read an article years ago by a US admiral who pointed out that a cbg is actually pretty easy to spot visually with commercial sat imagery and this goes back 20 years now. while the individual ships in the were pretty hard to see the pattern they made stood out nicely from the background. today's commercial sats could probably tell you what aircraft were on deck. still as jim points out knowing where the carrier is doesn't help much if you cannot reach out and put the touch on it.

but I have to know where you buy your drugs. OK, you want to use a ballistic missile against a MOVING TARGET? Just how much maneuverability do think Iskander or whatever actually HAS? Hint, the closer to impact, the less delta-v can be brought to bear. I.e. terminal guidance would be useless because in the (let's be generous) 5 minutes of flight time, the carrier can be three miles away and all the other ships likewise scattered. Can Iskander even acquire a target 3 miles off-boresight, let alone maneuver to strike it? Oh, and yeah, I think decoys might be managed; if you can pack decoys into a missile you can probably deploy them at sea. The IR, radar, etc., equivalent of Nixies, yes? Assuming we haven't hacked the radar and targeting sats to make Iskander think Beijing = CVN. Also I assume we are talking about non-nuclear ballistic missiles, as otherwise game=over when US retaliates.

nichevo you can have a bm home in for instance on a ccd image of a target and it's pretty near impossible to come up with a decoy that will work against that.

D00d! I can fill the sea with dye in the shape and color of a CVN so as to fool a lowest-bidder commie CCD, or deploy inflatable bladders on an oiler or freighter or cruise ship to likewise look carrier-ish from above; I can laser the thing so it doesn't know what, if anything, it's seeing; I can mask the carrier to look, not necessarily like a hole in the water, but enough not like the carrier to confuse a circuit into chasing a DDG or nothing; and again, I CAN MOVE THE $#%^&(@%(&*%^$(&*)(*^&(* BOAT!!!!! Again, unlike targets by land, at sea you need a direct hit. Go ahead, let that 500M CEP go ahead and plunk just to starboard amidships...hell on the fish, a matter of indifference to the intended target. And what is the area for terminal detection and guidance again? My fondest desire would be for the Chinese, etc., to spend all their money putting rockets into the sea where our carrier USED to be.

We agree, there are countermeasures and countertactics that we can use to decrease their Pk when they do start deploying these missile systems in a few years. If you think the Chinese aren't working on ways to attack our carriers with ballistic missiles, you are wrong. They have been for a decade, and they will continue to. Within a few years they will get to the point that they can do it, and at that point we'd better be ready with our countermeasures and countertactics. I hope USN has "flight deck gray" carrier-shaped dye packets, laser-dazzling-with-missile-tracking targeting equipment, etc., on order now. Displacedjim P.S., I'm here to tell you that DoD considers it a much more significant risk than you do.

No, I am sure it is the Next Big Thing, I just do not see the point. Is it just the superiority of ballistic flight profiles vs. dynamic ones a la Sunburn, Shipwreck? For ballistics would seem far easier to plot, intercept, avoid. Why not just fear big guns? A Bull supergun would seem to be more the thing for this coastal defense scenario. Sure, call me stupid if you like, dj, but 'splain to me the pros of the approach. Seems like a gimmick to me. Meanwhile, you're worried about the ships - I see a far greater threat in the inevitable enhancements to their nuclear deterrent.

"Is it just the superiority of ballistic flight profiles vs. dynamic ones a la Sunburn, Shipwreck? For ballistics would seem far easier to plot, intercept, avoid" Ballistic missiles can go much farther from land (for exemple 3000 km instead of 300).If carrier is 1000 km away of sea shore it is invulnerable from seashore sunburn AS missiles but carrier can still strike! Flight time is shorter with BM. conventional BM warheads are more stealthy and smaller. It is very difficult to intercept mach 5 or faster manoeuvering warheads. A BM can be mirved and have IR/EW terminal guidance also. A footprint of a 3000 km range classical mirved BM is 50 km wide (like Poseidon) so it show easy to get close enough to the carrier even it has moved, then manoeuver after carrier have been tracked by warhead autodirector in case of conventional guided manoeuvering warheads in atmosphere. A data link can provide mid course and adjustment to BM in flight. Of course to combine BM attack with Sunburn supersonic AS missile (or subs) add to difficulties for task force. We can easily imagine a 20 tonnes 2500/3000 km range, 2 stages BM with 3* 200 kg reentry manoeuvering stealth warheads with decoys and dual IR/EW seekers. Launching 100 of them on a carrier means 300 mach 5/6 manoeuvering warheads to intecept in the same time(warheads have to slow down to avoid plasma shield blinding effect in rentry by using atmospheric brakes). Even 10 of them hit carrier deck , they would penetrate easily deck steel before exploding in hangar of below.

Sherman said that it was important for India to restore normalcy to Kashmir and restore communications.Some of the Democrat's hostility towards President Donald Trump spilled over to India. The chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Elliot Engel said that Trump gives "a free pass" human rights violators and the State Department was giving India a "free pass" on revoking Article 370."