“Face it the era of big capital surface ships is over.”
Well, you just called down the storm.
Don’t forget, horse cavalry had staunch defenders into the age of barbed wire, machine guns and mustard gas.
Which must be while China, Turkey and Japan are all busy working on aircraft ‘carriers’.
Heck, even this cute toy is an aircraft carrier, it just carries small, unmanned planes.
CVs and CVNs have been pretty much targets since SSNs were on the scene. The only reason we get away with it is that no-one is strong enough (or wants to) contest us. Yet. In the current environment, they’re an effective power projection platform. In the future environment, they will be the same, except with the added ‘benefit’ of being like having an armored division stationed just north of Seoul.
Is it there to stop the bad guys? Not so much. It’s there to do what it can, and if someone is desperate enough to destroy it, it’s there to let us know when it’s time to launch the bad stuff.
Much like the battleships in Pearl Harbor (sigh).