[myknowledge]

I'd hope the PLAN pro-carrier admirals prevail, just like the WWII-era IJN pro-battleship admirals who invested heavily in the Yamato and Musashi.

What's the point of having a supercarrier? Today's bloated Nimitz-class supercarriers are succulent targets of supersonic Russian-designed ASCMs like the SS-N-19 Shipwreck, SS-N-22 Sunburn, SS-N-26 Yakhont, SS-N-27 Sizzler and PJ-10 Brahmos.

Warship Vulnerability

Soviet/Russian Cruise Missiles

PLA Cruise Missiles PLA Air - Surface Missiles

Guess what some of the PLAN admirals are forgetting:

Here's this quick fact: Submarines comprised ~2% of the whole of the U.S. Navy, yet sank over 60% of Japanese ships during WWII.

Don't believe the self-serving hype Marc Mitscher and his successors want you to believe, if you're in the U.S. Navy, of course, that carrier supremacy defeated Japan.

Although I have no bias against aircraft carriers, for they are a useful ship for projection of naval air power at sea and protecting fleets from enemy air strikes, what you never knew about is that land-based aircraft of the USAAF shouldered a fair bit more of the combat burden than the carrier-based USN.

Although I have obviously studied significant carrier vs. carrier duels like the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway (U.S. victories), there are two web links whose author has an alternative opinion to the bloated aircraft carriers, along with warfare in general.

Understanding High Explosives: our Survival Depends on It

Retro-Look: What if the U.S. Navy had continued Operating Fast SeaPlanes from Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships after WW2?

Legendary DoD Air Chief Chuck Myers writes:

"If you think four BB's are expensive, how about a fleet of multi-billion dollar ships which can not defend against 'sea skimmers' and cannot survive a good strafing much less a guided missile.

Keep in mind, I was a part of the Navy group that had to perform the 'vulnerability analysis' to CM and other ordnance when we had to answer the Congress in 1979 re: proposed reactivation. The only ordnance which might really damage an Iowa is a 16" armor piercing round which we own, exclusively. Here is a fact: no U.S. battleship at sea, engaging in combat operations has ever been sunk; even when the USS North Carolina took a couple of massive Jap torpedos, which created a hole 40' x 18' in the forward/starboard hull, increased speed and continued to fight; later retired to a Pacific island base and accepted a weld job, returning to combat ops within six weeks. That's a WARship."

[4rcane]

i never been a fan of bigger is better. I prefer smaller and many. Something this big might as well have “hit me” on it. Hostiles may try to hit it a hundred times and only score one hit and its a victory with huge loses for carrier fleet

[SampleMan]

Troops on the ground defeated Germany and were on the way to defeating Japan. You can't get boots on the ground with submarines.

U.S. submarines sank a load of Japanese merchant shipping, but the lion share of warships were sunk by aircraft or shellfire.

The Japanese empire was uniquely vulnerable to submarine warfare, yet they would have never surrendered to a blockade. And those USAAC bombers would have never been able to to take off if their bases hadn't been taken by boots on the ground, delivered by surface strike groups. And WWII surface strike groups were nothing but targets without aircraft carriers.

War at sea requires command above and below the surface. Although the Japanese focused their submarines against our strikegroups, they failed to achieve much.

Of course CVs are vulnerable, forward operating bases always are, but its hard to imagine anything significant that submarines could do conventionally in any of the conflicts we've been in for the last 50 years.

[SampleMan]

Troops on the ground defeated Germany and were on the way to defeating Japan. You can't get boots on the ground with submarines.

U.S. submarines sank a load of Japanese merchant shipping, but the lion share of warships were sunk by aircraft or shellfire.

The Japanese empire was uniquely vulnerable to submarine warfare, yet they would have never surrendered to a blockade. And those USAAC bombers would have never been able to to take off if their bases hadn't been taken by boots on the ground, delivered by surface strike groups. And WWII surface strike groups were nothing but targets without aircraft carriers.

War at sea requires command above and below the surface. Although the Japanese focused their submarines against our strikegroups, they failed to achieve much.

Of course CVs are vulnerable, forward operating bases always are, but its hard to imagine anything significant that submarines could do conventionally in any of the conflicts we've been in for the last 50 years.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Although I have no bias against aircraft carriers, for they are a useful ship for projection of naval air power at sea and protecting fleets from enemy air strikes, what you never knew about is that land-based aircraft of the USAAF shouldered a fair bit more of the combat burden than the carrier-based USN."

I'd say you are more than a bit biassed. Carriers have proven their worth repeatedly. The significant advantage of the carrier is that they can deploy air power to remote LAND areas and support their ops there. Land-based aircraft simply cannot do that. And I would certainly HOPE that "the USAAF shouldered a fair bit more of the combat burden", because they have more planes and more pilots.

[familyop]

Heh. Yeah, right. The following is very old news, BTW.

NAVAL WAR COLLEGE NEWPORT PAPERS
China's Nuclear Force Modernization (PDF)
Lyle J. Goldstein, Editor, with Andrew S. Erickson
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/npapers/np22/NP22.pdf

"According to the 2003–2004 issue of the IISS Military Balance, one brigade (eight missiles) of the long-anticipated DF-31 inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) is now deployed, with more presumably to follow in relatively short order . . . While this is not the first road-mobile, solid-fuel missile deployed by China, it is the first one capable of striking the continental United States."

[tarawa]

Also, send a carrier or one of the support ships through a mined area, you’ve got trouble. Send a battleship through, and as long as someone is standing by with a broom and a paintbrush, you’ll never even notice.

[sport]

MARK!

[magslinger]

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[BroJoeK]

"Here is a fact: no U.S. battleship at sea, engaging in combat operations has ever been sunk;"

Nor has any Essex Class or larger aircraft carrier.

Here's the fact: as any submariner will tell you, no surface ship is invulnerable. But neither is any major naval ship defenseless. These defenses range from anti-submarine and anti-missile equipment, to the deterrent effect of telling your enemy: if you sink my capital ship, I'll nuke your city.

That may explain why there have been no major sea battles in nearly 65 years. So any discussions about which ships are vulnerable to what kinds of attack are -- as of today -- theoretical and hypothetical.

So, in an era of limited warfare against terrorist entities and failed states, what kinds of ships make the most sense?

Answer: ships that can deliver all-weather, all-terrain, all-mission types troops, equipment and ordnance anywhere, any time.

Sounds like aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships to me. Add in some subs, cruisers & destroyers to protect them, and what do you have? A modern navy, I'd say.