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U.S. Navy (Paul Kelly)
The Arleigh Burke–class destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG-85) lobs a missile skyward during a Pacific live-fire exercise on 11 April. Platforms such as the Burke DDGs and Ohio-class nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines "provide vastly more firepower than the carrier strike group," notes the author, and in an age of increasingly sophisticated and constantly evolving weapon technologies, "alternative strike groups are far more cost-effective."
U.S. Navy (Paul Kelly)

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The Rise of the Missile Carriers

Autonomous attack systems may be heralding the twilight of the aircraft-carrier era, but the venerable platform will remain important by returning to its pre–World War II operational roots.
By Commander Phillip E. Pournelle, U.S. Navy
May 2013
Proceedings
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More than two decades into the missile age a new breed of weapons has emerged that will greatly change the way we fight. Just as technology caused the battleship to be eclipsed by the aircraft carrier, soon the aircraft carrier will be eclipsed by the missile carrier. This is not to say the aircraft carrier will not exist in the future, but it won’t retain the central position in power projection it holds today.

The reason the aircraft carrier rose to predominance above the battleship was the ability of the carrier air wing to effectively deliver force at far greater distances. While the battleship could generate much more firepower (by a factor of ten) in a short period of time, its effective range was too short compared with the airplane. A plane could find and deliver firepower at great distances, because the pilot onboard could navigate accurately to 200 nautical miles or more, locate enemy forces, identify and prioritize the targets, and guide the weapons to hit the target with reasonable accuracy.1

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