Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts

[Norfleet]

Billy Mitchell wasn't actually successful in doing that. His demo ultmately failed to impress the naval establishment significantly and battleship construction continued unabated internationally. The only country that seriously went all-in on carriers was Japan, and they still built that Yamato thing, which proved little more than an expensive waste of money.

The real shot fired that closed out the dreadnought era was actually the destruction of many of the US Pacific Fleet's battleships at Pearl Harbor. With so much of the US BB fleet destroyed or out of action, the US was basically forced to go into the fight as a carrier navy, as the carriers had been out at sea and survived. Even American industry simply couldn't replace that many battleships on short notice...but carrier spam, we could definitely do.

Ultimately, the last ride of the Dreadnought saw them mostly being used for shore bombardment, with relatively little in the way of awesome battleship on battleship action, leaving everyone with blue balls. Most battleship losses in action consisted of them being shat on by planes or submarines.

Carriers themselvse are also relics today, occupying pretty much exactly the same position battleships did in WW2: A prestige symbol that is only going to get used for shore bombardment, because in an actual fight, they're going to get shat on by the new toy in ascendancy: Submarines. Every surface fleet has already gotten shat on by submarines in simulations. And the last time we had a naval conflict was the Falklands in the 80s, which consisted of the Argentinian carrier fleeing to avoid being shat on by submarines while their cruiser got shat on by a submarine. If carriers ever find themselves in a serious shooting war today, they're going to be shat on by missiles and submarines. And missiles fired by submarines. Carriers are basically just a government jobs program at this point.

 

[flyingjohn]

Billy Mitchell wasn't actually successful in doing that. His demo ultmately failed to impress the naval establishment significantly and battleship construction continued unabated internationally. The only country that seriously went all-in on carriers was Japan, and they still built that Yamato thing, which proved little more than an expensive waste of money.

The real shot fired that closed out the dreadnought era was actually the destruction of many of the US Pacific Fleet's battleships at Pearl Harbor. With so much of the US BB fleet destroyed or out of action, the US was basically forced to go into the fight as a carrier navy, as the carriers had been out at sea and survived. Even American industry simply couldn't replace that many battleships on short notice...but carrier spam, we could definitely do.

Ultimately, the last ride of the Dreadnought saw them mostly being used for shore bombardment, with relatively little in the way of awesome battleship on battleship action, leaving everyone with blue balls. Most battleship losses in action consisted of them being shat on by planes or submarines.

Carriers themselvse are also relics today, occupying pretty much exactly the same position battleships did in WW2: A prestige symbol that is only going to get used for shore bombardment, because in an actual fight, they're going to get shat on by the new toy in ascendancy: Submarines. Every surface fleet has already gotten shat on by submarines in simulations. And the last time we had a naval conflict was the Falklands in the 80s, which consisted of the Argentinian carrier fleeing to avoid being shat on by submarines while their cruiser got shat on by a submarine. If carriers ever find themselves in a serious shooting war today, they're going to be shat on by missiles and submarines. And missiles fired by submarines. Carriers are basically just a government jobs program at this point.

Submarines only work if they are silent. Russian subs for the last 20 years have one big flaw,they are as loud possible thanks to shoddy maintenance.
During the cold war the British were constantly crying about "Russian new sub is undetectable" and the USA response was always"just wait a week and you will hear them loud and clear".

 

[thesecret1]

The issue with carriers is that they are a big, expensive target that everyone wants to sink, and that there is no countermeasure that could prevent all missiles/torpedoes from hitting it once they are fired. And you only need a few to render the thing out of comission. I don't think comparing Russia's and USSR's maintenance is a good idea (those two are quite different), but even if we were to say that submarines are detectable, it doesn't make the carrier any more viable. You can use guided missiles and fire them from incredible distances, even from the mainland, you can fire them from planes that don't even come near the carrier itself, you can decide to sacrifice a couple subs just to sink it with a torpedo swarm (since subs tend to be a lot cheaper than an air carrier)... What kills carriers is the massive increase of range and precision of basically everything since WW2, not to mention detection – used to be you had to send scouting planes just to find a carrier, then send out a flight of bombers and have an air duel etc. Today, even if we ignore things like satellite, everyone has at least RADAR to detect the carrier's position no matter where it is, and every serious adversary has the missiles to take potshots at it from wherever. Another matter is that the added value of a carrier has drastically lessened since WW2. Planes can now fly much, much, MUCH further and faster than back then, so you don't really need an air carreir to get planes somewhere – it's convenient to have it closer so that you can refuel and rearm somewhere closer and thus be ready for another round sooner, of course, but it's a far cry from the importance this had in WW2 where if you didn't sail the planes closer, you just didn't get to bomb the enemy across the ocean in any serious capacity. Not to mention that US has enough countries in NATO to just use their airfields almost anywhere in the world, so no need to rely on a carrier.

