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Fortress at Sea? The Carrier Invulnerability Myth
By Commander John Patch, U.S. Navy (Retired)
u.s. navy (torrey w. lee)
Aircraft from Carrier Air Wing 14 perform a diamond formation fly-by over the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) during an October 2009 Tiger Cruise for friends and family of Sailors assigned to the ship. These ships project power, but at what cost?
America's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, especially in today's irregular, asymmetric warfare climate, could be little more than slow-moving targets.
The recently renewed debate over aircraft carrier requirements has focused mainly on the factors of cost and utility. These issues notwithstanding, analysts often overlook or understate the carriers' inherent vulnerabilities. Regardless of the number of carriers national leadership decides to maintain, because they remain the U.S. Navy's preeminent capital ship and a symbol of American global power and prestige, they are a potential key target for both unconventional and conventional adversaries. Carrier proponents, however, universally seem to accept on faith alone the premise that a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) is essentially invulnerable.
Yet an intelligent adversary could potentially exploit carrier weaknesses. The sudden, unexpected loss of a CVN, especially by unanticipated asymmetric means, would shock both the military establishment and the American psyche-perhaps being a military equivalent to the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11. The truth is, a deployed aircraft carrier is more vulnerable to mission kill than is commonly believed, and the Department of Defense should consider efforts to prevent or mitigate such an exigency.
The carrier debate is alive and well. The current effort surrounding the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)and the near-term decommissioning of the nearly 50-year-old USS Enterprise (CVN-65) are raising the volume of the argument, specifically on the number of carrier strike groups (CSGs) needed to meet national and combatant commander demands.
Recurring congressional statutes also dictate minimum carrier fleet size, often despite differing advice from Navy secretaries and military leaders.1 The carrier's value in the post-9/11 era?amidst a global security paradigm defined by the often ambiguous characteristics of irregular, asymmetric, or hybrid warfare-remains an unanswered question. While combat-proven in conventional conflicts and for certain aspects of irregular warfare, future roles and structure of the carrier force remain murky.
Assessments of aircraft carrier vulnerability are not new. The Soviets debated building a significant carrier fleet in the 1960s but determined that large carriers had no place in the nuclear age, partly because of their vulnerability to missiles with nuclear warheads.2 While later choosing to build larger carriers, Moscow always retained the view that carriers remained vulnerable. While the American carrier debate has continued since 1945, it has focused largely on missions, cost, and force structure-not vulnerability.
Presumed Impregnable
The U.S. view of carrier invulnerability is a perilous assumption. If 9/11 taught Washington anything, it clearly demonstrated that fortress America was vulnerable in ways its citizens and defenders never imagined. Terrorists selected targets with maximum psychological impact, employing a relatively sophisticated asymmetric method, seemingly incorporating many of the basic principles of war and operational art: simplicity, synergy, simultaneity and depth, surprise, tempo and timing, security, etc.
The basic operational plan also reflected an awareness of the efficacy of the classic indirect approach-a key aspect of asymmetric warfare. They also exploited a basic vulnerability of open, democratic political systems-a benign operating environment. If a handful of Saudis could plan and carry out effective attacks halfway around the world in a foreign land, why then could other adversaries not accomplish the same in local waters familiar to them?
The typical carrier capabilities that lead to presumptions of impregnability include: speed, armor, compartmentalization, size, defenses (air wing, own-ship, escorts, etc.), blue-water sanctuary (range from shore and from adversary/targets), and technological superiority of U.S. weapon systems. Not often discussed, though, is how a smart enemy might exploit technology or subterfuge to obviate some traditional carrier strengths. Some potential examples include:
- Mass media, satellite communication, and the Internet can provide location and disposition of U.S. carriers when they are near shipping lanes or coastal waters; carrier presence is obvious well before the silhouette appears on the horizon.
- Carriers not supporting a conflict requiring continuous air wing operations will not be operating at higher speeds, especially at night.
- Fast, low profile, open-ocean craft are widely available.
- Armored hangar bay doors are useless when open, typical to lower conditions of readiness.
- Carrier crew size and diversity would likely allow unfettered access to clandestine infiltrators of almost any ethnicity.
- While nuclear power provides virtually unlimited steaming, carriers remain dependent on forward staging areas and supply ships for food, aviation fuel, and stores.
