China Can Sink Our Aircraft Carriers...This kind of gets frightening.

reply to post by maintainright


I have indeed heard about them, but as I understand it, the UK government is currently undertaking a FULL spending review, across ALL government departments, including defence.

The Chancellor will make a speech and present the Spending Review to Parliament on 20 October 2010.

www.hm-treasury.gov.uk...

The UK press and media have been full of reports and comments from a variety of players, not least from Dr Fox and George Osborne, who have made it clear that ALL options are on the table.

Indeed, as recently as 13th September I was reading this via the BBCs coverage Cross party talks on defence cuts 'constructive'

The MoD is under pressure to cut its £36.9bn annual budget by up to 20%.

Fears over their future were sparked after BAE systems chief executive Sir Ian King told the Commons Defence Select Committee on Wednesday that the company was asked to consider a number of options ranging from "one carrier to no carriers".

Amidst the various scenarios that I have come across, I recall options to downgrade equipment specs on the carriers to poor levels, and/or delaying or even cancelling the acquisition/roll-out of the F-35s, and a Trident replacement, and therefore I would suppose the completion of the subs may be under similar threat.

So was I really that wrong? I apologise if I was.

this isnt really the thread for this, as its off topic

but I don't see them being cancelled, huge investment down the plughole, besides, theres a rather large chunk of the first one sitting in Govan just now.

they will be built, what happens after that though is anyones guess

F 35's and Trident are higher risk of cuts if you ask me.

and sorry, my last post came across a little aggressive, wasn't meant to be

need to dig out the last thread on the two of these ships

reply to post by maintainright


Thanks, I just hope the kit all comes together to form a successful operational deployment that has not been fatally undermined by penny-pinching, corrupt, negligent, or dishonest senior decision makers.

In an attempt to get closer back to topic, I thought this article was rather interesting:

"Strategic Defence and Security Review: four future scenarios and how they might play out"
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent, Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 12:26PM BST 14 Sep 2010

Link to article

It wasn't just the hypothetical conflicts, theatres and responses envisaged that caught my eye, but also because it appears to make a nod to stories such as the one which was captured in this thread - especially:

The MoD’s seminal document, the Future Character of Conflict, predicts that by 2029, control over resources will “increase the incidence of conflict”, as world population rises to 8.3 billion.

The paper warns of high-end warfare (without mentioning Iran). It adds (without mentioning China) that “it cannot be assumed that the West will retain sufficient military advantage over rising powers in all circumstances, which may embolden actors where previously they had been deterred.”

“it cannot be assumed that the West will retain sufficient military advantage over rising powers in all circumstances, which may embolden actors where previously they had been deterred.”

It may seem obvious to some of us, but this does appear to confirm that the MOD are similarly concerned about such developments, and the possibility of the West losing military/tech advantages in the near future too?

reply to post by endisnighe


dude the japs couldnt even take out the carriers doin kamikazi however u spell it it took like 5 plane crashes on one ship to make them abandon ship and that was only cuz one plane got lucky and hit somethin dead on like fuel tanks im not sure but caused a massive explosion...have u ever seen a aircraft carrier they are massive very hard to take down

Originally posted by Evanzsayz
reply to post by endisnighe

 

dude the japs couldnt even take out the carriers doin kamikazi however u spell it it took like 5 plane crashes on one ship to make them abandon ship and that was only cuz one plane got lucky and hit somethin dead on like fuel tanks im not sure but caused a massive explosion...have u ever seen a aircraft carrier they are massive very hard to take down

You Sir are very incorrect.

Everyone knows kamakazies where incredibly dangerous. All it took was one hit to sink the carriers. Do you even KNOW where the fuel is kept?

If so you wouldn't of posted that.

reply to post by Evanzsayz


The difference is the kamikaze aircraft used by the Japanese in WW2 were slow and propeller driven, the new Chinese weapon is a hypersonic ballistic missile, its quite different. It moves faster than sound, goes way up and then orients itself and comes back down. I can't find anything on the range of the missile, but the first model (DF-21) can reach 1,700 km. The speed at which it moves would give American cruisers fewer shots at it, things like these are usually fired in groups calculated to all hit at the same time possibly from different directions, sometimes trailing behind decoy missiles.

However, US carrier groups are very heavily protected by, among other things, guided missile cruises designed exactly for shooting things like this down (CGN Ticonderoga, DDG Arleigh Burke, Aegis Combat System), being armed with several layers of medium to long range hypersonic anti-air missiles along with others specifically designed to destroy ballistic missiles (US RIM SMs). Russia already has hypersonic SSMs (Sunburn SS-N-22) and has had them for a while, the problem with hypersonic missiles is that they burn fuel very fast and have a short range. The US Navy employs extreme range slow and low missiles alongside hypersonic missile defense systems instead and are more than capable of shooting down a plethora of these things.