Carriers today are exactly what Norfleet said – a prestige symbol, only used to show off against poorer nations that don't have the means to seriously fire back. Should a big war start, all the carrier fleets will be ordered to haul ass to the nearest port immediately, and stay there until the war is over.

 

[Norfleet]

The thing is, modern subs aren't all quite so noisy and poorly maintained as Soviet subs. We've already "lost" carriers to Chinese, Canadian, Dutch, and Swedish subs. It's only nuclear subs that are intrinsically noisy, the diesel-electric ones are real quiet. Unfortunately, this means the bar for what it takes to be able to fire back at carriers is real, real low.

 

[AgentFransis]

You went a bit overboard there. Yes modern diesel subs are a huge threat right now but it's not just that they're quiet but they also have sonar resistant coating and Magnetic Anomaly Detectors countermeasures. They'll stay quiet but someone could invent a new kind of sensor or some kind of crazy active defense system against torpedoes that will flip the tables back. Cruise missiles are of course a threat but you can't just take potshots - you need a serious salvo to overwhelm the point defense of the carrier and all it's escorts.

Then you go really crazy with regards to plane ranges. Fighters have operational ranges on the scale of hundreds of KM, at most 1-2 thousand as far as I know. And that's flying high in a straight line there and back - if you have to fly low to evade enemy air defense or do any kind of maneuvers the range goes way down. You can fly B2s across the ocean to drop a few bombs once a day if you really want but that's about it unless you plan to do massive in air refueling and have abysmally low sortie rates. If you're planning on fighting a war across the ocean you still need some way to project airpower there, whether it be carriers or forward bases (of which the US has a lot of course).

Of course on the same note you can't just fly fighters overseas to rebase them, you either need to ship them there or fly them a bit at a time with in air refueling. US carriers on the other hand are always patrolling around the world near to points of interest so they can respond much faster to a crisis.

 

[thesecret1]

but someone could invent a new kind of sensor or some kind of crazy active defense system against torpedoes that will flip the tables back.

He could. Or he could not. Dealing with what-ifs like that makes the argument pointless.

you need a serious salvo to overwhelm the point defense of the carrier and all it's escorts.

Which is not exactly a problem for any serious opponent. Missiles are cheap as fuck compared to a carrier. And you don't actually need that many of them either.

Fighters have operational ranges on the scale of hundreds of KM, at most 1-2 thousand as far as I know.

F-35s have a listed range of 2200 kms and are designed to be multipurpose. If you want an older plane, F-16 is listed as 860 kilometers. The point wasn't even that they would go bomb enemy city, but rather that they can easily go bomb enemy carriers without having to be stationed on a carrier of their own. And you don't need shitloads of sorties to sink a ship.

whether it be carriers or forward bases (of which the US has a lot of course).

So... what's your argument, even? Yes, US has a shitload of forward bases all around the world, and so do the Chinese. Russia doesn't bother with carriers so the argument is moot. Again, why would you want to use a very expensive and vulnerable (not to mention sinkable) airfield when you have regular, non-expensive and non-sinkable airfields wherever?

Of course on the same note you can't just fly fighters overseas to rebase them

Of course you can. Because there is nowhere in the world where you'd get thousands of kilometres of blue void with no airfield in sight – there's shitloads of airfields placed along the way on the many islands that dot the Pacific.

 

[AgentFransis]

but someone could invent a new kind of sensor or some kind of crazy active defense system against torpedoes that will flip the tables back.

