BF2S Forums What would it take to defeat a Carrier Strike Group?

1. Sufficiently quiet sub runs silent service and waits for the carrier group to pass over it. Pops half a dozen torpedoes at the carrier and skidaddles (to be hunted down and killed by the rest of the pissed off group).
2. Submarine wolf pack. Co-ordinated with 3 and 4 below.
3. Swarm the group with so many land based missiles the Aegis gets overwhelmed. Even they can't stop everything if you throw enough at it.

China doesn't have any carriers, but is busting to build some. India has some, but they aren't up to the US. No other country has a blue water navy able to go head to head with a US carrier group, apart from maybe the Russians, and they have let their navy run down. So ...

4. Land based squadrons of fighters and bombers launching swarms of missiles.

But the real clincher:

5. EMP pulse to knock out the computers. Military hard ware is pretty protected, but it would at least distract them if not knock them out temporarily. Stick an EMP bomb in a sea mine or similar, and leave it floating in front of where the group is going. Watch it by satellite until it gets close, then let off the pulse. Then cue 2, 3 and 4 above.

But I prefer the Under Siege scenario. Just so we all get to see Erika Eleniak's breasts again.

r2zoo wrote:

Major.League.Infidel wrote:

r2zoo wrote:

Anyone seen "The Sum of All Fears"?  They pretty much kicked the hell out of a carrier with a couple of well placed missle shots.  True it was sort of a sneak attack, and was jsut the carrier, but it is possible.

IIRC, in both the book and movie, There is 0 response from the Carrier's Escorts and Air Wing.  Hell even in the movie, in one of the panoramic shots, the Carrier is alone AND empty (no crewmen, planes, nothing).

Movie sucked IMO, book was much better, but as for it being empty, never really understood that.  But it does show how the Anit air/anti missle system can be over whelemed and that a carrier is vulnerable.  To be honest a bunch of guys running around on deck launching planes isnt much defense agaisnt already airborne aircraft currently attacking.  On the flipside carriers are almost always launching various aircraft 24/7 to deter such a thing and for training etc.

Defeating a carrier group would be nearly impossible directly without massive resources and lives.  However striking the homeports of the ships and armorys along with supply lines would effectivly cripple the ships.  Without gasoline for the aircraft, what good is your squadrons.  Sure a carrier can run for decades on a nuclear reactor, it will run out of drinking water, food, medical supplies, replacement parts and ammunation.  No supplies, no fight.

Shame we dont have Battleships in the Navy anymore, sure their obsolete but ill be damned if seeing that beast off your coastline wouldnt make you reconsider attacking

The System was overwhelmed because the escorts didn't open fire, and only one (of two on each side) CIWS systems opened fire, at a range much closer than their maximum range.  And according to the movie (I'm looking for my book, you've got me interested again), the planes get through by sneaking under the Carrier's Radar.  This may be possible if it's just the carrier, but good luck sneaking past the AEGIS', AWACS, and Air Screen, which can all scan to the water level.  Also note that in both the book and movie, the Ship is heavily damaged, not sunk.  The thing about the Nimitz is that, although you can take away all of its weapons and such, the ship is still built so well that you would have to flood almost every compartment to sink it.

Edit: In regards to being empty, I think it was just a film crew error.  I'm pretty sure the shots beforehand shows the pilots scrambling and such.

Last edited by Major.League.Infidel (2007-06-16 01:11:07)

mines

DeadboyUSMC wrote:

Rule out any kind of submarines attacking the carrier group. Yay destroyers and sonar.

Oh, and missiles, CWIS'll take them out.

Beg to differ... Active sonar or a Ping, will detect a sub. An active ping can be heard by anyone listening.  And its a double edged sword. Most ships do not troll around 24/7 Pinging. Now if a sub is silent and submerged IE just laying in the water not moving under its own power, cavitation will not occur and no sounds will be made from the sub (Cavitation is air bubbles that form when a subs screw(s) are churning.  If the sub is sitting silent and most modern subs due to the rubber like coating over the hulls are noise dampened, so no man made noises will escape the sub unless it is pressurizing its tubes, or opening torp doors.

A sub can sit for hours without making noise, if the tubes are flooded there goes that noise, all it would take is a loud and noisy carrier group to give the sub an idea of range and target range, from there all it would take is 1 active ping to set up a firing solution. Once the solution is made the sub can pop off 4 torps (most attack class subs have 4 foreward torpedo bays) 4 shots in the water, torps aren't what they used to be they seek noise and follow for the most part.  4 hits will cripple a carrier, if not cause it to take on mass amounts of water.   

