The world's newest aircraft carriers

Source for the very high failure rate of AEGIS against anti-ship missiles?

We aren’t talking about ballistic missile defense. Shooting down cruise missiles is tried and true. Militaries have been doing it since the V-1.

 

Giftedone is making a very common logical mistake in talking about an American carrier battle group going into a major war. He describes it as though a single carrier group would be attacking a vital target (like Murmansk) alone and unsupported.

Let's look at Murmansk. It would've probably gone something like this.

A carrier battle group consisting of three U.S. carriers (minimum) along with escorts would approach not too far from the Norwegian coast. Along the way they would probably get support from land based aircraft in Norway.

As they got closer to Soviet forces they would launch air strikes against any Soviet surface forces within range. 72 F/A-18s. Probably at least 60 available for attacks. Each carrying a minimum of two anti ship weapons. That's 120 pieces of anti ship ordnance targeted on probably 30 Soviet surface vessels. Assuming only one half of the anti ship weapons are launched then that's 60 hitting Soviet ships. Goodbye Soviet Northern fleet.

Assume then that 50 of the Hornets return undamaged from the anti ship strikes, Those 50 combine with 30 A-6s (this was in the 1980s) to launch attacks on base facilities at Murmansk while the 40-60 F-14 Tomcats (each armed with 8 air to air missiles) run a combat air patrol to defend against Soviet air attack.

American submarines and B-52 bombers launch Tomahawks at long range to soften up the Soviet base, while the Hornets and Intruders attack the Soviet SAM and AAA sites, British Tornado's armed with anti runway weapons and cluster bombs move in to crater the runways.

I can't begin to describe the complexity of such an attack. But I'll fully admit that the U.S. led NATO side would suffer heavy losses. But Murmansk won't be operational again during this war.

 

Most SAMs (even the much praised Russian ones) fail to hit their targets.

One in three is generally considered an excellent interception rate.

 

Similar scenario today except all the carrier aircraft are Super Hornets, replace the Tornados with B-1’s, and subs probably lead the attack on the surface ships.

 

Us nuclear weapons have been on Russia's borders for a long time.

 

Hypersonics jets have proved impossible to shoot down thus far,

 

And? I’m not sure what your point is?

 

There is a reason why the SR-71 was retired. The S-300 would annihilate it. Hell, the SR-71 stopped flying into Russian territory in the 1980’s because of the threat of the MiG-25/31.

 

American nuclear weapons are in EU and Turkey.

 

Also, no they haven’t. Numerous MiG-25’s (Mach 3+) have been shot down in combat.

 

Again, what is your point?

 

There is a difference between a missile and a fighter jet and it is not "trivial" to shoot down either.

First off, missiles travel faster than a fighter jet. If they didn't they could not catch the fighter Jet.

Getting behind the fighter jet increases the probability of a hit ... for obvious reasons. Hitting a bullet coming at you with another bullet .. is not so easy.

Russian anti ship missiles ... such as the Onyx are nowhere near the size of a fighter jet. The kinetic damage and/or explosion of one missile will not "kill" a carrier but, it will cripple it and send it back to harbor. It is not like Russia is going to fire just one.

Admirals and Naval experts disagree with you.

https://warisboring.com/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-building-tons-of-supercarriers/

Now if you are talking the new hypersonic Russian technology such as the Zircon, this is larger but flies way faster than a plane Mach 8 and there is little defense against such a weapon.

Now Russia is touting some kind of intercontinental hypersonic missiles that fly 20 x the speed of sound. I suppose those would work too.

 

I say the us did it a long time ago.

 

Sure they have been doing it but, it is not nearly as easy or effective as your hubris would suggest.

Regardless .. it matters not as simple arithmetic (as is given in the link presented to you) kills the cat.

 

It's actually easier to shoot down a missile than an aircraft like the SR-71. People like to talk about how many "Gs" that a missile can pull in maneuvering. But maneuvering is highly dependent on the wing and control surface area an airborne vehicle has. Which is why aircraft with tiny, thin wings are damned near unmaneuverable. And most missiles have little wing and control surface area.

 

Right ... are you listening to yourself. Russia missiles fail to hit solitary or slow moving targets such as ships but we have no problem shooting a missile out of the air with a missile.

Get your head out of the sandbox of denial.

 

You assume the Russians (or Chinese) are going to in a major war situation going to get to launch all those missiles at a carrier.

They would not. They might get a single massive launch off in a "bolt from the blue" situation where a CBG is not even alerted to the possibility of an attack but this could happen to any type of weapons systems and in no way invalidates the utility of supercarriers.

 

It appears that Giftedone is one of our resident "Russian bots".

The reasons the Russian missiles often fail to hit ships is because the ships are deploying massive defensive countermeasures against them.

The airborne antiship missile has no countermeasures to avoid being intercepted.

 

Supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles like the Sunburn are as big as and fly as fast as some aircraft (the MiG-25) which have been shot down in combat.

It’s not hard to hit something flying at you in a straight line when it’s that big. Even the Oniks is not that much smaller than the fuselage of an F-16.

None of these hypersonic weapons are out of the testing stage and none of them are proven in combat.

 

Deploy in this context means “attack with and detonate”.

 

Any carrier strike group is going to have multiple layers of defense and hundreds of shots to fire at incoming missiles. The Russians aren’t going to be able to deploy hundreds of missiles unless it’s a preplanned attack. They don’t have the concentration of forces for it.

 

Waste of money. We don't NEED them

 

Oops ...

 

Ooopsy
Just one ship and your entire attack = fail.
Complexity? Meet simplicity.

First it nukes your planes right out of the sky, then it nukes your ships right out of the sea, then it sails to your house and nukes you right in the face.
Simples.

The Varyag.
Last deployed to Korea where it was sent to single handedly interdict Trumps "3 carrier" battlegroup.

All that you need.

 

I believe that naval forces are largely outdated. They still have their uses, but a nuclear air-burst can easily take out an entire Carrier battle group. What then?