China sinking navy aircraft carrier is ultimate ‘nightmare scenario’

What you need to know: US Navy aircraft carriers face significant vulnerabilities to advanced anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems, particularly those developed by China. These systems rely on impressive numbers of missiles, hypersonic weapons, and swarms of drones to overwhelm an aircraft carrier’s limited defensive capabilities.

-While American carriers love the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Having survived Houthi attacks, China’s robust manufacturing capabilities allow it to deploy much larger quantities of advanced A2/AD weapons.

-In a conflict near China’s coast, U.S. aircraft carriers may struggle to withstand these attacks due to their volume and precision, posing a crucial challenge to U.S. naval dominance in the Indo-Pacific .

US aircraft carriers vulnerable to Chinese missile attacks because of mathematics

America faces the prospect of a great power war involving itself and China (perhaps other nations as well). Any conflict with China would be fought closer to China’s shores, meaning the U.S. Navy would be the tip of the spear in such a fight. The Chinese army understands this.

That’s why the Chinese have spent the better part of a decade developing and deploying advanced anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems that will prevent any attempt by the U.S. Navy to deploy warships. war near areas that China claims as their own. a time of war.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have already shown how the US Navy can at least be slowed by the introduction of increasingly sophisticated A2/AD-style attacks with anti-ship ballistic missiles.

Although the Americans can probably take out the Houthis, the likelihood that they will be able to take out China’s A2/AD networks before those systems take out a U.S. aircraft carrier in combat is low.

It’s because of a pesky little thing known as math.

Understanding Aircraft Carrier Capabilities

You see, the defensive systems aboard U.S. aircraft carriers or other surface warships, while impressive, are not infinite. They can, over time, become exhausted. These systems are also fallible. They can miss incoming attacks.

Even if they detect such attacks, the reality is that they may not be able to stop impending attacks, especially if those attacks take the form of missiles, hypersonic weapons, and drone swarms. .

This is precisely what makes China’s A2/AD networks so deadly. Beijing has combined its advanced manufacturing capabilities with its requirement for overwhelming quantities of missiles aimed at any approaching U.S. Navy warship, including aircraft carriers.

Even if the defenses aboard U.S. warships are operating at maximum capacity, they will be unable to stop the overwhelming number of missiles China will launch at those ships to keep them away from Chinese forces engaged in combat with a U.S. ally (probably Taiwan).

The attacks?

Earlier this year, the US Navy was faced with the prospects of one of its vaunted aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, destroyed by Houthi A2/AD systems. Fortunately, the iconic carrier was fine.

He survived some of the most tense fights of his life. Over the summer, rumors circulated that the carrier had been badly damaged by the Houthis. This ultimately was not the case.

What happened was that a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile was launched within 200 meters of the boat.

Author Experience and Expertise: Brandon J. Weichert

National Interest National Security Analyst Brandon J. Weichert is a former congressman and geopolitical analyst who contributes to The Washington Times, The Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is out from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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