Hypersonic Missile Target Set

The Navy (and US military, in general) has latched on to hypersonic weapons and, as is typical of the Navy, with absolutely no supporting evidence or testing that demonstrates that hypersonic weapons will be effective enough to justify their cost and other negative impacts.  We touched on this in a previous post (see, “Conventional Hypersonic Prompt Strike Missile”).

  

Speaking of cost,

 

Based on internal Defense Department estimates on the number of weapons planned, that amounts to about $106 million per missile for the Army and $89.6 million for the Navy.[1]

 

One time use missiles that cost a hundred million dollars!  How can that possibly be justified?

 

Here’s a cost for integrating – not producing! – hypersonic missile components:

 

Lockheed Martin won $347 million to integrate at least eight of those glide bodies with guidance systems, rocket boosters, protective canisters, and so on, arming a battery of four Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) launchers.[2] [ed. = $43M each]

 

The 2021 GAO Annual Weapons Assessment report cites a program cost of $3.96B ($FY21) for a quantity of 11 missiles ($360M each) without specifying what’s included in the cost.

 

While there are no reliable unit cost figures for hypersonic weapons, yet, it is clear that they’re going to be very expensive.  The first reference, citing a cost of $90M per missile for the Navy, is the most authoritative estimate that I’ve been able to find.

 

Now, with that kind of staggering cost in mind, how do we justify hypersonic weapons?

 

Well, one way would be if the destructive effects were several levels beyond devastating - a near nuclear bomb level of destructive power from a single weapon.  However, the destructive effects are nowhere near that level.  They will either depend on kinetic energy alone or use a conventional warhead which limits the size of the explosive power to conventional levels although that would be added to whatever kinetic effects there are.

 

As we’ve repeatedly demonstrated via calculations, kinetic energy, alone, is rarely sufficient to produce a useful destructive force.  Kinetic energy is also a tricky phenomenon to effectively harness.  For example, the bullet through paper analogy that I’ve often cited renders kinetic energy unusable.  Even when a physically substantial target is hit, the kinetic energy is likely to be gradually released (on a relative time scale) as opposed to the instantaneous release from a conventional explosive.  The gradual release ‘dilutes’ the destructive effect of the kinetic energy release/conversion.

 

Here’s an illustrative example of the kinetic energy effects of a hypersonic weapon.  The data is all speculative as there are no publicly available specifications, that I’m aware of.

 

Mass of common glide body = 900 kg

Velocity = Mach 5 = 3800 mph = 1699 m/s

 

     k.e. = 0.5 * mass * (velocity)squared

     k.e. = 0.5 * 900 * (3800)squared

     k.e. = 6,498,000,000 J

 

By comparison, a kg of TNT releases 4,184,000 J.  Thus, the hypersonic weapon is equivalent to 1553 kg of TNT (3417 lb).  A Tomahawk missile has a 1000 lb conventional warhead so a hypersonic weapon would be equivalent to 3.4 Tomahawk missiles.  That’s substantial, to be sure, but it’s nothing approaching near nuclear bomb type of destruction.

 

Of course, if the warhead is heavier or lighter or the speed is greater or lesser, that would change the calculation.

 

The point is that while a weapon that is equivalent to 3.4 Tomahawk missiles is potent, it does not justify a hundred million dollar price tag when that hundred million dollars could buy 50 Tomahawk missiles.

 

We’ve discussed in previous posts that kinetic weapons (no explosive warhead) depend on the transfer/conversion of their kinetic energy into thermal energy and resulting shock/pressure effects.  In order for this to happen, the kinetic projectile must encounter sufficient resistance to quickly and efficiently transfer/convert the kinetic energy.  This is the bullet/paper problem: a bullet (lots of kinetic energy) fired at a piece of paper, will do very little damage, leaving only a bullet size hole as it passes through the paper and the paper will emerge virtually undamaged because the paper offers insufficient resistance to transfer/convert any of the bullet’s kinetic energy to the paper target.  Similarly, a hypersonic kinetic projectile that encounters a soft target like a ship will likely pass through, causing relatively little damage.  Conversely, a substantial, solid target such as a concrete bunker, fortification, or hardened aircraft shelter will offer sufficient resistance to facilitate the energy conversion and the target will be destroyed.