He could. Or he could not. Dealing with what-ifs like that makes the argument pointless.

Your argument sounded like 'submarines won, it's OVER for surface fleets'. My point is that now it's simply chapter #23 in the arms race between submarine and ASW tech and while the submarine is on top today it could flip back again tomorrow.

you need a serious salvo to overwhelm the point defense of the carrier and all it's escorts.

Which is not exactly a problem for any serious opponent. Missiles are cheap as fuck compared to a carrier. And you don't actually need that many of them either.

Perhaps, I don't know. It all depends on the true capabilities of modern point defense which are naturally classified. Maybe you need dozens to have a realistic chance to get through, carrier battlegroups do have a lot of escorts. And maybe it's not quite that simple to line your coasts with cruise missile launchers.

Fighters have operational ranges on the scale of hundreds of KM, at most 1-2 thousand as far as I know.

F-35s have a listed range of 2200 kms and are designed to be multipurpose. If you want an older plane, F-16 is listed as 860 kilometers. The point wasn't even that they would go bomb enemy city, but rather that they can easily go bomb enemy carriers without having to be stationed on a carrier of their own. And you don't need shitloads of sorties to sink a ship.

Well ok, you can obviously attack ships with ground based aircraft. You could in WWII too. The point you made was about plane ranges in general seemingly implying that there's no point in carriers anymore since all aircraft roles can be fulfilled with ground bases. Carriers today are primarily tools to project airpower to enemy land, not so much as a dedicated naval combat force and in that capacity thy're still useful.

whether it be carriers or forward bases (of which the US has a lot of course).

So... what's your argument, even? Yes, US has a shitload of forward bases all around the world, and so do the Chinese. Russia doesn't bother with carriers so the argument is moot. Again, why would you want to use a very expensive and vulnerable (not to mention sinkable) airfield when you have regular, non-expensive and non-sinkable airfields wherever?

My point was about effective range of airpower.
The US has many bases yes, but not everywhere and not all are actually airbases. You won't necessarily have an airbase in close range to where you need it or it could be too close to hostilities and be vulnerable to artillery. And again, the carriers are already out there. So if a crisis starts brewing somewhere a fully loaded carrier group can be there in days to provide first response which could be important.

Of course on the same note you can't just fly fighters overseas to rebase them

Of course you can. Because there is nowhere in the world where you'd get thousands of kilometres of blue void with no airfield in sight – there's shitloads of airfields placed along the way on the many islands that dot the Pacific.

The pacific is still pretty huge and the atlantic is fairly empty as far as I know. And I doubt any random airstrip in the middle of nowhere can be ready to maintain and refuel hundreds of aircraft at a moment's notice. And you still need to move all the ground crew, spare parts and ammo. I'm no expert on logistics but I'm pretty sure it's not quite as simple as you put it.

 

[Norfleet]

Your argument sounded like 'submarines won, it's OVER for surface fleets'. My point is that now it's simply chapter #23 in the arms race between submarine and ASW tech and while the submarine is on top today it could flip back again tomorrow.

Sure, some new development could abruptly end the Submarine Age, but at the moment, the fact that the Carrier Age is actually over has barely even been acknowledged, so this rude awakening has yet to be formalized, much like nations were still building Dreadnoughts after the Age of the Battleship was actually over, but they hadn't realized it yet. Meanwhile, submarines are still in ascendancy. The first signs of the Submarine Era supplanting the Carrier Era began when first nuclear submarines shat all over surface groups in exercises, far more so than Billy Mitchell's planes shat on ships. The ascendancy has only grown as the list of deadly things which can be fired from submarines has grown and information has become all the more important in modern warfare. While ships are painfully obvious to spot now for anyone with any satellite coverage, submarines remain elusive and hard to spot, and where knowledge is power, to remain unknown is to remain unconquerable. Meanwhile, all kinds of deadly modern precision munitions can now be shat out from submarines, and increasingly, these submarines can be highly effective without even having to be nuclear, which pushes their cost WAY down compared to a CVN group. A single shitty SS can shit on a CVN group by sinking the carrier, rendering the entire group useless. Even if the submarine is sacrificed for the job, it's a massive win. Multiple nations, most of which are not considered to be anything close to world powers, have already been able to do this in exercises. If a USN CVN group can't even defeat formidable opposition like the Canadians, the Dutch, and the Swedish, they're not gonna fare well against rising superpowers like China.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

^
Why do they keep carriers around then? It seems like they’re more boutique assets than assets that can be expended (too valuable to lose?). Public works programs to keep people in congressional districts employed?

