Teh Gerald R. Ford Supercarrier - Mankind's First!
- Thread starter arsin
- Start date
Yup, and the Missouri did shore bombardment during Vietnam, because it was there and it could. Point is they could be done by other means, that don't require the massive investment.
Bigger problem is one I'm sure I've gone into before in here.. basically the Tirpitz doctrine, where there's so much tied up in this resource, that in the sort of conflict where it would be a requirement (which is: against a strong and threatening enemy), the risk of losing it becomes too great to chance, and it is held back (what the Kriegsmarine did to the RN during WWI). The F22 fleet is a similar beast in the aero realm. IE: you can't risk deploying it until the environment is made safer for it to operate, by which time the need to deploy it is no longer there, and its duties can be performed by other, cheaper units.
It's like arguing with a retard. Wait, I am arguing with a retard. What's next, blind people aren't blind because the cones and rods in their eyes still fire and brain can detect light?
US navy's finest, right here. Dumb as a brick.
Just admit you don't know everything about ASW.
Issue is more with SOFAs and what we can and can't do out of a lot of those bases. It took a long time to get clearance to fly bombing missions out of Turkey. They can rescind it at any time. Same with Kuwait, Italy, Germany, etc.
Say we got in a war with Iran, where would you realistically fly missions out of? The logistics of it would be a nightmare. Carriers are able to move to where there needed with the logistics and ammunition on board.
Longer flight times decrease mission efficiency. Why fly 10 hour missions when you can park a carrier off the coast and do it in 1/2 or less?
For the record though, Sweden makes some fucking amazing diesel subs. It's no more shame to be taken down by one from the Brits or Germans (as examples)
I don't disagree. You won't win that battle if you allow them inside your perimeter, which I've already stated multiple times in the case. You counter them by port detection, you shadow them with attack subs, while keeping tabs on their movements via other means. We would never send a carrier into an area with a high submarine threat. We may not be able to pin point submarines exact location, but we know where they are generally, which is what I mean when I say you don't let them within 50 miles.
If we were at war with a country with submarines the Carrier fleet wouldn't move until the area where the submarines were operating was eliminated. This isn't WW2. We know how many you have, how many are in port, how many are where, and their capabilities. This isn't the German wolfpack where we have no idea how many there are or where they are.
It's simple intelligence and surveillance which we do better than anyone.
Now you create your "war game" where you put a sub in the immediate operational area of Carrier you're going to lose, every time. Absent just lacks reading comprehension.
Dozens of helicopters, cruisers and destroyers deploying every single form of submarine detection can't find a sub within 50 miles, but OUTSIDE of that range there's MAGIC that can track the subs from port to port No, it totally eliminates the magnetic signature, which is why these submarines continue to pop up right smack dab in the middle of your prestigious carrier battle groups, you dull fuckface. I love your logic by the way: yeah, they can't track them within 50 miles, but once they're 200 miles out, we can see them where ever they are in the world!
Alfred von Tirpitz says "Guten Tag, Royal Navy!"
What you're saying there is that if you were in a "serious" war.. the sort of one where you might actually need your carrier fleet, you'd be at a serious risk of losing that fleet if you actually deployed it.
IE: right when you need it, you can't use it. Tirpitz Plan. It's what effectively neutered the RN during WW1.
..except that the whole point of a carrier is launching manned aircraft into a warzone, and the era of manned aircraft is in itself coming to an end.
To put on my Armchair Strategist hat: smaller, cheaper, more versatile Amphibious Assault ships are where it's at for the mid-term at least. Enough to launch UCAVs, & helos then follow up to land ground troops. Perfectly capable of filling that role for asymmetric 'skirmish' warfare, and doing it cheaper & with less risk.
Diesel subs are relatively cheap. Maybe not ISIS cheap, but certainly 'developing nation' cheap. They're a proven threat to carrier fleets. It's a risky strategy to put such a significant investment into 'em.
All 'IMO', of course
To put on my Armchair Strategist hat: smaller, cheaper, more versatile Amphibious Assault ships are where it's at for the mid-term at least. Enough to launch UCAVs, & helos then follow up to land ground troops. Perfectly capable of filling that role for asymmetric 'skirmish' warfare, and doing it cheaper & with less risk.
Diesel subs are relatively cheap. Maybe not ISIS cheap, but certainly 'developing nation' cheap. They're a proven threat to carrier fleets. It's a risky strategy to put such a significant investment into 'em.
All 'IMO', of course
WW2? The last time there was a 'superpower war'? As to why they're building carrier fleets.. I dunno, why was Japan still building super-battleships into WW2? I'm not trying to suggest that they're wrong for doing so, but just because someone's going ahead with a particular strategy doesn't necessarily make it a good one. Besides - it shouldn't be news to anyone that military construction contracts aren't necessarily always that pure in their goals.As for unmanned aerial combat... Maybe it'll take that long, maybe not. I'm thinking that with the F-35 we're probably seeing the last generation of aircraft where manned fighters are the primary platform, and that raises another question...
The planned build for the F-35 sees the USMC picking up 340, the USN only 80. (Edit: mistake: those 80 I attributed to the USN are actually -C variants for the Marines. USN has 260 Cs in total.. that's a significant change from my original numbers, though the Marines still have a bunch more JSFs than Navy does) With a planned 10 Ford class ships, it's no great leap of logic to see that they're still going to be using the Hornet an awful lot until they can sort their act out on their F/A-XX hopes, while the America class LHCs are flying Gen 5 JSFs. So realistically, the USMC is going to have the superior air capability for quite a while.
So why take out a $13bn floating airport to launch planes, when you can send out a $3bn one that launches better ones?
The USN has some really hard questions to figure out over the next few years. I don't envy their strategists.
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Times like these I miss Kura
KingSobieski
Veteran XX
im pretty sure you just shoot a satellite into space carrying a 1ton weight and then you shoot it at the aircraft carrier and it goes boom.