 

Closely related to this resistance problem is that a hypersonic missile will release/convert its kinetic energy slowly as opposed to a conventional explosive, such as a Tomahawk missile, which releases its energy instantaneously.  When you see videos of rail gun projectiles impacting targets, the targets are, invariably, steel blocks multiple feet in thickness and the projectile produces an impressive fireworks display.  However, how many real world targets consist of steel blocks a few feet thick?  A hypersonic body impacting a real world target, such as a building, is likely going to penetrate straight through the target, releasing/converting only a portion of its energy.  The remainder will be released/converted in the ground as the body continues to penetrate until it stops.  In fact, the body might well pass straight through the building, leaving only a small hole, and bury itself in the ground (the bullet through paper analogy).  What effect that underground release/conversion of energy would have on the above ground structure/target is unknown.  I’m not aware that anyone has done any realistic testing of hypersonic weapon destructive effects.  We desperately need realistic testing before we continue down the staggeringly expensive hypersonic weapons path.  It’s going to be very difficult to justify a hundred million dollar, one time use weapon.

 

A final consideration about target sets is that the hypersonic missile inventory will likely be quite small.

 

The [Pentagon] internal assessment, made available to Bloomberg News, shows an expected total of … 240 missiles for the Navy.[1]

 

Thus, we have to not only take into account the cost of a hypersonic missile but also the inventory level.  With very few missiles, we can’t waste them against anything but extremely high value targets.  We also can’t waste them against heavily defended targets.

 

Moving on, we’ve noted that hypersonics have a fairly limited target set.  With no guidance package, they can only be used against fixed targets.  In order to effectively release/convert their kinetic energy, the target has to be physically substantial.  Even a ship is likely to see a hypersonic weapon pass straight through (this phenomenon was seen often in WWII when large caliber, armor piercing shells would pass straight through a smaller target ship, causing very little damage.

 

What does all of the preceding tell us about the hypersonic weapon target set?  It tells us that valid targets must be: 

• Fixed targets since hypersonic weapons don’t have guidance packages
• Extremely high value targets to justify the cost
• Physically hard targets to trigger an effective degree of energy release/conversion
• Less defended so as not to waste expensive missiles

This excludes: 

• Area bombardment / suppression fire
• Mobile targets
• Physically soft targets such as trucks, tanks, artillery, aircraft, most buildings
• Heavily defended targets

Now, let’s consider how many real world targets fall into the valid target set?  The answer is … not many.  Examples might be a very large headquarters building, hardened aircraft hangars, underground bunkers, nuclear missile silos, and Chinese submarine pens built into mountains.  Even within this set, some of the potential targets are questionable.  For example, is it really cost-effective to destroy a hardened aircraft hangar with a hundred million dollar missile as opposed to a couple of Tomahawks?

 

The harsh reality is that the vast majority of targets are not valid hypersonic weapon targets.  These would include trucks, tanks, artillery, people, ships, aircraft, radars, and almost every worthwhile target one might find on a battlefield. 

 

Thus, hypersonics would seem to be more a one-shot, sniper type weapon for use against very high value, very constrained targets rather than a general warfare weapon.

 

 

 

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[1]Bloomberg website, “Hypersonic Sticker Shock: U.S. Weapons May Run $106 Million Each”, Anthony Capaccio, 12-Nov-2021,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-12/hypersonic-sticker-shock-u-s-weapons-may-run-106-million-each

 

[2]Breaking Defense website, “Hypersonics: Army Awards $699M To Build First Missiles For A Combat Unit”, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., 30-Aug-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/hypersonics-army-awards-699m-to-build-first-missiles-for-a-combat-unit/

XLUUV Status

As part of the Navy’s wholesale – and uninformed by experimentation – leap into unmanned technology, the Navy has contracted with Boeing to produce 5 Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUV).   The cost estimate and contract was for $379M (FY2016 dollars) for the five vehicles with delivery of the first vehicle to have taken place in Dec 2020.

 

XLUUV / Echo Voyager

We previously discussed the CONOPS aspects of this project (see, “Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (XLUUV) CONOPS”).

 

Shockingly Predictably, the project is hugely over budget [1, p.8] and long overdue.

