I hear ya man. I love love love carriers but what the navy is doing is not smart management. the force structure is dangerously out of balance. the best solution is to make more carriers and even more support ships to adequately protect them. make is to that the loss of a carrier wouldn’t cripple your capabilities in a particular theater. a carrier is more effective if it can be employed without fear of loss.
I don’t think an all nuclear carrier fleet is necessary. A conventional carrier gives you the same capability at 2/3rds the cost(over entire service life). The air wing could care less how the snipes boil water.
A 600 ship Navy perhaps? I heard that somewhere.
What people seem to be missing the point on is what an enemy must go through to get to an A/C. The satellite data, technology, logistics. Very few if any could put all of that together to successfully attack a carrier group, let alone the carrier in the middle of that group. Outside of a tactical nuke, it is nearly impossible.
First off, we will know about it before a launch even happens. Once there is a launch, we will be tracking it for hundreds of miles. The defensive perimeter will already be activated and weapons deployed to stop the attack.
Can some nation get a lucky shot off? Sure.