The link below documents that China is very determined to develop missile systems which will sink US carriers in any future war. Previous blogs at this website have periodically warned about this danger for a long time, but now official naval confirmation has come which acknowledges that this danger is a real one. The link states that “Admiral Robert Ward, the head of the US Pacific Command…made an alarming but little-noticed disclosure [that] China…was developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile…designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”
Indeed, China is developing an entire range of weaponry to try to make it absolutely certain that they can overwhelm US carrier defenses and sink them quickly at the beginning of a future war. Besides ICBMs targeted at carriers, these weapons include “cruise missiles, submarines, torpedoes and sea mines.” One Chinese sub demonstrated back in 2007 that it could penetrate US carrier defenses when it surfaced in Pacific waters within easy “kill” range of a US aircraft carrier. That incident demonstrated that Chinese submarines were far more able to penetrate US defenses than previously thought and that US naval planners were seriously underestimating Chinese naval abilities. The link below also cites a source from the Office of Naval Intelligence that China is rapidly advancing weapons systems from the conceptual stage to the deployment stage. The link indicates the US Navy is aware of the rapidly-growing threats to the survivability of US carriers, but it unclear what the Navy is doing to insure that US carriers could survive a war with China.
The link below includes an embedded link to Chinese YouTube videos on this subject. It is in the Chinese language so only those who speak Chinese will really understand it. However, there is one animated video which English-speakers will understand. Watch the second of the three offered segments and you will see the animation which acknowledges that while US carrier defenses can shoot down some attacking cruise missiles, the US Navy is overconfident that it can shoot down Chinese ICBMs targeting US aircraft carriers. The video clearly makes the point that China thinks its ICBMs can penetrate US carrier defenses and sink American carriers. If China believes its missiles can do that, then China will be more likely to go to war against the USA because it believes it can send US carriers to the bottom of the ocean. Notice the animated cartoon depicting a Chinese missile attack against US carriers portrays a defensive maneuvering capability on the part of Chinese ICBMs.
The link doesn’t even mention the threat to US carriers (and other major naval ships) posed by the Russian-made Sizzler, supersonic cruise missiles. These missiles are reportedly now on both Russian and Chinese submarines, as previous blogs at this website have documented. US carrier defenses were designed mostly in the Reagan-era to shoot down subsonic cruise missiles. Supersonic cruise missiles are a much more sophisticated threat. Either US carrier task forces have the ability to acquire and shoot down supersonic cruise missiles within seconds or they don’t. If they don’t have such a capacity yet, our carriers are sitting ducks. How good are US carrier defenses? Can they shoot down waves of subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles, Chinese ICBMs and advanced torpedoes fired by Russian and Chinese subs? All these weapons will be used simultaneously in any future attack. A very recent blog demonstrated that a sea mine apparently sunk a South Korean warship with relative ease. I hope our carrier task forces have a better ability to detect sophisticated Chinese sea mines (which may be constructed of plastics, plastic explosives and other materials which will evade magnetic detection systems). Can our carrier task forces shoot down dozens of missiles at once? How about scores of them? How about hundreds of them? China has the raw materials and financial resources to manufacture thousands of these missiles designed to attack US carriers. Unless US carrier task forces are carrying more defensive missiles than China has offensive missiles to attack with, our side will lose when we run out of defensive missiles. Also, what if the Chinese place a tactical nuclear weapon on the ICBMs designed to attack US carrier task forces?
I think one thing is predictable: If Chinese missiles sink US aircraft carriers in a war over Taiwan, Korea or in the Persian Gulf (via Iranian proxies), the political careers of President Obama and many in Congress will be “toast” because thousands of US sailors will die in such attacks and the American voters will be very unforgiving toward their unprepared political leaders who allowed such a tragedy. Indeed, impeachments might occur. Many political futures depend on US carriers having very extensive defensive weaponry to defeat all Russian, Chinese and Iranian missiles. Let’s hope our political leaders realize this fact and that such defensive weaponry has already been deployed. We don’t have years to develop such defensive weaponry. The Chinese are developing and deploying the offensive weaponry now. We need to deploy defensive weaponry now as well.