 

 

XLUUV Cost Overrun
Contract	$379M
Current	$621M
Overrun	$242M

 

 

That’s a 64% overrun and the contract isn’t complete, yet.  The cost will increase further.

 

Apparently, the cost is even higher as the contractor’s portion of the overruns is not included.

 

This cost growth accounts for the government’s liability and does not include cost growth absorbed by the contractor.[1]

 

The Navy also added a smaller, simpler, test vehicle to the contract which, according to the Navy, accounts for $73M of the $242M overrun.

 

 

In addition to being hugely over budget, the project is woefully behind schedule.

 

The delivery of the first XLUUV is now expected to be over 3 years late. The contractor originally planned to deliver the first XLUUV in December 2020 and all five by the end of calendar year 2022.[1, p.8] [emphasis added]

 

Deliveries are now tentatively scheduled for 2024.  History assures us that will be further delayed.

 

Why did all this happen?  According to GAO,

 

The Navy did not require the contractor to demonstrate its readiness to fabricate and deliver the XLUUVs prior to beginning fabrication, as called for by leading acquisition practices.[1, p.10]

 

Illustrating just how far from production-ready the XLUUV was, the contractor has requested a staggering number of deviations from specification.

 

If shipbuilders discover that they cannot build a ship according to the plan in the ship’s specifications, they can request a deviation from the plan. According to the Navy, the contractor has submitted over 1,500 deviation requests since the critical design review in October 2018.[1, p.12] [emphasis added]

 

I guess that design review didn’t cover anything relevant, did it?

 

 

Conclusion

 

For an organization whose stock in trade is the acquisition of ships, this kind of horrendous budget and schedule performance on project after project is appalling.  The situation is all the worse when one considers how small and simple this vehicle is.  People need to be fired.

 

 

 

____________________________________

 

[1]Government Accountability Office, “Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle”, Sep 2022, GAO-22-105974

Putin Syndrome

It seems all too apparent that one of Russia’s [many] problems related to its invasion of Ukraine is that Putin was fed wildly optimistic information in an attempt to keep him happy and keep lesser officials from being seen as the bearers of bad news.  That led to some incredibly inaccurate and delusional assessments of the situation that bordered on pure fantasy.

 

As we know from the many documented examples on this blog, the US Navy (and military, in general) is engaged in the same kind of ‘good news only’ reporting to superiors who are perfectly happy to accept what should be obvious pieces of fantasy.

 

The latest example of delusional reporting and assessment is this report about the ‘success’ of LCS USS Sioux City during a recent five month deployment.  Breaking Defense website reports on the ‘historic’ deployment with the Navy absolutely raving about the success – the ‘success’ being mainly that it didn’t break down.  According to Cmdr. Scott Whitworth, commanding officer of the blue crew,

 

We were able to steam over 28,000 nautical miles and we had no issues with our combining gear during the entire deployment.[1]

 

We were able to achieve speeds above 30 knots. The engineers have done a fantastic job, both civilian and Navy engineers, developing the procedures where we can operate the ship at high speeds and not cause damage to the combining gear.[1]

 

The Navy seems inordinately pleased that it was able to operate a ship for five months without the combining gear breaking down.  Avoiding a mechanical breakdown seems to be the new standard for success in the Navy.  If that’s not delusional, I don’t know what is.  Putin Navy leadership will be given glowing reports about the success of the deployment and they won’t ask any questions … questions like, the design speed of the LCS was 45+ knots so why are you bragging about 30 kts?  That’s at least 33% below the design specification.  That’s what you call success?

 

This deployment represents a failure of the LCS to achieve its minimum design objective regarding speed and yet the Navy is treating the failure as a success. 

 

This is how you wind up with a deluded, hollow Navy and leaders who have no connection to reality.

 

 

 

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[1]Breaking Defense website, “Navy’s LCS combining gear problem didn’t interrupt ‘historic’ global deployment”, Justin Katz, 5-Oct-2022,

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/10/navys-lcs-combining-gear-problem-didnt-interrupt-historic-global-deployment/

Book Review – “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”

We haven’t done a book review in a while so let’s do one!

