“Actually when you review the modern technology now available featuring stealthy missles now available and pinpoint accurate targeting, guidance systems, not only are carriers obsolete but so are all naval surface combatants, land armored vehicles and helicopters over the battlefield. If this Houthi enemy of the American people were supplied and trained on these armaments, he would do his best to convert carriers and ships in the Red Sea into iron coffins.”
Well, yes and no. It depends. Ships at sea are an entirely different thing. To hit them with anything you need to know where they are, the direction they’re traveling, and you have to saturate their defenses. You might say, well, satellites. Well no. It’s not happening right now but basically everyone who counts has anti-sat Lazers. They won’t destroy the satellite, which creates deadly flying debris, but they’ll blind them, melt the radars, etc. The oceans are big. Really, really big. The ships will never see each other in a fight. It’ll be done by remote control.
People have predicted the end of tanks since the bazooka. We still have tanks. One reason the Russian tanks have done so poorly is lack of training, maintenance and bad tactics. (Oh, and an almost absent deployment of men on foot at range to protect the tank.) Whether any system is useful depends on availability, training and tactics. The Russians have done poorly on all counts. US vehicles that have been captured or destroyed are mostly lost because they were designed to be used as one element of a combined arms operation involving a satellite and ground-based kill chain seamlessly integrated with land, and air assets. They are just one link in the chain and the other links are absent. Thus, the Ukrainians have only one piece of the kill chain puzzle. Therefore, they lose vehicles. The same goes with helicopters. We lost something like (from memory) five thousand of them in Vietnam. But everyone, and I mean everyone is still buying helicopters. Why? There’s a million uses for a box that flies. If you lose them either you thought that mission was worth a machine and crew, or you’re just being careless.
It’s the old sword and shield problem. Someone develops a steel sword. The other side develops a better shield. It’s an ongoing issue. The “win” in this war for the US and its allies is that we are getting to see how to fight new technology at someone else’s expense. I only hope the planners and theoreticians are taking notes.
Oh, back to ships. Yeah, they need to stay out of sight of land.
In the Ukraine and the Gaza wars military observers have noted that only a tiny sample of modern technological, now outdated weaponry, has been deployed. The real danger is that the Pentagon is run by Battleship Admirals and Calvary Generals who are supported by defense industry special interests and the politicos that have been bought. It will be brave, young irreplaceable people who will die. Would you really want someone you cared deeply about on a naval surface combatant, a land armored vehicle or a helicopter if there was a real 21st century world war between superpowers? Do you really believe that the overall strategies now deployed to defend and secure America are correct and effective? A geek behind a console in a bunker may determine the future,