Future Threats to US Carriers

[Scottty]

How many armies are fielding nuke pumped laser ICBMs?
Zero.

The thread title says Future Threats to US Carriers.

 

[Marduk]

The thread title says Future Threats to US Carriers.

You're technically right. However, such discussions usually involve technologies likely to be fielded within years, a few decades at most.
By the time this will be feasible, hard to say if there will still be such a thing as US carriers at all. For example, why would the suborbital bombers of 2080's need carriers, when they can fly a strike mission from any place in the world to another and return within 4 hours?

 

[Scottty]

You're technically right. However, such discussions usually involve technologies likely to be fielded within years, a few decades at most.
By the time this will be feasible, hard to say if there will still be such a thing as US carriers at all. For example, why would the suborbital bombers of 2080's need carriers, when they can fly a strike mission from any place in the world to another and return within 4 hours?

A valid point.
When playing Alpha Centauri, I rely on air power quite a lot. But one generally stops having much need for Carriers once Gravships are available.

 

[Aaron Fox]

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.

Given that our armor is likely to go the way of Battletech? I'm not putting much money on that.

 

[Marduk]

Given that our armor is likely to go the way of Battletech? I'm not putting much money on that.

Battletech is not using endosteel for armor.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Battletech is not using endosteel for armor.

Just EndoSteel being made in real life is an indicator that in all probability Battletech armor is going to be made a reality. It would probably not be as thin but it'll be likely a thing.

 

[Marduk]

Just EndoSteel being made in real life is an indicator that in all probability Battletech armor is going to be made a reality. It would probably not be as thin but it'll be likely a thing.

Nope, that isn't how things work, as BT armor is an abomination in the eyes of real world physics.
Besides, armoring warships has a bigger problem than armor material. Namely, you can't armor antennas, sensor masts, radar dishes etc.
Meanwhile, modern warships have a metric shit ton of this sort of thing, they are pretty much covered in it, which should also give you an idea about how important is it for them.
Even if you covered an AEGIS cruiser with two layers of top MBT frontal armor and it somehow could still float, then bombarding it with a bunch of decently sized HE weapons would still mission kill it until it returns to port for months worth of repairs, by degrading its targeting and detection capabilities to not much better than a WW1 battleship had.

 

[Doomsought]

Meanwhile, modern warships have a metric shit ton of this sort of thing, they are pretty much covered in it, which should also give you an idea about how important is it for them.

Now that is not true, even the tiniest boat that can call itself modern has only one metric shit-ton of sensors. These ships have multiple shit-tons of amplifiers alone, let alone the actual antennae and fiddly bits.

There is also a problem of modern electronics being very shock sensitive, the stuff they put on the Iowa during modernization had trouble handling her own guns firing.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

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.

It'll be really interesting to see all this develop in my lifetime. When we're old men, looking back on the Iraq and Afghan Wars in comparison to warfare in the 2070s will be very weird.

That aside, the development of this technology, by the looks of it, would lead to a greater emphasis on armour and firepower in future ship design. With that said, would the interval of the aircraft carrier end and the age of the battleship resume? I've always pondered on things like CIWS and now FELs, whether or not they'd struggle more shooting down a shell than a missile. One is, putting it bluntly, smaller than the other after all.

In answer to the thread question though, the biggest threat to a capital ship will always be another capital ship.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Nope, that isn't how things work, as BT armor is an abomination in the eyes of real world physics.
Besides, armoring warships has a bigger problem than armor material. Namely, you can't armor antennas, sensor masts, radar dishes etc.
Meanwhile, modern warships have a metric shit ton of this sort of thing, they are pretty much covered in it, which should also give you an idea about how important is it for them.
Even if you covered an AEGIS cruiser with two layers of top MBT frontal armor and it somehow could still float, then bombarding it with a bunch of decently sized HE weapons would still mission kill it until it returns to port for months worth of repairs, by degrading its targeting and detection capabilities to not much better than a WW1 battleship had.

Here's the fun thing, we know a lot more about materials and we are understanding this little thing called 'wavelength transparency' that is more than just visible light. That comment about quartz being useful for closed-gas nuclear lightbulb rockets isn't me talking out of my ass but a real design idea using the actual properties of quartz, specifically the fact that it is transparent to thermal wavelengths.