It should be noted that fighter/attack aircraft armed with AMRAAMs and the like are also capable of shooting down missiles, which USCGs are packed to the rim with. Anti-ship missiles are actually what is becoming obsolete due to the ease of shooting them down compared to the difficulty of reaching a target successfully from long range. The real threat to a carrier is still a clever captain with a quiet submarine who is willing to sacrifice himself and his crew to sink his target.

China can sink a US air craft carrier if the object hits the carrier. So first the projectile needs to hit the carrier to do so.

The problem here is that Chine has developed and is further developing a system that can target a carrier at very a long distance.

This is not a problem for China. Its a problem for the aggressive US geopolitical strategy around Asia. China needs to develop these sophisticated weapons, if they want to keep their sovereignty. If not the US will do what ever suits their agenda. And that might not be very favorable to China and their interests in Asia.

Originally posted by danielhanson420
i personally think this is a good thing. after all if America became untouchable there's nothing to stop them doing anything they want. the result of china having this tech is that America might think twice about how they deploy their carriers. imagine if they sold this to Iran.. it would be a bit of a game changer wouldn't it?

a game changer maybe, but it won't defeat us, chances are we already have a plan made now incase the enemy gets their hands on this weapon.

If anything, I think the world is a little paranoid about China, not like they are a hostile country, I don't think in history that they have ever invaded any other country except for Tibet...

Originally posted by FreeStanger
If anything, I think the world is a little paranoid about China, not like they are a hostile country, I don't think in history that they have ever invaded any other country except for Tibet...

Tibet
Vietnam (AFTER the Americans left!)
Korea
Mongolia
Taiwan
Russia

Not to mention internal racial purges.

Are you kidding? A guy in a cave can do it as well. Did china just get it's hands on rockets?

More military industrial complex promoting hype.

china can do nothing to strip our sovereign rights, because our own 'elected' 'representatives' have claimed this as their own mission. How will china be a threat to the US, since there's a rifle behind every blade of grass?

Actually the odds of one of these actually hitting, then sinking a carrier, is quite low . SM-3s were designed for this kind of threat, and China probably not risk a nuclear exchange by lobbing ballistic missiles at a CBG, because they could result in boomers launching a volley of instant sunshine right back at the launch position, following by a round of more SM-3 at satellites.

The biggest effect is just that carriers still will have to take the threat into consideration for planning and that will change things to some degree

reply to post by firepilot


There is actually a 50/50% chance it will it. Because it will either hit, miss or be shot down.

There is one major problem with the US defence against projectiles that enters earth atmosphere. That was proven when Sadam fired scuds at Israel. The aiming system had to choose what it wanted to lock onto when debris broke of the scud projectile as it entered the atmosphere over Israel. Very often the system chose the Derbies and not the projectile. Because the aiming system couldn't tell the difference between the debris and the projectile.

If the Chinese missile has dummy projectiles along with the dedicated projectile. The carrier better pray that the missile does miss. Or that the track and aiming system pics the right target the first time. But on who's side are the odds on?

Things like hits and sinking, are not a random dice event. One of those hitting, would in all likelyhood not sink a carrier. They are designed to be extremely hard to sink and to absorb a lot of damage. The USS America was used as a study in that when they took it out to the ocean and hit it until it sunk, to see what it could take.

One big use of missiles like that, is a launch of those could really disrupt flight operations, especially launching or recovering of aircraft.

Most weapons made become weapons used.
Most, as far as type and tech.
I dont understand the waste of time and money, but then that's just me.
Maybe they'll call it 'the debt collector".
and to the comment of 'being nimble to navigate", I dont think it will have to be nimble, just accurate when coming from such a great height.
Once again lets hope they never get used.

Originally posted by firepilot
Things like hits and sinking, are not a random dice event. One of those hitting, would in all likelyhood not sink a carrier. They are designed to be extremely hard to sink and to absorb a lot of damage. The USS America was used as a study in that when they took it out to the ocean and hit it until it sunk, to see what it could take.

One big use of missiles like that, is a launch of those could really disrupt flight operations, especially launching or recovering of aircraft.

I don't know what, if anything, we learned from the demise of USS America ; the reports are confidential. All we know is that the ship was subject to simulated torpedo & missile attack by means of carefully placed explosives. That the ship had to be scuttled after those attacks ... and that the ship lies on the seafloor in one piece ... suggests that class of ship can take considerable punishment. How relevant that is to the later generation of CVN's, well, that really isn't clear.

