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aesop081
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Petamocto said:
Have i ever said that ?
Spoken like a 6 year old whos not getting his way...........
Are aircraft carriers obsolete?
- Thread starter a_majoor
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Have i ever said that ?
Spoken like a 6 year old whos not getting his way...........
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CDN Aviator said:
I don't need any of you to agree with me on this one. This entire thread is nothing more than an abstract academic discussion so there is no reason for anyone to feel the need to convert other people.
Nice to you to resort to name calling though. Luckily I have thick skin and can shake off being called a 6 year old.
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Just curious, did you even read this?Petamocto said:
Just saying that this article (from the Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces) is arguing FOR the aircraft carrier, and one that can pack a punch.
Having said that, no, aircraft carriers are not unsinkable. They have been sunk before, and would probably be sunk if someone were able to get close enough. Now, Canada cannot afford them, but the US can, and they use them. Effectively. There may very well be a day when they are past their prime, much as the Battleship fell into disuse and irrelevance. I just don't think that we've reached that, and won't for some time yet.
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Petamocto said:
Pot calling the kettle black. You have ignored everything posted in this thread to pursue your preconceived notion that a carrier is no longer relevant. Almost every major weapon system has been attacked as being obsolete - tanks,field artillery vs missile/rocket artillery,carriers and maybe even manned aircraft. What your youth and inexperience dont realize is that all weapon systems are all part of a team. They all have their role to play. None can survive for long by itself but within a netcetric force each component relies on others for protection.
A tank is dead unless there are infantry. Close air support isnt possible without control of the air over the battlespace. A battle group without a carrier and its air wing is vulnerable to air attack. The carrier by itself is vulnerable to submarines and missiles but with its escorts the total package becomes a very powerful force.
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T6,
You are incorrect in stating that I have not granted many arguments on this thread. Time and time again I have agreed that several of the attributes of a carrier group are still valid.
There is a difference between not the most efficient, obsolete, and useless.
All of you guys getting your hackles up are acting like I have said that carriers are useless and that is simply not the case. Can a battleship still have an effect? Of course, but there are better ways to go about it. Can you still shoot volleys of arrows at your enemy in war and have an effect? Yes, but it's not the best way. I am not saying that carrier groups are useless.
These are my arguments:
1. There are better ways to spend your money;
2. There are better ways to get the effects that a carrier group provides;
3. Everything at some point becomes obsolete even if it still provides some use (a tall sailing ship could still get sailers from A to B and provide cannon fire);
4. Nothing is unsinkable, especially with weapons already available; and
5. Aircraft carriers at the bottom of the ocean are useless, let alone obsolete.
Techno,
Of course I read the article, and like him my premise is that to blinldy think that carriers are invulnerable and the be all and end all to future combat is very dangerous ground.
You are incorrect in stating that I have not granted many arguments on this thread. Time and time again I have agreed that several of the attributes of a carrier group are still valid.
There is a difference between not the most efficient, obsolete, and useless.
All of you guys getting your hackles up are acting like I have said that carriers are useless and that is simply not the case. Can a battleship still have an effect? Of course, but there are better ways to go about it. Can you still shoot volleys of arrows at your enemy in war and have an effect? Yes, but it's not the best way. I am not saying that carrier groups are useless.
These are my arguments:
1. There are better ways to spend your money;
2. There are better ways to get the effects that a carrier group provides;
3. Everything at some point becomes obsolete even if it still provides some use (a tall sailing ship could still get sailers from A to B and provide cannon fire);
4. Nothing is unsinkable, especially with weapons already available; and
5. Aircraft carriers at the bottom of the ocean are useless, let alone obsolete.
Techno,
Of course I read the article, and like him my premise is that to blinldy think that carriers are invulnerable and the be all and end all to future combat is very dangerous ground.
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I don't think that anyone thinks that carriers are invulnerable. Hence the bazillion ships and shit that surround them. Also, part of their "effect" is non-kinetic. Having a carrier battlegroup parked offshore can send a message.Petamocto said:
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Petamocto
Carriers will get sunk. Soldiers will die.
