Is this an argument on how China/Russia missiles can penetrate a USN CVBG? I thought we were only tossing out theories here. In general, modern navies are hard to penetrate if they know you are coming, you want to catch them by surprise.
I don't know what you would quantify as lo cruise missile. We've seen some RCS reduction with DH-10 and YJ-83 flies pretty low and is generally around the same size as harpoon and Exocet.
Nope. But we need to establish a treshold for volume and competence of the systems of the attacker. What capabilites and what numbers does one need to sink a USN carrier, which we use as a benchmark.
The treshold is important. As gf has pointed out, we are looking for capabilities and numbers on Soviet era levels.
Hence it becomes relevant to highlight what is out there, and quite frankly, the French and the British really aren't looking to kill a USN carrier...
Enter nations who are looking for carrier killing capability, and you end up discussing their approaches.
There are some good suggestions from my fellow contributors, and weaknesses have been identified, like massed LO/VLO subsonics, and subsurface warfare in particular, which we haven't really touched upon.
However, there are also immense weaknesses in the methods for targeting the carrier, as well as we also disregard proactive measures from USN and shorebased support. And of how the USN actually geographically deploy their carriers in wartime.
What I am looking for is that treshold. Just saying "I'll use maritime surveillance sats to locate the carrier" just doesn't take into account the numbers needed and limitations of said, as well as the weaknesses from proactive measures from the US. And the same goes for weapons and launch platforms and C3 and ISR beyond mar surveil sats.
So how do we close the kill chain? What type of assets do we need to locate the carrier? In What numbers do have coverage and persistence? How to achieve redundancy with other location methods...? Some level of assuredness is needed or the attack platforms becomes superfluous....
When that has been done, how to establish C2, method, how many platforms, types of weapons, redundancy once again. What weaknesses and strengths does a specific weapon or method have.
Derived from above and hinted at in earlier posts, the quality of the acquired locational data has to match the tactics for sinking the carrier or the attacker will essentially fire into the dark.
Match between targeting data and the method (weapon) that is employed.
For instance a volley of long range cruise missiles will have to be updated until they can locate the target on their own. So they do not need the same acute level of accuracy of the ASBM, but is more dependant on persistence. The ASBM will need extremely accurate data, but is less dependant on persistence.
Both are extremely dependent on comms.
This is a huge apparatus that has to be established, even to establish area denial of a specific region.
Single method approaches suffer from that if the kill chain is broken, the wannabe carrier sinker is left with... nothing. So redundancy in ISR, redundancy in tactics, weapos, weapons delivery.
Supersonics and ballistic missiles are one-trick ponies
in extremis, making them very vulnerable.
Most suggestions attempt to avoid the main force engagement (asymmetrics), but do not have the mass or leverage, because they'll need to go through the main force engagement for the method to work anyway. Otherwise it's like peeing in the ocean, waiting for the carrier to rust away, all the while the carrier shapes the battlespace permanently in its favour.
Because sinking that carrier is not done by concept, but is determined by what doable and establishing that kill chain.
(Alright, the second last para was crude, but colourful.
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