[edpc]

There’s no doubt in my mind the purpose of the Spratly Island airfields under construction is to extend the coverage of China’s anti-shipping missile capability via airborne platforms.

[Psalm 73]

Excellent analysis of our current (US Navy) carrier fleet in the last issue of National Review.
The analyst lays out his (compelling) argument against investing in carriers and instead putting that money into Destroyers and Submarines.

[Fido969]

Cruise ships haven’t been doing that well lately, either.

[logi_cal869]

I would never correct a post here that may have been input by fat fingers or on the fly in between long hours...

But this

The potential affect is considerable

from a writer and an article titled 'Essay' is just plain pathetic.

Besides, an 'essay' about ASCM without inclusion of subsurface threats and only about purely offensive capability is just plain ignorant. imho

Reads more like a sales pitch. Go figure. /s

[onedoug]

China says we’d better get out of the South China Sea, or else.

What does ø say to that?

[puppypusher]

The only way I see yo protect large capital ships is through the use of high power,Solid State laser systems.It will be cheaper in the long run than trying to shoot down anti-ship cruise missiles with with the Standard Series of surface to air missiles.

[Scrambler Bob]

M4L Tomahawk

PS, Isn’t the name an offense to the “Native Americans”, i.e., the woo-woo ones?

[servantboy777]

China has been working for a couple of decades to negate our technological/logistical/surface ship advantages.

They are aggressively working on space weapons to take out U.S. satellites, anti-ship cruise missiles to shape a new balance of power.

Our military has been shrinking, theirs has been growing double digits for years.

War with China....not a good thing.

[SampleMan]

The AGM-84 is woefully in need of a replacement, and an updated BGM-109 Tomahawk isn’t it.

Greater range by itself doesn’t solve much. We already have aircraft to gain range and you can’t get effective long-range targeting without aircraft. Additionally, targets move, so if all you do is increase speed, you just add another problem.

We need a 200 nm Mach 3+ (at least terminal) ASCM with enough combined kinetic energy and warhead to destroy a DDG.

The AGM-84 was designed to give U.S. surface ships a weapon against Soviet PGMs. It is along past its prime. Problematically, the missile that we really need, might not fit in the now ubiquitous VLS mounts.

[gaijin]

It’s getting late —I hope they hurry all this.

I’m getting a bad feeling.

[Little Ray]

US Anti-ship missiles are slow and relatively short ranged. We should be looking at building something like the BrahMos - Mach 3, 300+ KM range.

[samtheman]

American naval forces could be significantly outgunned in a future surface engagement.

What's that got to do with climate change? What is this article trying to do, distract the Navy from responding to climate change?

[Talisker]

I believe ship defense is already handled by scalar weapons. Even if there isn't currently the power for long-range effects, within a few miles I doubt any missle could get through without being demolecularized at almost light-speed. AN/SPY phase-array radars can be used for more than one thing, and hide other similiar things. USN ships are not as helpless as they appear these days, with one scrawny gun at the bow and some missiles in crates in the stern.

But no one recognizes a weapon unless they know what it does.