what would it take to sink a supercarrier?

Factual Questions
1

The only means of comparison I can draw for these kinds of aircraft carriers are Tom clancy novels/movies- In “The Sum of all fears” a supercarrier is hit by a salvo of air to surface missiles. Wrecked the top part of the carrier, and apparently deprived them of flight ops, but the carrier was still afloat. In the novel ‘Debt of Honor’ a carrier is torpedoed, knocking out three of its four screws but did not sink it.

What kind of weapons would a navy use for sinking a carrier? Would a Harpoon missile be capable of sinking a carrier if it hit it? What about the famed Mk fortyeight ADCAP torpedo?

2

A serious post might sink one…

3

Given that it took three Harpoons, three Helfire missiles, a 2,400-lb bomb, and 200 lbs of strategically placed explosives to sink a 1960s destroyer (DDG-14, USS Buchanan), I’d say it would take a hell of a lot to put a supercarrier on the bottom of the ocean. The only single bomb that would likely do it is a nuke.

4

Just a guess, but I would think WHERE you hit would be as important as what you hit it with. Carriers carry thousands of gallons of aviation fuel as well as the various ammunitions they are armed with. Even a direct hit in a sensitive area might not be enough by itself to take one out.

5

We’ve done this before, but it might have dissappeared in Winter of Our Lost Content. However, it’s really all a matter of circumstances. A few bombs that cooked off on the deck of the USS Forrestal did horrific damage in the terrible accident of July 29, 1967. The damage nearly crippled the ship, and it was all started when one of the Zuni missiles on a waiting aircraft was accidently launched by an electrical short, and hit a parked A4.

The Russian SS-N-19 “SHIPWRECK” anti-ship missile can carry either a 750 kg convential or a 500 kiloton nuclear warhead, and is supersonic. It has a range of about 750 km, and is known to have been deployed on Russian ships. Subs can launch the missile without surfacing. From FAS:

A Kirov class missile cruiser (of which only three remain in active service) carries 20 of these missiles on its deck. The US Navy apparently reported that they felt they had no real defense against the SHIPWRECK (actually called “Granit” by the Russians); of course, that might have been budget-speak. :slight_smile: I read a briefing online about USN fears last time this came up, but I don’t have the link handy at the moment.

6

And of course “convential” would be a ultra-top-secret term which means “conventional.” :smack:

7

Recalling back to my squiddly days (submarine FT), it would theoretically take about 15 harpoons or 6 MK48’s. The Harpoon only carries about 250 lbs of high explosive, and the MK48 carries about 800 pounds.

8

Modern torpedoes are designed to explode under the hull of a ship, causing a huge air bubble which snaps the hull in half. I imagine a couple of those would do some SERIOUS damage to a carrier.

9

Of course, you do not necessarily have to sink a ship in order to effectively destroy it.

In the Falkland Islands War, the first destroyer to be hit by an Exocet (HMS Sheffield) wasn’t sunk outright, but the fire caused by the missile - not only by its warhead, but also the fuel - forced the crew to abandon her.

A salvo of Harpoons might not sink a Nimitz-class carrier, but it’s possible, depending where she’s hit, to set the ship on fire so badly that the ship must be abandoned. And if you get lucky and blow the right thing up, you could sink her. Aircraft carriers are big, but they aren’t unsinkable.

10

Good point, RickJay. Although it’s slightly away from the OP’s question, I imagine most opponents would aim to prevent the carrier from fulfilling its mission as a primary goal – sinking it is just the best way of doing this. As long as you could disrupt flight operations, you’ve effectively succeeded in rendering the carrier useless.

11

Clearly it depends on the circumstances. A lucky hit at the right time can sink a carrier by starting a chain of explosions.

To disrupt flight operations, the best way is to kill the AWACS by long range anti-radiation missiles. With its eyes gone, a carrier isn’t going anywhere except home.

12

As happened to the HMS Hood in WWII. A plunging shot from the German battleship Bismarck went through the think deck armor of the smaller battlecruiser and hit an ammunition magazine. The Hood essentially exploded and sank in minutes with only 3 of 1,500+ men surviving because it happened so fast and was so violent.

That said the Bismarck by contrast took an unbelievable amount of damage to sink it. Granted it was a better armored ship than the Hood but still…it took a hellacious amount of ordinance to sink it. Multiple torpedo hits (at least three prior to the final action that sunk Bismarck and I don’t know how many at the end) and an estimated 300-400 shells of varying sizes (16" - 5.25") hit Bismarck (cite: Birmarck’s Final Battle.