 

[thesecret1]

Why do they keep carriers around then?

Same reasons they kept battleships around long after their time was over. For one, it is a prestige symbol, for two, many interested groups want carriers to be built (after all, there's a whole lot of money to be made on a carrier), traditional-minded wings of the military also want to keep them (either refusing to accept reality or worried that their posts would become obsolete), and politicians usually either don't know anything about the problematic, or know that the people will like a big fancy ship like that. Again, this is nothing new – it's a phenomenon as old the history of warfare. Why did the superpowers still build battleships shortly before and during WW2 despite them being obsolete? Why did many of them scoff at or be reluctant to commit resources into tanks prior to WW2? Why were many of them so slow to adopt planes for military purposes? Hell, we can go even further back into the heavy knight vs light cavalry or medieval warfare vs gunpowder conflicts. Every time, a major bitchslap to the old doctrine by the new was needed to show everyone the shift in paradigm.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://www.dreadnoughts.ultimateadmiral.com/post/alpha-12-good-to-go

Alpha-12 Good to go!
Admirals,

The anticipated patch has been finalized and is ready for you to play! Explore the many new hulls, the Ship Design improvements and lots of interesting mechanics. The AI is also significantly improved and is more threatening as an opponent and more reliable as an ally. You can read below about all the new features of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts.

Spoiler

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Alpha-12 update
===============================================================================

NEW HULLS & MODELS

22 new hulls offer countless different new designs. In particular, the new hulls are the following:

• New model that can recreate the German “Deutschland-class” cruisers such as the “Graf Spee”. In-game it can be used with the name “Advanced Armored Cruiser Ι” after year 1921, as a hull between 14,900 and 18,900 tons with special hull resistance characteristics making it especially durable even against battleships.
  
  
• New model that can recreate the Japanese battleship “Fuso” after its reconstruction. The new hull is available after the year 1924 with a displacement between 36,000 and 69,000 tons and code name “Modernized Dreadnought III”.
  
  
• New Japanese “Dreadnought IV” variant available between the years 1914 and 1927 and with displacement of 26,000 - 46,000 tons.
  
  
• New Italian “Dreadnought I” variant available between the years 1906 and 1918 and with displacement of 18,000 - 26,000 tons.
  
  
• New German “Advanced Armored Cruiser II” variant which is a speculative continuation of the Deutschland-class and can be found in years after 1927. Its displacement is between 17,900 and 22,900 tons.
  
  
• New Japanese “Heavy Cruiser II” variant with a displacement of 13,400-15,600 tons that can be found after the year 1922. It has a flat light hull and a selection of towers that can make it good at firing from long distances.
  
  
• New Japanese “Experimental Heavy Cruiser” variant with a displacement of 15,900-22,100 tons that can replicate ships similar to the Japanese “Tone-class” and can host a large amount of torpedo tubes. It is available after the year 1934.
  
  
• New “Fast Battleship” variant a special Battlecruiser hull available for Russia, Spain, Italy, Austro-Hungary, China after the year 1935. It has a displacement between 45,000 and 75,000 tons and can be a good compromise between firepower and protection.
  
  
• New Austro-Hungarian ”Modern Battleship” variant with displacement between 51,000 and 81,000 tons available after the year 1929.
  
  
• New Chinese “Experimental Battleship” variant available after 1929. It is a hull of 42,500 - 55,000 tons which can offer unusual battleship designs with all-forward gun mounts.
  
  
• New Chinese “Modern Battleship I” variant available after 1936 and with displacement between 50,500 and 60,500 tons.
  
  
• New Spanish “Modern Battleship II” variant with displacement between 61,500 and 71,500 tons available after 1929.
  
  
• New Italian “Modern Battleship II” variant with displacement between 60,500 and 70,500 tons available after 1929.
  
