One era replaces another, and technologies change along with it, and along with technologies - methods of warfare. In 1906, Britain built the world's first dreadnought - HMS Dreadnought, which was destined to change the course of world history once and for all. The secret of success was simple: to leave as the main armament only large-caliber guns of the same type or all-big-gun. The highest point in the development of this concept can be considered the Japanese battleships Yamato and Musashi: heroically killed, but did not bring de facto any strategic benefit to their command.
It is difficult to accuse the Japanese of being stupid or not understanding the essence of the matter. After all, they (and Pearl Harbor showed it well) realized that battleships lost the evolutionary struggle to aircraft carriers, forever leaving the world stage as the first violin of naval warfare.
Moreover, the aircraft carrier, as a separate class of warships, also did not evolve overnight. The best example is the British aircraft carriers of the World War II type "Illastries", which had excellent booking, but also an important drawback: the small number of fighters. Only three dozen winged machines. And although all four ships survived the wars, experience has clearly shown that the most important thing for an aircraft carrier is the number of fighters. And no anti-aircraft artillery and armor can replace them. Not to mention the absurd offensive weapon in this case.
It is noteworthy that these obvious conclusions, the strength of which only grew in the post-war years, are still questioned by many. Moreover, the authors are trying to find a variety of "loopholes" to show the reader that surface ships supposedly and so (that is, without aviation cover) can perform the assigned tasks.
One example is the series of articles by Alexander Timokhin "Surface ships against aircraft." First of all, I would like to thank the author for an alternative view of the history of naval conflicts. When someone has an opinion, it's always (or almost always) good. However, in the most interesting part of the narrative, logical inconsistencies and inconsistencies are found.
So, Timokhin, with reference to the JANAC Army and Navy Combined Arms Committee, provides such data on the losses of warships that the United States inflicted on Japan in World War II. In total, the United States sank 611 surface ships. Of these, the following were sunk:
“US Navy submarines - 201;
Surface ships - 112;
Army aviation - 70;
Basic aviation of the Navy - 20;
Deck aviation of the Navy - 161;
Coastal artillery - 2;
Was blown up by mines - 19;
Destroyed by other aircraft and agents - 26.”
By itself, these data are very, very interesting. However, the conclusion that the author further makes is, to put it mildly, strange. “What is the conclusion from this? And the conclusion is simple: in the presence of an aircraft carrier fleet, when aircraft carriers are the main warships and perform the main tasks, and, at the same time, in the conditions of an extremely intense air war waged by base aircraft against the Japanese fleet (both army and naval), aviation of all types sank fewer ships than surface ships and submarines,”the author concludes.
I wonder what exactly Alexander wants to convey? That surface ships and submarines are one and the same? Or that army aviation is not "aviation." Or that such is not carrier-based aviation …
After all, a simple mathematical calculation shows that if we sum up the Japanese losses caused by the actions of army aviation, base aviation of the Navy and deck aviation of the Navy, it turns out that it was aviation that sank the most Japanese ships. Where exactly the bombers and torpedo bombers were based no longer plays a big role.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the destruction of four Japanese aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway - a turning point in the war in the Pacific Ocean - became possible almost exclusively thanks to the coordinated actions of US carrier-based aircraft. Heavy bombers Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (not deck-based, of course) then also attacked the aircraft carriers Soryu and Hiryu, but they did not succeed in inflicting damage on the ships. Of course, the US submarine forces also played their role, but far from the main one.
That is, if it were not for the Douglas SBD Dauntless carrier-based dive bombers, the result of the entire war in the Pacific could hypothetically be different: although here you need to understand the potentially higher "margin of safety" of the United States. That is, a more powerful military, economic and human potential, which gave the Japanese, frankly, not so many chances.
New and newest ASP
Equally interesting is the following - also a very voluminous part of the work of Alexander Timokhin. It touches on the "rocket era". The summary of what the author has said can be summed up as follows. “What did the Falklands War show? She showed that surface forces can fight against aircraft and win. And also that it is very difficult to sink a ship that is in the open sea on the move and is ready to repel an attack …”, writes Timokhin.
It's hard to argue here. Can surface forces fight against aircraft and win? Of course they can. In theory, even a gunboat can sink a nuclear submarine that has unsuccessfully surfaced nearby. A corvette can sink a cruiser with a missile if its crew, for some reason, is inactive all the time.
But theory is theory, and consideration of the capabilities of modern carrier-based aviation, and its potential is impossible without an analysis of modern aviation weapons. Of course, not all of them. It is enough to analyze the main and most significant promising AAS for carrier-based aircraft. For example, the new American long-range anti-ship missile AGM-158C LRASM: a product with stealth technology and high accuracy.
It should be said that aircraft carriers have had a long arm in the face of high-precision AAS, for example, the famous Harpoon missiles. However, their range did not exceed 280 kilometers. The range of LRASM, according to information from open sources, can exceed 800 kilometers. Add to this the combat radius of the fighter plane (the missile carrier - F / A-18E / F Super Hornet - is more than 700 kilometers) and you will get another mini-revolution in naval combat tactics. And if you equip stealthy fifth-generation fighters with similar missiles, for example, the F-35C or a hypothetical carrier-based J-31, you get a very "interesting" situation.
However, even taking into account the aviation weapons of the Cold War and modern reconnaissance and detection equipment (satellites, carrier-based AWACS aircraft, submarines, etc.), not a single aircraft carrier will most likely be able to approach an aircraft carrier strike group at an attack distance … Not to mention the possibility of destroying and incapacitating ships from the AUG. It is also worth adding that the aircraft carrier group traditionally includes nuclear submarines and numerous ships, whose tasks include anti-submarine defense.
Let's summarize. In modern realities, the role of aircraft carriers in the war has increased significantly in comparison with the times of the Cold War. Insofar as:
- Increased opportunities to identify enemy ships and ships;
- The combat radius of carrier-based fighters has increased;
- The potential of aviation weapons has increased dramatically;
- The commissioning of "unobtrusive" carrier-based fighters and unobtrusive ASPs began.
Thus, the role of the "non-aircraft carrier" fleet in modern warfare has decreased to a secondary one, and to be even more precise - purely auxiliary. Unless, of course, we are talking about nuclear weapons and submarine ballistic missiles. That is, to put it simply, a nuclear war, which no country in the world in its right mind would dare to undertake.