- The insatiable appetite for information afloat is satisfied by way of precious, uninterrupted bandwidth flowing through multiple nodes with varying vulnerabilities.
Next-Generation Weapons Are Here Now
Emerging technologies and new classes of advanced conventional weapons are also making the carriers' ostensible invulnerability more suspect. Most experts see recent advances in foreign antiship cruise missiles (ASCM), offensive information operations capabilities, stealthy diesel and nuclear-powered submarines, deep water rising mines, and antiship ballistic missiles (ASBM) as direct threats to carrier strike groups proximate to the littorals (i.e., when supporting air operations inland). While contemporary conflicts demonstrate no such apparent threats to carriers, they also involve state adversaries without advanced conventional naval weapons.
Hezbollah's effective use of a C802 ASCM against an Israeli warship in 2006, however, illustrates that state order of battle calculations alone cannot provide a total picture of enemy capabilities. Although most Navy leaders avow carrier invulnerability, then-Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Timothy Keating admitted that the ability to defend against such advanced threats is uncertain.3 While it is beyond the scope of this article to cite specifics, a quick scan of any recent DOD global threat assessment reveals a plethora of emerging weapon systems of concern.4
A corollary to the expanding advanced conventional weapons threat could change the fundamental calculus of the carrier's value. Simply put, increasing adversary offensive threats to carriers require concomitant carrier and strike group defenses to mitigate them. For instance, if the security environment changes such that carriers are threatened with new, better weapons, but in much the same way they were during the Cold War, the brunt of the carrier air wing will again be needed for strike group defense.
The resultant reduction in offensive carrier strike capability-not to mention the significant shift in aircraft/weapons mix and predeployment air wing and ship defensive training-may diminish the carriers' primary role of power projection. Similarly, increased defensive tasking to strike group escorts would limit their support for the myriad regional non-combat missions espoused in the current maritime strategy. Indeed, the reliable provision of air power from an unchallenged carrier witnessed during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom may well not be the future norm.
Asymmetric Challenges Loom
Conventional threats notwithstanding, carriers are also vulnerable to unconventional or asymmetric threats.5 These potentially include terrorism, sabotage, infiltration, denial and subterfuge (information operations [IO], including cyber and psychological operations), interdiction, and homeport or logistics hub attacks, among others. While many admirals discount such threats outright, again, one need only recall the shock and confusion following the 9/11 attacks.
One reason these threats make military leaders uncomfortable is that they are vague and indiscriminate. Another is that few weapons in the Carrier Strike Group arsenal can directly address them. Indeed, the strike group's inherent capabilities are usually irrelevant against asymmetric threats. Finally, since an unconventional adversary may seek any of these means-and perhaps yet unknown methods-to achieve a mission kill (i.e., not necessarily a catastrophic kill), leaders often swear off as impractical the vouchsafing of every potential carrier vulnerability.
Just as operational art demands a rigorous assessment of adversary center of gravity and critical vulnerabilities, one cannot assume away the enemy's ability to do the same. The 2006 Israeli experience in Lebanon is a recent example of a hybrid conflict, wherein an unconventional enemy knew its opponent well, exploited technology to defeat its armor, directed a sophisticated IO campaign to manage perceptions, and threatened the homeland with incessant rocket and missile barrages.
Gone are the days when the most serious unconventional threats were ignorant, lightly armed fanatics conducting improvised attacks on hardened targets. As such, it is a relatively simple task with readily available information to evaluate the carrier as a system, with critical elements of varying dependency, many of which could degrade mission capability if assailed. Admittedly, adversaries require global reach and significant capability to threaten some elements over the longer-term, but a creative opponent could still seriously limit a carrier's effectiveness, at least temporarily.
Any neophyte can generate a basic list of forward-deployed military unit vulnerability: communications, logistics/lines of communication, crew readiness/morale, mobility, etc. Because the CSG cannot protect everything, the aggressor has the advantage in target selection and surprise.
