Reminds me of those guys that said "Hey let's take guns off of fighters, we only need missiles!!"

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/08/10/is-this-the-end-of-the-aircraft-carrier.aspx

There will never be an end to a carrier, not on this planet and in space.

Lots of people also said that battleships would never go away...

Or was it just one person saying it lots of times PM?

Sorry about that. I got a "bad gateway error" several times when I was trying to post. Seems like SimHQ server is still having issues.

With the advent of the US Navy's rail gun that can fire solid projectiles at targets over the horizon they might just be on the way out.

That's exactly what I was thinking of as well. Why use an aerial platform to deliver ordnance when you have a rail gun that can do it with a high degree of accuracy and lethality? I don't see carriers going away any time soon but I wouldn't be surprised if they are supplanted entirely by railgun platforms in my lifetime.

I was thinking more along the lines of the danger to the carrier itself

I'd think the angle you need to shoot from would be a major factor. A rail gun would fire from straight on or plunging. Not so great for pinpoint accuracy when you want to take out the enemy HQ located on the other side of the school from you. If you want accuracy, you drop a bomb or fire a missile from the other direction. And a ship can't fire from land.
Not to mention moving targets.

I see a railgun as a separate application to the projection of air power. The rail gun may supplant/replace large calibre naval batteries (e.g. 18" guns) that you used to get on large warships, so for naval actions and shore bombardment it will have pretty useful application. However, if you want to target a particular building in a built up area filled with similarly tall buildings, especially some distance inland, it'll be less useful. Plus if you fire it in a high angle trajectory, it probably won't have much more KE than any other projectile.

Carriers aren't going anywhere. Well, unless they price themselves out of the market, which seems to be the direction Defence in general is going.

Railguns, AFAIK, are supposed to be reallllly, realllly accurate at really long ranges. I would imagine that any aircraft entering the "Direct fire" ranges of the gun are well, pretty much dead as soon as they enter that zone. Indirect fire is probably a different story. The ship mounted lasers in development are supposed to be even more accurate than that...

You need orbital railguns to do it right.

Rail guns and missiles can't lift and deliver assault troops.

The primary role of the carrier may evolve, but I think they will be around for a lot of versatile missions.

I think themselves carriers will be survivable for some time, however at some point you're going to have people wondering its it worth spending $20 billion (or more) just to forward deploy 50 fighters and some support aircraft?

Especially when air defenses improve to the point that those fighters end up mostly using standoff weapons anyway.

I think carriers are different though because carriers are like a floating mobile bases with an airstrip battleships were just floating gun platforms .. You can deploy troops.. supplies, in addition to all of the other more common carrier features ..

Railguns can fire at targets over the horizon, lasers can't, only line of sight. Light won't bend over the horizon.

The Chinese seem to have no doubts and are including the carrier in their vision of an expanding maritime power.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/08/02/is-china-building-another-aircraft-carrier/

That Chinese missile SOUNDS pretty dangerous if it works as advertised. Pinpoint accuracy on a 30 kt moving target from 60+ miles up???

from the comments:



Can't wait for the pics.

People thinking about a replacement for things is hardly the sign of the end of them.

We've had unpiloted planes of one type or another for multiple decades now, and we STILL haven't eliminated pilots.

Most likely scenario is they eventually work out a design along these lines which results in maintaining FEWER than a dozen carriers, not their total elimination.




The Jedi Master

carriers are going to change for sure.

carriers of the future will likely be unpiloted flying wings that can fly at extreme altitudes for weeks or months on end without coming down.

they won't carry many planes - probably less than 10 drones.

they'll be thin, lanky things that fly at stratospheric altitudes and the drones they launch will make one way trips from the carrier to the target and then to an airbase where they'll be redeployed for use on some other carrier about to be sent up for its mission.


that's my prediction anyway. to be honest i don't see why we aren't already doing it now considering the huge cost savings and ability to put more weapons on target without the logistical problems of moving an entire fleet to support the carrier..

supercarriers are a huge liability, all kinds of security threats