Why Sinking a U.S. Aircraft Carrier Is So Difficult

The Military Show

Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join  China has spent decades building a layered A2/AD envelope featuring land-based DF-21D/DF-26 ballistic missiles and ship-launched YJ-21 hypersonics designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers. However, executing a long-range strike requires an unbroken kill chain. With the unveiling of the Raytheon AIM-424 "Malice" Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile (LRAAM), U.S. Navy F-35C and F/A-18E/F fighters can now eliminate PLA airborne early warning planes, bombers, and refueling tankers from over 280 miles away—breaking adversary targeting networks before anti-ship missiles can ever launch.  ⏱️ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Unveiling the AIM-424 "Malice" Long Range Air-to-Air Missile 01:52 - Chinese Strategic Doctrine: Rear Admiral Luo Yuan's Carrier Sinking Rhetoric 03:29 - China's Layered A2/AD Arsenal: DF-21D, DF-26, and Hypersonic Cruise Missiles 06:35 - Breaking the F2T2EA Kill Chain: Finding & Fixing in the Pacific Ocean 10:40 - Layered Carrier Defense: Aegis CEC, Interceptors, and Phalanx CIWS 13:27 - Structural Survivability: The 2005 Sinking Tests of USS America 16:29 - AIM-424 LRAAM Specs: Raytheon's 250+ NM Carrier Defense Shield 18:12 - Neutralizing China's Airborne Targeting Nodes: H-6K, KJ-3000 AWACS, and Tankers 19:25 - Network Dependencies & The Outer Air Battle Paradigm  Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join  #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow  SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/5d3TaRZJ

Transcript

00:01For decades, the US fleet of aircraft carriers has been a centerpiece of its military dominance.

00:07Surrounded by a fearsome carrier group of destroyers, submarines and support ships,

00:12and carrying dozens of advanced fighter jets aboard,

00:15the US's carriers allow it to project enormous power pretty much anywhere across the globe.

00:20But that also makes the US carriers arguably the most important target

00:24in the event of a large-scale conflict with a near-peer rival, particularly China.

00:28Sinking a carrier would throw an enormous wrench right into the engine of a US offensive,

00:34and the potential loss of thousands of servicemen and tens of billions of dollars' worth of equipment

00:38would likely cause a major political storm back in the US.

00:42That's why, in recent years, China has been overtly ramping up its carrier-killing capabilities,

00:48including unveiling new anti-ship hypersonic missiles.

00:52That's led some to speculate that rather than being a force multiplier,

00:56the US's carriers might in fact have become massive sitting ducks, or steel dinosaurs,

01:01as one Australian newspaper put it.

01:03But they're getting ahead of themselves, to put it mildly.

01:07Sinking a carrier remains one of the most difficult and elusive military tasks to achieve,

01:11even for a military as advances China's.

01:14And now, the US has unveiled a new missile that makes that task even harder.

01:18The AIM-424 long-range air-to-air missile, or LRAM, nickname Malice.

01:25So let's take a look at why the US's carriers are so hard to hit, let alone sink,

01:30and how the AIM-424 extends that equation.

01:33But first, just a quick reminder to subscribe to the channel,

01:37and let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.

01:39And if you really enjoy our content, consider becoming a member to get access to exclusive content we don't publish

01:46publicly.

01:47Now, concerns about Chinese intentions to target US carriers are far from just theory or speculation.

01:54Senior Chinese figures have stated these intentions overtly.

01:57At a 2018 Military Industry Ranking Awards Ceremony and Innovation Summit in Shenzhen,

02:04Rear Admiral Lua Uen told the audience that the ongoing disputes over the ownership of the East-South China Seas

02:10could be resolved by sinking two US supercarriers.

02:13Lua is a prominent military academic and commentator in China, known for particularly hawkish anti-US views.

02:20He previously served as Deputy Director of the World Military Research Department at the Academy of Military Sciences,

02:26and has subsequently held senior positions in organizations, including the Chinese Society of Military Sciences,

02:33and the China Association for the Promotion of Strategic Culture.

