I find it hilarious the US keeps doubling down on the world's largest floating coffins even now that it's abundantly obvious its carriers would be at the bottom of the ocean in the first week of conflict with anyone bigger and more industrialized than Syria. Obviously it's because the navy exists just to defend capital's interests by keeping trade lanes open and bombing anyone who doesn't eagerly hand over their natural resources, but you'd think they'd at least realize they're not the sole hegemon anymore.
They're enormous slow-moving targets that light up radar/sonar real big, and ballistic missiles are accurate enough to hit them and cheap enough to build and launch hundreds if not thousands at an individual carrier and still be cost-effective. Any modern industrialized nation has the capabilities to produce at least a few waves of ship-killing missiles that can be fired from land and casually overwhelm whatever meager anti-missile defenses a carrier group might have, at which point your $10 billion carrier carrying another few billion dollars worth of planes, fuel, personnel, etc is now at the bottom of the ocean.
The threat of ASBMs is greatly overstated in leftist circles who (rightly) eagerly await the end of US dominance. The technology is entirely untested and unproven. American anti-ballistic missile defenses have been more thoroughly-tested (with not-great results!), but they have been shown to actually work on occasion. This has, to our knowledge, never occurred with an ASBM. And the question of how the warhead will receive targeting updates for it's moving, maneuvering target while it is undergoing re-entry (and will be entirely blind in its frontal aspect due to the plasma shield from re-entry) remains an unanswered question. Theories exists, but we're back to "unproven and untested".
If the aircraft carrier was dead, China wouldn't be building new ones.
If the aircraft carrier was dead, China wouldn’t be building new ones.
Aircraft carriers (like battleships in the past) are essentially status symbols of navies. Just like how a navy in the past wouldn't have been taken seriously without at least possessing a fleet of battleships, a navy of today would not be taken seriously without at least possessing a fleet of carriers. This does not mean that they are practical, the previous status symbol, the battleship was proven obsolete by the carrier. The carrier may soon be proven obsolete by the surface-to-surface missile, but that does not reduce its present status.
If China had nothing but a massive spam fleets of corvettes, would its navy be taken seriously?
It's like how America and the Soviet Union competed over who could make the largest nuclear bomb, the Americans testing a 10MT nuclear bomb (Castle Bravo) and the Soviets testing a 50MT nuclear bomb (Tsar Bomba). Neither were practical, and both were expensive and ultimately a waste of time and money. The creation of these bombs were a pure flex to the opposing power. No target on Earth would ever require a 10MT, 50Mt, or god forbid a 100MT (full-size Tsar Bomba) nuclear bomb to destroy. It is purely flexing.
China building these ships is not a question of effectiveness but merely a signal to the public and to foreign powers that China has a great navy and will not be bullied around anymore. Carriers are the ultimate symbol of naval power and dominance, of course China is going to build them.
You fundamentally agree with what I've said when you say this. It is not yet---or at least has not yet been proven to be---obsolete. Claims of the death of the carrier as a concept are premature.
I think China is not really in a place where it can afford to develop and build such a large, expensive status symbol if that status symbol was not also thought to be an effective tool for defense.
Carriers for China also represent the ability to produce ships like that themselves, which for decades they haven't been able to. Their first carrier was a Soviet hull, sold for scrap to iirc Poland, bought by a Chinese firm secretly and transported undercover to be worked on. Making their own is more of an engineering exercise than anything
Hard to say how any actual war would play out until it actually happened.
Iraq was supposed to have the fifth largest military on earth until we ran over then like a speed bump in Desert Storm. Admitted, they also sucked it up against Iran a decade earlier.
But just because the US sucks doesn't mean the people we end up fighting don't also suck. If we actually threw down against Russia, it would be a collosal shit show not seen since the Korean War.
