous attack plans in the event drone to drone communications are jammed) with targeting solutions and trajectories calculated and acted on with a speed no human can match will all be achievable.
In any war in which air asset attrition is a factor, the drones have a replacement rate as fast as the production line can crank out airframes which will be expendable, too; pilots will be much harder to replace.
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