… The Americans nevertheless managed to put into operation their last remaining AUG in the North Atlantic, which threatened our merchant fleet with its obsolete weapons with considerable losses. At this time, the flagship of the Northern Fleet, the battleship "Invulnerable" (the captured modernized "Zamvolt") was deeply bogged down in supporting the landing on the Yucatan Peninsula. Autonomous artillery modules were forced to separate from the ship and accompany the landing on land - so intense was the resistance of the Nicaraguan contras. The capacitors of the laser battery have already begun to discharge: no one expected that its installations would have to single-handedly shoot the entire NATO satellite grouping and repel countless drone attacks.
… In the current situation, Admiral Ivanov gave the go-ahead for the separation of the rocket module for an attack on the US AUG. The decision turned out to be justified: the ekranoplan in a couple of hours was able to jump over the ocean and reach the attack range. The sixth fleet of the "probable enemy" was almost completely sunk by a massive missile strike of the hypersonic Kistenes. However, the incident already smelled like an international scandal.
After returning the modules to the ship, "Invulnerable" made an emergency launch of the NRM and an hour later went to the geostationary. There, refueling from the Yuri Gagarin station, the battleship headed for the Lagrange point, to join the 2nd Strategic Tank Army, which had long been hiding in the clouds of Kordylevsky from the telescopes of the Hague Tribunal …
Based on a dispute on alternahistory.ru.
Drone X-47B on the deck of the aircraft carrier "Harry Truman"
This amusing opus is the answer to the two previous articles on "VO", devoted to methods of fighting American aircraft carriers. The author of the article "The Bitter Truth about the Instant Impact of the AUG" is full of optimism - everything that floats will drown someday, we will shoot everyone at once, the sea is ours. His opponent (article "Is the Russian fleet capable of fighting US aircraft carriers?") Gives a more balanced assessment of the events, rightly pointing out the obvious difficulties in the fight against such a mobile and efficient squadron, which is the AUG of the US naval forces.
Dear Y. Nikiforov and S. Linnik, why was it necessary to ask the obvious question again? After all, everything is so obvious. The naval power of the United States surpasses the fleets of all the rest of the world combined. There, the number of some aircraft carriers exceeds the number of all carriers of long-range anti-ship missiles in the domestic fleet (nuclear "Orlans", "Atlant" type missile launchers and SSGN pr. 949A). We have only 4 ships capable of providing the squadron's zonal air defense, the Yankees have 84 such ships (cruisers and destroyers with long-range anti-aircraft systems). Moreover, the American fleet has a multinational format - dozens of technically advanced allied countries with their bases and ships, ready at any time to strengthen the fleet of their overlord. Fighting such a force with the help of a handful of rusty submarines and cruisers of the Cold War era is completely unacceptable, useless, and in fact, no one needs it.
On board TARKR "Peter the Great"
If we talk only about AUG, then the point is not only in their quantity, but also in their quality. The Yankees managed to create a balanced squadron (aviation, air defense and anti-aircraft defense order, submarine forces), practically invulnerable on the high seas. It is extremely difficult to detect and track. It does not come close to the coast, continuously changing its position at a speed of 500 miles per day. The reconnaissance planes sent to search for it will inevitably be intercepted by combat air patrols, patrolling at a distance of a hundred miles from the main AUG order.
Tu-95RTs under the escort of "Phantoms"
The well-known space "Legend" (naval reconnaissance satellites), even during its heyday, was only a technically beautiful experiment that showed the incredible depth and complexity of this problem. Even putting down the terrible technical moments of "Legend-M" (satellites with nuclear reactors), it is worth noting that the LEO flies in a circular orbit, making one orbit around the Earth in over 80 minutes. However, having completed one revolution, the satellite will be already completely over another region of the planet, thousands of kilometers away from the place over which it flew for the first time. The Earth has its own rotation - as a result, the satellite has a complex motion in relation to the terrestrial observer, and its trajectory resembles a zigzag on an oscilloscope screen. To be able to inspect any given area of the World Ocean with due regularity (at least once an hour), it would take a hell of a lot of space reconnaissance; the creation and operation of such a system is pure fantasy.
The only one who has a chance to detect the AUG and wasted no time to strike is a submarine, which, by chance, found itself in the path of an aircraft carrier group. However, given the fact that the number of combat-ready multipurpose nuclear submarines in the Russian Navy is currently less than the number of carrier groups of the "probable enemy", the theory of probability gives a meager forecast about their meeting in the vast ocean. It is worth noting that the AUG moves quickly, and the boat is constrained in maneuver. An attempt to give full speed, catch up with the squadron and take an advantageous position for the attack is fraught with the risk of losing stealth and disrupting the attack / death of the submarine. The AUG includes at least 4-5 surface ships with powerful sonar stations and RUM-139 ASROC-VL rocket torpedoes, not counting the multipurpose nuclear submarines that cover the aircraft carrier from under the water. Anti-submarine "turntables" are actively used (a couple of dozen per squadron), while the aircraft carrier does not hesitate to help from the base aviation. Orions and Poseidons (naval patrol / anti-submarine aircraft based on civil aircraft) are constantly scouring the AUG heading angles.