Pondering the Unthinkable
Carrier proponents typically fail to mention such vulnerabilities. Instead they promote the carriers' inherent ability to operate unfettered off an enemy coast-a virtual fortress at sea. In fairness to the carrier admirals, when threat assessments on the future operating environment present only shadowy non-state actors with undefined or unpredictable capabilities, it is easy to see how some would prefer to focus on the black and white conventional threats. Listing a few hypothetical examples might help demonstrate potential asymmetric carrier threats:
- A carrier operating with only a single escort on an OEF no-fly day, far separated from other strike group warships, is approached by a small team of highly trained, well-armed saboteurs in a low-profile, fast boat at night in international waters. They gain access via a lowered elevator when the ship is in low readiness conditions for a quick surprise attack with satchel charges in the hangar and flight decks to destroy most carrier air wing aircraft before the ship musters a response.
- An adversary state about to seize several small islands in the Persian Gulf directs a small team of special forces to commandeer a large container ship, which veers into the path of a CVN exiting the southern Suez Canal in a restricted waterway. The resultant collision and carrier grounding causes enough damage to limit the carrier to ten knots, preventing most fixed-wing flight operations indefinitely.
- An extremist group targeted by carrier air wing operations identifies the less protected fleet auxiliaries providing carrier strike group logistics in a forward theater and targets them simultaneously with waterborne improvised explosive devices. Critical fuel, food, and stores shortages severely limit air wing operations for a period of weeks.
We Must Not Assume Away Threats
Instilling paranoia is not the intent of these examples; it is only to present the art of the possible. So what can naval leaders do to lessen the likelihood of asymmetric attacks focused on carrier mission kills? First, they must admit that such attacks are possible. Then, undertake a comprehensive assessment of carrier vulnerabilities, with most likely and most dangerous scenarios addressed first for prevention and mitigation plans. Next, naval war game and doctrine developers should make a commitment to present warfighters and defense leaders at war games and red team exercises with situations where conventional, unconventional/asymmetric, and/or hybrid threats marginalize or threaten CSGs.
This will force leaders to challenge traditional assumptions of carrier invulnerability. Finally, leaders and strategists should evaluate military plans and force capabilities in light of the fact that asymmetric attacks may come from either conventional or nontraditional adversaries.
Presuming carrier invulnerability is dangerous. It promotes complacency, prevents a healthy degree of critical thinking, and limits America's ability to prevent and respond to a completely new class of threats. As a CATO Institute study amidst the post-Desert Storm carrier debate related, "Carriers and their battle groups are awesome instruments of war, but they are not juggernauts, as their supporters claim. . . ."6
Pre-9/11 American society provided opportunity enough for a band of radical Muslim brothers to shut down the United States temporarily. Why then could peaceful international waters or territorial seas not provide a similarly benign operating environment today? As defense leaders prepare to make hard QDR decisions, it is high time to renew the carrier vulnerability debate. As former President George W. Bush was wont to state, "Bring it on."
1. The 2005 QDR endorsed an 11-carrier force, which has since been supported by Congress (current plan for 12 in 2019), though the force will drop to 10 upon the CVN-65 decommissioning in 2012.
2. Charles C. Petersen, "Aircraft Carriers in, Soviet Naval Theory from 1960 to the Falklands War," Center for Naval Analyses, Professional Paper 405, January 1984, p. 3.
3. David W. Wise, "Carrier culture shock: The Navy's maritime strategy does not go far enough in reshaping the fleet," Armed Forces Journal, June 2009, http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/06/4034155.
4. See Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, "Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2009," especially chapters 4 and 5.
5. Asymmetric attack/warfare is characterized by several properties: difficult to detect/recognize, dissimilar in type, disproportional in size and effect, avoids strengths and targets weaknesses, and has significant shock value.
6. David Isenberg, "The Illusion of Power: Aircraft Carriers and U.S. Military Strategy," CATO Institute, Policy Analysis No. 134, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa134.html.
Commander Patch is a faculty member at the U.S. Army War College and a member of the U.S. Naval Institute Editorial Board. He is a retired U.S. Navy surface warfare and intelligence officer and career intelligence analyst. He served on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) from 2000 to 2002 during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Carriers should be scrapped....
Those still thinking in imperial terms of the need for the carrier only must reflect back as far as 1941 with the myth of the battleship being invincible. Carriers are mere slow targets for any nation with cruise missile technology. Believing the phalanx and related systems to be a saving grace is irresponsible. Such systems spend much down-time and even when operational would be quickly over-saturated. We must change our way of thinking to that of a quicker littoral force with more, but smaller ships. If you guard the shoreline, you control the ocean. This is the 21st century. Time for cigar smoking admirals to think more about how to protect America and less about how to preserve their pet-projects.
