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Posted on 08/25/2025 5:25:00 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
A single DF-21D warhead striking a carrier’s flight deck would be a mission-kill. It wouldn’t sink the ship, but it would crack the deck, making it impossible to launch or recover aircraft. The carrier, for all intents and purposes, would be out of the fight. Several successful hits could very well sink the vessel, resulting in the tragic loss of over 5,000 American sailors and a $13 billion national asset. It would be a Pearl Harbor-level catastrophe, a blow from which American prestige might never recover.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalsecurityjournal.org ...
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That I agree with, but who has that type of military capability, China and maybe Russia other than that what near peer power could we be in a war against that has that capability.
I think that is China’s strategy about their aircraft carriers, they know their carrier battle groups would be extremely vulnerable against the US, but not against Vietnam, Philippines, and other Asian countries they are attempting to intimidate.
Admiral Mahon might have something to say about escorting freighters or tankers on the cheap past critical points.
That is not to deny your point that energy was and remains absolutely critical to our national survival. I am at a loss to understand how isolationists make energy transport more secure and, hence, our national security more secure.
I recall the cry of the left, "no war for oil" when many of us said, "if not for oil, then not for survival." It seems to me that the flow of oil is one of the few things worth making war about. Equally, making war for any reason is a perilous undertaking, as is appeasement. The art is to discern the situation, not to be driven by labels.
Their mission and modes of employment will change substantially but they provide capabilities that are critical and simply cannot be replaced
“ I think the Carriers will be fine.”
Similar things were said in early 1941.
You pick the label but tell me what is the policy of estrangement from NATO? Terminating cooperation with 5Is? Antagonism of Canada? Of Denmark?
What is your label for fortress America from Panama to Greenland? Is it multilateralism? Is strength through alliances? Is it proactive intervention? Again, you pick the label.
You might want to re-check your assertion and assumptions. Patriots missle systems have successfully defeated the Russian Kinzal hypersonic missles. Don’t you think a fully armed CBG could be even more successful, and that can move at speeds in excess of 25 knots?
/sarc
When the Patriots stood behind trees to snipe at marching redcoats, the warfare of history was gone.
When breech loading rifles came on the battlefield, the warfare of history was gone.
When biplanes flew over France, the warfare of history was gone.
When tanks rolled over the trenches,
When Nazis skirted the Maginot line,
When Gooks hid in caves and tunnels,
When terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into buildings,
the warfare of history was gone.
The reason we lost WWII and the Nazis dominated Europe for a hundred years is because we put the weak Sherman tank up against their mighty Tiger Tank.
The reason the Japanese dominated the Pacific and completely humiliated the Allies in that theater is because of their advanced fighter plane, the Zero.
And finally today, the Ukrainians completely destroyed the Russian’s ballistic missile capability with a few cheap drones!
The history of warfare is gone again as the history of warfare has proved again and again.
Missiles, and drones, and satellites.
OH MY!
Mental hospitals?
Giving up carriers may be as short sighted as giving away the canal
A cute thought, but in the end, being prepared for every eventuality, of every type, is the best way to go.
I like your idea but what if we have people deeply entrenched in the leadership of our country who have allegiances to another country (in the ME) and that country requires our country to fight wars on their behalf?
Won’t we need to maintain our “boots on the ground” capability to do that?
Be careful how you answer. There is a word for people who don’t want to support that foreign nation and Im sure you don’t want to be called it.
It’s always about what they can do to us.
It’s never about what we can do to them.
The issue is not securing oil flow. It is securing oil flow to the US.
A graph I post now and then:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1&f=M
People look at the post 2010, zero % interest rates portion and celebrate. That shale oil was not discovered. It was always known to be there. But the loans to fund fracking were not tolerable at 7% interest rates. Fracking happened because of QE. Not technology, which was already known about.
Regardless of that, the real info is 1970 to 2010. Relentlessly falling oil output in the US. THOSE were the years the Navy grew. There was thinking back then that went past escorting tankers to the US. There was talk for sure about confiscating what was under Saudi Arabia. Can’t do that without projecting power.
Another little lesson in the graph . . . 1979 to 1989. That was Prudhoe Bay, which largely saved us from the Arab oil embargos.
Our population is higher now. Our oil consumption in 1970 was 14.5 mbpd all liquids. Now, 19. Lots of population gain but lots of mileage improvement in cars, too.
Life will quickly get unpleasant if the talk out of the Permian proves correct and the decline is about to resume. Warning, it will be much steeper than 1970-2010. Shale wells “drill horizontally and die vertically” (on a graph).
Mmmm no. There’s always been the ability to take out an aircraft carrier with a couple of good shots. That’s why they don’t travel alone. Carrier groups are there in large part to protect the carrier. But the carrier still has the greatest ability to project power of anything out there. Yes we have drones and such. But they don’t beat the ability to plant a carrier group somewhere and know you own a 200 mile circle around it.
To stop the Yorktown, or the Lexington, Japan had to sink them.
I'm not sure that the degree of high tech necessary to recover aircraft can't be disabled far short of sinking the ship.
The problem with the Chinese using DF-21’s with conventional warheads is—how do their nuclear weapons capable enemies (like the US or India) know they’re only conventional?
The DF-21 is an intermediate range ballistic missile.
Given our hair-trigger MAD defense, we could well believe these were nuclear tipped and launch our nukes in response before their warheads landed.
In our military, we still remember the lesson of Pearl Harbor—don’t be surprised by a surprise attack but be ready to hit back as soon as possible. Seconds matter.
We're not far off.
Put another way, there is likely nobody alive today that was an active participant in our last major naval engagement on even somewhat equal terms with the enemy (if so, they are close to or over 100 years old).
Now I'm not counting the endless sorties our Navy has conducted from aircraft carriers, mainly in the Middle East, to bomb targets in places like Iraq and Somalia over the decades. Never once was any of our aircraft carriers in any serious danger during those attacks. You have to go back to WW2 to the last time when our carriers were in any real danger of being attacked and sunk.
In modern times, just one of our eleven carrier groups carries more combined firepower than most nations on earth.
The deterrence effect of these massive carrier groups is immeasurable. How many wars have we successfully avoided by just placing one of our carrier groups in a "hot" area? We will never know.
This is why I think the era of the Aircraft Carrier is far from over. Especially if they develop defense systems against the missles mentioned in the article.
> ICBMs are still by far cheaper than “rods from the God’s.”
Once the SpaceX Starship is deployed, it will have 150 tons of lift capacity per reusable launch. That’s a game changer.
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