The People’s Liberation Army (Navy) has landed its first jet on a carrier: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/world/asia/china-aircraft-carrier-landing/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
This story surprised me in that I’m kind of amazed it took until now for them to accomplish such a rudimentary part of, you know, having a naval aviation force.
They obviously got hung up on researching Industrialism instead of going for Radio.
They didn’t buy the carrier just to look at.
They are working on developing a stronger military force. It’s important to keep watch, but this isn’t an immediate game changer.
China’s ability to strike U.S. bases in the Pacific is improving: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/07/u-s-bases-in-japan-sitting-ducks/?hpt=hp_c2
The U.S. Navy welcomes its newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, but the Chief of Naval Operations concedes the size of the American carrier fleet may shrink: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/08/navy-set-to-launch-newest-most-efficient-carrier/?hpt=hp_t3
Good analysis-the Middle Kingdom is serene and peaceful! No need for the barbarian western devils to get upset-they need time to accept the “Mandate of Heaven”"…and pay proper respect to the emperor!
China wants four carriers… or does it?: http://defensetech.org/2014/01/22/china-plans-to-build-4-aircraft-carriers/
The UAV has rendered aircraft carriers obsolete.
Take a Global Hawk and outfit it with three or four Hellfires (yes, you’ll have to do some modifications) and launch it from Guam. Congratulations…you now control most of the shipping in the Western Pacific.Do the same with whatever UAV replaces the Global Hawk and add torpedoes. You have just put China’s new carrier fleet on the bottom of the South China Sea. And it didn’t cost a single US casualty.
Even Predators would be deadly for a surface fleet which strayed too close to a land base. They might be slow; but they could certainly take out expensive ships with relatively cheap Hellfires
UAVs are cheaper and expendable. The US is about 10 years ahead of almost everybody out there in using these as remote killers and it’s doubtful that we are going concede that edge any time soon. In fact, it’s more likely that most naval surface vessels will replaced with UAVs as it costs far less to replace a drone than it does to replace an Aegis cruiser or a Harry S Truman aircraft carrier.
There’s another thing as well: China’s military is primarily used for maintaining internal order. A blue water navy does nothing to assist with that so it will always be their “redheaded stepchild.” Even if a navy could help China project force, China lacks the extensive chain of overseas bases that the US enjoys meaning that their fleet would have to remain at sea when it was on patrol. That would add to its costs and limit its effectiveness, as most major repairs require a drydock and tired crews with low morale perform poorly during combat.
Frankly, the US should urge China to build a sizable carrier fleet. It would drain resources away from more productive areas of defense for them. And it’s old school technology meaning that t would be vulnerable to advancements in naval and land-based UAVs and the eventually USVs (unmanned submersible vehicles) that will dominate the battlefields in the next 50 years or so.
Ship-killing UAVs have been around for a while - they’re called cruise missiles.
More of the same. “Carriers obsolete by X!” :rolleyes:
Nope. If China thought their so called ‘carrier killer’ missiles were so awesome and effective, there’s no chance they’d be building their own.
And;
A> No single UAV is going to get remotely near a carrier group. They’re not completely defenseless floating targets; and
B> Pretty sure a hellfire (or two) isn’t going to sink a carrier.
C> You’ll never be able to even find a carrier without boats in the water which causes an interesting catch-22
Satellites?
I didn’t mention the Chinese ballistic anti-carrier missiles; you did.
And the Chinese are as susceptible to terrible ideas as any other group.
Several things:
[ol]
[li]You are familiar enough with Chinese naval air defense to accurately make this claim?[/li][li]Never said that they were “defenseless.”"; you did. However, most naval warfare is geared towards attacks from manned aircraft and anti-ship missiles. UAVs add a new dimension to the mix.[/li][li]A 500lb bomb could sink a carrier if it strikes an ammunition magazine, a fuel storage tank (or two) or an aircraft on deck laden with armaments. A Hellfire is more accurate than a gravity and thus could be aimed where it’s needed[/li][/ol]
UAVs are game changers and China would be advised to invest more heavily in those than in carriers.