Defense of Carriers
as one who remembers that carriers used to have some of their planes mission as the defense of the carrier. When the F14 was designed it had no capabilities to attack targets but rather was mostly to defend the carrier. In the meantime most countries have decided not to have a navy for various reasons, our admirals have assumed that the carrier is invincible and that they can never be destroyed or incapacitated. I think we have assumed too much on the capability of the Navy.. In western Iraq the entire US air force and entire US Navy were unable to destroy a single mobile scud launcher prior to launch. How does that "strike" ability grab the admirals when they assume a country like china would cower if a carrier was 400 miles off their shores.
A carrier may be best suided to attack a country like Libya and even then some of the F-18 were about lost despite a poor defense of the target area.
Projecting Carrier as a Vulnerable
Finding a moving ship in ocean requires technology...modern navies (very few) have this capability to locate a ship or a carrier on the high seas without actually being in the ocean...
after location comes the prosecution part....for a ship moving at 15 knots plus, a sophisticated weapon is required...
ramming a merchant ship in persian gulf....please do not base your assumption by looking at map only...the Gulf is not that narrow...there is plenty of room for a carrier to maneuver...
i think here we are finding reasons to project aircraft carriers as vulnerable warships and over granting capabilities to terrorists...it is because of these vulnerabilities USN applies so many safeguards....losing a carrier even if it comes (probability low) is what navies have to bear....
I think....no land based air power can match the mobility, ubiquity and forward presence of a carrier based air power...
Move Two CVNs to Mayport
A CVN is most vulnerable entering and leaving port when other vessels are in close proximity and often sharing the channel. Even with Coast Guard and security boat escorts, a CVN would not be able to react quick enough if a large vessel in a meeting situation intends it harm. Another reason to base a CVN (perhaps 2) in Mayport with its short channel to the open ocean. Not to mention a more secure basin than the Norfolk CVN piers.
Carrier vulnerability
I would imagine the skipper of the carrier would have sailors on watch and guard duty on all the exterior elevators, openings, hatches at night...they should as that is their job. So I think the risk of small asymmetrical attacks should be limited...depending on whether the sailors are paying attention to their jobs or not.
As for steering a cargo vessel to ram a carrier...well, I would hope that the skipper of the carrier would see that ship coming and give it 3 chances to change course. After the vessel enters into a zone where the carrier cannot evade it, then a helicopter gunship should be launched from the carrier to shoot out the rudder and engine, or if necessary, sink the cargo ship.
The biggest threat, in my opinion, would be a salvo of nuclear armed torpedo or missile or cruise missile aimed at a carrier. Even if they miss, they should still be able to destroy it.
Also, I would think everyone assumes that nothing is invulnerable in war. And a carrier, being a high value target, would have more weapons aimed at it, and therefore could almost be considered the most vulnerable ship at sea.
My argument related that it was the general/flag officers who seemed to presume carrier invulnerability in war games and exercises, not policy-makers. I've also argued that it may be risky to assume our CSG Aegis weapons system and/or Fleet Air Defense capability in the CVW is "enough" to counter existing and emerging threats. How much do they train to this? Can we defeat current 4th generation ASCMs? I agree 100% on the reduced legs of the CVW--this compounds the consequences of the anti-access threats--it can effectively marginalize the relevance of a carrier's power proection capability. Regards, john patch
Phil Dur says:
I dont know a single responsible policy maker of my generation (Cold War) who assumed the invulnerability of the Carrier. Anyone who has watched "Victory at Sea" or other WWII documentaries knows that the vulnerability of the Carrier to air and torpedo attack was well understood early on. In the Cold War, the enormous investments made in surface to air missilery, culminating in the introduction of the Aegis Combat system, and the development of a "battle group capable SSN, the Los Angeles Class, made it abundantly clear that vulnerability was recognized and accounted for. What has changed dramatically is the greatly reduced striking range of the Carrier. By moving from a long reach airwing A-6E/F14-B/D supported by KA-6D tankers and EA-6B Prowlers) to what yesterday we might have called an all-Light Attack airwing we effectively surrendered hundreds of miles of tactical reach and arguably reduced sortie generation rates at distances from our target objectives which
If enough Iranian cruise missiles were launched at a CVN in the gulf, we'd have at least a mission kill. Will we continue to operate CVNs there?