  
• New Japanese “Experimental Battleship” variant available after 1929 with displacement between 47,000 and 72,000 tons. This hull can produce designs resembling early unofficial Japanese battleship designs that had all the main guns forward.
  
  
• New Russian “Modern Battleship II” variant which is available after 1936 and has displacement between 65,000 and 79,000 tons, offers a very robust hull especially optimized for protection.
  
  
• New Russian “Super Battleship” variant available after 1936 and with displacement between 75,000 and 99,000 tons is an enlarged version of the new Russian battleship line and is a hull of very thick and robust construction.
  
  
• New Russian “Modern Battlecruiser” variant available after 1929 with displacement between 33,000 and 47,000 tons
  
  
• New Russian “Large Cruiser” variant available after 1929 with displacement between 28,000 and 39,000 tons.
  
  
• New Russian “Modern Light Cruiser” variant available after 1920 with displacement between 6,000 and 9,000 tons.
  
  
• New Russian Pre-Dreadnought “Battleship V” variant available between the years 1899 and 1906 with displacement between 14,000 and 19,000 tons.
  
  
• New Chinese Pre-Dreadnought “Battleship III” variant available between the years 1899 and 1906 with displacement between 13,500 and 16,500 tons.
  
  
• New Japanese Battleship hull variant which can more faithfully recreate the Yamato-class, due to its angled deck.
  

The Fuso-class battleship can be now recreated
NEW GUNS

• New special looking German guns available in middle-late technology levels spanning between Mark 3 and Mark 5 and covering calibers from 4-inch to 12-inch guns.
  
  
• New special looking Japanese guns covering the Mark-3 big guns from 9-inch to 16-inch caliber and the Mark-1 guns of 17-inch to 20-inch caliber.
  

A more advanced variant of the Deutschland-class cruiser in action
SHIP DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS/FIXES

• Torpedo Tubes are now having different models and size according to technology and torpedo dimensions: Previously there was only one Torpedo Tube model for all technology eras. Now you will notice different Torpedo Tube visuals in different technology years and as you switch the “Torpedo Size” component.
  
  
• All Ship components are now logically enabled: Previously there were various issues, such as Diesel engines working with coal fuel and boilers, or torpedo components increasing detonation chances and affecting weights in a ship that did not have any torpedoes. Now everything that is selected in the ship component list is affecting properly and fully the ship statistics. Diesel engines have been fully rebalanced to work with the new feature.
  
  
• Major improvement in Ship Design controls: Ship part selection is now more accurate and sharp. Previously the mouse cursor would highlight/select a very large area resulting in unwanted changes during ship design processes.
  
  
• Minimum Tonnage step reduced from 5 tons to 1 tons, so you can build ships with more precision.
  
  
• Various small fixes and improvements in many hulls.
  
  
• Many New towers and parts became available to various models.
  

The Component logic is improved, for example the Diesel engines will switch off boilers automatically
AI IMPROVEMENT

• The AI opponent has been significantly improved to be more aggressive and approach nearer to the player when it has the advantage. The AI will still keep safe distance according to estimations of firepower and danger zones.
  
  
• AI controlled ships in screen/scout/follow formation should now interact nearer to threats.
  
  
• AI ship evasion has been improved further.
  
  
• AI auto-design became more effective overall.
  

Torpedoes now differ in size and model according to technology level
NAVAL ACADEMY

The following 4 missions are included in Naval Academy:

• The "Pocket Battleship": The defeat of the German Empire in World War I brought strict terms in her naval construction programs. The need of packing heavy firepower in smaller hulls resulted in the creation of an armored cruiser with very big guns for its size. The French were allowed by naval treaties to build much larger and heavier warships to match this threat. Your mission is to utilize your limited funds to construct an effective force of armored ships or “pocket battleships” as they are usually known and defeat a rival French battlecruiser which protects a convoy.
  
  
• Japanese Modernized Dreadnoughts: The Japanese Imperial Navy prolonged the active duty for almost all older dreadnoughts instead of scrapping them. On paper, those ships could be formidable opponents for the most modern battleships. Now you must design and build a force of such modernized dreadnoughts and defeat a much larger and extremely powerful US battleship. This battleship is escorted by a small flotilla of destroyers. Your more numerous fleet is also reinforced with a number of destroyers and cruisers so this fight might be in fact more favourable for our side… or maybe not?
  