 

The Fletcher class destroyer was the iconic destroyer of WWII but have you wondered why?  Why did it become an icon?  What characteristics made it so successful?  How did it evolve?

 

John C. Reilly, Jr.’s book, “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”, answers these questions and many more.  As the name suggests, the book is an exploration of the pre-war evolution of US destroyers which culminated in the Fletcher class and its successors the Sumner and Gearing classes.

 

The book is soft-covered (there is a much more expensive hard cover version available) in an 8-1/2 x 11 inch format which provides ample area for the over 200 b&w photos, most of them quite close up and revealing all manner of detail about equipment.  Each photo is accompanied by detailed captions explaining what you’re seeing.

 

The book begins with a brief history of the beginnings of destroyers and then examines the evolution through the Farragut, Porter, Benham, Sims, Benson, and Gleaves classes and then, of course, the Fletchers along with the following Sumner and Gearing classes.  It is a treat and highly informative to flip through the pages and see the visual evolution of the classes as the form of the Fletcher becomes more and more evident with each succeeding class.

 

Of intense interest are the descriptions of the debates and considerations that went into each succeeding design and how real world experience fed back into the evolutionary process.  The role of the General Board and BuShips in developing designs really stands out and is made all the more emphatic when compared to the absence of any guiding design authority today and the almost random nature of today’s ship designs.

 

A chapter on anti-aircraft (AA) roles, evolution, and impact on tactics and ship design is utterly fascinating.  Diagrams of various AA projectiles is most illuminating.  Passages such as,

 

On 12 June [1940] the General Board forwarded a memorandum to CNO.  This summarized fleet AA firing of 1939-40 and concluded that ‘the firing is generally ineffective, that a large amount of ammunition is expended in obtaining only occasional effective hits, and that anti-aircraft gunnery – as at present developed – does not provide reasonable security against air attack.’[1]

 

emphasize the degree of testing and honesty about results that is sorely lacking today (not withstanding the Navy's pre-war torpedo testing fiasco!).

 

Additional topics such as the development of radar, the role of the torpedo, the rationale for armor, the shift in focus from anti-surface to anti-air, the importance of topside weight, the development of the 5” gun, and more are all detailed through the discussions of the development of the various classes.

 

I look at the development and evolution of the destroyer and can’t help but be impressed by the logic and common sense as well as the feedback of real world experience that inexorably led to the ultimate destroyer, the Fletcher class.  Every new design/class along the way built on the preceding class and represented a marked and steady improvement.  In contrast, we seem to have no steady development and improvement with today’s ship classes.  Indeed, each new design/class seems almost worse than the preceding one!

 

This book is a treat and a feast for the eyes and the mind and I highly recommend it.  A reader will come away with a detailed understanding of ship design, ship evolution, the role of equipment in the development of tactics, and many more aspects of ship development, in general, and destroyer development, in particular.

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  I have absolutely no connection, whatsoever, with the author, the book, or the publisher.  As a point of interest, I picked this book up decades ago for the price of $9.95. I shudder to think what inflation has done to the price!

 

 

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[1]John C. Reilly, Jr., “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”, Blandford Press, 1983, ISBN: 0 7132 1026 8

Submarine Readiness

As of this writing, the US Navy has 50 attack subs and is firmly on the downward trend which has been anticipated for decades.  With an imminent war with China looming (according to Navy statements), one would assume we’re taking good care of our subs and cranking out their maintenance availabilities with great haste.

 

The fleet attack submarine breakdown, by class, is : 

• Seawolf 3
• Los Angeles  26
• Virginia  21

So, how is the maintenance doing?

 

“We’re really struggling to get submarines out on time. Over the last ten years, 20 to 30 percent [came] out on time,” said Vice Adm. Bill Galinis … [1]

 

That means 70% to 80% of maintenance availabilities ran over schedule.  That’s not good.

 

As of Thursday, 18 submarines were in some type of maintenance, PEO Submarines Rear Adm. Jonathan Rucker said … [1]

 

With only 50 attack submarines in the fleet, that’s 36% of the fleet in maintenance.

 

What’s causing the problem?