Phases of Battle circa 1982 - Prep, Advance to Contact, React to effective enemy fire....................Dance on the Fantasians bloody corpses.
Carriers exist for the same reason 4 CMBG existed. They carry the threat to the threat. They act as a trip wire and force the enemy to declare their intentions in their backyard and not ours.
The Carrier supplies transport that takes a force away from home shores thus forcing perceived threats to declare their intentions in their back yard and not in the back yard of the owner of the Carrier.
The bigger the Carrier, the bigger the island, the greater the force carried then the greater the threat and provocation. At the same time, the bigger the island, and the more numerous the number of accompanying islands the greater the survivability of the island and its sisters.
Joining the Forces, IMHO, means that you are volunteering to put yourself at risk. And sometimes the risk that your government asks you to accept is act as a trip wire to force the threat to openly declare their intentions. This is necessary because the stakes are so high if intentions are misunderstood. That’s what 4CMBG was all about. It forced the Warsaw Pact to declare their intentions thus enabling the Canadian people to clearly understand the threat and enabling the Canadian government to openly act, along with its allies, with the full weight of the state and with extreme prejudice.
Back to reacting to effective enemy fire.....the decision to switch from Advance to Contact mode to Locating the Enemy was not made, at least in my time, by the poor bugger that was shot, nor by his buddy. It was made by the Section or Platoon Commander or higher.
Carriers will get sunk. Service men will get killed. That is part of their reason for being. The test of the government is in THEIR react
ion to effective enemy fire.
Carriers will get sunk. Soldiers will die.
Phases of Battle circa 1982 - Prep, Advance to Contact, React to effective enemy fire....................Dance on the Fantasians bloody corpses.
Carriers exist for the same reason 4 CMBG existed. They carry the threat to the threat. They act as a trip wire and force the enemy to declare their intentions in their backyard and not ours.
The Carrier supplies transport that takes a force away from home shores thus forcing perceived threats to declare their intentions in their back yard and not in the back yard of the owner of the Carrier.
The bigger the Carrier, the bigger the island, the greater the force carried then the greater the threat and provocation. At the same time, the bigger the island, and the more numerous the number of accompanying islands the greater the survivability of the island and its sisters.
Joining the Forces, IMHO, means that you are volunteering to put yourself at risk. And sometimes the risk that your government asks you to accept is act as a trip wire to force the threat to openly declare their intentions. This is necessary because the stakes are so high if intentions are misunderstood. That’s what 4CMBG was all about. It forced the Warsaw Pact to declare their intentions thus enabling the Canadian people to clearly understand the threat and enabling the Canadian government to openly act, along with its allies, with the full weight of the state and with extreme prejudice.
Back to reacting to effective enemy fire.....the decision to switch from Advance to Contact mode to Locating the Enemy was not made, at least in my time, by the poor bugger that was shot, nor by his buddy. It was made by the Section or Platoon Commander or higher.
Carriers will get sunk. Service men will get killed. That is part of their reason for being. The test of the government is in THEIR react
ion to effective enemy fire.
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Technoviking said:
I have said that myself several times on this thread.
TangoTwoBravo
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Petamocto said:
I read the article, and while it presented some asymetric threats to carriers I didn't read it as an argument against carriers. It does raise an interesting point about "prestige." We should never be afraid to lose something.
Regarding your arguments:
1. "There are better ways to spend money." What are those better ways? Smaller carriers? Land-based aircraft with re-fuellers? Long endurance UAVs? How are you demonstrating any of this?
2. "There are better ways to get effects." I suppose you could roll this into your first argument. What effects are you talking about (I don't really like the term effects but that is just me). Since WW2 carriers have been the primary way to project naval power. While we like to focus on dropping bombs the carrier battle group does so much more. While submarines can try to deny the use of the oceans, if you want to project power across an ocean you need to be able to protect all those ships that are part of that projection (troop ships, supply ships etc etc). Carriers can do that, and I just can't see doing it with shore-based power at any distance.