02:37Today, he serves as the Executive Director and Deputy Secretary General of the China Military Science Society,

02:44Executive Vice President and Secretary General of the China Strategic Culture Promotion Association,

02:50and Senior Advisor to the China Institute of International Strategic Studies.

02:55So, his voice is not that of some arbitrary military commentator.

02:59What the United States fears the most is taking casualties, he declared.

03:04The loss of one supercarrier would cost the US the lives of 5,000 servicemen and women, he said.

03:10Sinking two would double that toll.

03:13What's more, he claimed that China's new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles

03:18were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the center of a bubble of defensive escorts.

03:25On paper, that looks like a reasonable claim.

03:28China has spent tens of billions of dollars amassing an impressive-looking anti-carrier arsenal.

03:34Today, it boasts a layered A2AD system combining land-based ballistic missiles, ship-launched hypersonic weapons,

03:41air-launched cruise missiles and submarines.

03:43And those capabilities keep growing.

03:46From the land, China has at least four options for long-range strikes against US carrier groups.

03:52They include multiple units that have operated the DF-21D, which has an estimated range of about 960 miles

03:59and reaches hypersonic speeds during its flight.

04:02China also reportedly has more than 250 launchers for the conventional or nuclear-capable DF-26,

04:10which has a range in excess of 2,500 miles and a speed of Mach 18, or more than 13

04:16,800 miles per hour.

04:18There's also the land-launched DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle, which glides at Mach 5, or around 3,836 miles

04:27per hour,

04:27and has a range of around 1,120 to 1,860 miles.

04:33And there's a newer variant, with an even longer range of over 3,100 miles.

04:37China can also attack US carrier groups from the sea.

04:41Above the waves, its Type 055 cruisers can fire the YJ-21 hypersonic missile, which has a range of 620

04:50to 930 miles

04:52and reportedly moves at around Mach 10, like the DF-21D.

04:56There's also the newer YJ-20, a hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile designed for Chinese surface combatants.

05:03Below the waves, China's Type 093B attack submarines can carry the YJ-18 missile,

05:11while the future Type 095 is expected to have similar missile capabilities.

05:16With an estimated range of roughly 137 to 335 miles, depending on the variant,

05:22it's the primary submarine-launched anti-ship missile and can also be launched from smaller surface ships.

05:28But the primary threat to US carriers probably comes from the air,

05:32provided Chinese bombers and fighters can get close enough to the carrier group to engage.

05:37China's primary standoff anti-ship weapon for air and coastal batteries is the supersonic YJ-12 missile.

05:44It can be launched from coastal launchers, the J-16 fighter,

05:48and most pertinently from China's main strategic bomber, the H-6K.

05:53Depending on the variant, it has an operational range of around 290 to 310 miles or 460 to 500 kilometers.

06:02China is also believed to have a large number of YJ-83 anti-ship missiles,

06:07which can be launched from aircrafts such as the J-10 and J-16, as well as from smaller surface

06:13ships.

06:13With a shorter range of just over 100 miles, the YJ-83 is primarily intended for saturation rolls that stand

06:20in distances,

06:21rather than long-range standoff strikes.

06:24So China has no shortage of options with which to strike at US carriers,

06:29and some of them can seemingly do so from well over 1,000 miles away.

06:33But having missiles capable of hitting a carrier is only a small part of the process of actually carrying out

06:39an attack.

06:39First, you have to find it and identify in which direction it's moving,

06:44and then you have to get past its formidable defenses.

06:47And both of those tasks are infinitely easier said than done.

06:51In fact, the military kill chain for attacking an aircraft carrier is a sequential process where any broken link prevents

06:58the attack.

06:58The core stages are Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess, or F2T2EA for short.

07:07Though some models simplify this process down to three stages, Find, Fix, and Finish.

07:12The first part, Find, is arguably the toughest of the lot.

07:16Any potential showdown between Chinese missiles and US carriers is likely to take place in the Pacific Ocean.

07:23With an area of almost 64 million square miles, it occupies 32% of the planet's total surface and 46

07:30% of its water surface,

07:32making it larger than all of Earth's land area combined.

