Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

[Jeff Head]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

North Vietnam and Libya had backwards, obsolete underdeveloped militaries, they didn't even have weapons systems that could reach the US fleet. Using them as examples of a saturated attack with modern weapons is a joke. The PLAN might not have any weapons systems that could strike at a carrier, but single CSG is not going to be safe and sound sailing right up next to the Chinese coast, where the PLA has the leisure of lobbing hundreds of missiles and sending hundreds of aircraft at it.

Back in the late 60's and early 70's the technolgy difference was less pronounced than it is today in terms of the aircraft the North Vietnamese had to attack with and particularly the defenses the US had. There was no AEGIS back then and the AAW missiles were much less capable.

But I tend to agree that such a comparison is not a good one. The US still had a mariked advantage.

I agree that it would be foolhardy for the US to try and park a carrier group right next to the Chinese coast. That would not happen in any case.

What would happen is that US submarines would attempt to sanitize the straits to disrupt any invasion, and the US carriers (probably at least two) would lay well off to the east of Taiwan and use their AEW aircraft and fighter aircraft to protect themselves and to cause significant attrition against any PLAAF aircraft that were engaging the ROCAF or trying to get through to the US carriers.

It is in that environemnt that the PLAAF would have to try and mount a saturation attack against the US carriers, and it would be a very, very difficult nut to crack.

 

[AssassinsMace]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Ever hear that war is politics with guns and politics is war without guns?

It doesn't matter whose toys were broken more, the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam. Was it unfair for the VC to break a treaty? The same can be said of the US technological advantage. It's not like all this happened with a year. The beginning years of the Vietnam War pretty much went unquestioned?

The samething can be said of Iraq but are those for the war willing to declare victory and pull out? War is a lot more than comparing how many things are broken on each side. Even with the outright military victory in Iraq, the hawks don't want to pull out because as they say, that would be giving victory to the terrorists. More contradictions.

 

[Finn McCool]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Like I said before, I'm no expert. But you don't need to be an expert to know that a Seersucker got past AWACS, Patriot, and Aegis sensors without being seen. A Seersucker hit Kuwait City with no warning or alarms sounding. Not on paper or an exercise but under combat conditions. The argument was this doesn't happen yet it did. Somewhere along the line something failed whether it was human or technological. And back then they said nothing can get past that kind of technology too. Oh yeah I've heard the excuses but they sound more like denial. I especially like the one I heard that the Iraqis rolled up a launcher across the Iraqi/Kuwait border snuck past US forces into Kuwait rolling a missile all the way up to the capital without being noticed once during the height of the invasion and launching it there to which is why it wasn't detected. That was probably a failure in the human part. You can't have it both ways. It's either human or technological and it was under combat conditions which counters the argument made.

That missle landed right on the waterfront. Right next to the ocean. What I believe happened is that the US Air Defence system picked up the missle and believed that it would land in the ocean so chose not to engage it, to save a costly Patriot missle. IIRC they made the same decision about several other BMs that were fired and landed in the ocean. That time however they were slightly off, and the Seersucker just barely hit the land.

So, if that is true, which circumstantial evidence indicates it was, then the incident might reflect on the ability of the sensors to predict the landing point of a missle, or the judgement of the commander, but not the reliability of the sensors to detect the missle or the Patriot to intercept.

 

[AssassinsMace]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

I saw the pictures of the impact when it happened. It was on the waterfront but it did not hit the water. It hit a large structure along the waterfront that they said the Seersucker interpreted to be a ship since it was an AShM. I don't buy that they guessed it would miss. The missile was launched in a blind shot ~50 miles away and it landed in Kuwait City. They're not going to say "don't bother" in a city filled with US personel when back then it was believed Saddam had WMDs unless they knew he had no WMDs .

If they knew it was coming but didn't want to bother, wouldn't they have sounded the alarms anyways?

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

What would happen is that US submarines would attempt to sanitize the straits to disrupt any invasion, and the US carriers (probably at least two) would lay well off to the east of Taiwan and use their AEW aircraft and fighter aircraft to protect themselves and to cause significant attrition against any PLAAF aircraft that were engaging the ROCAF or trying to get through to the US carriers.

It is in that environemnt that the PLAAF would have to try and mount a saturation attack against the US carriers, and it would be a very, very difficult nut to crack.

