Per Slithy Tove’s suggestion and the seeming impenetrability of the carrier from a direct small scale assault, it does seem like the best thing to do on the cheap would be to somehow sabotage it by destroying a critical internal system or disabling the crew. How tough would it be to put someone on a carrier that could disable a critical system or spike the onboard water supply? Do carriers have tight or loose onboard security while underway?
In a crew of 6,000 + could a spy in a US Navy uniform easily weave his way into the mix or are there safeguards against this?
Just a couple of points from someone who used to serve aboard carriers (that would be I):
The “smaller than normal” in port crew of any vessel in active service is the duty section. The duty section must be of sufficient size to both defend the ship and to get it under way if necessary.
Part of the duty section is a thing known as the ship’s security force. In the recent past (when I was still at sea), the security force included both the Marine Detachment, certain members of the ship’s Weapons department, and certain members of the ship’s Master-at-Arms force. Nowadays, the Marine Detachments are no longer. At any rate, these individuals do conduct routine drills, such as “Sneaky Pete,” so they know how to repel boarders.
The carriers also have some neat weapons at their disposal. Of course, there’s the Air Wing with all that they can do once they’re in the air. There is also the rapid fire weapon that looks like, and is thus nicknamed, R2D2. Take into account, please, that in addition to the above, the other vessels in the carrier’s battle group exist not only to protect themselves but also to protect the carrier from attack from above, from below, or from the surface.
Say none of that blocked a non-nuclear weapon and the ship got hit. Ship’s in today’s Navy, when under way, are required to be in a particular “material condition of readiness.” Depending on the perceived threat, certain fittings are closed: hatches dogged, watertight doors closed, etc. This is to prevent the ship from sinking if it does take a direct hit.
Both the duty section alone and the entire ship’s crew take part in numerous drills–in port and under way–to maintain proficiency in defending the vessel.
I recall anti-Castro Cubans once shelled the UN building from a wharehouse across the river.
OK, so put a half-dozen mortars in a location near San Diego, under a light tin roof. Fire them through the roof and adjest fire. The rate of fire of a mortar is such that six tubes can put out more firepower (for a short time) than 155mm artillery.
I presume the only thing that would stop you is the local police or running out of ammo. Say twenty rounds per six tubes is 120 rounds, half of which hit is sixty hits.
With a little luck you could start some fires that MIGHT put her out of action for quite a while.
As I said though, the best place to hit her is in port.
I’m no expert but I doubt a mortar has the armor piercing capacity to seriously threaten an aircraft carrier. Certainly they would cause damage and trouble but I doubt any lasting damage to the carrier. I’d be surprised if they could make it through the deck armor. Mostly they’d waste whatever was on deck at the time and blow antennas off the superstructure. Carrier’s have the ability to repair their own flight decks from worse damage and the rest of themselves as well. I’d wager the ship wouldn’t be out of commission for more than a day or two if that (if the Lexington took three bombs and two torpedoes and repaired itself sufficiently to recover planes it had launched prior to the attack and all during a raging battle this attack should be no problem).
:smack: When I wrote the 27,000 ton displacement it occurred to me that it seemed rather small for a WWII carrier but I didn’t double check and forgot that the navy would re-use names. The Lexington was a Lexington class carrier (of which there were only two…the Lexington and Saratoga). Weighing in at 44,000 tons it was a good deal bigger than the Essex class but still a lot smaller than the Nimitz class.
I think the Phalanx was considered just a bit too much of a last ditch defense. Exploding an incoming Silkworm or Shipwreck missile 50 feet from the ship still nets the ship considerable damage (no doubt better than the missile striking but still…). The RAM system will presumably get the incoming missiles further away.
OK, I have an idea but I don’t know if it would work.
What if you buy an old military plane like an A-10 (for 7 Mil I believe), pack it with explosives but not on the wings, just stuff C4 everywhere inside the body of the aircraft. Fly out (and this is the tricky part) and report an emergency and request landing permission (well, ok, maybe not an A-10, something that can land on an aircraft carrier (civ osprey?)) and land then blow up!
The trick would be to find the battle group at sea, convince the ATC that you are in trouble and need immediate landing permission and all that. Possible? I wouldn’t be surprised that normal aircraft are not allowed to land on a carrier, even a chopper (but if you can really convince them you need help…)
Or hell, can’t you just fly a civ airliner over a carrier (nav error?) then drop either cases of C4 or parachute in people with explosives?
I like to point out that I know almost nothing about how a RL carrier fleet works.
