Aircraft Carriers Obsolete

[Smitty-48]

Russian bombers would be shot down, they only have a handful of them now, the Soviet Long Ranged Aviation is no more, it relied on saturation to penetrate the American defenses, but the Russian Long Range Aviation, just doesn't have the horses to do it anymore. They had 500 of them, but now they only have 50 left.

[Speaker to Animals]

Shot down by what?

I will grant you, some of those missile cruisers might have something that could reach that high, but are we talking about actual anti-aircraft missile batteries that can take down a bomber at 30,000 feet? I doubt it.

Fact is, they wouldn't venture far enough away from the USAF in such a war that they could potentially lose air dominance. Which is kind of the point of why we shouldn't spend money on these things.

[Alexander PhiAlipson]

Do StA and Smitty practice naval maneuvers in the same bathtub, or what?

[Smitty-48]

Shot down by what?

Super Hornets in a 500 nautical mile CAP.

[Speaker to Animals]

Shot down by what?

Super Hornets in a 500 nautical mile CAP.

Okay. After the part where you rain hundreds of cruise missiles down on the fucking deck, how exactly are you going to launch your crappy F-18?

And God forbid that fleet is in range of something like a PAK-FA. Fucking hornets would just get knocked out of the sky. The JSFs might make a small fight, but come on. Single-engine naval aircraft is one of the stupidist ideas I ever saw.

[Smitty-48]

Shot down by what?

I will grant you, some of those missile cruisers might have something that could reach that high, but are we talking about actual anti-aircraft missile batteries that can take down a bomber at 30,000 feet? I doubt it.

The Standard Missiles would probably be held back to shoot down any cruise missiles which the bombers were able to launch, guided over the horizon by the E-2, but any bomber which came within range of Aegis would be easily shot down, the envelope for the current RIM-174 ERAM, is 250 nautical miles range, up to 110,000 ft.

[Smitty-48]

Shot down by what?

Super Hornets in a 500 nautical mile CAP.

Okay. After the part where you rain hundreds of cruise missiles down on the fucking deck, how exactly are you going to launch your crappy F-18?

And God forbid that fleet is in range of something like a PAK-FA. Fucking hornets would just get knocked out of the sky. The JSFs might make a small fight, but come on. Single-engine naval aircraft is one of the stupidist ideas I ever saw.

The Russians wouldn't get anywhere near, can be seen coming from far away, the AEW will detect them, long before they could detect the carrier, they can't launch against what they can't see, and they can't see further than the E-2, not even close.

PAK-FA has no strike capability, it can't remain stealthy and carry heavy ordinance, all it can fit in its tiny weapons bays, is six AAMs, and since it's land based only, it's not getting anywhere near the carrier on the high seas, the Super Hornets wouldn't have to worry until they were right off the coast, and by that time, the Russians would already be defeated, by the time the American carrier is on the doorstep, the Russians would have lost their fleet and their aircraft and would be falling back on their nuclear deterent as a last resort.

Maybe if the Russians had similar aircraft carriers, they could threaten the American carriers on the high seas, but since they don't, they don't.

[Smitty-48]

The big reason why the Russians and Chinese are spooked by this THAAD-ER, is the AN/TPY-2 radar, it's a trailer mounted radar which could be put anywhere in the general vicinity, Japan, Denmark, some place in the rear, and yet its range is spectacular, it can see deep into their rear, and it can be used for more than BMD, it can cue other assets, so the AN/TPY-2 can see a wave of Russian or Chinese bombers taking off and then track them as they go, and it's cuing the Navy at sea as to where they are and what they are doing, from crazy stand off range, by the time the bombers get to where the carrier was, the carrier isn't there anymore, because it got warned and moved out of the way, before the bombers even went feet wet.

The only way to evade the AN/TPY-2 is to fly low under the horizon, but then they don't have the range to get to the carriers, in order to get to the carriers, they have to fly a hi-hi-hi profile, and they're going to be lit up the whole time if they do. It's getting to the point, where if you're not stealth, there's nowhere to hide, and a Russian stealth bomber, is vaporware at this point.

[Smitty-48]

Another thing that never makes sense in these pronouncments of American doom at the hands of the Russians, is the seeming idea that somehow America would only be playing defense, "ZOMG Russian subs!", when the American subs are exponentially more dangerous, an American SSGN can slip into the Barents right under the Russian's noses without them knowing that it is there, with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles; bye-bye Russian bombers, right on their ramps.

The Russians can either fight covert and assymetrical, or they could just go for broke and try to nuke the CONUS, but for anything in between, they just don't have the horses to go head to head. They have a nuclear counterforce option, extreme high risk, but they don't have the conventional forces to fight a conventional war, so it's covert, or its nukes, but there's nothing in between.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Another thing that never makes sense in these pronouncments of American doom at the hands of the Russians, is the seeming idea that somehow America would only be playing defense, "ZOMG Russian subs!", when the American subs are exponentially more dangerous, an American SSGN can slip into the Barents right under the Russian's noses without them knowing that it is there, with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles; bye-bye Russians bombers, right on their ramps.

The Russians can either fight covert and assymetrical, or they could just go for broke and try to nuke the CONUS, but for anything in between, they just don't have the horses to go head to head. They have a nuclear counterforce option, extreme high risk, but they don't have the conventional forces to fight a conventional war, so it's covert, or its nukes, but there's nothing in between.

Never did, and never will. As always, it is ALL about the nukes, baby.