07:35Obviously, the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, wouldn't be scouring the entirety of that unthinkably large area to find a

07:43carrier group.

07:44Thanks to its extensive and growing satellite network, it would likely have a good idea of the general vicinity and

07:49direction of travel of a carrier group,

07:51narrowing the target area to perhaps several thousand square miles.

07:55But still, searching for a needle in a haystack is an appropriate comparison,

08:00especially when you consider that the carrier group is unlikely to be stationary.

08:04And at a speed of 30 to 40 knots, the target could have moved by dozens of miles,

08:09and potentially much farther over longer delays between receiving satellite-derived targeting information and launching a missile.

08:16Now, don't forget to subscribe to the channel for your daily dose of the latest and most important military news

08:22from around the world.

08:23Here on The Military Show, we dig deeper and explain why the stories matter.

08:28So, subscribe to the channel and enable notifications so you never miss out.

08:32The brutal reality is that no matter how lethal your weapons are, you can't kill what you can't find.

08:39China learned that the hard way during the 1995-1996 Taiwan crisis.

08:44The US deployed two carrier groups to the region, and the PLA simply couldn't reliably locate them.

08:50Obviously, without reliable targeting data, a long-range strike was never an option.

08:55So, in the years since, China has greatly expanded its reconnaissance architecture,

08:59including space-based surveillance satellites, over-the-horizon radar systems, maritime patrol aircraft,

09:06unmanned surveillance platforms, and electronic and signals intelligence networks.

09:10These systems have certainly greatly improved China's ability to locate US carriers in the vastness of the Pacific.

09:17But it's still a tall order to find a carrier group in the open waters,

09:21particularly when it's actively employing electronic countermeasures and decoys to evade detection.

09:26And then, once you've located the carrier, you need to gather precise coordinates to fix it for the missile strike.

09:33And as we've noted, even though a 1,000-foot long target leaves a little margin for error,

09:38when cruising at 30 or 40 knots, a carrier represents a fleeting target with significant manoeuvrability.

09:44It's anything but easy.

09:46But let's say, for argument's sake, that the PLA managed to find and fix a carrier.

09:51It would then need to establish a continuous target track to predict the carrier's future position.

09:57This requires real-time data fusion from multiple assets like radar and reconnaissance planes.

10:03And those are vulnerable to jamming and cyber attacks, a field where the US is particularly adept.

10:08Having established a track, the next stage of the kill chain is the target phase.

10:13Again, this is far easier said than done.

10:16In essence, the attacker selects the appropriate weapon.

10:19For example, DF-21D or DF-26 missiles, and prepares it for launch.

10:25But this step involves complex command and control procedures to ensure the weapon can hit a moving target.

10:31And these are processes that have only ever been performed in exercises, not in actual combat.

10:36Who knows how effective they'll be in practice.

10:39But for argument's sake, let's assume the PLA successfully manages to target a US carrier.

10:45The next step is to actually engage by firing the weapon.

10:48And then the missile must somehow get past the carrier's defenses,

10:52arguably the densest and most sophisticated layered air defenses ever developed.

10:56The outermost defensive perimeter of the battle group begins hundreds of miles from the carrier.

11:01It's provided by the carrier's E-2C Hawkeye airborne surveillance radar and Aegis radars on the carrier group's surface combatants.

11:10As attackers penetrate further, they come within range of various other sensors, including those on the carrier itself.

11:16And they're all closely linked.

11:18As part of its transition to network-centric warfare, the US Navy is integrating all of the air defense sensors

11:25in the battle group

11:26into a cooperative engagement capability that enables participating units to share a common, integrated picture of the battle space.

11:34The system quickly merges, filters and disseminates information from dozens of airborne and surface radars

11:40to provide a composite picture of the surrounding airspace.

11:43This ability of the group to share a common picture of the incoming threat greatly enhances the survivability of the

11:49entire group.

11:50Defensive weapons can be employed with maximum efficiency,

11:53improving the battle group's ability to detect and engage, even difficult to detect, sea-skimming cruise missiles.

