Future Threats to US Carriers

[Husky_Khan]

So the Youtuber Binkov made a pop video about the future threats that a US carrier would potentially face in the next decade or so. If it's too long, didn't watch, the main gist of it is that while there's no one magic bullet for carriers, there are a combination of technologies that could threaten carriers, especially coming from China in regards to the Western Pacific theater in case of any future conflict. The combinations are basically as follows...

> Spy Satellites with high resolution combined with 'satellite swarms' with lower resolution to help detect and track carriers.
> Submarines (mostly nuclear) equipped with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles.
> Higher model DF-series style ballistic missiles which can be just as costly to intercept as they are to deploy.
> Continued evolution of large anti-ship missiles that can fly at ever increasing speeds towards their targets in a more traditional pattern.

And some other things I probably forgot since I saw this video yesterday.

Binkov (in the comments) did state he was going to do a video on the future of carriers as well, since this video is mostly focused on evolving threats to modern day carriers.

 

[Scottty]

The Americans seem often to regard the idea that anything could sink one of their supercarriers as thoughtcrime, even though they in practice avoid letting them go anywhere near harm's way.

 

[Deleted member]

The Americans seem often to regard the idea that anything could sink one of their supercarriers as thoughtcrime, even though they in practice avoid letting them go anywhere near harm's way.

That’s because the threats are severely overstated. We have counters for everything unless it’s part of a sufficiently large saturation attack, and nobody has the resources to deploy a sufficiently large saturation attack.

Yes, firing 80+ supersonic cruise missiles at a carrier simultaneously would kill it. Getting 80 supersonic cruise missiles in position to be part of a single anti-missile engagement with the escorts is another matter entirely.

 

[Scottty]

That’s because the threats are severely overstated. We have counters for everything unless it’s part of a sufficiently large saturation attack, and nobody has the resources to deploy a sufficiently large saturation attack.

Yes, firing 80+ supersonic cruise missiles at a carrier simultaneously would kill it. Getting 80 supersonic cruise missiles in position to be part of a single anti-missile engagement with the escorts is another matter entirely.

Oh? What about a single ballistic missile where the warhead section is a 20-megaton bomb that's there to pump an array of single-shot X-ray lasers?
It doesn't need to get particularly close to the carrier battle group, it just needs to get to where it has line-of-sight on the target.
Then BOOM, ZAP!
And your nice big supercarrier now has a massive hole neatly drilled through it from the flight deck down to the keel.
It's on it's way down to Davy Jones' locker, and the escort ships are circling around on the surface trying to figure out WTF just happened...

 

[Doomsought]

If you actually manage it, we will make our next generation of super carriers able to make it back to port while literally cut in half out of spite. Both halves, without a tug. It will be so expensive that we will make only 1/10 the planned run.


And we will still have more compensator class supercarriers than China has aircraft carriers of all classes.

 

[Marduk]

> Spy Satellites with high resolution combined with 'satellite swarms' with lower resolution to help detect and track carriers.

This goes for any surface warship.

> Submarines (mostly nuclear) equipped with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles.

Just gradual improvement of a threat as old as carriers themselves. Job for the battlegroup.

> Higher model DF-series style ballistic missiles which can be just as costly to intercept as they are to deploy.

Propaganda meme. Depending on model and source, they have a CEP from 20 to 400 meters. Which gives them some chance of hitting a carrier sized target, optimistically in the latter case. Note that CEP for ballistic missiles is generally measured for a stationary, geographic target. However a carrier is going to be a mobile target zipping at around 30 knots, with state of art electronic countermeasures. Its anyone's guess what are the chances its gonna hit, but they don't seem great. It looks like more of a "maybye" weapon that is a deterrent on the basis of how much of an untested weapon it is and "may" work, optimistically.
Why am i so sure? Countries that are ahead in more conventional AShM technology, like Russia and USA, don't even give much of a damn about using ballistic missiles for this themselves, while they certainly don't lack technology to do it better. Its just chiefly China and Iran that desperately need an anti carrier weapon to wave around in their propaganda who do it.