First off oveflying a carrier is a no-no…they won’t let you do it. They will see a plane LONG before it gets close and tell it to adjust course. If the plane continues towards the carrier it will get some F-14s flying next to it in short order and STRONGLY encouraged to change course. If it still continues there is a good chance they will shoot it down but that depends on a few things most likely. If theplane is civilian with no armament and flying at high altitude they may just escort it…if the plane changes to crash mode (i.e. pointing at the carrier) they will know immediately and shoot it down long before it reaches the carrier. If it is a mitiray plane with weapons I guess it depends on what nation the plane belongs to, what weapons it carries and so on. As already mentioned I don’t think there is a plane smaller than a strategic bomber that could carry enough ordinance to sink a carrier.
Second, only navy planes specifically outfitted with specialized equipment can land on a carrier. No other plane, no matter what it is, could manage that landing successfully. Even if they put the plane on the deck (very hard even for pilots trained to do so) they’d just keep going right off the front and crash anyway. Likely if you called for help because your plane was ‘broken’ they’d just tell you to ditch the plane in the water and send rescue crews. If you were in a helicopter they’d probably tell you to do the same thing.
Third, I can’t imagine how anyone could steal a US military jet but even if they pulled it off everyone would know immediately and you’d have the airforce after you right quick. Certainly if you were headed for a carrier the carrier would be informed you are a no-goodnik and shoot you down. This of course assumes you can get a terrorist with training sufficient to fly a military jet. The terrorists who hit the WTC barely managed enough training to just steer a commercial jet (they couldn’t have properly landed it even if they wanted to).
Fourth, the ‘bombing’ notion doesn’t work well at all. First just dropping explosives out a plane and hitting what you want is very hard. Even in WWII with the Norton Bomb Sight American bombers missed much more than they hit (as regards their intended targets). This is partly the reason you had such large waves of bombers…you increased your odds of hitting something the more stuff you threw at it. Mind you that was factories they were going for…as big as an aircraft carrier is it is still a smaller target than a factory. If the carrier is moving then you’ve really got a difficult task ahead of you. Finally, you really need a proper bomb to do serious damage to an armored target. C4 landing on the deck won’t get you much. A bomb is made to use its own weight to help penetrate armor and then explode. C4 would just scorch the metal. It’d cause damage no doubt but nothing near what you’d need to sink an aircraft carrier or seriously put it out of commission for a long time.
The Russians did buzz the Kitty Hawk at very low altitude a few years ago, getting fighters (IIRC it was a pair of SU-27s) overhead at less than a thousand feet. Soon afterwards, they emailed photos of the deck to the carrier.
I wonder why now that the Cold War is over? Certainly during the Cold War Russians and Americans would play these kind of games. Technically no one ‘owns’ the water or airspace out at sea. Russian ‘fishing trawlers’ (aka spy ships) would hang around US naval vessles and there wasn’t much the navy could do about it. Still…overflying a US carrier with a war plane is pretty damn provacative. While the US may technically have no way to say it can’t be done it is a dangerous convergence of forces ripe for bigger problems to grow out of. As such I didn’t think this was done. I wonder if the Russian planes had an American ‘escort’ flying just behind them? I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
Not a chance. A silkworm won’t sink anything larger than a frigate. Several silkworms would do the trick, though.
There’s really no way for a terrorist group to sink an aircraft carrier short of obtaining nukes, and even then they’d have to get it while it’s not in the open seas since that’s pretty much the only way they’d get close enough.
The other way would be to have a terrorist join the navy and get assigned to the carrier’s armory. If he could set off the armory, the carrier would be vaporized.
Those are really the only ways. A carrier is just too big and too well protected to do it any other way.
[quote] Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor Use Anthrax instead of gas, & a crisis forms fast, & the ship can’t be readily contaminated.
Anthrax wouldn’t be a threat to the crew on the aircraft carrier. They have enough antibiotics to treat the entire crew if need be. Or at least long enough to get in to port. You would succeed in getting the carrier taken out of service for a while to clean it out, but that’s about it.
There are plenty of other Chemical Warfare agents that you might use. Heck, the attacker might try several at the same time. (Although as fun is it might be to try, “BZ” gas probably wouldn’t be practical)
Other “exotic” munitions might be useful, if you’re creative. Like Napalm, or a fine powdering of radioactive Cobalt-60 or Gold-198.
Of course…they could always try the 9/11 route. Get a few largeish airliners (buying, chartering, or leasing them would probably be easier than hijacking them), get as close to a “12 O’Clock High” position over the carrier as you can, then, then make a kamikaze dive at the carrier. But even if you’re lucky enough not to rip your own wings off in the dive, and even if you’re somehow not shot down…if you get the math wrong, you’d probably end up slamming into the spot in ocean where the carrier had been, before it started steaming away in full-speed evasive maneuvers. Loading the airliners with chemical agents, cluster bombs, or thermobaric munitions set on an altimeter fuse might help your chances, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
So, personally…I’d go for shore-launched torpedos or missiles.