Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

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>Weapons to defeat US' carrier advantage

Snark first: weapons[1] to defeat rockets and free-falling bombs have been operational for quite a while now. Next gen (laser) is being made operational; both shipboard versions and air versions for the CAP. Next next gen (railgun) is on the horizon, but still uncertain.

Serious reply: a carrier is a highly mobile, flexible airport. Like any other major fleet element, it's a threat in being, and best used that way. Might even be best used by always being held beyond radar horizon, to keep the opposing forces spread thin and deployed overtime, preventing any transports from resupplying the enemy troops deployed to Taiwan.

A carrier is also by its nature an anchor point for a whole battle group, with flexible capabilities of long range detection, jamming, attack, and defense, including major ASW threat. It can also make a 300 mile dash at 30kn to deliver several dozen F35 to an island. An overnight miracle.

[1] anti-rockets and CIWS

Feast your eyes on the Carrier Killer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26

There is no known defense yet fielded against this missile.

Lasers might do it, but those aren't going to be ready for deployment for a few years yet .. none of your "rocket/free-falling bomb" defenses are relevant against this thing.

And, then there's this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M22_Zircon

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-tests-missiles-us-no-defense...

This is why the US desperately needs to complete its laser program ... until then, the Carriers are a complete and utter liability in all-out-war ..

Forget building any more carriers.

Carriers in today's world are as obsolete as the battleships that the carriers displaced 80 years ago.

Mind you, the fact that battleships were obsolete did not stop the US from building quite a few more in the 1940s before the penny finally dropped.

I'm definitely not a military analyst, but I haven't seen anything indicating that the Chinese are capable of employing the DF-26 as you describe. If anything, it is a deterrent against nuclear first strike which is how it's currently deployed.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/10/asia/china-missiles-south-chi... 'According to a report from the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China may have an anti-ship version of the DF-26 under development -- and may have even tested it in 2017. However military analyst Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, cast doubt on whether the DF-26 was workable as an anti-ship weapon. Using one effectively would require practicing procedures and tactics that China had not yet shown, he said. "Remember, the Soviet Union never successfully developed an ASBM (anti-ship ballistic missile) and no country in the West has one," Schuster said.'

Do you have some information to the contrary?

First, this is false: "Remember, the Soviet Union never successfully developed an ASBM (anti-ship ballistic missile) and no country in the West has one" and is clearly fog of war propaganda.

Second, DF26 is all over the South China Sea. You think they'd be deploying them if they didn't have confidence in their efficacy?

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