> Continued evolution of large anti-ship missiles that can fly at ever increasing speeds towards their targets in a more traditional pattern.

Again evolution of existing threat, and again applies to any surface warship no less than it does to carriers.
People obsess too much about threats to carriers specifically, when the more serious of these points apply to the whole surface warship doctrine, in some cases more so than to carriers.

 

[Lanmandragon]

The Americans seem often to regard the idea that anything could sink one of their supercarriers as thoughtcrime, even though they in practice avoid letting them go anywhere near harm's way.

Frankly that's beneficial for them and us. Sinking a carrier would basically be an instant DOW.

 

[Deleted member]

Oh? What about a single ballistic missile where the warhead section is a 20-megaton bomb that's there to pump an array of single-shot X-ray lasers?
It doesn't need to get particularly close to the carrier battle group, it just needs to get to where it has line-of-sight on the target.
Then BOOM, ZAP!
And your nice big supercarrier now has a massive hole neatly drilled through it from the flight deck down to the keel.
It's on it's way down to Davy Jones' locker, and the escort ships are circling around on the surface trying to figure out WTF just happened...

Why would it sink if a laser drilled a hole through it? Do you have an idea how small the diameter of a laser beam is ? A bomb-pumped laser can't track, can't aim, can't correct for thermal bloom. And by the way, magazines don't explode with tiny holes in them, and neither do keels crack in two.

 

[Scottty]

Why would it sink if a laser drilled a hole through it? Do you have an idea how small the diameter of a laser beam is ? A bomb-pumped laser can't track, can't aim, can't correct for thermal bloom. And by the way, magazines don't explode with tiny holes in them, and neither do keels crack in two.

A nuke-pumped superlaser doesn't "drill" - it's all in one go. By the time the thermal bloom has started, the laser itself is already an expanding cloud of gas. So there's no walking the beam across the target or anything like that. All the aiming has to be done before detonation.
And the diameter of a laser beam is the size they build it to be. Some of the ideas I found online imply a "contact area" with a width measured in meters.
As for exploding, that's what any solid object does when it's suddenly superheated way past its boiling-point.

If we assume that the device is only 1% efficient, then that's 200 kilotons of energy being deposited on the carrier in an instant, in the form of X-rays.

 

[Deleted member]

A nuke-pumped superlaser doesn't "drill" - it's all in one go. By the time the thermal bloom has started, the laser itself is already an expanding cloud of gas. So there's no walking the beam across the target or anything like that. All the aiming has to be done before detonation.
And the diameter of a laser beam is the size they build it to be. Some of the ideas I found online imply a "contact area" with a width measured in meters.
As for exploding, that's what any solid object does when it's suddenly superheated way past its boiling-point.

If we assume that the device is only 1% efficient, then that's 200 kilotons of energy being deposited on the carrier in an instant, in the form of X-rays.

But you would massively exceed the actual transfer rate of the energy into the material, so most of the energy would just keep going. You're also suddenly changing the terms of your scenario from an array (like has been proposed for use in space against ABM warheads) to a single aimed laser. To be honest, this is likely to damage a carrier less than an actual NuDet would and kind of begs the question of "if you're going nuclear, why not just go nuclear?" My previous scenario simply assumed a conventional conflict.

 

[PsihoKekec]

The most telling fact about the supposed carrier killer DF-21 is that it has never been tested against a target at the sea. All the claims about supposed capabilities are a mere sabre rattling.

Oh? What about a single ballistic missile where the warhead section is a 20-megaton bomb that's there to pump an array of single-shot X-ray lasers?

It's a supremely idiotic idea, lasers are like HEAT warheads - very limited damage area (unlike in the movies) so unless you hit something really critical, you will not sink a carrier, even mission kill is unlikely, so the 20 megaton nuclear explosion itself will make a lot more damage than the lasers it is powering. Of course it will also mean a canned sunshine retribution, so it would be more logical to chuck a 20 megaton warhead directly at the task force, without the laser bells and whistles.

