Should have been more precise...
They are doing longer cruises "In Peacetime"...
What will they allow when the shooting starts...

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 10:04 am: Edit

Liaoning does not have any kind of catapult, steam, explosive charge or EMALs.

Limits the kind / size and combat loads of any carrier fixed wing aircraft the ship can actually use.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 10:37 am: Edit

Jack Bohn,

Drones can be very small. You may not know where they are or aren't. For example, a single truck full of small drones might launch its drones from near a port in the carrier's home country, hitting fuel tanks on either the carrier or its airplanes, resulting in the destruction of the carrier.

Or a submarine that is itself a drone might be waiting on the ocean floor in case a carrier comes nearby. It could then surface and launch its drones, again potentially destroying the carrier.

Check out the video from operation spider web if you don't believe me.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 10:42 am: Edit

The Shandong Chinese aircraft carrier had a port visit about ten days ago to Hong Kong. Three ships, the carrier, a frigate and a destroyer.

Before you guys go nuts worrying about multiple Chinese carrier groups deploying for open ocean exercises and what not, try to remember that the Shandong was the ship that developed large cracks across the supposedly armored flight deck while fitting out over a TWO Year time period. (Scads of satellite photo’s exist showing the cracks.) supposedly the cracks align with the fire doors on the hanger deck (or more accurately) aligns with the hanger fire door frames.

It just might be a problem of not correctly fitting expansion joints on the flight deck, or it could be more serious.

To date, neither the Liaoning or the Shandong have demonstrated the ability to operate with a full or even a partial carrier air wing of 60 to 90 aircraft.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 11:12 am: Edit

Jack Bohn,

For another way a carrier, or any ship for that matter, could be sunk by drones, check out the video of the sinking of the Ivanovets.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 12:17 pm: Edit

Drones today are what aircraft carriers were at the beginning of WWII. Many old fashioned admirals in 1940 thought of planes as novelties. But they became the dominant way of projecting sea power.

Drones are today's analog.

I see the future of naval warfare being small, hidable platforms that can transport drones. Subs work for that (and a sub is nearly immune to drones, unless caught near the surface).

Don't get me wrong. Just like there was a place for battleships in WWII, there's also a place for traditional aircraft carriers in today's modern navy. However, large ships like a carrier are vulnerable to a drone swarm until a defense is envisioned.

An EMP Pulse generator may be such a defense mechanism (swat a whole swarm out of the sky), but to my knowledge no such system exists today.

Until there's a viable, reliable defense against a drones (singular or in a swarm), they're going to remain king - especially given the asymmetrical nature of the costs of using them.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 12:23 pm: Edit

I watched the video in the link William provided.

You can clearly see the splashes in the water from the bullets being fired from the Ivanovets. The Russians clearly knew they were under attack and were trying to do something about it. However, the nimble, small drone avoided the fire and then delivered its payload to devastating effect.

I didn't see *that* many bullet splashes. I imagine the U.S. navy's Phalanx defense system could splash an entire swarm of drones. However, the problem is... do you have enough rounds for the Phalanx? Drones are *cheap* and you can keep throwing them at a ship.

Still at least, that's some defense.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 12:41 pm: Edit

The CIWS reportedly holds 1,550 rds in the magazine.
With the avg firing cycle of 100 rds, it could engage 15 to 20 targets....
Time to reload (something I heard in the 80s) was around 30 mins... How many reloads I haven't heard...

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 12:53 pm: Edit

Mark,

Thanks for those stats.

Thinking about it, with a 30 minute reload time, even with multiple phalanx systems a ship will be vulnerable to a drone swarm. Heck, even the cost 1000 combat drones (variable, but as low as roughly 1 million) is trivial compared to the cost of even a new frigate (1.6 billion).

Attack a ship from many different directions with a few hundred drones and CIWS won't be enough.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 01:18 pm: Edit

A modern U.S. navy carrier is 100,000 tons and 41/2 acres of flight deck.

