Originally Posted by Not_a_Boffin
...As for carrier vulnerability, isn't it strange that no-one mentions what a DF21 - allegedly capable of being guided to a 300m x 70m moving target - might do to a fixed installation where runway intersections, fuel farms, bomb dumps etc would be far easier to target and when hit be just as easily damaged? One suspects a ballistic HE warhead travelling at several hundred metres per second is likely to cause damage far in excess of Durandal-type cratering munitions and way beyond your normal runway repair capabilities.
Carriers would prove harder to detect, identify and target but if our airfields find themselves having to contend with scores of DF21 missiles aimed at them, then our backs would really be against the wall. They are far more likely to have to deal with threats from second or third order nations, or even insurgents, against which post-war history indicates they are not exactly impregnable.