China's 600-mile range DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile (and the newer longer-ranged DF-26B) looms over American carriers in the western Pacific.
America has invested a lot of money in our carrier task forces. The ships, aircraft, and escorting subs and ships represent a lot of money.
I think the damage to American national morale if one or more are lost could be significant given their glorious history and status as symbols of American power. Notwithstanding nonsense notions that they are unsinkable. And even if they are unsinkable, much less than that takes them out of action, possibly for the duration.
The Navy is not oblivious to the threat of working anti-ship ballistic missiles:
While the U.S. Navy has been quiet about how it plans to defend its ships against Chinese ship-killer ballistic missiles, they have not been idle. The navy has quietly expanded its layered air defense system with the addition of new electronic defenses. The navy is particularly quiet about any efforts to conduct realistic tests of its defenses against Chinese ballistic missiles.
It's a long kill chain to attack. Fingers crossed it can be broken at multiple points.
And I still have the worry that targeting is much simpler than we like to think. Is my worry really ridiculous given China's broad role in our supply chains?
And the Navy is working on even more capabilities:
The U.S. Navy will deploy a carrier strike group with advanced networking capabilities next year, in furtherance of the Pentagon’s vision for Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
Yes, networked carriers able to plug into networked defenses will add to the defensive strength of carriers. This says nothing about whether the effort to keep the carriers alive is worth the expense.
And what capabilities are lost in this effort to create a bubble at sea to protect the carriers close to China?
Of course, the DF-21 is not
the only threat to carriers, which have been attacked and sunk long
before the DF-21 appeared. Aircraft, submarines, shore-based anti-ship missiles, and missile-armed surface ships are threats.
I'm not comfortable with big carriers--the apex of platform-centric warfare--being the center of our surface fleet for sea control missions when network-centric warfare (or whatever the current term of art is) is increasingly possible to mass effort without massing platforms.
Before you object to that assessment, are you defending the carrier for sea control missions? Or for power projection missions? They are different. Once you appreciate that, my views may not be so different than yours.
And God help us, the Chinese are practicing to strike before the carrier strike group is formed at sea with its layered defenses up. Worse, there are newer threat in American home ports, too.
We're spending a lot of money to keep carriers in the sea control battle, shoehorning them into network-centric warfare. Wouldn't it be better to keep fewer for power projection and use the money freed up for assets more suitable--and cheaper and expendable--for network-centric warfare?
Keep in mind, too, that China can use those anti-ship ballistic missiles against other enemies. Including Russia, should China sour on their frenemy with benefits' usefuleness.
NOTE: Winter War of 2022 updates continue here.
