Why the Navy Embraces ABM Defense
I was reading this article on China’s planned deployment of anti-ship ballistic missiles to counter US Navy aircraft carriers, when a light bulb suddenly went off. First the article by Michael Richardson titled “China’s missile plans put US naval power in a weaker spot“:
To counter the Asia-Pacific focus of the US Navy, China is reportedly planning to deploy ballistic missiles with non-nuclear warheads and special guidance systems to hit moving surface ships at sea in the western Pacific before they can get within range of Chinese targets. If China fielded such a weapon, one that could reliably sink or cause heavy damage to aircraft carriers and other major warships far from its shores, it would make a potential adversary think long and hard before sending naval forces to intervene in a crisis over Taiwan or any other regional conflict in which China was involved.
And then we have this recently from Strategypage on the USN’s plan to fit 3 more warships with BMD shoot-down capability, for a total of 21:
The U.S. Navy has completed equipping 18 ships with the Aegis anti-missile system. One reason the navy recently canceled its expensive new DDG-1000 class of destroyers was because these were built to support amphibious and coastal operations, and did not have a radar that could easily be converted to use SM-3 anti-missile missiles…With that in mind, the navy will convert three more Aegis ships to fire anti-missile missiles. Thus costs about $12 million a ship, mainly for new software and a few new hardware items. This is seen as a safe investment. The Aegis anti-missile system has had a success rate of over 80 percent, in knocking down incoming ballistic missile warheads during test firings.
This was when it occurred to me that the admirals were not necessarily beefing up America’s missile defense shield by converting its warships into strategic weapons, but for purely selfish reasons I am sure. Since the SM-3 missile used for this very difficult mission possess a range of only about 100 miles, the protection is very limited. What then would these effective but short-range missiles be defending but the aircraft carrier strike groups from Chinese ASBMs! In other words, the Navy is fielding an incredibly expensive capability not to add a new offensive weapon to sea warfare, but to defend its precious carriers.
Sheesh!
New Wars 
So do we keep them just because they can survive (which I’m still not wholly convinced they can in this new age of precision warfare)? Are weapons systems meant merely to survive or at some point doesn’t the amount spent to protect a particular platform cost more than its offensive capability? And how about other, cheaper platforms which can do many of the missions of a carrier without putting 5000-6000 crewman at risk and tying up several cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and resupply vessels for support? Aircraft, missiles, surface ships, submarines are all contending for the carrier mission today without the extra baggage.
silver bullet not golden, stupid me…curse goldfinger and his golden gun :)
Even if we admit that China can successfully locate a US fleet moving in the ocean at 20 knots or more. There’s still plenty of options, anti-ship cruise missiles and the platforms launching them can be detected and destroyed, even if launched the defensive screen still have time to react.
Maybe they were too optimistic but in the global war series wargames in the 80s they expected a carrier strike group to survive a salvo of 80 missiles. That’s a awful lot and it’s not easy to bring that much firepower to bear.
It could go on and on, the point is yes these toys are costly. But they are extremely costly to kill too, the Chinese are trying to use ballistic missiles for a reason: they know it’s hard. If ASCMs like the scary sizzler were the golden bullet, they wouldn’t bother.
A pretty popular view. OK when your adversary doesn’t have modern cruise missiles and submarines, which is all we faced in recent decades. But what about China?
I fail to see any problem with this. Carriers are the mainstay of the US navy, its offensive punch, these things can project strike power 400 hundred nautical miles ahead of the fleet. If you loose them, it’s pretty bad.