What i'm saying is Nothing is invincible...where theres a will theres a way.
The russians if given the proper motivation can sneak a sub into a carrier group.
Hell the french could probably sneak a sub into a carrier group if given the proper motivation of Bree, and wine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_212_submarine with Barracuda Supercavitation Torpedoes...

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20061113-121539-3317r.htm

You know what, even if it is taken out. The U.S has like 10+ more of those supercarriers. That's just fucking hacking.


Even big countries have only one or two. Shit, China doesn't even have one yet. Then, these carriers are no way as big as the U.S ones. The USN is just miles better than anyone else. Still, i'm sure some sneaky tactics or a shitload of missiles will do the job.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai … in_service

Mekstizzle wrote:

Even big countries have only one or two. Shit, China doesn't even have one yet. Then, these carriers are no way as big as the U.S ones. The USN is just miles better than anyone else. Still, i'm sure some sneaky tactics or a shitload of missiles will do the job.

A shitload of anything will do the job.  The question is how big a shitload (and does any have the capacity to create it).

Bubbalo wrote:

If they're so good, why is the US still doing weapons research?

Because if you dont do constant research you're not going to last very long.
For every 1 person trying to make things better, and safer, there are 10 people trying to figure out ways to blow shit up, and kill people.
Its the nature of the beast.

Major.League.Infidel wrote:

pj666 wrote:

1. Sufficiently quiet sub runs silent service and waits for the carrier group to pass over it. Pops half a dozen torpedoes at the carrier and skidaddles (to be hunted down and killed by the rest of the pissed off group).
2. Submarine wolf pack. Co-ordinated with 3 and 4 below.
3. Swarm the group with so many land based missiles the Aegis gets overwhelmed. Even they can't stop everything if you throw enough at it.

China doesn't have any carriers, but is busting to build some. India has some, but they aren't up to the US. No other country has a blue water navy able to go head to head with a US carrier group, apart from maybe the Russians, and they have let their navy run down. So ...

4. Land based squadrons of fighters and bombers launching swarms of missiles.

But the real clincher:

5. EMP pulse to knock out the computers. Military hard ware is pretty protected, but it would at least distract them if not knock them out temporarily. Stick an EMP bomb in a sea mine or similar, and leave it floating in front of where the group is going. Watch it by satellite until it gets close, then let off the pulse. Then cue 2, 3 and 4 above.

1. The escorts are pinging away with Active Sonar the whole time, and the 2 688's are there for that reason
2. See above
3.  We're talking like 1,000+ missiles.   Think we'd notice a cluster of that many launchers, considering Joe Chinamen can't just pick up a Styx launcher and fire from the hip.
4.  Planes are even easier to hit than Missiles.
5.  I'm not sure if EMP is considered conventional, and I'm also unsure if any nation has weaponized it yet.  And Good Luck mining the Open Ocean unnoticed and getting the CVBG to stumble onto them, especially with the escorts pinging away and the S-3's flying ahead.  And since doing that would force the mines to be unsecured, there's no telling where they'd end up.  Also take into account Water's effects on an EMP pulse (I'm not sure of this, just thinking out loud).

Again, I can't stress this enough.  The Nimitz is built with so many compartments and is so watertight that you'd need to flood over 75% of the compartments to sink it.  That's just the way they are built.  So yes, you could take out its Teeth, but it would still be floating.(Uncomfirmed percentage, but I know it's more than 50%)

You might not sink it - but if there was plenty of aviation fuel around and a few AS-6's or something hit the right spot...

Land-based aircraft can hit a ship way beyond it's Aegis system's range. You need the fighters to deal with that.

I think it's safe to say that if a nation ever sunk a US carrier group, that nation would be lucky to not be a radioactive wasteland the next day

CannonFodder11b wrote:

Bubbalo wrote:

If they're so good, why is the US still doing weapons research?

Because if you dont do constant research you're not going to last very long.
For every 1 person trying to make things better, and safer, there are 10 people trying to figure out ways to blow shit up, and kill people.
Its the nature of the beast.

Keep in mind that was in response to someone arguing that only God can destroy it.  Surely once you get to that point R&D is a waste of money?

A missile attack would have even less chance of success after the recent refits of certain vessels which has seen the Phalanx system replaced with these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-116_Ro … me_Missile

how to destroy a carrier group? easy. 7 bombers is enough. how? get on the good side of the USA, so an overflight isn't seen as a big thing, then bomb the bridge of the shops, then get the hell out of there. either that or hijack 7 Airbus A380s and kamikaze them into the ships. you would only have the subs left, and they would likely be reassigned to a different carrier group or mothballed. juts remember to get yuor nuke defences in place first, or you will be nuked to death, then a few thousand more just to make sure. to aid in the mission, try to jam the missile defenses.