The end of Aircraft Carriers?

[shawn a]

How vulnerable are modern carriers?
Mach 3 sea-skimmers.
Swarming attacks by slower ASMs and aircraft.
Terminally maneuverable ballistic missiles.
Ultra-quiet Diesel-electric submarines.
A few hits on one could mean an inability to launch or recover aircraft. If aircraft in flight could not be recovered somewhere, they're gone for good.
To me, a breached reactor means "abandon ship".
The US Navy's Phalanx seems inadequate to counter swarm attacks or mach 3 missiles.
Opinions,anyone?

[AVIATOR]

Aircraft carriers are peacetime ships that passed into wartime operational history when the Shkval torpedo was developed by the West's enemies.
You want to try telling the Indians that on their defence forum. India is just getting into aircraft carriers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval

[shawn a]

I'd heard of that weapon, but didn't think it fully developed, or in operation yet.  Supposedly, the US Navy is working on supercavitating weapons also.
Good statement, though. I feel carriers are too many eggs in a basket, and an obviously tempting target.
And totally worth any enemy's developmental effort to defeat.

[Eldorado82]

the high maintenance cose of that kind of ship can be important in a questions like this. however the capabilities they bring to navy are limitless.. we dont have any aircraft carriers because we don't need them. big countire like Us needs them to be able to attack in every part of the world.

[shawn a]

Well, what about the ballistic missile threat?
When fully developed and operational terminally maneuverable ballistic missiles are launched, only the Aegis ships can try to swat them down. There's talk of using other anti-missle missiles, even the AMRAAM, but is the AMRAAM fast enough? How many missiles do those Aegis ships carry, it's probably not a secret, so when they are out of missiles, the enemy should know. I imagine more than one interceptor would be launched at every incoming warhead, thus halving the number of ballistics needed to overwhelm defenses.
The capabilities of a carrier are obvious, and well known, and have been demonstrated repeatedly.
Right now they are one of the major kingpins of power projection. Is that going to change?
US subs can have lots of cruise missiles to take out fixed ballistic launching sites, but a lot of the "short range" ballistics are mobile--another problem.

[afterburnerlover]

like i said in my first post? i think.i was on a carrier.they can take many hits.a carrier has so much time to protect itself.the carrier is in the middle of the fleet.the fleet's radar and sonar is far reaching.then there's aircraft,that extend the radar even further.
i heard that to defeat the va-111,something like depth chargers would be used against them.i don't really know.i truly believe we already have a countermeasure.if YOU know about something,then the military has known for quite some time,and probably has a way around it.

[AVIATOR]

Aircraft carriers are for projecting power anywhere in the world. They are the main stay of a superpower world policeman. The alternative isn't attractive. Expensive bases in foreign countries where billions are poured in to the local economies in regard to jobs and infrastructure.
ie, Dollars for land rental.
The modern aircraft carrier is portable and can cruise off any potential trouble area.
A point to be made here is that there isn't any room in the world for a second power to be there with aircraft carriers as well. When this happened in history it had to be decided at the Battle of Midway.
In peace time these huge weapons excell, as their enemy is the terrorist or pirate nation. But in a real shooting war, I'd hate to try and protect them and if sunk, pick up 6000 sailors from the water with smaller craft.

[afterburnerlover]

yeah,you have a point there.i'm stuck.i just don't know.i can't explain it,but i have confidence in a carrier and the fleet surrounding it.like the hawkeye(big dish on top),it can cover 4 million square miles of territory.square miles,not in distance of course.the hawkeye then sends that to the fighters,strtching that distance.yeah,this is a good topic.i have no deffinite answer.

[AVIATOR]

Well you have had first hand experience against my arm chair duty.
I have no doubt that the aircraft carriers can protect themselves, but the big danger could be a first strike similar to Pearl. The only reason that the US carriers weren't lost and possibly ultimately the war was because they were at sea.
I am not saying all the carriers will be at Pearl in the future to be sunk there, today they don't have to be. The enemy knows where they are all the time, unlike submarines. We could see ten Pearl Harbors all at once.

I sure hope that the Joint Chiefs of staff lurk on some of these forums. They'd pick up a lot of useful information from guys like us.

[afterburnerlover]

I was thinking the same thing! LOL I even got paranoid lol and didn't put down some stuff on here.
Arm chair duty is duty,and it's better than being shot at or humping it for miles to eat mre's.