3. "Everything becomes obsolete." Not an argument against carriers unless you demonstrate that they have indeed become obsolete. What has made them obsolete? Linking back to your first arguments, what replaces them?
4. "Nothing is unsinkable." So what? Carriers were sunk in fairly large numbers in WW2, precisely because they were essential tools of naval warfare and were therefore in combat. What would you rather be sunk? Are their unsinkable ships out there that I don't know about? Is there any invulnerable system? In any case, where has anyone argued about the invulnerability of carriers?
5. "Carriers at the bottom of the ocean are useless." This line could be re-worded for any combat system. If the sunken carrier was a \n important part of a successful operation then it may well have served its role even though it was sunk. The Yorktown sunk at Midway. I suppose at that point it could no longer serve a purpose, but it had certainly done its fair share of ensuring victory in WW2 before she went down. The Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu and Kaga were sunk at Midway as well. Once sunk they were useless, but Japan wouldn't have had a chance in the war without them.
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Generally, the answers to the first few questions involve a greater number of assets that can do more with modern and upcoming technology (JSFs that require less deck, etc).
The gist is that with less than 10 of something, a serious adversary could construct enough of X weapon systems for far less than the cost of building and running one carrier that could get through the defensive screen and sink all of them.
With giant targets, you are opening yourself up to concentration-of-force attacks against you, and the always possible "super lucky shot" like the bomb that downed the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. You have essentially created a floating defensive castle, and throughout history pretty much every defensive strongpoint has been beaten eventually (Maginot Line, anyone?).
In my opinion, if one must be fixed to the seas, you can still get the effects you want by having several smaller carriers that are still providing mutual support to eachother but would now require multiple ships taking multiple hits compared to your all-eggs-in-one-basket mentality with one super carrier in that group.
Also, we should get out of the mindset that it even needs to look like a conventional carrier. Heck, they could look like floating oil rigs because for the money the US spends on their current carriers there could be enough mini carriers to blanket the world and they wouldn't need to be that fast.
No there is no invulnerable system, but I would much rather have 100 small carriers in 10 spots than 10 carriers in 10 spots.
When/if one of the current carriers goes under, that is now basically an entire ocean's coast line lost. In your WW2 comparison, the difference is that until the end of the war nobody could do anything quickly. Yes aircraft carriers did a lot of damage before they were sunk, but that would not happen today. If war broke out with a Russia/China-type country, someone is going to press a button somewhere and hundreds of missiles and torpedoes are going to start screaming toward the super-carriers all at once and their future will be decided in a day so they won't have time to have their years worth of usefulness like they did in the past.
Yes this is still theorectically possible with 10 small carriers in place of one large one, but it would be a heck of a lot more unlikely.
The gist is that with less than 10 of something, a serious adversary could construct enough of X weapon systems for far less than the cost of building and running one carrier that could get through the defensive screen and sink all of them.
With giant targets, you are opening yourself up to concentration-of-force attacks against you, and the always possible "super lucky shot" like the bomb that downed the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. You have essentially created a floating defensive castle, and throughout history pretty much every defensive strongpoint has been beaten eventually (Maginot Line, anyone?).
In my opinion, if one must be fixed to the seas, you can still get the effects you want by having several smaller carriers that are still providing mutual support to eachother but would now require multiple ships taking multiple hits compared to your all-eggs-in-one-basket mentality with one super carrier in that group.
Also, we should get out of the mindset that it even needs to look like a conventional carrier. Heck, they could look like floating oil rigs because for the money the US spends on their current carriers there could be enough mini carriers to blanket the world and they wouldn't need to be that fast.
No there is no invulnerable system, but I would much rather have 100 small carriers in 10 spots than 10 carriers in 10 spots.
When/if one of the current carriers goes under, that is now basically an entire ocean's coast line lost. In your WW2 comparison, the difference is that until the end of the war nobody could do anything quickly. Yes aircraft carriers did a lot of damage before they were sunk, but that would not happen today. If war broke out with a Russia/China-type country, someone is going to press a button somewhere and hundreds of missiles and torpedoes are going to start screaming toward the super-carriers all at once and their future will be decided in a day so they won't have time to have their years worth of usefulness like they did in the past.