I guess it was a slow day, if this is the kind of article that gets printed.
Well, perhaps we're disagreeing about semantics -- I would hate to give the public at large the impression that the Navy believes our capital ships are invulnerable, or that we "assume away" threats. Anti-submarine warfare screens, Aegis air defense ships, anti-surface combat air patrols, force protection drills, emissions control measures, to name a few -- all acutely assume an aircraft carrier's inherent vulnerability. Many readers , while stationed aboard a carrier, have heard the words "brace for shock" and have taken part in damage contol drills while wearing full MOPP gear! While not instilling a sense of well-being, the point is that we spend a great deal of time trying to mitigate the very real (and publicly acknowledged) threats. Of course, every year these threats increase in number, sophistication and diversity, which is why I agree that the "carrier debate" is an important discussion at all levels of discourse. However, as Erickson and Yang discuss in "On the Verge of
Just ask anybody involved in Navy wargames in the past few decades (JTFEX also cited in above post)--there has often been an underlying assumption of carrier invulnerability. My argument is about the dangerous mindset that this assumption supports. You argue the carrier air wing can handle fleet air defense--are you sure? With the demise of the F-14/Phoenix missile, how is long-range fleet air defense versus a multiaxis ASCM salvo handled? Do F-18 aircrew train to high proficiency for this mission? Is the AMRAAM adequate to the task? My overall point: all these questions need to be sufficiently investigated, lest we assume away potential threats and worse, assume our own weapons systems (Aegis, etc.) can always handle the task. Even if the CVW can handle fleet air defense, how would that affect strike capability (cannot do both at same time) in an environment with even moderate blue water ASCM threats? Good discussion! Regards, jpp
Although I agree with the author's bottom line -- that it is time to reinvigorate the "carrier debate" -- the majority of the article is dedicated to tearing down a strawman argument that carrier proponents believe the aircraft carrier is invulnerable. Unfortunately, not one example is provided of a decision-maker making this claim. Carriers have been successfully employed for generations against a wide variety of nation-state and unconventional enemies (The Soviet Union, Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda). Although the weapons available to both sides have increased in sophistication, the basic weapon types -- subs, mines, cruise missiles (air-, surface-, and sub-launched), and terrorist attacks -- have remained the same. The benefits of maintaining a carrier-based navy has outweighed the risks because, for 60 years, the air wing has been able to outrange the threats arrayed against it. Only China's recent claims of an anti-ship ballistic mis
Ever see USS STENNIS CVN-74 reacting to an incoming ASCM in the Movie, "SUM OF ALL FEARS" ?
Very realistic. Our carriers are, indeed, vulnerable. That movie is exactly what can happen to a CVN fully manned underway.
During the Vietnam War, a Soviet submarine could at any time have attacked, and probably sunk, a US carrier, changing the entire Naval strategy of the war. What prevented it was not the carriers' defenses, but the rules of engagement tacitly (or secretly) agreed to by the US and Soviet sides. Such an action would have precipitated direct and open engagement between the US and USSR, which was not in the interests of either. The same holds true today. The vulnerability or invulnerability of the carrier rests in large part on the consequences of attacking one. So the question becomes, what happens if and when the rules change. For precedent, we can look to World War II. The US started the war with only seven fleet carriers, and lost four of them in the first year. But before they were lost, they turned the tide of the war. Equally important, however, was that the US was able to replace them in short order with over a hundred new carriers, while the Japanese were not able to repl
I posted this recently to another electronic forum and thought it worth posting here for this debate. FWIW, my last fleet experience was as the Combat Direction Center Officer for the USS John C. Stennis.
Most of these scenarios are very weak on the actual targeting and endgame delivery of the ordinance to destroy the ship (whether it is a carrier, destroyer, satellite, or submarine). One must first locate, maintain track, then target, and then maintain the targeting solution all the way through to endgame and final fusing. These are all probabilistic events which challenge, difficult on land and only more difficult at sea, especially when we have people trying to kill each other and avoid being killed at the same time.
My own experience remains that targeting at sea in war is a completely different prospect than targeting in peace. As the Battlegroup electronic warfare officer I made a specialty out of hiding aircraft carriers--from subs, satellites, airplanes, and other sur
Initially, I was somewhat taken aback by CDR Patch's position. Any system has vulnerabilities and it is incumbent upon the operators to mitigate these vulnerabilities while exploiting capabilities. That said, I believe CDR Patch makes that very point in his final section which nicely ties together the article.
