How Hard It Is to Sink a Modern Aircraft Carrier
The analysis on how hard it actually is to sink a modern US Navy super aircraft carrier (supercarrier).
Introduction
According to the dictionary, an aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck (runway) and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering an aircraft. There are 43 aircraft carriers currently sailing with 14 different navies. Of 43 carriers on earth, 11 of them belong to the United States Navy and each of them can carry up to 80 jet aircraft.
The reason why the US has so many aircraft carriers is because of one of the country’s diplomatic principles, the “Big Stick Policy”. The “Big Stick Policy” refers to US President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: “Speak softly and always carry a big stick; you will go far”. The “Big Stick Policy” has five components, one of which is to have a serious military capability that would force the adversary to pay close attention. Therefore, it is one of the aircraft carrier jobs to enforce the policy.
Recently, the Chinese claim that US carriers are extremely vulnerable and can be considered obsolete. They also said that US carriers are easy targets for the Chinese carrier killer missiles. But is it that easy to sink an aircraft carrier, especially the US supercarrier? Let’s take a look at the facts.
Exercise SinkEx: The Sinking of USS America (CV-66)
USS America is one of the early United States Navy (USN) supercarriers. She belongs to the second class of US supercarrier, the Kitty Hawk-class. Different from the current USN carriers that are using nuclear power as the source of propulsion, USS America and the Kitty Hawk-class were still using steam boilers. She was decommissioned in 1996 following huge budget cuts after the end of the Cold War.
On April 19, 2005, the already-decommissioned USS America was towed to the Atlantic from Philadelphia to participate in the Exercise SinkEx, the exercise specially designed to sink her. She was fully loaded with fuel and mock aircraft on her deck to simulate a real functioning aircraft carrier. The navy squadrons used her as target practice. In the exercise, USS America managed to stay afloat after four straight weeks of constant bombardment by US Navy surface ship squadrons. It is later known that she can survive that long because of her massive size and there are so many compartments that need to be filled with water for her to sink. On top of that, even though she does not have the armor of a WW2 battleship, she does have a double-layered hull. That means the weapons hitting her have to push an alternating layer of steel and empty space to reach her internal compartment. In the end, when the navy really wants to sink her, they even need to board her to put explosives on her hull to make her sink because external explosions from weapons could not sink her. The lessons learned from the sinking of USS America is being used by the navy to perfect the design of the new supercarrier class being built for the navy, the Gerald Ford-class.
If it took a lot of time to sink an unarmed, old supercarrier, then imagine how hard it is to sink a modern fully functioning aircraft carrier with active escort ships at the ready, her aircraft actively patrolling, and her weapons ready to intercept any incoming weapons aimed at her, especially if the carrier has a perfectly designed hull like the new Gerald Ford-class. Just imagine how hard it is.
Talking about defensive weapons, let’s take a look at what a supercarrier has to defend itself from attack.
Defensive Layer of a Supercarrier
There are multiple defensive layers to defend a supercarrier. The first layer is her air wing with a total of up to 78 aircraft. Typically a modern US Navy carrier air wing consisted of:
- Four strike fighter squadrons (VFA) with up to twelve F/A-18E/F Super Hornets or F/A-18C/D Hornets each (over forty aircraft in total); possibly will be complemented by the stealth F-35C Lightning II;
- One electronic warfare squadron (VAQ) with five EA-18G Growlers;
- One carrier airborne early warning squadron (VAW) with up to five E-2C or E-2D Hawkeyes;
- One helicopter sea combat squadron (HSC) with up to eight MH-60S Seahawks;
- One helicopter maritime strike squadron (HSM) with up to eleven MH-60R Seahawks;
- One fleet logistic support (VRC) squadron with up to two C-2A Greyhounds.
The air wing composition designed to allow for broad striking power hundreds of miles from the carrier’s position while providing defense in depth of the battle group through early warning and detection of airborne, surface, and underwater targets.
Other than the on-board carrier air wings, US Navy supercarriers always have escorts because they are never allowed to sail alone. They are always escorted by multiple ships and the escorts acted as the second defensive layer. A carrier and her escort ships are called a carrier strike group or CSG. A modern US Navy CSG typically includes:
- A supercarrier with her carrier air wing (CVW) on-board
- One or two Aegis guided-missile cruisers (CG, Ticonderoga-class)
- A destroyer squadron (DESRON) with two or three Aegis guided-missile destroyers (DDG, Arleigh Burke-class)
- Up to two nuclear-powered attack/hunter-killer submarine (SSN)
- A combined ammunition, oiler, and supply ship
The guided-missile cruiser present in the CSG serves as a multi-mission surface combatant, equipped with Harpoon anti-ship missiles for anti-shipping capability and Tomahawk cruise missiles for long-range ground strike capability.
The DESRON in CSG serves also as the multi-mission surface combatant, used primarily for anti-aircraft (AAW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, but which also carries Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles for long-range anti-shipping/strike capability.
