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weapons of war are expendable. best to not put a Trillion Dollars into an aircraft carrier.
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 76809044 Surface naval vessels are obsolete because they can be taken out easily.
Blah blah blah.
Why are tanks still useful? Don't cheap antitank missiles make tanks obsolete?
Why are airplanes still flying? Don't air defense missiles make planes obsolete?
Ships can be sank pretty easy. If you hit them before they hit you.
Thinking that a navy could sit off of the shore of a superpower like china and do any real damage without getting completely annihilated is like thinking you could fly airplanes over russia without getting hit. It isn't technologically possible anymore - this isn't the 1800's where you have to sail some ships out to get them.
The whole spectacle is absurd, the only people who believe that are brain-dead americans.
Who said anything about sitting off Chinas shore?
The US would first interdict all shipping to China. Also, the US would seek to bottle up the Chinese navy.
In the meantime missile strikes would seek to degrade Chinese defenses.
Then the second island chain would be assaulted by marines. New strikes could be launched from these islands.
Finally at the time of the US's choosing a coordinated attack is launched on China with missiles and aircraft pounding away for 24 hours as the navy steams in. At 500 miles off shore the destroyers launch several hundred missiles as the carriers launch 300 strike planes. An hour later the planes are recovered and the fleet sails away. The fleet is within 1000 miles of China for less than a day.
Any idea how much damage can be done by 500 missiles with 500 pound warheads and 300 planes carrying a few thousand pounds of ordnance each?
And we haven't even included the preparatory fires from bombers and refueled aircraft.
It's the context of the war that determines victory. The US would not be fighting a war seeking Chinese surrender. That'd be very difficult indeed. The goal would be the end of Chinese aggression, either against Taiwan or through spurious territorial claims.