I must also say that my initial impression was not unlike the comments of many respondents, "Who ever said carriers are invulnerable?", but upon reflection, I take CDR Patch's point in his comment/response above. As a retired CDR and NFO, my time on carriers is not insignificant and I know I always had a sense of vulnerability for the carrier. In my final assignment at CINCLANTFLT, however, one of my responsibilities was the generation and coordination of Opposition Forces (OPFOR) for JTFEXs. On more than one occasion, the OPFOR bested the Carrier Battle Group and its Air Wing only to be told, "In the real world, none of the potential adversaries would be able to do what
I never suggested we should not build, use, or deploy carriers. My point was to be prepared for the full spectrum of threats, which is not the current case. I've seen many a war game where the admirals do indeed presume CVN/CSG invulnerability. Further, the carrier air wing capabilities have changed significantly from the Cold War fleet air defense days--toward strike and away from CSG defense. If things shift back to defense, I argue that the value calculus of the carrier as a power projection tool may also change. JPP
Isn't the purpose of a warship to go into harm's way? If not, why build them? If we are at the point where we are afraid to commit a super carrier to a danger zone simply because of its size and the negative effects of losing such an expensive piece of equipment, then haven't we reopened the argument about carrier size? Given the increasing development of drone technology and the fact that the F-35 can be beuilt in a vertical take-off version like the Harrier, hasn't the 40,000 to 60,000 ton carrier become an extremely viable option?
Who ever said the carrier was "Invulnerable?" Nothing is invulnerable, especially in an age of precision. Unless you're going to argue to completely submerge the fleet, this line of thinking that goes back to Billy Mitchell needs to be better developed. It's about offense vs. defense and operating inside or outside the ring of an adversaries reach. CAN we truly operate outside the ring? In an age of cyber warfare - I'd say that ship has sailed - we're already inside, and so are they. So the right question is how can we do the functions that we need to do better (or cheaper) than we do them today? The carrier is one of the most modular, agile and adaptive platforms we have. See RADM Kraft's article in the Sept Proceedings for numerous examples of the carrier's efficacy in the "hybrid" war scenarios we find ourselves in today ... and SOUTHCOM just dispatched the USS Carl Vinson to help in Haiti. I once heard ADM Clark say "I would not want to be the CNO of a Navy that does not have aircr
Excellent article!
The previous comment, though, I think is a little too simplistic with regard to the attitude of the RN admirals towards aircraft. The RN was at ythe forefront of aircraft carrier design and deployment for a long time. The unescorted transit of Prince of Wales and Repulse is more about desperation than disbelief in the importance of airpower. See Moretz's "Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period" for a more in-depth discussion.
While there are many good thoughts here warning about new kinds of threats to all ships at sea, I quite honestly do not recall any serious claims by anyone that a carrier is invulnerable. Quite the contrary, I recall many anti-carrier discussions postulating that too much of the carrier's combat power was spent protecting itself exactly because it was so vulnerable.
Amazing how history repeats itself. Remember how many times in WWII naval staffs were reluctant to commit battleships to fighting in dangerous areas because of the massive financial investment that had gone into their construction? A warship is supposed to "go into harm's way" when necessary - otherwise, why build the vessel? The Royal Navy had no problem in sending their vessels into harm's way when necessary, even if the results sometimes backfired (sending an unmodernized Hood against Bismarck; sending Force "Z" to attack the Japanese troop convoys offloading on the Malayan coast). Today, however, the cost of a modern warship can bankrupt all but a handful of countries. That is the real problem here - the modern warship has become too sophisticated and too costly to risk in a combat environment. The modern aircraft carrier is the penultimate example because f its size, cost and the 6,000 person crew. Doesn't this call for a reopening of the debate on carrier size? The ever-in
Reading history is always useful. The RN 'battleship admirals' knew they were right, until the losses of 'Prince of Wales' and 'Repulse' to some ridiculous new-fangled weapon (called aircraft) proved them wrong.
come on
Hey why the skeptism on this. The new aircraft carriers are unsinkable and can easily defeat all know threats. They are a "strike force which can deliver some bombs on a target..
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