U.S. Nuclear SuperCarriers Have Glass Jaws

By MARTIN SIEFF,
UPI Senior News Analyst
Published: March. 24, 2009 at 4:25 PM
Courtesy Of United Press International

WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- No U.S. Essex-class aircraft carrier was ever sunk in World War II. No U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has ever been sunk or seriously disabled by enemy action. Since the first U.S. nuclear-powered carriers were built nearly half a century ago, they have never been involved in a sea war with any enemy capable of seriously threatening them.

However, no ship is unsinkable, and when it comes to aircraft carriers, a lot of the best naval warfare submarine, torpedo and ballistic missile designers in the world have worked long and hard for decades to come up with new ways to sink them.

The first problem that modern super aircraft carriers face is that they are big -- exceptionally, extraordinarily big. If a single Nimitz-class carrier was stood on its end, it would be a 90-floor building, more than 900 feet tall. What that means is that aircraft carriers make dream targets. Anything that big can be hit, and in terms of combat firepower, anything that can be hit can be killed.

There is a widely held popular assumption that even if you could pump one or two torpedoes or two or three sea-launched missiles into a U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier, they are so huge, so tough and have so many fail-safe systems built into them that they would keep on operating regardless.

That may prove to be the case, but the simple fact is that no one has ever fired a few torpedoes into a nuclear aircraft carrier-size hull or blasted it with a few missiles to be sure. And all the computer simulations in the world are based on assumptions -- usually comfortable ones -- that cannot begin to approximate the far more complex variables of real-world field

Second, aircraft carriers are volatile, dangerous environments filled with high-octane gasoline, devastating conventional ordnance and -- at their heart -- nuclear reactors.

Nor does an aircraft carrier's nuclear reactor have to be directly hit in order to destroy it or cause a catastrophic meltdown. Any damage that shreds enough coolant pipes or, worse, pumps in the reactors' coolant circulating system could set such a dangerous sequence of events in motion.

The Russian-built and designed Sunburn -- known by the Chinese as the Hai Ying or Sea Eagle HY-2 -- in particular is designed to be a U.S. carrier killer. It can fly at Mach 2.5 -- two and half times the speed of sound, around 1,700 miles per hour -- carrying an almost 500-pound warhead. And it can deliver a tactical nuclear weapon.

Writing in Defense Review on Nov. 20, 2006, respected defense analyst David Crane noted a report in Aviation Week that said China was also "developing a new high-speed cruise missile called Anjian -- 'Dark Sword.'"

"From the picture we've seen of it, Anjian also looks very stealthy -- i.e., it looks like it utilizes stealth technology," Crane wrote. "If China's already perfected this item, it would be another weapon that our Navy can't combat."

Crane's warnings appear justified. U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers, for all their size, resemble battle cruisers more than battleships in their high speed, great offensive armaments and most of all lack of armor-plate protection.

Armor plate went out of fashion after World War II among naval designers around the world, and it has never come back. However, the nuclear reactors that power U.S. supercarriers would be the modern equivalent of the HMS Hood's inadequately protected ammunition, or powder magazines. And the new Russian-designed supersonic anti-ship missiles would be the equivalent of the Bismarck's 15-inch naval guns.

Modern U.S. nuclear-powered supercarriers are technological marvels and breathtaking to see in action. But operationally, they resemble the famous British boxing champion Henry Cooper. His left hook, known as "Enry's 'Ammer," was devastating. In 1963 he stunned Muhammad Ali with it. Cooper was big, brave, strong, impressive and athletic. But he had vulnerable eyes. The skin around them cut easily.

Modern American aircraft carriers are much the same: They are unequaled in their capability to project power around the world. They are even a godsend to help societies afflicted by terrible natural disasters as they proved after the 2004 tsunami hit Indonesia. But the one thing they are not designed to do is take a lethal punch. And they have a lot of prospective enemies out there who have been working flat out to develop the weapons systems that can pummel them.