Cruise missiles aren’t human-guided, nor are they reusable.
[QUOTE=nevadaexile]
The UAV has rendered aircraft carriers obsolete.
[/QUOTE]
No, they haven’t, nor have you demonstrated this, merely asserted it. Even if UAV technology today was up to the task (which it isn’t), the mere fact that a UAV MIGHT be able to sink a carrier doesn’t render it obsolete, merely opens up another potential vulnerability in them…just like in every other weapons system that exists or ever existed. The Chinese, for instance ALREADY have subs which could potentially sink a carrier (and in fact have a greater chance of doing so). This mere fact doesn’t render carriers obsolete, however.
Horseshit. One Global Hawk loaded with 4 Hellfire missiles isn’t going to allow you to control all, most or even a fraction of the shipping in the western Pacific. :rolleyes: Good grief. Adding a torpedo isn’t going to do anything either, nor would any of this render China’s (or the US’s) carrier fleet dead in the event of a war.
You don’t have any idea what you are talking about, basically. Again, simply because there is a potential in a weapons system to attack you successfully doesn’t render something obsolete. Bolting on a few weapons to a UAV, even if you could do so is not going to magically enable you to sink a carrier or even one of the escort ships with any large probability of success, nor is it going to to escape the folks who deploy such fleets from considering the possibilities and working on counters.
It’s true that they are cheap and expendable, and that the US is ahead of everyone else wrt UAV development. Again, however, this doesn’t magically render existing weapons systems (such as surface ships) obsolete, nor is it time to scrap them. For one thing, the actual, real world capability of using a UAV against a surface ship (let alone a battle group) has yet to be demonstrated even by the US. How many drones would it take? What’s the logistics involved? How do you deploy them to have a reasonable chance of even finding a ship (let alone a battle group), and how do you prevent them from seeing you long before you see them?
Off the top of my head the challenges to seriously threaten a surface ship or a battle group with UAVs is beyond the current generation of technology, and my WAG is you are going to still need surface ships and carriers in order to really optimize your use of the technology in any case. Currently weaponized drones have limited ranges and are slow. Certainly you can stealth them, but it’s going to be more difficult to hide them to get into range over water than it would be over land…especially considering the difference between the US using them over the relatively low level of air defense systems used by the Taliban over Pakistan or Afghanistan verse attempting to use them against a fully modern air defense system like China would have…or vice versa. Attempting to extrapolate from ‘we use weaponized UAVs against the Taliban successfully’ to ‘this will render carriers obsolete’ is ludicrous at this time.
I love people who try and project into the future where technology will go, and to assert that this is going to render all current weapons systems obsolete so we should just stop building what we have since it’s obviously just going to be a target in the future…well, once we get around to inventing and/or developing the magic new tech to do it. Is it possible that UAVs (or USVs or any other unmanned systems in the future) will render our current systems obsolete? Certainly. Is it a given? Not at all, and it’s equally possible that those systems will be added to our current systems instead of superseding them. Perhaps carriers will become hybrid platforms that have both manned and unmanned systems. Or perhaps the unmanned tech will never really pan out as a completely viable system against more advanced enemies and will be relegated, as it is today, for use against more unsophisticated ones. Or maybe something completely unknown today will render both obsolete.
You can’t plan your Navy (or army or air force) based on what MIGHT be, or threats that MIGHT pan out at some future time. If you do you’ll never do anything. I think China’s plan to develop carriers shows that THEY think it’s something that is worthwhile to their overall global military goals…and the fact that just about every other nation that COULD build a carrier thinking along the same lines sort of implies that, unless everyone is stupid that there is still some merit in pursuing the things.
UAVs are just something else flying in the air. They aren’t ‘game changers’ when it comes to air defense.
I love people who believe that length equals competence or the ability to intelligently debate a subject.
I have more than fair understanding of both aircraft and the history of modern warfare. I also have a pretty good knowledge of China’s history.
I’ll stand by my posting.
Umm…I’m certain that somebody said that about naval airpower back in the 1930s. Both Pearl Harbor and Midway proved them to be incorrect.
Billy Mictchell in 1925. 