Originally Posted by
Heathrow Harry
Ken Of the " high altitude heavy bombers, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, kamikazes, land based jet aircraft, nuclear weapons, biological weapons, EMP weapons, nuclear submarines, air independent submarines, anti-ship cruise missiles, super sonic anti-ship cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles" how many have actually been targeted at a carrier since 1945?
How do you define "have actually been targeted at a carrier since 1945" The soviets most certainly "targeted" our carriers with all the above (except perhaps kamikazes) but never press the launch button. We in the meantime tracked and intercepted all the above but never pushed the launch button. The point is, people have been calling aircraft carriers obsolete and non survivable essentially since the day they were invented and here we are nearly a century later with carriers steaming all over the world projecting power like NOTHING else ever has.
Land based jet-aircraft & anti-ship cruise missiles - in the Falklands - and that's it. And they were enough to give the RN a serious attack of the vapours
As well they should. Yet no carriers were sunk so the measures taken to protect them from those weapons was effective. And in the meantime the carriers gave lots of Argentinians "a serious attack of the vapours." Why do you imagine that only cuts one way?
The rest have never been used - I suspect that the USA would not take kindly to anyone nailing a CVN so unless you are very small, or intend to kick off a major war you stay clear of them - but that doesn't make them invulnerable
Invulnerable? Who even remotely suggested carriers were invulnerable? That's a strawman. But given their near century track record carriers are clearly less vulnerable than a lot of naysayers suggest. Further, they are no more vulnerable, and given their mobility likely
less vulnerable, than any land based airfield. Or are you suggesting that all aviation assets are "obsolete" because the facilities they operate from (whether ship based or land based) are "too vulnerable?"