In that case then it would be foolhardy for the PLA to try to attack the carriers. The majority of its inventory, such as most of the PLAAF, won't even be able to reach the carriers. What weapons platforms it has that can reach will have to fly over the entire island of Taiwan and deal with Taiwanese surface to air defenses. Also, it wouldn't be cost-effective since even if an attack could succeed, far more Chinese aircraft would be lost in the attack on the carriers than would be lost to attrition to US aircraft otherwise.

 

[Jeff Head]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

In that case then it would be foolhardy for the PLA to try to attack the carriers. The majority of its inventory, such as most of the PLAAF, won't even be able to reach the carriers. What weapons platforms it has that can reach will have to fly over the entire island of Taiwan and deal with Taiwanese surface to air defenses. Also, it wouldn't be cost-effective since even if an attack could succeed, far more Chinese aircraft would be lost in the attack on the carriers than would be lost to attrition to US aircraft otherwise.

In such an event the PLAAF and PLAN would probably coordinate attacks on multiple axis coming in from the north and south of the island. They may feint an axis over the island, but would not attempt the major attack from that quarter (IMHO) as the ROCAF (along with US Navy aircraft to be sure) would be covering that..

But the US Navy with it's hawkeye aircraft out and away from the carriers would be watching for precisely for all of this. It is likely that aircraft from Guam (like F22s) would be on hand to join in.

As I said, it would be a very, very difficult nut to crack and would require the utilization and potential risk to huge resources and assets.

The PLAAF and PLAN already know this and would try and use submarines and long range missiles to help...but it would be very, very hard to accomplish because they would not know the exact location of those carriers somewhere to the east of Taiwan.

 

[Roger604]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Actually, I think in such a scenario none of the ships would be able to communicate with one another. Nor would anything on Guam be able to communicate with any ships in a carrier group. Nor would any of the aircraft be able to communicate with one another unless they were in close range. Nor would any US military asset be able to communicate with the ROC military at all! Only old fashioned radio is going to work.

 

[Finn McCool]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Actually, I think in such a scenario none of the ships would be able to communicate with one another. Nor would anything on Guam be able to communicate with any ships in a carrier group. Nor would any of the aircraft be able to communicate with one another unless they were in close range. Nor would any US military asset be able to communicate with the ROC military at all! Only old fashioned radio is going to work.

I apologize for the one liner but why? ASAT taking out communications? Some sort of EMP weapon?

 

[Jeff Head]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Actually, I think in such a scenario none of the ships would be able to communicate with one another. Nor would anything on Guam be able to communicate with any ships in a carrier group. Nor would any of the aircraft be able to communicate with one another unless they were in close range. Nor would any US military asset be able to communicate with the ROC military at all! Only old fashioned radio is going to work.

Roger, you have made a very blunt statement without saying how such a major undertaking could be accomplished. Surely you know that will not fly on this forum.

Your implication sounds like a nuclear EMP (though you do not backup what you say with any explanation).

Modern US warship are hardened against such attacks, depending on the proximity of the attack, and would continue fighting. That protection is costly, but very achievable. It is the US civilian infrastructure which is most susceptable to such an attack.

IMHO, the Chinese, who are rational (as opposed to some of the fanatics in the world) would not go nuclear in such a scanario in any case in the near future because that would be playing to, and invite escalation, in an area where the US has an absolute strength, whose weapons are far more numerous, reliable, and accurate.

So, short of inviting a nuclear exchange, the PLAAF and PLAN would still have to find a way of saturating or defeating the conventional defenses of at least two US carriers somewhere east of Taiwan in the scenario I presented.

Your answer sounds like an admission that such an undertaking would be unacheivable to the point of either trying to continue and win the fight with those carriers in place, or resulting to a nuclear gambit out of desperation.

 

[Roger604]

Re: How Do You Sink A Carrier?

Finn, you are right. The first move in any hostility would be to take out all communication satellites. Once the satellites are gone, there would be no way for any aircraft, ships, submarines or bases to communicate with one another unless they were in close proximity. This makes the sort of coordinated actions Jeff is describing impossible.

The PLA folks know what they're doing: they have already established multi-platform and multi-layer measures to project power not only over Taiwan itself but also around it.

I don't think a Taiwan scenario is ever going to happen, but a more likely scenario would take place as China projects its power even further east over all of the East China Sea.