Both CG and DDG in the CSG are equipped with the Aegis Combat System (ACS). The ACS, other than the AN/SPY-1 radar that can detect a small object from long range, is composed of the Aegis Weapon System (AWS), the fast-reaction component of the Aegis Anti-Aircraft Warfare (AAW) capability, along with the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) that functioned as the interceptor for hostile objects that are flying to close the ship and the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System that can accommodate a wide variety of missiles, such as RIM-66 Standard medium-to-long-range surface-to-air missiles, RIM-67 Standard ER and RIM-174 Standard ERAM long-range surface-to-air missiles with limited surface-to-surface capability, and RIM-161 anti-ballistic missile missile with anti-satellite capability.
Hunter-killer submarines in CSG used to screen the strike group against hostile surface ships and submarines, but which also carry Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability.
The carrier itself also carries its own weapons, but only for short-range engagement if the multi-layered fleet defense is failed to stop the enemy. This is usually called the third and the last layer of defense. Typically a Nimitz-class supercarrier carries RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and RIM-116 Rolling Air Frame surface-to-air missiles, and also up to four Phalanx CIWS.
All of those weapons mentioned above are designed to face multiple varieties of threats given by the enemy. Let’s take a look at the multiple scenarios of attack against the supercarrier.
Multiple Threat and The Scenario of an Attack
There are multiple threats that can threaten the carrier. First of all, there is an air attack. An air attack can vary from the surface or air-launched anti-ship missiles to bombers or maritime strike fighter carrying conventional bombs and torpedoes. The second threat is an underwater attack. This can come from enemy hunter-killer submarines or even from a minefield. The third threat is surface combatants attack that came in the shape of large surface ships or even small boats that are deployed by Iran. The fourth and also the new kind of threat is from ballistic missiles. Since the cold war, US enemies threaten to shoot US carriers using nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. But since the ballistic missiles available then are designed to shoot static targets such as cities and not fast-moving targets like the CSG, they did not consider it as a threat. However, today there are new ballistic missiles available that can target moving targets such as carriers used by the Chinese called the DF-26.
In order to anticipate an air and surface attack, US carriers always has Hawkeye aircraft with its airborne radar to patrol the airspace around the carriers so it can detect enemy aerial and surface movement at the earliest as possible from over-the-horizon. Other than airborne radar carried by Hawkeyes, there are also AN/SPY-1 multifunction radar and multiple variations of aerial and surface search radar carried by the escort ships. There are also hunter-killer submarines screening the carrier to search for the enemy surface target.
In a scenario of an air attack, Hawkeyes from VAW will detect any foreign flying object traveling to the direction of the carrier. After it was considered hostile, aircraft from VFA is responsible for intercepting the hostile flying object such as enemy fighter, bomber aircraft, or even cruise missiles. Usually, aircraft from VFA will perform a combat air patrol or CAP around the CSG with more aircraft on stand by ready to launch on the deck, so there are always aircraft ready for the interception. Aircraft from VAQ will jam enemy electronic equipment to confuse them and make it harder for them to aim weapons at the carrier or the VFA aircraft that are trying to intercept them. If the enemy managed to slip away from the VFA aircraft, escort ships have the authority to shoot them down using long-range and medium-range missiles and if they also managed to slip through the missile defense, they will be met with short-range weapons of the carrier.
In a scenario of surface combatants attack, the hunter-killer submarines screening the CSG will detect the enemy first and sink them using their torpedoes or underwater-launched anti-ship missiles. In case of the hunter-killer submarines attack failed or the attack does not come from the direction of the screening submarines, the VFA aircraft will be launch from the carrier with air-launched anti-ship missiles mounted on them. They will be the second ones to attack the enemy ships with anti-ship missiles or small fishing boats with their guns and laser-guided bombs. If during the aerial attack the enemy ship survived or the VFA aircraft got shot down, the escorts ships will respond and launch their own Harpoon missiles.
In a scenario of a ballistic missile attack, radars from Aegis escort ships will detect them and launch RIM-161 missiles to intercept them.
Other than the anticipation of aerial and surface attack, the CSG also has the anticipation of underwater attack. There are multiple kinds of sonars carried by the escorting submarines and surface ships from regular sonar arrays that are mounted on the hull to towed-array sonars. Other than the sonars on the escorting ships, there are also dipping sonars that can be deployed by the helicopter of the carrier air wing.
In a scenario of an underwater attack from submarines, the screening submarines will try to intercept and sink the threat. If the screening submarines failed, the enemy submarines managed to slip through, or the attack does not come from the direction of the screening submarines, the Seahawks helicopters will try to sink them with depth charges or aerial-launched torpedoes. Escort surface ships will also launch anti-submarine torpedoes.
Conclusion
If we look at the fact, it is actually very hard to sink a modern US supercarrier. As we can read from the experience of sinking the USS America (CV-66), it is even hard to sink an unarmed, old, inactive supercarrier. US carriers also came with multiple layers of defense that if not impossible, very hard to penetrate. So the talks about the carrier being obsolete are false. We also can say that the Chinese claim of US carriers is easy to sink is only a bluff and even the Chinese themselves are trying to build as many carriers as the United States.
