Yep, stupid. Submersible ships that can surface to launch and recover drones should be the focus. Though I would probably keep some carriers out of mothballs in case EMPs disable all the fancy electronic thingys. But we’d also need to keep around older mechanical actuated aircraft for that scenario. But most anything is better than putting all our eggs in the super carrier / joint strike turd basket. Keeping in mind the battle over the electro-magnetic spectrum is important though when fanboying drones.

It only looks stupid if you assume that in the next real war that em based communications will work like they do in peacetime. If you assume that the next war will be fought with continual jamming on all frequencies, then it doesn't look so stupid.

When your usual target for a beat down is a third world country that has no real way to defend themselves against your attacks, strategy matters very little as does the ability to simply deploy your weapons quickly and easily.

That sort of thinking dismisses the real threats.

We have a maginot line floating at sea.

>That sort of thinking dismisses the real threats.

Does the USA really have any threats that aren't just the USA being on the offense?

China.

It would be a folly to dismiss it.

China is massively invested in the US. It's hard to imagine any war scenario being worth the cost.

And its decoupling now. See: Trade War.

How is China a military threat? This again seems to be on offense.

There are a million reports like this:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf

The summary provides nothing that wouldn't be USA again on offense. Modernization of Chinese Navy != Threat.

Uhhh Russia?

No? How are they a threat? They spent money on Facebook ads and we don't even know if they came from the Government? By that standard, you can also say UK is a threat with Cambridge Analytia.

There's only one nation that you can possibly be referring to: China. No other foes have naval force projection at all to threaten all of the US carriers. Even China doesn't have that, they can only do that in part of the Pacific. Maybe in a few decades they'll have a more global projection.

China isn't a real threat in the regards you're claiming they are. For 99% of all the scenarios of combat the US is likely to see, carriers make ideal sense. You're saying the 1% scenario, a world war 3 scenario, is a good reason to not have any carriers because they can be sunk. That makes zero sense in the present and for the next two decades. If a lot of carriers get sunk by China in a non-defensive attack, we're at a point of going to nuclear war, hundreds of millions will die. None of the weapons China has will matter then either.

The sole scenario worth considering seriously, in naval conflict, is China-Taiwan. There's realistically nothing the US can do to stop China if it decides to invade and take the island. It doesn't matter what tech the US has.

So essentially you're saying that in a real shooting war, carriers are useless. Isn't that essentially what all these carrier criticisms are saying as well?

If all they're good for anyway is bombing 3rd world countries into submission, hey, just buy a mothballed supertanker, pave it over and load it up with cheap turboprop planes carrying bombs. Equally good for bombing people armed with AK-47's and RPG's, and you'd save billions! :)

And the defensive capability is ultimately the same as a $$$ supercarrier, if the buck in any case stops with "if you touch these, we'll answer with nukes".

> If all they're good for anyway is bombing 3rd world countries into submission, hey, just buy a mothballed supertanker, pave it over and load it up with cheap turboprop planes carrying bombs. Equally good for bombing people armed with AK-47's and RPG's, and you'd save billions! :)

What parts of a modern aircraft carrier do you think are redundant? They still need to operate far away from bases and friendly ports (after all, that's the point of a carrier), so they still need nuclear power and to carry fuel for their own escorts. They still need all the radar/radio/command-and-control functions. They still need to be able to maintain their air wing, so they still need hangers, elevators, all of that. (I guess you're arguing for loading a carrier with rugged bush planes and assuming that you could reduce maintenance requirements by doing that, maybe getting to the point of just parking the planes on deck? It's an interesting idea but existing bush planes are generally designed to operate in savannah/desert. I don't know how possible it is to build a plane that can stand up to saltwater spray).

> cheap turboprop planes carrying bombs. Equally good for bombing people armed with AK-47's and RPG's, and you'd save billions! :)

>

As I am understanding it the US is buying such a palne in the Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Attack/Armed_Reconnaissa...

Many other countries also use planes like the Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano[0] to fight insurgents and other that do not have any anti aircraft capabilities.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano

And a legion of apocalyptic missiles to back it up.

We (and Russia) each have between 1500 and 8000 strategic nuclear warheads deployed or deployable. That's not a Maginot line, it's just air superiority anywhere it matters.

Personally, having F14-like drones would probably be much better at keeping opponents airpower down/out than JSF or F18s, but that's my silly civilian opinion.

Being pedantic, that's not the definition of air superiority or supremacy. You can't shoot down a fighter plane with a nuclear warhead.

Right, aircraft carriers are about air superiority. If an opponent is sinking them with supersonic (nuclear?) cruise missiles or drones, that's a different strategic issue (with China, Russia)... at least for the next decade or several.

The _that's_ I was referring to was in the the preceding comment, which referred to aircraft carriers as a Maginot line floating at sea.

Perhaps, but an even easier comparison to Maginot line is China's concrete islands