 

[Deleted member]

I would add that the DF-21's only real use is in destroying ships at anchor at bases. Which is probably really what it is intended for, as a first strike weapon. The easiest way to avoid being attacked is to just keep moving, and since nuclear carriers don't need to refuel, this is really easy for them to do. Even under continuous satellite surveillance I assure you there are lots of ways to complicate an attack picture, like intentionally varying the thermal bloom of the engines of the escorts to make them hard to distinguish from the carrier as they move under a continuous smokescreen; the carrier can also lose itself into any kind of weather conditions still. Ark Royal's rampage directly off the US coast--frequently at distances of only a few nautical miles from the shore--in the late 70s exercises is informative. US carriers don't need to literally sit in full sight of shore like that, and being nuclear, don't need to slow down, so that's pitted against the improvements in surveillance technology.

 

[Doomsought]

And even if your satellite is a killstat armed with ortillery, the carrier's captain is more likely than not to know it, and his ships radar can find him the nearest storm-system that causes you more trouble than him.

 

[Scottty]

But you would massively exceed the actual transfer rate of the energy into the material, so most of the energy would just keep going.

Correct. The beam of collimated X-rays would shine right through the top deck, and all the decks below it, down into the water underneath.
And each of those decks now suddenly has a circular area about the size of a large manhole cover that's just been turned into superheated plasma. Which would be kind of explody.

This assumes that the strike has been top-down, of course. If they fired at the first moment they had line-of-sight, it would likely come in at near-horizontal, just above the waterline. Worst case might be the carrier heading directly towards where the missile comes over the horizon, and getting a nuclear tunnel of ruin from the bow all the way through to the rear.
Might not sink it, but don't tell me that's not a mission-kill.

You're also suddenly changing the terms of your scenario from an array (like has been proposed for use in space against ABM warheads) to a single aimed laser.

If the array of lasers (because they would surround the nuke) are all aimed at the same target, they are effectively the same as one big laser.

To be honest, this is likely to damage a carrier less than an actual NuDet would and kind of begs the question of "if you're going nuclear, why not just go nuclear?"

Because of the Inverse Square Law.
I'm assuming that the carrier group has defensive systems that can detect, paint, and intercept any incoming warhead within a certain distance from the ships. Therefore the warhead has to detonate before an interception can take place.
So it needs to either be powerful enough to destroy carrier from that far out, or it needs to focus it's energy-yield in some way rather than just spread it out in a sphere.

Rough calculations based on the dimensions of a Nimitz-class carrier tell me that a nuke that detonated directly overhead would need to be only 450 meters up for just 1% of it's direct energy yield to the applied to the ship.
The laser system can deliver that energy from much further.

My previous scenario simply assumed a conventional conflict.

Given the size of an American supercarrier, nuclear devices seem the most sensible way to deliver enough punch against one of them.
But I can also think of non-nuclear scenarios.

And even if your satellite is a killstat armed with ortillery, the carrier's captain is more likely than not to know it, and his ships radar can find him the nearest storm-system that causes you more trouble than him.

How fast could they get there?
Are we to imagine the carrier fleeing at 30+ knots towards the clouded area, the captain and bridge crew knowing that it's only a matter of minutes before the carrier-killer satellite comes up over the horizon?
(Never mind that I actually described it being launched as needed, not being in orbit)

"Crap, we're not gonna make it! Captain, we're not gonna-"
"Stop that! We are going to make it!"

The ship reaches the overcast area. It's windy with some rain.
"We made it! They can't see us now!"

Suddenly a blindingly bright light stabs down in a diagonal line through the clouds, striking the sea about a kilometer from the carrier.
"What the-?"
"They lost us, but took a pot-shot anyway! Everybody hang onto something, that wave is huge!"

 

[Deleted member]

@Scottty you shouldn't think about it as a last minute evasive, but a complicated process using Decision Support Tools which would be dictating the course of the carrier down to the second, over days.