Unless a small drone manages to start a massive fire (such as might happen with a fully combat loaded f-18 super hornet with drop tanks and internal tanks fully loaded with jet fuel) the amount of damage to the structure of the ship should be negligible. (Foot note:in 1969 the U.S.S. Enterprise, CVN-65 survived the equivalent of 19 missile strike/explosions during training exercises just off of Hawaii. The since declassified reports at the time indicated that had there been need, the ship could have continued combat operations.)

Mission kills, such as knocking out satellite communications, or radio communications, or Radar etc would be an entirely different question.

Of more concern are the Chinese carrier killer missiles… but there are not an infinite number of such ballistic missiles in the Chinese armory (yet).

The U.S. carriers, with the ability to refuel aircraft in the air, could stand off hundreds or even a thousand miles or more out of the immediate combat zone, supporting the air strikes targeted on major threats to The U.S. or its allies.

Plus, even the Chinese carrier killer missiles are vulnerable to the carrier strike groups AAW standard missiles, which have been upgraded to kill the larger chinese ballistic missiles. (At least according to f.y.e.o. Reports…)

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 01:49 pm: Edit

U.S.S. midway, CVA-41 (a museum ship that hasn’t moved from its moorings since 2004.) was rammed by the yacht “Offshore” July 18, 2025.

Not many details, but apparently, the yacht tried to squeeze in between the carrier and the dock.

Bottomline: it didn’t fit.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 03:23 pm: Edit

Jeff,

Ukraine routinely uses small drones to start massive fires. Operation Spider Web is one set of examples. Another comes from the ammo cook offs one sees from Ukrainian attacks on anything that stores ammunition. Frequently the drone is guided to wherever the ammo is stored.

In addition to that, drones can repeatedly attack the same place, in order to cause flooding for example.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 03:51 pm: Edit

William Jockusch:

The armor on U.S. Nimitz class carriers is classified, but it has been released that there is 2.5 inches of Kevlar, plus the normal 3/8 inch hull plating.

The war head “cook offs” that detonated on the U.S.S. Enterprise, and also on the U.S.S. Forestal did not penetrate the flight deck armor back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Unless you have specific knowledge of U.S. carriers armor protection or specific known weaknesses, it would appear that both the Nimitz and Ford class carriers are far better protected than any of the Russian ships attacked by Ukraine. Given that most of those ships were leftover from the Soviet Union, one could argue that it is not a fair comparison.

I should also point out, that Ukraine has benefited from reconnaissance information that (hopefully) will not be available to China, in the event of open War. (I suspect that once war breaks out, there will be an open hunting season on all reconnaissance assets in orbit.)

Of course, I could be mistaken.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 03:53 pm: Edit

One tomahawk, getting through to the 3 gorges dam, would do more damage/deaths, than every weapon in china's arsenal,short of nuke.....
Rumors of stability issues at the dam, should make any threat a real issue for the chinese.....

By Randy Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 04:12 pm: Edit

I think my post was more related to the sorry state of our ship-building industry than to anything else.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Jeff Wile,

Obviously I don't have specific knowledge. But I imagine China might, via hacks for example.

No doubt US ships are better protected than Russian ones. But that does not mean they are sufficiently protected.

The wide range of drone capabilities makes sufficient protection next-to-impossible.

If the flight deck armor is strong, they will attack somewhere else. A swarm of drones can use teamwork to navigate a pre-determined path, breaking through successive protections until they reach the critical point.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 05:43 pm: Edit

William Jockusch:

You are assuming the united States Navy and or the National Command Authority will be oblivious of the danger and passively allow the enemy uncontested control of the airspace surrounding a Carrier battle group.

You do realize that is against policy, custom and practice for CBGs to cooperate with an enemy to result in the loss of ship and life?

You directly imply that the US Navy is going to repeat the mistakes that Putin, his Generals and the soldiers in the field have made against Ukraine.

The problem, is there is far more evidence (decades of it) that China, the politburo, Ji Ping and those officers who haven’t yet been relieved of duty for various reasons have much more in common with Russia and how they have historically fought very poorly every chance the had.

I would also like to point out that F.Y.E.O. And various media articles over the last three years have examined several projects the U.S. Army and the Navy for combating drone swarms.

