[James C. Bennett]

It won’t need to outrun the boats, but just the anti-missile systems protecting it.

An aircraft carrier has a snowball’s chance in Hell of being able to swat out a supersonic missile locked onto it. Imagine a rainstorm of these...

[doorgunner69]

Soviet doctrine IIRC was for multiple compass point attack to overwhelm the defense.

Dunno how USN supersonic missile defense has improved in the last two decades, but all I can say is I hope for all our sailor's lives it is far more advanced.

We do not even have a realistic target for them to practice against.

[Kevmo]

An aircraft carrier has a snowball’s chance in Hell of being able to swat out a supersonic missile locked onto it. Imagine a rainstorm of these...
***I used to imagine exactly that about 5-6 years ago with China bearing down on our aircraft carriers, and I was characterized as a bedwetter, hah hah.

[Crucial]

If true, then the Indians just made a conventional warfare quantum leap over the rest of the world. Too bad Obama doesn’t believe in America making great strides forward.

[miliantnutcase]

They can defend against anti-ship missiles fired at them that go just as fast. A supersonic cruise missile is just a larger target. However, like you mentioned a hail storm of these might be effective.

[Freeport]

Well, not really. The anti-missle systems have about 21 seconds to detect and counter inbounds once they clear the horizon.

Plenty of time for a RAM or Gatling gun system to take it out.

A swarm is of concern (5 < x < 10), but these are can be dealt with as well.

After that though, a ship is probably boned.