 

The earliest Virginia-class boats are among the hardest submarines to repair on time.[1]

 

“We’ve seen a significant growth in the amount of man days required in submarine availabilities, particularly in the Virginia class,” [Vice Adm. Bill] Galinis said.[1]

 

According to the Government Accountable Office, “Virginia class submarines have returned to operations almost nine months later than expected, on average; Los Angeles class submarines have taken four and a half months longer than scheduled, on average, to return to the fleet.[1]

 

What’s the problem with the Virginia class.  After all, they’re the newest submarines we have so they should have the least maintenance problems, right?

 

The Virginias were designed to operate closer to shore and with components that met rigorous NAVSEA standards for submarine safety, but were not as durable as some of the older components on the Los Angeles-class boats.[1]

 

“Where we were in the beginning of the Virginia class, we had a charge early on to build a design and build a submarine for an affordable cost to make sure we got the numbers we needed.”[1]

 

So, by their own admission, the Navy ‘cheaped out’ on Virginia class subs and now they’re suffering extended maintenance issues and, apparently, poorer quality components.  That’s what happens when you design to a business case instead of a combat case.

 

And now, let’s listen to the Navy rationalize away the problem:

 

“If you throw a rudder over on the Titanic, it takes a while for the ship to turn,” Rucker told USNI News.  “It’s going to take a little bit of time, just because there’s a lag and getting the resources or changing behavior or ensuring that we plan better for what we’re going to do.”[1]

 

The maintenance delays have been on-going for a decade, at least, admiral.  How much more time do you need to ‘throw the rudder over’?

 

 

 

________________________________

 

[1]USNI News website, “NAVSEA: Navy ‘Struggling’ to Get Attack Subs Out of Repairs on Time as Demand Increases”, Sam LaGrone, 21-Sep-2022,

https://news.usni.org/2022/09/21/navsea-navy-struggling-to-get-attack-subs-out-of-repairs-on-time-as-demand-increases

Satellite Survivability

There are a lot of misconceptions about satellites in war.  So many people believe that they can be used to instantaneously target and attack ships at sea, as if the satellites are directly connected to the firing button of every missile shooting asset we – or the enemy – has.  That’s not even remotely true but that’s not the point of this post.

 

Another widely held belief is that every satellite in orbit will be destroyed in the opening hours of a war.  However, while the US and China have both demonstrated the ability to destroy satellites using missiles or orbital ‘seeding’ of debris, there is no evidence that either side possesses sufficient satellite destruction capacity to completely eliminate the other’s satellites in a matter of hours.  How many satellites will be destroyed in the opening days of a war?  5%?  50%?  90%?  No one knows, at least not in the public domain. 

 

What is certain is that many satellites will be quickly destroyed and that, due to depleted numbers, surviving surveillance satellites will be tasked with high priority surveillance, meaning nuclear monitoring and mass troop movements.  Individual ship movements will be a much lower priority, bordering on unavailable.

 

Everyone is focused on the physical destruction of satellites but what gets overlooked is that satellites are extremely vulnerable to being rendered inoperable (mission kill, in a sense) via software and communication attacks. 

 

All satellites depend on software control systems for guidance, movement, alignment, operation, data transmission, and data interpretation.  That represents a lot of opportunities for software disruption via cyber attacks, hacks, viruses, etc.  Every satellite that can receive a ground control signal (and that’s all of them) is susceptible to software attacks.  Just from the cyber attacks that have been publicly acknowledged, we know that China has thoroughly penetrated our industrial and military networks.  It is elementary logic to assume that China knows our satellite software systems and is prepared to cyber-disrupt our satellites the moment war begins.  Unlike the limited degree of physical destruction, cyber-destruction has the potential to eliminate nearly all our satellite capabilities.

 

The other vulnerability is communications.  After all, a fully functioning satellite is useless if its data can’t be transmitted and received.  Satellite data transmissions are vulnerable to communication link disruptions, jamming, false signal injection, etc.  We’ve seen examples of this for years with Russian interference and manipulation of GPS signals.  As with cyber-destruction of satellites, the potential for communications disruption is likely greater than the potential for physical damage.

 

It seems likely that the predictions of massive satellite ‘destruction’ in the opening hours of war are correct, however, the method of that destruction is likely to be software cyber attacks and communications disruption more so than physical destruction.  Nevertheless, the end result is the same.  We’ll have few remaining functioning satellite assets and those that survive will be tasked with only the highest priorities.  Searching for individual ships on the ocean will not be one of those tasks.