12:01Whichever way you look at it, it's a formidable array of defenses that Chinese missiles would have to penetrate.

12:07At the outermost perimeter are the carrier's interceptor aircraft, armed with air-to-air missiles.

12:12Closer in, these interceptors would be supplemented with the surface-to-air missiles on board the accompanying Aegis destroyers and

12:19cruisers.

12:20And if a missile somehow breaches all of that, it'll still have to contend with the final layer of defensive

12:26weapons, the carrier's on-board defenses.

12:28These include the on-board missile systems and the phalanx close-in weapon system.

12:33A 20mm Gatling gun that can fire at up to 4,500 rounds per minute, along with decoys and electronic

12:40countermeasures.

12:41Put it all together, and it's highly improbable that China is going to get very far launching just a few

12:46missiles at a carrier.

12:48Given how hard it is to find, track and target a moving vessel in vast expanses of water, and how

12:54well defended the carrier is,

12:55it could take a large coordinated barrage of missiles to have a reasonable chance of penetrating the carrier's strike group's

13:01layered defenses.

13:02And it's debatable whether China has that kind of quantity at its disposal, let alone whether it would be willing

13:08to expend that many of them in one go for such flimsy potential return.

13:13But let's say that one or more of China's new hypersonic missiles, supposedly moving faster than US air defenses with

13:19extreme maneuverability and precision terminal guidance,

13:23actually managed to breach all those layered defenses and strike a carrier.

13:26Striking a carrier is one thing, but actually sinking one has proven to be nearly impossible.

13:33In 1964, during the Vietnam War, Viet Cong commandos managed to damage and sink the decommissioned US Navy escort carrier

13:41Card while the vessel was moored in Saigon.

13:44But the last time an enemy permanently sank a US Navy aircraft carrier in combat was during World War II.

13:50There were 12 American carriers that were sunk during the war, usually following intensive air attacks.

13:55The last to sink, the USS Bismarck C, succumbed to Japanese kamikazes in February 1945.

14:02Since then, American flaptops have suffered serious accidents including collisions and fires, but none have sunk.

14:09That's because, as the US Navy itself has demonstrated, it's extremely difficult to sink a huge, heavily compartmentalized ship designed

14:17to absorb substantial damage and remain afloat.

14:20In 2005, the Navy targeted the decommissioned carrier America in a series of weapons tests to study how a large

14:27carrier-sized hull would withstand damage.

14:30As the war zone reported in 2019, the ship was pummeled by explosions both above and below the waterline.

14:36After nearly four weeks of these activities, the carrier was scuttled.

14:40On May 14, 2005, the vessel Stern disappeared below the waterline and the ship began its voyage to the sea

14:47floor.

14:48America stood up to four weeks of abuse and only succumbed to the sea after demolition teams scuttled the ship

14:53on purpose once and for all.

14:55It's clear that America was built to sustain heavy damage in combat and still stay afloat, they concluded.

15:01So, although direct hits on a carrier would almost certainly cause many casualties and, depending on where it hit, potentially

15:08the loss of some fighters or loss of functionality,

15:11trying to actually sink one is highly likely to end up being a fool's errand.

15:15Still, the US is giving the growing Chinese anti-carrier threat the attention it deserves and adapting its carrier defense

15:22strategy accordingly.

15:23The growing threat is primarily from the increased range of Chinese missiles and the growing sophistication of its sensing and

15:30targeting networks that enable that increasing range.

15:33Hypersonic missiles drastically compress target reaction time and significantly reduce the chance of a successful interception.

15:40So, while shipboard defenses such as electronic warfare, chaff and flares, and hard kill measures such as interceptor missiles and

15:48close-in weapon systems remain necessary, they face increasing difficulty against such weapons.

15:53That means, as anti-carrier weapons gain range, the contest increasingly moves from intercepting missiles after launch to disrupting the

16:01platforms and networks that enable them beforehand.

16:04In many senses, it's a technological return to the Cold War concept of the outer air battle, where the idea

16:10is to destroy the launch platform and its supporting network before the carrier strike group is forced to defend against

16:16the weapon itself.

