Modern Carriers can't fit through the Panama Canal and I am sure they would be fine going around the tip of South America.
How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
There would be records of the radar track in the computers of the Aegis cruisers in the task force. There may well be evidence of the launch captured by satellites. ELINT is very powerful, and the US intelligence agencies have been at this game since before WWII. Their sneakiness boggles the mind! They were using signals bounced off of the moon to spy on Soviet equipment, and disguised the whole thing as radio astron…
(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines?) Nukes. If I were the US, I'd simply make it an official matter of policy that any attack from a nuclear power would result in an immediate nuclear response, the logic being that once two nuclear powers are at war it's probably going to turn nuclear eventually, so you might as well make the first strike.
Please tell me you are joking.
Some of us spent our entire youth afraid of nuclear annihilation 24/7. We've been out of that for some time now, but I don't think anyone wants to send the world back to that point.
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#13Out of every $100 spent on national defense worldwide, $40–$50 are spent by the United States. About 30% of the US Federal budget is military spending, and about 13% is paying interest on money we borrowed for previous military spending.¹ Any hypothetical war that the US couldn’t win unless it spends even more coin on military hardware is not a hypothetical war that the US should be hypothetically fighting in the first place.
¹ http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spendi...
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#14And Iraq has chemical weapons, and Iran is a dangerous nuclear power, blah blah blah... Isn't $500 billion a year (50% of the federal budget!) enough for you people?
The federal budget is significantly more than 1 Trillion USD
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#15And Iraq has chemical weapons, and Iran is a dangerous nuclear power, blah blah blah... Isn't $500 billion a year (50% of the federal budget!) enough for you people?
More like 27% of the 2008 federal budget.
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#16For those who can't be bothered reading it, the posited scenario goes something like this: 1. China torpedoes a US aircraft carrier for no particularly good reason 2. China claims that the US aircraft carrier exploded all on its own, and nobody can prove otherwise 3. The US doesn't bother to retaliate 4. The US has thus "lost the Naval War of 2015". Does this scenario strike anyone as especially plausible?
> China torpedoes a US aircraft carrier for no particularly good reason
No. The scenario is that China hits a US carrier with a (conventionally armed) ballistic missile, for no particularly good reason
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#17Blah blah blah. 'I'm a Navy shill and let me tell you, China's going to kill us all within a very implausibly short-time if we don't shovel billions into cool new ships & weapons. We must eliminate the carrier gap!' Haven't we heard this story before? And here I was hoping for an interesting analysis of the Iran wargames and the dismal results for the carrier groups, but all I got was let's build a bigger bluewater f…
Indeed. It was a Tom Clancy book with a hawkish pitch. Let me know when the movie adaptation comes out.
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
There would be records of the radar track in the computers of the Aegis cruisers in the task force. There may well be evidence of the launch captured by satellites. ELINT is very powerful, and the US intelligence agencies have been at this game since before WWII. Their sneakiness boggles the mind! They were using signals bounced off of the moon to spy on Soviet equipment, and disguised the whole thing as radio astron…
(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines?) Nukes. If I were the US, I'd simply make it an official matter of policy that any attack from a nuclear power would result in an immediate nuclear response, the logic being that once two nuclear powers are at war it's probably going to turn nuclear eventually, so you might as well make the first strike.
Well, I guess the whole world can thank their deity of choice that you're nowhere near being in charge of anything.
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
There would be records of the radar track in the computers of the Aegis cruisers in the task force. There may well be evidence of the launch captured by satellites. ELINT is very powerful, and the US intelligence agencies have been at this game since before WWII. Their sneakiness boggles the mind! They were using signals bounced off of the moon to spy on Soviet equipment, and disguised the whole thing as radio astron…
(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines?) Nukes. If I were the US, I'd simply make it an official matter of policy that any attack from a nuclear power would result in an immediate nuclear response, the logic being that once two nuclear powers are at war it's probably going to turn nuclear eventually, so you might as well make the first strike.
If I were the US, I'd simply make it a matter of official policy to make as many official, unofficial, formal, informal, commercial and personal ties to every country in the world as possible, to the maximum extent that any ideology on either side allows.
Yes, certainly we need to maintain defensive and offensive military capabilities, but I think we should be doing much, much more to reduce the need for those capabilities.
Re: How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015
#20For those who can't be bothered reading it, the posited scenario goes something like this: 1. China torpedoes a US aircraft carrier for no particularly good reason 2. China claims that the US aircraft carrier exploded all on its own, and nobody can prove otherwise 3. The US doesn't bother to retaliate 4. The US has thus "lost the Naval War of 2015". Does this scenario strike anyone as especially plausible?
> China torpedoes a US aircraft carrier for no particularly good reason No. The scenario is that China hits a US carrier with a (conventionally armed) ballistic missile, for no particularly good reason
I stand corrected. Don't aircraft carriers have pretty good missile defence systems, though?