Yes this is still theorectically possible with 10 small carriers in place of one large one, but it would be a heck of a lot more unlikely.
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Petamocto said:
Are carriers obsolete, at the moment I don't believe so; however, with advanced computing and weapons systems coming online I believe they eventually will be.
Has anyone seen the new targeting systems that the F22 possesses, and the F35 will possess. These planes are used in conjunction with the B1 bomber and an F22 can engage multiple targets simulateouslyl how does it do this???
You have a B1 bomber flying further away loaded for bear with bombs, etc...
The F22 identifies multiple targets simultaneously and relays this information to the B1 bomber who then launches some of its payload. This turnas the b1 bomber into the F22 own personal bomb truck, the F22 doesn't need to carry very much payload because it can have massive planes such as the b1 do the heavy lifting. While it targets the b1 bomber does the firing. Its very cool and this is the future of air power. This is why the Americans only built a limited number of F22 because they just don't need any more.
Anything that a navy can do, strategic airpower can do at for a cheaper cost.
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Now that the Maginot Line has been thrown down, I am here as a self-professed student of the German effort in WW2.Petamocto said:
THE MAGINOT LINE FAILED, NOT BECAUSE OF THE GERMANS, BUT BECAUSE THE FRENCH FAILED TO ACKNOWLEDGE ITS UTILITY.
From North to South, during the Sitzkrieg, both sides were like coiled springs, ready to launch. For the Germans, not a single one of their plans involved any attack on the Maginot Line. It was to be "fixed", as they wanted no part in attacking it. They realised the futility of attacking it, so they attempted (successfully) to bypass it.
The French sat in the Maginot Line, waiting for an attack that never materialised. The French essentially snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Their Maginot Line was so successful, that their enemy dared not to strike it. But the French failed to acknowledge this, and wasted several armies sitting idle BEHIND the line, when they would have been much better served up north, in the spot that a blind man could have seen as the Germans' only option. Even as Dunkirk was being evacuated, several French Divisions, all front line and well-equipped, did nothing.
So, yeah, have that castle is the argument, but be prepared for "them" to hit the weaker spot. A carrier BG is not a weakspot: the French Navy is ;D
(OK, that last part was my subtle attempt to draw humour back into this thread)
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Technoviking said:
Ack!
I was beginning to think that the guy who originally posted this thread should have added:
*Note* Only one side of this argument will be entertained. Although it is an abstract academic discussion, you are all expected to have the exact same opinion.
Stymiest said:
Actually, no. As has been pointed out several times in this thread, one of the main roles of a carrier group is as a deterrent, something that will park itself off your coastline and be a very visible reminder of what will happen if diplomacy fails in a blunt way that no number of stealth bombers can hope to equal. Big sticks are used for more than just hitting; they also carry the promise of hitting at some future date, and it's much, much cheaper to build an aircraft carrier than to fight a war.
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40below said:
Yes Aircraft Carriers offer a deterrent but the technology is emerging which allow you to reach out and touch your enemy without ever having to leave home. Aircraft carriers cost billions of dollars to build, is it not more cost effective to build strategic air and missile capability... not too mention the manpower issues posed by manning and staffing carriers.
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40below said:
Pretty expensive to build a carrier for fighting a war and then losing it on D Day, though
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aesop081
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Petamocto said:Pretty expensive to build a carrier for fighting a war and then losing it on D Day, though
:brickwall:
:rofl:
:whiteflag:
Lets get rid of LAV-IIIs.........big target and Timmie has RPGs and IEDs.
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CDN Aviator said:
If you want to use the LAV-III analogy that works perfect for me. Why? Because we bought 600+ of them.
In your side of the argument, we should have only bought six 200m-long mega LAVs that take thousands of soldiers to man, and they gradually lumber themselves around the country side.
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aesop081
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Petamocto said:
I have never worked with a LAV-III, i have no training in LAV tactics and i have never touched one, just felt like commenting.
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