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Originally Posted by Deschodt
I was hoping someone in the know would pick up on the above Q re: viability of a carrier nowadays... I was just watching something about Ukrainian marine drones that just a few days ago took down one - possibly 2 - russian SU30s. Basically a canoe with 2 sidewinders taking down a multi million $ jet...Earlier versions jsut ram ships and blow up... The Ukraine theater is showing that the old model (fighters, bombers, tanks, big ships) are very vulnerable to modern drone tech, from the crude stuff dumping grenade in a trench or flying into an armored vehicle, to more sophisticated ones, all with a much better ROI - why risk a carrier or a modern fighter vs a cheap drone (or 5 or 100). The other concern with these marine drones, per the analysis I was watching, was the future potential for terrorist attacks against airliners wherever an airport is close to water because that tech eventually becomes more widely available... Scary times, looks like traditional war is going to become a game of drone economics..
Talking about Taiwan, guess who sits close and is a master a deploying drones ? Starts with "Chi" and every new year they show coordinated drones by the 1000s doing pretty pictures in the sky, surely they have military versions of that..
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Everything I've read about wargaming a China-Taiwan-US war has US carriers sitting far offshore, trying to stay out of range. Given the limited combat radius of fighters, not sure how much of a factor the carriers could be? Also given sheer numbers - China can send more shore-ship missiles than the carrier group carries in air defense missiles, when the escort ships' missile cells are empty, the group has to run.