I find it hilarious the US keeps doubling down on the world's largest floating coffins even now that it's abundantly obvious its carriers would be at the bottom of the ocean in the first week of conflict with anyone bigger and more industrialized than Syria. Obviously it's because the navy exists just to defend capital's interests by keeping trade lanes open and bombing anyone who doesn't eagerly hand over their natural resources, but you'd think they'd at least realize they're not the sole hegemon anymore.
Honestly just curious, what makes aircraft carriers so bad now?
They're enormous slow-moving targets that light up radar/sonar real big, and ballistic missiles are accurate enough to hit them and cheap enough to build and launch hundreds if not thousands at an individual carrier and still be cost-effective. Any modern industrialized nation has the capabilities to produce at least a few waves of ship-killing missiles that can be fired from land and casually overwhelm whatever meager anti-missile defenses a carrier group might have, at which point your $10 billion carrier carrying another few billion dollars worth of planes, fuel, personnel, etc is now at the bottom of the ocean.
Ah, makes sense. Thanks
sigh
The threat of ASBMs is greatly overstated in leftist circles who (rightly) eagerly await the end of US dominance. The technology is entirely untested and unproven. American anti-ballistic missile defenses have been more thoroughly-tested (with not-great results!), but they have been shown to actually work on occasion. This has, to our knowledge, never occurred with an ASBM. And the question of how the warhead will receive targeting updates for it's moving, maneuvering target while it is undergoing re-entry (and will be entirely blind in its frontal aspect due to the plasma shield from re-entry) remains an unanswered question. Theories exists, but we're back to "unproven and untested".
If the aircraft carrier was dead, China wouldn't be building new ones.
i don't know who's the right one here, but in either case carriers would still be useful against many non-NATO countries
Aircraft carriers (like battleships in the past) are essentially status symbols of navies. Just like how a navy in the past wouldn't have been taken seriously without at least possessing a fleet of battleships, a navy of today would not be taken seriously without at least possessing a fleet of carriers. This does not mean that they are practical, the previous status symbol, the battleship was proven obsolete by the carrier. The carrier may soon be proven obsolete by the surface-to-surface missile, but that does not reduce its present status.
If China had nothing but a massive spam fleets of corvettes, would its navy be taken seriously?
It's like how America and the Soviet Union competed over who could make the largest nuclear bomb, the Americans testing a 10MT nuclear bomb (Castle Bravo) and the Soviets testing a 50MT nuclear bomb (Tsar Bomba). Neither were practical, and both were expensive and ultimately a waste of time and money. The creation of these bombs were a pure flex to the opposing power. No target on Earth would ever require a 10MT, 50Mt, or god forbid a 100MT (full-size Tsar Bomba) nuclear bomb to destroy. It is purely flexing.
China building these ships is not a question of effectiveness but merely a signal to the public and to foreign powers that China has a great navy and will not be bullied around anymore. Carriers are the ultimate symbol of naval power and dominance, of course China is going to build them.
You fundamentally agree with what I've said when you say this. It is not yet---or at least has not yet been proven to be---obsolete. Claims of the death of the carrier as a concept are premature.
I am simply offering an alternate explanation for the building of aircraft carriers, nothing more. And the battleship wasn't obsolete - until it was.
Fair.
I think China is not really in a place where it can afford to develop and build such a large, expensive status symbol if that status symbol was not also thought to be an effective tool for defense.
Carriers for China also represent the ability to produce ships like that themselves, which for decades they haven't been able to. Their first carrier was a Soviet hull, sold for scrap to iirc Poland, bought by a Chinese firm secretly and transported undercover to be worked on. Making their own is more of an engineering exercise than anything
nuke hitting ocean goes brrr
Hard to say how any actual war would play out until it actually happened.
Iraq was supposed to have the fifth largest military on earth until we ran over then like a speed bump in Desert Storm. Admitted, they also sucked it up against Iran a decade earlier.
But just because the US sucks doesn't mean the people we end up fighting don't also suck. If we actually threw down against Russia, it would be a collosal shit show not seen since the Korean War.