Re: The End of the Carrier Age?
Oh and would there be any Chinese internet sites that would lead me to believe that China has some sort of Close-range interceptor with Laser-pointer technology?
Nice strawman there. I have a feeling that you are imaginging some kind of fighter aircraft getting close-range, then use camera to identify the face of the pilots, before firing laser from some pod...
No, all it takes is a ground-base platform to point its laser in the general direction of the ABL. It will still have to be powerful, but it doesn't need to be as powerful nor as accurate as the ABL. All that needs to be ensured is enough power-per-area falls on the rectina.
China's interests in using laser in military is an open secret. There are also accusations on China of using its ground base laser to temporarily blind sensors on other nations' spy satellites. We happen to have a thread in the Army section about Chinese military lasers and you may want to ask about open literatures there.
Blinding the pilots only works as long as there's no one in the cabin behind the cock-pit left to fly the plain.
Blinding occurs as long as enough power-per-area falls on the rectina.
You should understand the context of the discussion first before you assume the ABL is going to get shot down.
You should stop treating China as Iraq before you assume ABL is not going to get shot down.
We're talking about a Carrier-killing AShBM, the DF-21D, being fired on a U.S.N. CBG.... than the 200 km max stand-off range of Chinese SAMs would not be enough to intercept the ABL before it destroys that DF-21D, assuming that the PLAN Air-defense Destroyers are dealt with properly.
I'm sure that ABL will have no technical problem shooting down a DF-21 when close enough. I don't think anyone is debating against that either. But the technicality is entirely different from being able to do so in total-war with another major power, on that power's home-turf.
There is a tendency among those who are in the religion of CVBG being invincible to portrait the opponent having zero capability, and to convert others into this religion. And some assumptions that have been thrown around as a result is quite frankly stupid. Your notion that air defense only consists soley of SAMs; that a strategic asset such as an ABL being placed on the very frontline; that PLAN air-defense is conviently non-existance, all fall into this category.
Then we have the usual retort "but how will China find the carrier" yadda yadda yadda, which has nothing to do with the Anti Ship
Ballistic Missile itself, but nevertheless being used with flaw logic to conclude that ASBM doesn't work. Then, observations (or lack there of) are skewed to support that conclusion.
If there is a 100% effective weapon, but it can't be used because there's no sensor, that doesn't imply said weapon is technically flawed.
Finally, a tactical nuke can be easily intercepted by the ABL.
That's the point, by forcing the ABL to choose between that or ASBMs. But I will drop this discussion on nukes because I thought ABL is being discussed in the context of nuclear armageddon.