It just goes to show it really depends how you hit a ship that makes a world of difference. The final battle that sunk the Bismarck was at relatively close ranges allowing the insanely tough side armor of the Bismarck to play a more vital role. The Hood was struck by a plunging shot that came down on the ship and went through the much thinner deck armor allow deep penetration and more damage by the shell (deck armor is almost always thinnner but I think Hood was particularly weak in this area).

I once heard that American damage control was far superior to that of the Japanese in WWII. The Americans did things like pump the fuel lines full of CO[sub]2[/sub] as battle commenced to help minimize the risk of fires. While disabling a ship certainly takes it out of action at a given battle sinking still counts for a lot as it is usually easier to repair a ship than build a new one. I think it was the USS Yorktown (not sure though) that the Japanese assumed was out of commission for at least a month yet American repair crews got it ready enough to fight at the Battle of Midway in only a few days. The ship wasn’t at 100% but it still made for an important difference being able to participate in that battle.

13

Loose lips.

(har!)

Anyone remember how Cobra sunk the USS Flagg on G.I. Joe?

14

IIRC there is some who claim that she was scuttled, to keep her out of British hands.

15

One other thing that is worth mentioning…

If you’re talking about just sitting a carrier out in the water and taking pot-shots at it that’s one thing. However, realize that the vast majority of a carrier’s ‘armor’ is not on the ship itself but lies with the battlegroup that surrounds it.

I realize that the battlegroup isn’t technically what the OP is asking but it is real nonetheless. If you want to sink a carrier you’re going to have to get through its escort screen first and that’s a formidable bunch in their own right.

16

IIRC there is some who claim that she was scuttled, to keep her out of British hands.

17

D’oh!

18

Admiral Rickover repeatedly stated that the US carriers wouldn’t last 30 minutes in an all out war. Of course, this was in cold war era so perhaps he was assuming nuclear strikes. A lot of people (outside the Navy) have doubts about carriers lasting long against a first rate opponent. Inside the Navy, saying this and not being a revered Vice Admiral will kill your career.

Exocet class missles are more than enough if they hit the right spot. Machine gun fire could do it if the deck has a lot of fueled and loaded planes. As mentioned, the main defense of carriers are the supporting task force ships. Actually letting something get through would be horrific.

Re: The Bismarck. There was a program on last week about it. They went down and looked at it (and the Hood). It’s hull showed numerous gaping holes big enough to cause it to sink in a short period of time without benefit of scuttling. If the German’s did do anything, it only sped up it’s sinking slightly.

19

I recall reading about Navy experiments with a railgun, where they took a 10 kg graphite shell and got it going so fast that the shockwave following it snapped a tank in half. A weapon like that could probably cause some serious hull damage.

20

HMS Hood was sunk by shells flying in a fairly high trajectory, but this was not hihg enough to go through the deck plates, those shells went through the thinner part of the armour belt.

Had HMS Hood been further away she would had been hit in the main armour belt and would almost certain have survived.

She had been designed as a battlecruiser, bug guns, less armour, higher speed but this was not really robust enough to take on a true battleship.

Others in her class had exploded during the battle of Jutland in WW1, this is thought to be because the system of protecting the main magazines was inadequate, especially in flash prevention.

HMS Hood was due in fact to be fitted with enhanced armour, just as her sister ships were such as HMS Warspite but Hood was on a far Eastern tour just prior to WWII and there was not enough time to carry out the work.
IIRC it took3 years to refit Warspite, and even on a wartime routine it would have taken over a year to carry out the work, which was simply too long for a capital ship to be unavailable.

HMS Warspite took a lot of hits and damage including German glider bombs but she survived them all, which just goes to show how it could have been for HMS Hood had she been refitted.

HMS Sheffield was not lost to fire in the wider view, she was lost because of her captain, who did not take the proper precautions when operating in a likely hostile zone.

When those two Exocets hit, they broke the firemain, but that firemain should have been isolated into two or more sections each supplied by a fire pump, as it was, there was no isonaltion and only one firepump operating, the five to ten minutes it took to start other pumps and to isolate the damaged section were enough for the fire to become overwhelming.

As for the OP,
The poster who mentions taking out the carrier radar systems is missing the point, you’d have to hit all the AWACS support aircraft, and you’d have to take out the satellite systems too.
Then you’d have to take out all the systems on the carrier groups escorts vessels.

No sub is likely to get more than one spread of missiles or torpedos fired at a carrier before it was destroyed, no aircr\ft could get within a couple of hundred miles before it was shot down.

Whatever it took to destroy a carrier it would likely have to be done with one shot, and that means nuclear.

Subs such as the Konsomolets were reckoned to be the greatest threat as they as designed to withstand a number of direct hits, buying time for more attempts on target.
Even so, it would take more than just one or two torpedo hits to take out a US supercarrier, and it would almost certainly be a suicide mission.