Also, the inverse square law works both ways. The spherical error probable of the kill zone from a 2 MT nuke (which is huge for tactical use in any case) is so much larger, and omnidirectional, than the very focused laser, in which errors in six axes would scale to increase the risk of missing.

 

[Aaron Fox]

The thing is, most of those threats are going to be eliminated by the coming of FEL (Free Electron Laser) weapons. Hypersonic missiles? Useless with a pulse FEL which can penetrate its plasma sheath (and FELs can simply 'tune in' to that wavelength rather easily). Torpedoes? We've known for years that simply having a blue-green laser can eliminate torpedoes at range because seawater is blue-green transparent (like how the material quartz is infrared/heat transparent (and would be used in 'closed-gas' nuclear lightbulb rockets)). Ballistic missiles? Pulse FELs will shoot them out of the sky.

The rest like using Casaba Howitzers and Lasheads? Escorts and air wings solve them damn quick.

It doesn't help that material science is going the way of Battletech given that we've essentially created EndoSteel (a material that was first written for the leadup of the Clan Invasion in... 1990) back in 2017.

 

[Marduk]

A nuke-pumped superlaser doesn't "drill" - it's all in one go. By the time the thermal bloom has started, the laser itself is already an expanding cloud of gas. So there's no walking the beam across the target or anything like that. All the aiming has to be done before detonation.
And the diameter of a laser beam is the size they build it to be. Some of the ideas I found online imply a "contact area" with a width measured in meters.
As for exploding, that's what any solid object does when it's suddenly superheated way past its boiling-point.

If we assume that the device is only 1% efficient, then that's 200 kilotons of energy being deposited on the carrier in an instant, in the form of X-rays.

How many armies are fielding nuke pumped laser ICBMs?
Zero.
Its a sci fi weapon, intended mostly for space use there. It would be an engineering nightmare to build a practical one as things stand. By the time we have laser technology light, tough and precise enough, you will have to worry about a whole battlefield and orbit saturated with all sorts of laser weapons.
Nevermind the political effects of using a tac nuke this way. If you're gonna use nukes, there are actually workable ways to do it - need to just detonate few close enough, making intercepting them much tougher, the EMP and physical shockwave will play hell on the fleet's sensors and point defense weapons, and use that window of opportunity for a killshot.

The thing is, most of those threats are going to be eliminated by the coming of FEL (Free Electron Laser) weapons. Hypersonic missiles? Useless with a pulse FEL which can penetrate its plasma sheath (and FELs can simply 'tune in' to that wavelength rather easily). Torpedoes? We've known for years that simply having a blue-green laser can eliminate torpedoes at range because seawater is blue-green transparent (like how the material quartz is infrared/heat transparent (and would be used in 'closed-gas' nuclear lightbulb rockets)). Ballistic missiles? Pulse FELs will shoot them out of the sky.

The rest like using Casaba Howitzers and Lasheads? Escorts and air wings solve them damn quick.

It doesn't help that material science is going the way of Battletech given that we've essentially created EndoSteel (a material that was first written for the leadup of the Clan Invasion in... 1990) back in 2017.

Yup, the picture of technology and threats of naval warfare is slowly heading towards the "we SeaQuest now" territory, with disturbingly poor survivability prognosis for surface vessels.
But that's about half a century away.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Yup, the picture of technology and threats of naval warfare is slowly heading towards the "we SeaQuest now" territory, with disturbingly poor survivability prognosis for surface vessels.
But that's about half a century away.

It is likely that surface vessels is going to be dominant no matter what we do at this point. FELs are just that OP in this case.

 

[Marduk]

It is likely that surface vessels is going to be dominant no matter what we do at this point. FELs are just that OP in this case.

You have missed the ways in which FELs can be used against surface vessels, and they don't have much of a defense measure against that.
Submarines can at least hide, and as you mentioned, there is nothing stopping them from getting lasers too.

 

[Doomsought]

How many armies are fielding nuke pumped laser ICBMs?

I'm pretty sure the US used them as a bluff during the cold war to trick the Soviets into spending more money.
Didn't actually have any, just pretended to in earshot of soviet spies.