As a result, the AUG can continuously evade contact with the enemy, at the same time, thanks to the presence of a "long arm", counterattacking enemy ships trying to approach the squadron within the range of their missiles (or at least find the approximate location of the AUG).
What can be opposed to such a threat? Equip and send your own AUG to search for it - two "Elusive Joes" will run after each other across the ocean, periodically getting involved in air battles. Someday, one of the parties will be lucky: a coordinated attack will take the enemy by surprise, planes will break through and "suck" the enemy order (the battle in the Coral Sea, Midway are distant echoes from the past).
The Legend of the Elusive Joe
The facts from the first part of the article can plunge you into despair, but you should not despair!
The last carrier-based aircraft carrier of nuclear weapons (A-5 Vigilante) was removed from service by the Yankees in 1963. The reason was the emergence of a much more reliable and efficient system - ballistic missile submarines. Since then, the Yankees have never experimented with nuclear weapons on board their aircraft carriers, giving them the role of a maritime tactical system for dominating the sea in the event of a nuclear-free variant of the Third World War. World war did not happen, as a result of the "air waffles" aimlessly roaming the oceans, periodically trying to participate in local conflicts. Where there was little sense from them - in the air everything was decided by the aviation of the Air Force.
The aircraft carrier is invulnerable in the open ocean, but its strength rapidly diminishes as it approaches the coast. Hawkeyes and SuperHornets meet competition from shore-based fighters, whose performance characteristics are head and shoulders above the characteristics of carrier-based aircraft. What can a small Hawkeye AWACS aircraft do against the E-3 Sentry or the domestic AWACS A-50U, where the mass of one equipment and antenna exceeds the max. Hawkai's takeoff weight! It is just as ridiculous to compare the Super Hornet's combat load (when taking off from a catapult) with some land monster such as the Su-34 or F-15E.
The same problem with the number - even on the largest aircraft carrier there can be no more than four dozen combat aircraft at the same time. While on the shore, an aviation grouping of many tens, if not hundreds of units of first-class aircraft, awaits them.
The fact that the air forces of most countries have fewer combat aircraft than one American aircraft carrier is a problem for the air forces of these very countries. There is aviation - there are no problems with aircraft carriers. The Falkand epic (1982) clearly showed how brutally the squadron is "shoveling" from shore-based aviation (moreover, the Argentine clowns had 6 anti-ship missiles for the entire theater of operations, the only tanker aircraft, and a passenger Boeing flew for reconnaissance).
The third problem is geography. American AUGs are not capable of directly threatening Russia, since all important cities and industrial centers are located in the depths of the coast, and to the same Crimea it is easier and closer to fly from the Turkish Inzhirlik airbase than to drive an aircraft carrier into the Black Sea. AUGs have nothing to do in the "marquis puddles" of the Baltic or the Black Sea. On the other hand, mainland Russia has no strategic interests in the oceans, we have never depended on sea communications. Even in the hardest years of WWII, we did not really care how the battles took place in the vastness of the Atlantic. We could do nothing to help the allies. And the sea - the endless blue-green surface - is still no man's land.
Modern nuclear aircraft carriers could be justified in a serious nuclear-free conflict of the "USSR vs USA" format, when the Yankees were required to transfer reinforcements across the ocean to Europe, fighting off Soviet submarines and aircraft that were pressing from all sides. In this case, the AUGs could play a role - their combat resilience can really be envied. Alas (or rather, fortunately) such stories are just plots for books in the genre of alternative history.
AUG is invulnerable while it wanders aimlessly across the ocean. But its strength in real operations is expressed in symbolic percentages. The result of all searches - from ordinary discussions on the Internet to serious scientific research in the field of maritime, rocket and space technology, has become an understanding of a simple fact: there is no need to catch the "Elusive Joe" in the vast expanses of the sea, wasting trillions of full-weight rubles. If there is a real use of the AUG, the "Elusive Joe" will come by itself and immediately get hit in the face by coastal aviation and air defense systems (as happened in Lebanon in 1983).
SSGN pr. 949A, armed with anti-ship missiles "Granit". Currently, the Russian Navy has 4 operating boats of this type. 4 more boats are under repair