Given that we've been literally ripping off Scifi more and more as the years go on, it isn't entirely impossible that we discover a material that is transparent to the usual radar spectra we use. I mean no one would believe that Carbon would be a super-material at the beginning of the century.

It'll be really interesting to see all this develop in my lifetime. When we're old men, looking back on the Iraq and Afghan Wars in comparison to warfare in the 2070s will be very weird.

That aside, the development of this technology, by the looks of it, would lead to a greater emphasis on armour and firepower in future ship design. With that said, would the interval of the aircraft carrier end and the age of the battleship resume? I've always pondered on things like CIWS and now FELs, whether or not they'd struggle more shooting down a shell than a missile. One is, putting it bluntly, smaller than the other after all.

In answer to the thread question though, the biggest threat to a capital ship will always be another capital ship.

The thing is, if armor is going the way of Battletech, aircraft will still be a thing, it is likely just going to be simply an arrow in the quiver than anything else. Aircraft carriers have one thing that makes battleships completely obsolete: area of control. BBs can't control that much area, aircraft can. As production gets better and better (3D printers have improved immensely over the years), you'll be finding yourself in a situation where Macross and Battletech's spam of smaller missiles makes sense.

 

[Marduk]

Here's the fun thing, we know a lot more about materials and we are understanding this little thing called 'wavelength transparency' that is more than just visible light. That comment about quartz being useful for closed-gas nuclear lightbulb rockets isn't me talking out of my ass but a real design idea using the actual properties of quartz, specifically the fact that it is transparent to thermal wavelengths.

Given that we've been literally ripping off Scifi more and more as the years go on, it isn't entirely impossible that we discover a material that is transparent to the usual radar spectra we use. I mean no one would believe that Carbon would be a super-material at the beginning of the century.

Yes, it is. There are many uses for this, but let's not ignore limitations either.
Oh we do know plenty of materials that are transparent (enough) to usual radar spectra. What do you think radar domes on aircraft are made of?
But the problem is, the kinds of materials that would make decent armor tend to have different characteristics...
And then there is the problem that even a material that's "transparent enough" may no longer be transparent enough if you stack layers of 5, 20 or 50 centimeters of it.

The thing is, if armor is going the way of Battletech, aircraft will still be a thing, it is likely just going to be simply an arrow in the quiver than anything else. Aircraft carriers have one thing that makes battleships completely obsolete: area of control. BBs can't control that much area, aircraft can. As production gets better and better (3D printers have improved immensely over the years), you'll be finding yourself in a situation where Macross and Battletech's spam of smaller missiles makes sense.

Modern destroyers and cruisers can control plenty of area, as long as by control you mean "ability to smack many aircraft or surface targets within the area".
Aircraft can control more mostly on account of their range, but then there is also the issue of versatility. Aircraft inherently are also recon assets, CAS assets, aircraft carriers also carry all sorts of utility aircraft, and they are stocked with lots of munitions and other supplies for them.

Also cost is far from the only showstopper for spamming small missiles - sire, for guided ones the guidance package adds poorly scaling cost, but even that, by military standards, is becoming low enough.
The main problem is that there is only so much engine, fuel and warhead you can pack into a small missile. And other than anti-missiles, short ranged missiles are not going to be something you want to rely heavily on even now.

 

[Sailor.X]

Whenever I hear about a possible threat to a Carrier from some land forces I always like to point out theses.

The SSGNs will rain Tomahawk Hell on their Candy Asses so much it isn't even funny. And we have orbital satellites to do the spotting.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Whenever I hear about a possible threat to a Carrier from some land forces I always like to point out theses.

The SSGNs will rain Tomahawk Hell on their Candy Asses so much it isn't even funny. And we have orbital satellites to do the spotting.

I wouldn't be surprised that such weapons are going to be bog-standard on ships in the future just because of the possibility of this situation.

Not only that, but FELs are becoming a thing and a genuine weapon system. A good enough gas turbine or a fission reactor set can power them for a good while/for as long as the capacitors hold respectively. With these lasers, those microsats will get zapped, hypersonic missiles (and missiles in general) stopped outside of the most Macross-worthy of missile spams, torpedoes stopped outside of the torpedo version of Macross-worthy torpedo spam, and aircraft and ships requiring to be clad in Battletech style armor as standard.

This is on top of the escort setup of a CVBG mind you...