Or that's what they would have you believe ... the Navy, I mean, the one's who love these ships. They're hardly going to release any information which would suggest these ships can't take a pounding, are they ? Course not, there's major $$$ involved.

There's a huge difference between attacking an empty husk of a ship and one crewed with up to 5,000 men, with aircraft, with aviation fuel, ammunition, nuclear reactors & weapons. We're told USS America lies in one piece. So I guess her back didn't break in the simulated torpedo attack, fair enough.

But there would be sufficient damage to machinery in a real attack as to leave that ship a sitting duck. A warship built only a generation before USS America, the Tirpitz (arguably a more robust design, being a battleship), was left severely damaged in a British sneak submarine attack ... so badly so that it spent the rest of the war in the Norwegian fjiords, scarcely capable of getting underway. And that's a ship with no modern, complex systems. You just can't expect a ship of that size to be lifted tens of feet within a second by an underwater explosion and not be crippled.

Factor in the unpredictable, a severe reactor leak/shutdown, ammunition explosions etc ... combined with 5,000 souls on board ... and you'll have the rest of your carrier battle group tied up trying to save the carrier. It'll have been taken out of the game just by one torpedo. Or a couple of lucky anti ship missiles.

That's why I think the USS America results were never published. Because they'll reveal how vulnerable these ships really are & what a folly it is in the modern age to to base your entire surface fleet operations around them.

reply to post by SaturnFX


China is not even the largest single debt holder let alone owning "half" of the US debt..

And China gets completely screwed by investing in us debt, because of the pathetic rate of return in comparison to inflation, they LOOSE money investing in US Debt, but if they stopped we cant buy their plastic garbage.

Please don't make it look like China owns us.. they are our slaves in more way than one.

China trying to Dong our carriers doesn't make it seem like they are too friendly..

An attack on an American carrier - a small city - is an attack on sovereign American territory, and they may as well launch everything they have.

Because we will.

And for those who wish the Americans poorly, be very careful what you wish for. Those same Americans just may be the only thing keeping a couple of other nations from taking yours.

You lose your protector - you certainly can't defend yourselves . . .

Even your citizenry is unarmed!

That's why I think the USS America results were never published. Because they'll reveal how vulnerable these ships really are & what a folly it is in the modern age to to base your entire surface fleet operations around them.

Well of course it would not be published. There is no reason you would not want any information about what weapons would be more effective on it. Just like you would also not publish the biggest weakness of any weapon system or aircraft.

I think DF21D's if used would be in context of something strategically or close to heart of Chinese leadership, I discount North Korea as one of those reasons because it can be dealt with in a much safer manner to China than open warfare with the U.S. which deployment against a CBG of DF21D's would cause.

Just the flare of multiple ballistic missile launches would indeed be a risky but calculated move once U.S. projected trajectory - calculation being would U.S. launch on mainland China as a response or would they wait to see how CBG defence worked out first before responding at a higher level.

Maybe China could formulate political strife and warfare elsewhere to engage other CBG's weakening mutual support prior to whatever operation they have in mind.

So what prize is worth taking on a U.S. carrier battle Group in a future scenario where China is ready to risk open warfare?

Taiwan? Siberia? Japan? distant possibility Middle East? one just has to ask what's worth taking the risk - you choose......................

With something worth the fallout (no pun intended) how would you then use the DF21D's?

I would guess that the only surefire way would be a combined saturation attack much like old Soviet doctrine was believed to have been. But.......even if a carrier is sunk or put out of action the Chinese have to have a goal in mind that makes open warfare with the U.S. winnable on their terms.

A timed attack with submarine torpedo, stand-off bombers with supersonic cruise missiles from several aspects in great numbers, even one way fighter bomber attacks if needed, combined with a multiple launch of DF21D's could saturate the counter air, submarine and missile defense of a CBG. Especially if China views losses as commensurate with goal in mind.

The Soviets had most of the elements the Chinese have except the ballistic missile component and it was worrisome at the time from what I've read, The Chinese have added another element that if effective at all adds another dimension to protecting a CBG from losing it's prime offensive strike capability which is the sole reason for its existence.

A CBG without an operational carrier is able to protect itself against air and naval attacks but cannot project anywhere near the power inland for interdiction nor support any land based military assets without great risk to the remaining ships.

Sure China has DF21D's and questions remain as to ultimate effectiveness, The real question is what motivation would trigger or allow use of this weapon where the Chinese leadership feels the chessboard is in their favor.