  
• Russian fleet in dilemma: After the fall of the Russian Empire, the new regime had difficulties in raising a fleet powerful enough to correspond with the vast territories of the Russian nation. The Germans are seeking to meet you in the Baltic Sea with a strong fleet. Your current force in the area consists of one modernized dreadnought and a few old destroyers. Your restricted budget allows you to build either a handful of battleships or numerous smaller ships. Will you overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers or will you just create one super battleship which can sink them one by one?
  
  
• Payback Time: China has emerged from her ashes and now is able to have a potent naval force, not as powerful as Japan’s but enough to be a considerable threat. A squadron of two Japanese battleships and a few escort ships cause tension by violating your waters. The government decided to risk a war against Japan with a surprise attack that would serve as revenge for the defeats of the past. The weather conditions are perfect for an ambush. You can barely match the firepower of the Japanese battleships with your own battleships, so it would be wiser to have more smaller ships to overwhelm them by your numbers.
  

The new pagoda towers provide unique visuals for many Japanese ships
BUG FIXES

• Fixed bug that was caused when duplicating a ship design in Naval Academy.
  
  
• Fixed bug that could cause guns to become badly placed when mounting submerged torpedoes.
  
  
• Fixed bug that caused extreme delay to auto-design AI ships in mission “Pre-Dreadnought conflict”. This mission has also received new hulls available for design.
  
  
• Fixed bug that could cause funnels to be not allowed in some towers, as being traced wrongly in forward position off the tower.
  

The new Japanese battleship variant with the angled deck
BALANCES

• Fire damage has been balanced to affect more significantly all ship types. In addition, the fire damage is added into statistics (you can now observe what is the sustained damage for friendly and enemy ships). This new statistic should help players to understand why their ship may have less structural integrity with less hits than the AI opponent, because now the received fire damage can be measured as well.
  

Fire damage can be now indicated as summary for both sides or in sustained damage per ship
OTHER

• All the game’s text has been reviewed/proofed for minor errors.
  
  
• Flash fire effect is more properly scaled (It could become too large for big ships, or too small for small ships).
  
  
• Obsolete Dreadnought hulls are no longer available in late techs (we have now many new hulls to replace them).
  

A new Chinese pre-dreadnought of unusual size and design
===============================================================================

The next scheduled large update is going to include the first version of the campaign. Until then we may offer a small hotfix, but only if one or more game breaking issues are found. Thank you for reading! Please share your feedback in our forums:

 

[Burning Bridges]

Why has this shit not come out already? Did someone take a sabbatical 2 months before release?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

^
Why do they keep carriers around then? It seems like they’re more boutique assets than assets that can be expended (too valuable to lose?). Public works programs to keep people in congressional districts employed?

carriers are still useful for keeping and securing shipping lanes during times of peace, which is the US navy's main job on the world stage. I don't think people realize how important this is to world trade in a 'just in time' modern world. If for some reason there were no super powers and the sea lanes were suddenly not secured by anybody, this could become very chaotic and bad for trade, and eventually peace.

The US Navy has not only kept peace for the US but has helped the entire world enjoy more and more prosperity and easy and fast trade since the end of WWII. If the Era of US Hegemony ends, this could be a very dicey situation IMO until it was worked out because suddenly you might have a lot of smaller nations and/or pirates wanting to implement their power on choke points in the sea lanes which could lead to a break down in orderly trade and or/ rising tensions.

although much smaller 'tactical carriers' and helicopter carriers that carried F-35 jump jets and helicopters etc could fulfill this roll just as well or even better most likely.... you don't need a nuclear fleet carrier.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Why has this shit not come out already? Did someone take a sabbatical 2 months before release?

seriously, its been forever.

 

[Andnjord]

Why has this shit not come out already? Did someone take a sabbatical 2 months before release?

seriously, its been forever.