16:17And that's one of the missions the new AIM-424 could help support.

16:21The missile was unveiled at the August 2026 Tailhook Symposium presented as a next-generation long-range air-to-air

16:29missile, or LRAM, developed by Raytheon to strengthen US fleet air defense against advanced threats.

16:35The 1,500-pound, 13.48-foot weapon boasts a range exceeding 287 miles, providing a new long-range air

16:44-to-air capability decades after the retirement of the AIM-54 Phoenix.

16:49Aviation Week has reported that it uses a two-stage solid propellant design, although the Navy hasn't publicly released detailed

16:56propulsion specifications.

16:58And that enables it to intercept hostile bombers, airborne early-warning platforms, and tankers before they can launch anti-ship

17:05missiles at US carrier strike groups.

17:08US Navy and industry officials describe the weapon as a generational leap in air dominance, claiming that it outranges all

17:15-known adversarial threats.

17:16Its range shouldn't be directly compared with China's land-based ballistic missiles, which perform a fundamentally different mission.

17:23Against China's air-launch threat, however, its long reach could give US fighters more room to engage the launch platforms

17:30before they reach missile-launching range.

17:32The new missile integrates seamlessly across current and future aviation fleets.

17:37Recent flight tests confirm it could be carried internally by the F-35C stealth fighters and externally by F-A

17:44-18EF Super Hornets,

17:46with planned compatibility for forthcoming sixth-generation platforms.

17:50In defensive operations, these jets already typically operate several hundred miles beyond the carrier itself.

17:57Armed with AIM-424s, the fleet's air defense engagement envelope could be extended by more than 250 nautical miles, depending

18:05on the aircraft's position and the engagement geometry.

18:07So, it's not merely aimed at countering longer-range anti-ship missiles, but at the distributed air power and targeting

18:14networks that allow China to threaten US carriers from beyond traditional fleet defense envelopes.

18:20It could strike Chinese H-6K bombers, and the H-6G electronic warfare variants that typically accompany them, tasked with

18:28jamming adversary ship and airborne radars to overwhelmed defenses.

18:31But the AIM-424 could also be employed against critical nodes in the kill chain, the assets, processes, and people

18:39required to guide a missile to its target.

18:41These nodes include airborne warning and control system aircraft such as the KJ-3000, which serves as a key network

18:48node for China's power projection in the Pacific.

18:50Losing an AWACS aircraft would likely force the H-6K bombers to search for and track US carriers with their

18:57onboard centers, possibly bringing them within range of US fighters and fleet air defenses.

19:02The AIM-424 could also be employed against China's aerial tankers.

19:07Like the US's, these are crucial assets in enabling Chinese force projection, particularly beyond the second island chain, which runs

19:14down Japan's Ogasawara Islands, Guam, the Marianas, Palau, and parts of Micronesia.

19:20As you can see, the new missile fills an important gap in the US's defenses and could enable the US

19:26to take the fight to China in ways that it couldn't quite do before.

19:29However, like all weapons systems, it does come with a few drawbacks.

19:34In particular, it creates an uneasy paradox.

19:37The farther the US pushes the outer air battle from the carrier, the more dependent the missile becomes on the

19:42US's sensing, networking, and battle management architecture.

19:46And those are precisely the kind of targets that China is developing its own long-range missiles to destroy.

19:52So while both sides continue expanding their missiles' ranges, the real contest might turn out to be something quite different.

19:59Which side can keep its battle management and sensing networks intact long enough to exploit that range under fire?

20:05And while that tussle continues, Admiral Lewis claims that being able to sink US carriers are likely to remain a

20:12pipe dream.

20:12We'll of course be following developments closely and keep you updated.

20:17More details about the AIM-424 and testing are sure to follow soon, so make sure you're subscribed to the

20:23channel to hear about it first.

20:25In the meantime, check out this video about how a Chinese carrier would lose to a 1970s US warship.

20:31Thanks for watching.

Category

Transcript

Recommended