The Twilight Age of the Aircraft Carriers

Even the course of conventional-traditional warfare will be adapting to the ever changing realities. Vastly technology-enhanced anti-ship ballistic missile will render aircraft carriers obsolete

Writes Eric Margolis,

Batteries of DF-21D’s based safely inland may keep the US Navy far off China’s coasts, isolate Taiwan, and threaten US bases in Japan, Okinawa and Guam. In fact, the mere existence of the DF-21D’s and their deployment in sizeable numbers may be enough to keep US carriers at least 2,000 km from China’s coasts, thus beyond the useful range of the carrier’s strike aircraft…

But anti-ship missiles are lethal to carriers. Layered anti-ship missile defense can stop small number of attacking missiles. But if enough high-speed missiles are fired, and from different directions, at least one or two will permeate carrier and escort defenses.

Just one missile, filled with explosives and fuel, hitting a carrier will cause massive damage and fires that will put the great capitol ship out of action. I have joined numerous naval warfare simulations: in almost every case, some anti-ship missiles fired by enemy aircraft and subs inevitably leaked through layered defenses and hit the carriers. Each carrier and its escorts costs over $25 billion (not including its aircraft). They simply cannot be risked against relatively inexpensive Chinese missiles.

Officially, the US Navy denies claims its beloved carriers are increasingly vulnerable. The Navy’s brass is dominated by former naval aviators, just as the pre-war US Navy was run by battleship admirals. There is huge institutional bias against abandoning big attack carriers, just as there is bitter Navy and Air Force opposition to abandoning manned fighter aircraft and relying on drones.

Which makes all the more amazing an article in the May 2011 issue of the US Naval Institute Proceedings (for which I’ve written) by two Pentagon strategists urging an immediate end to building aircraft carriers, “Proceedings” is the voice of the US naval establishment.

For this heresy to be printed is a bombshell. But a needed one. It’s time the US Navy face facts and plan for the obsolescence of its attack carriers. There will still be a role for smaller carriers carrying drones and helicopters, but in wartime, the days of the mighty flattop that won the epic WWII victories at Midway and the Marianas are over.

Aircraft carriers signify as artifacts of the industrial age warfare. The information age (Third Wave) will radically change even the methods of engagement of military conflicts.