They've been diddling around with 3D models and incremental gameplay changes to the battles but there's still no sign of the real game, the strategic campaign that's supposed to surpass Rule the Waves

 

[Norfleet]

carriers are still useful for keeping and securing shipping lanes during times of peace, which is the US navy's main job on the world stage. I don't think people realize how important this is to world trade in a 'just in time' modern world. If for some reason there were no super powers and the sea lanes were suddenly not secured by anybody, this could become very chaotic and bad for trade, and eventually peace.

They actually aren't, and we don't really need to imagine this scenario: There exist places in the world where shipping lanes actually need securing, but we do not really use carriers to perform this security, we just send a frigate or destroyer or so, because shooting pirate motorboats from jet fighters would be a colossally inefficient waste, not to mention jet fighters are REALLY not optimized for this kind of thing: They're simply too fast and cannot linger over areas. In fact, they're very inefficient in the roles we try to use them in now, precisely because these are things meant to operate in high-speed environments against other jet fighters...not against raggedy-ass towelheads with small arms on trucks, that just hide until the jets have passed. For this, you need a plane that can cheaply and effectively circle around the area for hours at a time waiting for someone to kill. Otherwise, you get about 15 minutes of air coverage and then the fighters are gone.

Carriers, like battleships of yore, are good for showing the flag. That's ultimately about it, they will turn into giant steel coffins the moment real shooting starts.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Carriers, like battleships of yore, are good for showing the flag.

They're good for deploying ~70 aircraft to anywhere in the world in fairly short order.

 

[Norfleet]

Would take days to weeks to deploy a carrier to a place where one isn't already, and the only thing we can do with those aircraft is inefficiently bomb towelheads. If you put them into an environment where you're facing forces of anything close to equivalent strength, the carrier will get sunk. Chinese missiles have basically made everything west of Guam a hazardous place to be a surface ship, and if you get it anywhere close to a hostile coastline, you're now prey for random submarines. Carriers can only effectively menace people who don't have their own airforce, don't have missiles, and don't have submarines. That basically limits you to intimidating third-world nations, and not even all of those.

 

[Ol' Willy]

They're good for deploying ~70 aircraft to anywhere in the world in fairly short order.

This is Tu-22M3. It can fly at the speed of 2 mach at max altitude of 13 km with the max range of 6000km and launch X-32 missiles which can successfully break through American Aegis defenses and turn any multi-billion AC into a pile of burning rubble in the matter of minutes.

This is diesel-electric submarine of project 877, cheap and very quiet. It can launch 91Р rockets that can do pretty much the same that the "air-surface" rockets of the above.

If Russia gets its shit together and starts exporting this stuff to some ready to pay countries the perspectives of American carrier groups will become even more grim.

 

[Norfleet]

Submarines like this have an alarming habit of showing up out of nowhere. An Indonesian buddy of mine recounted an apparently hilarious incident regarding their recently lost submarine, about how an American group was apparently conducting an ASW exercise somewhere, that their sub happened to wander into. Wondering what all the strange noise going on around it was, it surfaced to investigate, discovering itself in the middle of a carrier group in the middle of this exercise.

They hadn't detected it. If they can't even find an old piece of junk like that which was not actually attempting to hide from them while specifically performing an exercise to look for submarines, they ain't gonna find shit against a submarine specifically trying to hunt them.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Ol' Willy

That's clever - and I'm a fan of Russian weapon systems - but I'm not really sure what point you're making by pointing out the vulnerabilities of carriers. There's nothing that floats, flies or drives that has no counter. A carrier battle group is a power projection dream. It affords the Americans the ability to deploy massive forces to anywhere in the world. Three carrier battle groups can establish aerial supremacy against any potential foe outside of Russia or China, allowing ground landings under cover or area control. As a component of military capability, it's a huge advantage.

Wars are not fought by singular weapon systems, but by a complex network of combined arms.

 

[Norfleet]

There's nothing that floats, flies or drives that has no counter.

The problem is not that it has a counter. It's that the counter is so much cheaper than the solution, and this counter itself does not have a counter. We don't actually have an effective counter to missiles or submarines, at least not one which doesn't cost MORE than the thing being countered. When a system has a counter which costs less than it does, that does not itself has a counter that costs even less, what you are looking at it something that is obsolete.

