Although expensive, many countries are still pursuing the formation of aircraft carrier battle groups. How fierce is the combat power of the aircraft carrier battle group? Is it difficult to blow them all up with a bunch of missiles? To understand the difficulty of these two problems, in practice, we only need to know these knowledge.
First, the aircraft carrier battle site. Once the aircraft carrier is dispatched to fight, it is basically an ocean-going operation. Secondly, most of the current operational concepts are to control the sea with air. In the face of fighter planes, warships are in an advantage, and fighter planes often play an important role in combat with their extremely fast speed and sensitive maneuverability. Therefore, the operational characteristics of modern naval warfare fully illustrate the importance of aircraft carriers. Owning an aircraft carrier is equivalent to owning a fighter. In the vast sea, the aircraft carrier is the only fighter.
Secondly, the aircraft carrier can also provide a radar detection range, that is, an early warning aircraft carried by the aircraft carrier. The fleet with and without early warning aircraft is basically not an order of magnitude in combat. It is precisely because of this insurmountable gap that perhaps only aircraft carriers can defeat aircraft carriers or rely on coastal operations, but this is also equivalent to the role of aircraft carriers.
Finally, the operational mode of aircraft carrier formation. With the detection ability and air superiority of the aircraft carrier, the aircraft carrier can take the lead in launching an attack and destroying the enemy before it can fight back.
The first thing I understand is that aircraft carriers from all over the world will not fight alone in the open sea. When performing the task, there will be a huge escort formation, including driving ships, frigates, submarines and so on. To provide all-round maintenance for aircraft carriers and build a defense circle that stretches for hundreds of kilometers.
In addition, the early warning aircraft carried by the aircraft carrier escorts in the airspace hundreds of kilometers away from the aircraft carrier, which can provide the fleet with nearly half an hour of early warning time. Another misunderstanding about aircraft carriers is that most people think that the flight speed of tens of thousands of tons of aircraft carriers is very slow, but in fact most aircraft carriers can reach more than 30 knots, and they can reach any place within 700 square kilometers in half an hour.
The strong destructive power of the aircraft carrier and the perfect combat system make it impossible to speculate on sinking the aircraft carrier. In 2005, the United States took the retired "American" aircraft carrier as the experimental purpose and carried out combat strikes. Under the continuous bombing of a large number of bombs and missiles, the ship was riddled with holes, but there was still no sign of floating, from which we can see the fear of the aircraft carrier.