Matrix Games Forums

Are Aircraft Carriers Becoming Useless?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXc-wPFj8IE

Until we find out another way to project sustained air and naval power over oceans, no.

ORIGINAL: StuccoFresco

Until we find out another way to project sustained air and naval power over oceans, no.

Well, air power can be delivered anywhere with mid-air refuelling, though it's not ideal.

The big development, though, will be the continued rise of UAVs- especially if they can be made autonomous. A UAV does not by any means need to be anything like as large as manned jet aircraft, and so they can be launched from much smaller vessels- or even from other aircraft. UAVs are also much more disposable than manned aircraft- an F-35 costs more than twenty times more than a Predator, even before you consider the cost of a pilot qualified to fly the former. I wouldn't want to be flying an F-35 against a squadron of autonomous drones, which can react faster and can pull as many Gs as they like since there's no pilot to fall unconscious.

Perhaps the technology isn't there yet- but I could imagine a scenario where a fleet of large cargo aircraft can launch a fairly impressive swarm of UAVs anywhere in the world at 24 hours notice. A Gerald R Ford class carrier costs $13 billion, enough for 50-100 C5 Galaxies, which can each load perhaps 20 drones. Your sea-carrier is still limping out of port when the other guy's air-carrier squadron arrives over the target zone and launches 500 drones. Recovery would be problematic- but there's much less at risk. Then there's the crew of the carrier- over 4,000 strong- who need to be trained and protected, versus a couple of hundred operating the drones and their motherships.

With the present a2/ad environments and aircraft config they may be.

Also; in 30 years we've cut our ranged capacity to deliver strikes in half, literally, even with tanking.
When Cheney killed the A12, the handwriting was on the wall.

And of course, yes Goldens comments above, in 30 years if that long, there wont be piloted aircraft. But we should still retain some capacity for that though. And the drones have to come from somewhere...its a sticky wicket.

ORIGINAL: carll11

And the drones have to come from somewhere...its a sticky wicket.

Well, as I said, the USN is already flying drones off much smaller ships, and there's no particular reason you can't fly them from larger aircraft

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: carll11

And the drones have to come from somewhere...its a sticky wicket.

Well, as I said, the USN is already flying drones off much smaller ships, and there's no particular reason you can't fly them from larger aircraft

Oh absolutely, let me back up then and say, I was thinking 'unmanned' strike aircraft, more along the lines of the X-47B, they have the prototype MQ-25A tanker and it appears once they integrate that, then they'll work on the X47 and the like which will fly off of carriers.

'Drones' delivered to flight for a strike by other aircraft just wont have the carry capacity, a 5 ounce swallow cant carry a 1 lb coconut[:D]

ORIGINAL: carll11


'Drones' delivered to flight for a strike by other aircraft just wont have the carry capacity, a 5 ounce swallow cant carry a 1 lb coconut[:D]

What if the drones carried the missile on a vine strung between them?

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: carll11


'Drones' delivered to flight for a strike by other aircraft just wont have the carry capacity, a 5 ounce swallow cant carry a 1 lb coconut[:D]

What if the drones carried the missile on a vine strung between them?

🤔