Three carrier battle groups can establish aerial supremacy against any potential foe outside of Russia or China

So, they work against any potential foe, except any of our actual potential foes. You don't see how this is a problem? Who exactly do you want to employ these carrier groups against if not Russia or China? Iran? I wouldn't really rate Iran as a potential foe, so much as a potential target for us to bomb. Who exactly should we be worrying about fighting that ISN'T Russia or China? The Reticulans? Yeah, they won't help there, either.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Three carrier battle groups can establish aerial supremacy against any potential foe outside of Russia or China, allowing ground landings under cover or area control.

The 877 project submarine is used, aside from Russia, by Poland, Rumania, Algeria, India, China, Iran, Vietnam, Myanmar. Each of these countries, therefore, could pose a threat to an American ACG given that they possess the relevant rockets.

 

[Lone Wolf]

So, they work against any potential foe, except any of our actual potential foes.

How many times have you fought the Russians or the Chinese recently? And if the answer is 'zero', why?

Who exactly do you want to employ these carrier groups against if not Russia or China? Iran?

The enemies and theaters the United States engages, realistically. None of the major powers can invade and occupy their peers, in any practical sense. Without being crass, that sort of conflict goes nuclear almost immediately. It's why it hasn't happened. The potential benefits are massively outweighed by the costs. As such, power projection and geo-strategic reach are paramount in building and maintaining spheres of influence. CBGs are of paramount importance in power projection.

It's that the counter is so much cheaper than the solution, and this counter itself does not have a counter.

This sort of totalistic, black and white, rock-paper-scissors thinking is very strange in a real-world military sense. The 'counter' to submarines and ballistic missiles is HK submarines and early strikes against staging areas. If US MI and SIGINT do their job, they retain a pretty good idea about submarine deployments and patrol routes. And, contrary to belief in this thread, submarines are not invisible to sonar in all circumstances. That doesn't make carriers invulnerable, but it lowers the risk as much as possible. But that's neither here nor there. Naval bases would be hit in the first wave of any form of strategic warfare. And sinking an aircraft carrier would immediately transition any local conflict to a strategic one. Against peers, it always ends one way: a strategic nuclear exchange.

Declassified Soviet plans from the 60s/70s already give us an insight into what such a conflict would look like: ~300 D1H1 nuclear strikes, with more to follow.

Outside of strategic warfare, what scenario brings an American CBG into open combat with the Russians/Chinese? This is akin to the ongoing debate about the utility of tanks. Against capable foes, tanks are a bit awkward in the modern context. A $400k ATGM can reliably destroy virtually any tank in existence. Mitigation systems like ERA and ARENA-style active defenses give AFVs a bit more survivability, but at the end of the day well equipped infantry > tanks. Does that make the tank useless? Not necessarily. It's still an extremely handy mobile weapons platform against specific enemies in specific contexts. If well supported, tanks absolutely add value to any combat force.

CBGs are expensive, but they're still used because - in specific contexts - they're an enormous advantage.

The 877 project submarine is used, aside from Russia, by Poland, Rumania, Algeria, India, China, Iran, Vietnam, Myanmar. Each of these countries, therefore, could pose a threat to an American ACG given that they possess the relevant rockets.

Yes, the 877 'could' pose a threat to a CBG in the hands of any end user. Which really doesn't matter, because if push were to come to shove those end users (the ones listed) have approximately 0% chance of defeating the United States in any conventional conflict. It's not CBGs that make the United States a fearful enemy, it's the spectrum of military capabilities they possess and their quantity/quality.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Yes, the 877 'could' pose a threat to a CBG in the hands of any end user. Which really doesn't matter, because if push were to come to shove those end users (the ones listed) have approximately 0% chance of defeating the United States in any conventional conflict. It's not CBGs that make the United States a fearful enemy, it's the spectrum of military capabilities they possess and their quantity/quality.

They don't have to defeat USA - one sunk carrier will be a good enough blow at American prestige already. And even if some Iranians can sunk American carrier - the reputation of American ACG will greatly suffer. ACGs do work as an "American Sledgehammer" only because they are yet unopposed and intimidating.