“Admiral, we have a problem.”
“OK, where is the nearest carrier?”
So goes the start of most operational discussions in the Pentagon. And with good reason. A US Carrier Strike Group (CSG) boasts formidable firepower. It centres on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with 65-70 fighter jets, including multiple types of F-18 Hornet and now increasingly F-35C stealth jets, plus radar/command-and-control planes and an assortment of helicopters.
Traditionally the carrier was supported by two Arleigh Burke class destroyers and one Ticonderoga class cruiser (although increasingly this is becoming three Arleigh Burkes as the Ticos reach the end of their life). These mighty warships can create a defence bubble resistant even to hypersonic and ballistic weapons, and bombard shore targets a thousand miles away with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Somewhere nearby below the surface, will be found a nuclear powered attack submarine, armed with more Tomahawks and torpedoes.
With its own intelligence and surveillance bubble around it, a US carrier group is the most powerful, versatile and well defended conventional weapons system-of-systems ever created.
“Admiral, we have a problem.”
“OK, where is the nearest carrier?”
So goes the start of most operational discussions in the Pentagon. And with good reason. A US Carrier Strike Group (CSG) boasts formidable firepower. It centres on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with 65-70 fighter jets, including multiple types of F-18 Hornet and now increasingly F-35C stealth jets, plus radar/command-and-control planes and an assortment of helicopters.
Traditionally the carrier was supported by two Arleigh Burke class destroyers and one Ticonderoga class cruiser (although increasingly this is becoming three Arleigh Burkes as the Ticos reach the end of their life). These mighty warships can create a defence bubble resistant even to hypersonic and ballistic weapons, and bombard shore targets a thousand miles away with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Somewhere nearby below the surface, will be found a nuclear powered attack submarine, armed with more Tomahawks and torpedoes.
With its own intelligence and surveillance bubble around it, a US carrier group is the most powerful, versatile and well defended conventional weapons system-of-systems ever created.