War in 4 days?

[frizzfreeling]

Also remember that it only takes ONE battery to survive and ONE missile to get through the barriers to hit and destroy/permanently disable a Capital warship/Aircraft carrier.

This is often said by many, but completely incorrect. Modern aircraft carriers are 100,000 tons of steel with literally hundreds of watertight bulkheads. A ship of that size could probably take on 20,000 tons of sea water without sinking, but the bulkheads stop that from happening. You are looking at probably 10 or more cruise missiles hitting a carrier to essentially "destroy" it, and even then, the missiles will probably not penetrate the topside all the way down to the waterline or below. One missile, if lucky in placement, could put a large hole in the deck and cause chaos a level or two below over a limited area, but probably wont put a carrier out of action for long periods. Im not sure, but I believe there was good precedent set for this aboard a carrier in vietnam that cooked off a bunch of its bombs accidentally (anyone else recall this?) and still stayed afloat.

It has also been said that carriers are highly vulnerable to conventional torpedos, which they are not, once again due to compartmentalization. A hole 30ft wide on a ship a thousand feet long and 150 ft wide with a hundred+ armored compartments wont ruin its day by any means. Even if a sub got off a full spread before being neutralised, the carrier would be only moderately damaged and still able to launch and retrieve aircraft. Precedence for this is the U.S.S. Cole bombing. Even though torpedos are shaped to do much more damage on a per weight basis, they also contain much less explosive than what was used against the cole, so it more or less equates. Remember also, that the Cole is only 1/12 the size of a carrier and thinner armored.

One of the reasons our carriers are so large is to take a pounding and stay afloat. Theres no way a one-ton conventional warhead is going to put a 100,000 ton compartmented warship out of business. When you hear the contrary, its typically just rhetoric from people who dont realize the true scale of these structures and the thought that went into their design, which obviously accounted for missiles and torpedos getting through.