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Good article on modern warship vulnerability to Exocet and other anti ship missiles

http://www.watermagazine.com/rocket.htm

Pretty sobering stuff.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but against a capable enemy, it cuts both ways.

A few facts just to remember:

Not a single US fleet carrier was lost in WWII due solely to enemy action. The ones we lost all required scuttling and/or an attack by our own forces to put them down.

Not a single US fleet carrier launched after 7 December 1941 was lost at all. (CV-9 Essex and subsequent)

Saratoga, essentially at ground zero for the Able/Baker nuclear weapons tests, would not have sunk with even moderate damage control. As it was, she took several hours to go down.

The Forrestal incident involved as much explosive ordnance as a dozen simultaneous cruise missile strikes, and she wasn't lost either.

The reason they put carriers in battle groups is that they are part of an integrated defense system with their own assets (CAP), Aegis cruisers/destroyers, SSNs for ASW, etc. making it far from easy to get a missile to the carrier in the first place - and it would take a lot more than one.

The USS Stark was hit with two Exocet missiles, one of which did not explode (which makes the problem worse, since that second missile's fuel fed the fire which was a bigger problem than explosive damage). She made it.

The USS Samuel F B Roberts hit a mine directly under the keel, the exact point for maximum effectiveness. She made it.

The claims that warships are 'missile magnets' (as the referenced article claims) have been around since the claim changed from 'bomb magnet' and before that whatever other weapon was on vogue. The facts say it is very, very difficult to sink a US warship, particularly an aircraft carrier. Our damage control is better than the Brits (by demonstration) and our ships are ridiculously overdesigned by commercial standards.

But they're damn good as warships.

By the way, a simple hull speed calculation on a 1000-ft hull shows that a carrier with 280,000hp can get up to 40 kts pretty easily. The actual top speed is classified, but it's a lot more than 31 kts.