Well, aircraft carriers have been around since the 1920s, and historically the advantage of carriers was that their aircraft had greater range than the big guns on battleships.
So, which ships have greater range than the carriers today?
Modernized Russian Kirov class? With 600 km P800 Oniks? Indian destroyers with an 800km Brahmos version? China's Type 055? YJ18 operational range is given as 220–540 km. The YJ-100 subsonic
anti-ship missile version of the CJ-10 has a range a range of 800 km (500 mi; 430 nmi). No aerial refuelling here!
Well, a large number of heavily armed destroyers like the Arleigh Burkes have high survivability in terms of active defence systems like missiles and CIWS. Realistically, if you have allowed your carrier to take physical damage, you have already failed to prevent the enemy from breaking down your numerous ranged defences like fighter aircraft and escorts.
With a carrier group you would still have that defensive capability of the destroyers, in addition to the long range coverage provided by the carrier's airgroup and its own closer in defences. If you allow your DDG to take physical damage, you have failed just as badly (perhaps even more so, given your unit's armament and available consort ship protection) to prevent the enemy from breaking down your defences. The point is that when it comes down to it, a carrier is harder to sink than a Burke DDG. Its like the secret service; you expect your ddg's to take a bullet for presidentt CVN. Still, it is nice if you have a president that is fit and doesn't suffer a stroke at the first sign of trouble and possibly can even hit an attacker. You never ever want to be in that situation, but should you ever be, it is nice if POTUS can shoot or has a black belt in something.
Granted. Carriers are very flexible, allowing them to partake in wide offensives on enemy states. But what about naval warfare? In such a case, cruise missiles can do the job.
What about naval warfare? Thusfar in the incidents we've had with antiship missiles, they have typically not sunk the ships in question outright. Subsequent fires (i.e. absent or failing damage control) usually did them in. A carrier group is not going to sit around waiting to become a target. An attacking for will force have to locate the group, and then box it in, if it is to have a chance at kill via a great number of missiles (a few simply won't do it). And, in the case of eg USN, what is to stop USN from putting a large group of its own DDGs/SSNs in between to engage the opponent if the carrier group is threatened: two can play at that game.
Yes, but I am talking about a large number of DDGs to 1 CVN not 3 small CVNs to 1 large CVN.
So was I. USN has 10-11 CVN plus some 22 CG Ticonderoga and 62 DDG Burke. That's 84 active escorts total and about 7-8 per carrier. Not counting any other smaller surface ships, or any AV-8B/F35B capable LHA/LHDs. How many similar sized and armed CG/DDG would you see as 'equal firepower' to a single carrier? That plus 7-8 should be and equivalent force to a single CSG.
Yes, but this isn't this less relevant in ship-to-ship combat? After all, if you can afford 10 DDGs to 1 CVN, you have a lot of ordinance. Furthermore, naval battles aren't typically as long as what America uses its carriers for (anti-ground ops mostly) and there are a far more smaller number of combatants. It is conceivable that 1 DDG would have enough armament to destroy another DDG several times over (ceteris paribas). Same for 10 DDGs vs 10 DDGs, etc.
CGs/DDGs don't carry just cruisemissiles or antishipmissiles. They always have a mix. This limits individual ship firepower for ny specific role besides self defence against air attack. Unless you appoint specialist ships e.g. one ship serves as arsenal ship and another as AAW ship. Consider AB with 96 vls cells. Antiship missile load out is usually limited to 8 or 16. I'm assuming Flight 2A with 16 Mk41 launched LRASM here. Land attack cruise missile load out (Tomahawk) usually double that: 24. The rest (56 cells) is e.g. 16 Asroc plus 40 cells for e.g. 8 cells quadpacked ESSM (32 missiles), and 32 cells for SM2MR, SM3, SM6.
If you want to do antiground ops, you lower antiship missile load from 16 to 8 cells, ESSM from 8 to 4 cells, and Asroc from 16 to 12 cells in order to pack an extra 16 Tomahawks cruisemissiles (i.e. from 24 to 40). Tomahawk has a 450kg unitary warhead or a submunitions dispenser with BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bom, so you need a mix of those e.g. 20/20.
If you want to do antiship ops, you increase LRASM load by dropping ASROC from 16 to 12, ESSM from 8 to 4 4-packs, Tomahawks from 24 to 16. Your AShM count goes from 16 to 32.
And so on, times the number of your surface combattants.
A modern air wing consists of roughly 1,500 personnel and 74–78 aircraft. The current U.S. Navy carrier air wing consists of:
- Four Strike Fighter (VFA) Squadrons, with twelve F/A-18E/F Super Hornets each, or ten F/A-18C Hornets each (over forty strike fighters total). The typical mix is one F/A-18F (two-seat) Super Hornet squadron, and three single-seat F/A-18E Super Hornet squadrons or a mix of F/A-18E Super Hornet and F/A-18C Hornet squadrons, though some air wings have two F/A-18F (two-seat) squadrons. In two airwings one of the F/A-18C Hornet squadrons is a U.S. Marine Corps Fighter Attack (VMFA) Squadron.
- One Electronic Attack (VAQ) Squadron, made up of five EA-18G Growlers.
- One Carrier Airborne Early Warning (VAW) Squadron, with four E-2C Hawkeyes or five E-2D "Advanced" Hawkeyes
- One Helicopter Sea Combat (HSC) Squadron of eight MH-60S Seahawks
- One Helicopter Maritime Strike (HSM) Squadron of eleven MH-60R Seahawks, 3–5 of which are typically based in detachments on other ships of the carrier strike group.
- A Fleet Logistics Support (VRC) Squadron Detachment of two C-2A Greyhounds;
So, today, you got 12 F/A-18E and 30 F/A-18C or 24 /A-18E and 20 F/A-18C to work with, besides the ships in your escort. F/A-18C takes up to 6,200 kg of ordnance and F/A-18E takes (8,050 kg). You can put 4 Harpoon on each in addition to 2 Sidewinder and 2 Amraam and a centreline fuel tank. So, that's 168 to 176 of the 124km Harpoon or 270km SLAM-ER or 370km+ JASSM / LRASM or 1000 km JASSM-ER, in one go. So, for antiship strike, you'ld need some five or six DDGs with the loadout I indicated before just to equal the number of missiles of the airgroup. Add a few more - say, three - to counter the DDGs that are carrier escort. And then when you fire, your antiship missiles are gone, while the aircraft can in principal go back to refuel and rearm and be at it again. So, you need to have the upper hand numerically right from the start. That means imho, doubling the initial missile volley i.e. not 8-9 but 16-18 DDGs. Against 1 CVN, 3 DDG (not counted a SSN in yet). And if your opponent field 10 of those CSGs then you need potentially 160-180 DDGs, or double the number of Tico's and Burke's the USN currently has.
), with 12 DDGs and 2 CGs (6 of those DDGs are part of the DDGF).