 

Satellite survivability is of immense importance for both offensive and defensive operational planning.  We have to know to what degree we can depend on satellite surveillance, if at all, and we have to know to what degree our forces will be susceptible to enemy satellite surveillance.  Hopefully, the Navy, who ought to have a much better informed grasp of all this, has taken satellite survivability into account in its planning … not that I’ve seen any evidence of war planning.

Carrier Aircraft Land Attack Weapon Ranges

Many people still believe that carrier aircraft constitute a land attack strike force.  This is incorrect.  Let’s see why.

 

Any attacking asset must be able to survivably overcome layered defenses consisting of both surface to air missiles (SAM) that can range out to a few hundred miles and land based defending aircraft that can range out to several hundred miles.  Thus, a survivable launch point must be further out than the defensive range, meaning a launch point several hundred miles from the target. 

 

Obviously, an aircraft with free fall, gravity bombs cannot survivably and successfully penetrate to the required one mile launch range.  Thus, in order for carrier aircraft to conduct a survivable, successful land attack strike, they must have weapons with ranges greater than several hundred miles.  Every extra mile that the aircraft has to penetrate the layered defenses in order to reach an inadequately short range launch point increases the risk and decreases the likelihood of success.

 

The following table lists the ranges of common carrier aircraft strike weapons.[1, and various Wikipedia entries]

 

 

Weapon	Range, miles
AGM-158D (alt. AGM-158B-2) Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile – Extreme Range (JASSM-XR)a	1200
AGM-158B Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile – Extended Range (JASSM-ER)b	575
AGM-158A Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM)	230
AGM-84H/K Standoff Land Attack Missile – Expanded Response (SLAM-ER)	170
AGM-88 HARM / AARGM	92
AGM-154 Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW)	80
GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB)	69
GBU-31/32/35/38/54 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM)	15
AGM-65E/F Maverick	12
AGM-179 Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM)b	5
Hydra 70 2.75” rockets	2
GBU-10/12/16 Paveway Laser Guided Bombs	1
Mk 80 series free fall bombs	1
CBU series cluster bombs	1
M61A1/A2 Vulcan 20mm cannon	0.3

 

^a Developmental, does not yet exist

^b Not yet fully in service

 

 

 

The table makes it clear that the Navy does not operate weapons with sufficient range to keep the launch aircraft out of range of land based SAMs and intercepting aircraft.  It might be possible to safely and successfully attack lightly defended targets but major, well defended targets will have layered SAM defenses and nearby air bases supporting intercepting aircraft.

 

Another issue is the weapon carrying capacity for carrier aircraft.  For example, the F-18 Super Hornet can carry several smaller – meaning shorter range – weapons (acknowledging that every weapon carried reduces the aircraft’s flight range due to weight and drag) but only a couple of the larger weapons.  While publicity photos may show an aircraft decked out with every weapon the Navy has, an F-18 can only, practically, carry two JASSM on a realistic mission.  Other hard points are occupied by fuel tanks and defensive air-to-air weapons and even those are minimized in the interest of not negatively impacting the aircraft’s range more than necessary.  Thus, with two weapons per aircraft, it would require a strike force of, say, fifty aircraft just to mount a minimal strike of 100 weapons.  Recall, that the US used around sixty Tomahawks to strike a small, undefended Syrian air base in 2017 and only targeted a portion of the base (see, "Syrian Tomahawk Strike").  A realistic strike on a major, defended base would require something approaching two hundred missiles or more.  That would require 100+ strike aircraft (neglecting escort, EW, SEAD, etc. aircraft) which represents around five carrier air wings worth of strike aircraft under any realistic combat scenario.  The point is that the large, longer range, weapon density is so low as to nearly preclude carrier aircraft strikes even without consideration of enemy defenses and aircraft survivability.

 

One or Two Large Weapons is a Full Load

As I’ve often stated, the role of a carrier, today, is to escort and provide protection for the Navy’s true strike assets which are Tomahawk-launching Burke destroyers with their thousand mile range cruise missiles. 

 

 

 

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[1]https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/FA-18EF-Super-Hornet