Yes, the early efforts were not very successful, but they have been working the problem, and at least claim that they found tactics and techniques to protect united states forces on land and sea from potential drone swarm attacks.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 05:52 pm: Edit

Concerning the U.S.S. Midway, CVA-41, subsequent news report indicates that alcohol played a role…

Apparently the man controlling the yacht was very drunk when he decided to ram the U.S.S. Midway.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 06:55 pm: Edit

A few points on drone swarms vs a CVN:

1. CVNs are not (usually) supposed to get close to the enemy coast. They stand off hundreds of miles away and launch airstrikes. Compared to this, the Black Sea is a bathtub. Ukraine's huge successes there really don't apply. To get a really big swarm after a CVN you either need to get a sizable ship close (in a war zone, it will become a war grave before it can launch anything) or get a submarine close (a more realistic option).

2. As pointed out by others, such public information as there is indicates that USN CVNs are much better armored than almost anything in the Russian navy and can probably shrug off any small-ish drone without creating any risk of the ship sinking.

3. Unless there are armed and fueled aircraft on deck, there is nothing to hit that would cause a major secondary explosion (as happens with ammo dumps). The USN has a history of using "deck parks" for ready aircraft, but with air wing reductions since the end of the cold war that is now more of a convenience than an operational necessity. As others have also noted, there are historical instances of modern USN carriers surviving major on-deck aircraft explosions without there being any risk of the ship sinking. Absent an "Akagi at Midway" scenario, there won't be crippling secondary "BOOMs."

The one way that I can see a drone swarm giving a CVN a Very Bad Day (tm) is to target small drones at critical unarmored operational systems. Radars, communications gear, EW gear, etc are mostly out in the open and unarmored. Take out a lot of that stuff and you will severely compromise the carrier's operational capabilities. It's also possible that you might be able to target the catapults, which would cripple the ship's ability to operate aircraft. Of course, to do precision targeting of that sort would require controlling the drones through a live feed, which is susceptible to jamming.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 11:42 pm: Edit

From the navweaps site CIWS "Block 0 took two men 10 to 30 minutes to change the magazine. Block 1 greatly reduced reload time to less than five minutes by using a pre-loaded ammunition cassette.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 12:24 am: Edit

How have laser based CIWS been maturing? I think one of them frying the cameras on a Drone ought to be sufficient to neutralize it.

I know some experimentation had been done with a green light frequency laser as a non-lethal weapon, but IIRC, its use in that role has been banned as, "A cruel and inhumane weapon that leaves people crippled for life due to permanently blinding them!!"

Some test footage I've seen with this system featured permanent damage to the digital video camera that was filming it; the same sort of permanent damage that would permanently blind a drone.

Given the dancing laser lights that have lit up smoke during rock concerts, I can see this as something that should be useful for defending ships against Drone swarms.

Also, has there been any real work on a directional EMP type weapon? I've heard rumors, but never anything confirmed (or denied, for that matter). That might fry GPS system guidance.

By Randy Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 11:42 am: Edit

I think the rudders would be an obvious target, considering the small explosive payload of a typical drone. And considering Jason's and Jeff's points, the threat from drones to a CVN group hundreds of miles out to sea, is miniscule compared to "carrier killer" ballistic missiles.

Still, if you don't plan for the worst... the worst happens.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 12:44 pm: Edit

WWII vs Modern carriers, the Elevator...
Moved from Center of Deck to the edge....
Leaving a large hole at the side of the ship
during operations....

As good or better chance a drone could enter the hanger deck, as it would hit the EW/Radio Antennas....

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 06:35 pm: Edit

Japan announced earlier this week that they intend to gift six warships to the Philippines.

Apparently the average age of the ships is thirty years, and the actual material condition of the ships wasn’t detailed in the report I saw. They are destroyer type ships, and the picture provided showed a triple torpedo launcher and a helicopter pad.

Assuming that the Philippines can afford to refit and arm the ships, this would be a potential game changerin the south china sea land grab that China is pushing.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 06:55 pm: Edit

Game changer? No, not enough ships for that. The Chinese navy has plenty of surface combattants; those six Philippine destroyers would last about a day.