Firearms and body armour have been around for hundreds of years. We still have both.
Following on from @weaponx031277's post...
These wonderful HUGE aircraft carriers remind me of the wonderful HUGE battleships navies had in the past (some still survive). The battleships became obsolete after WWII because they were very expensive to run and maintain, required huge manpower, all the eggs were in one basket (as it were), easily destroyed by aircraft and missiles and required a supporting flotilla of smaller warships in support.
I understand aircraft carriers have a far greater range and extent of firepower than the big guns of the old battleships and are now the 'top gun' as far as sea power is concerned, but is it not true the aircraft carrier is just as vulnerable and expensive due to the reasons stated above?
In other words, will these huge aircraft carriers also become obsolete? Can they be 'taken out' by a single guided missile fired from a submarine or a destroyer for example?
The new British carriers are much more than carriers though, this gets forgotten quickly.
They can be used for helicopters and support rescue/aid operations.
Pure capital ships are OK if you have a massive navy and can specialise that much.
Aircraft and missiles are carried by aircraft carriers. How would we have got the Falklands back? How would the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbour otherwise? Why are navies building carriers?
Yes they are vulnerable and expensive. Ideally you would always use land based aircraft. It's not like you can sink an airfield that's on land. Unfortunately this planet has a huge amount of ocean and if you want to hit someone a long way away then aircraft are often the thing to do it with and you can't get lots of aircraft to some places without them.
The ocean is international waters. You can park off a country and bother that country without getting any other country involved.
In the Yom Kippur war 800 Israeli tanks and vehicles were knocked out by a "suitcase missile". Many predicted at the time it was the end of armour as they were now to vulnerable and expensive. We still have tanks. Tanks are just too useful. They are the best thing for taking ground.
If it was a nuke.
Not many nations have effective submarines or surface ships anyway.
Does anybody still need aircraft carriers? - BBC News
It was the carrier that made the battle ship obsolete, not "because they were very expensive to run and maintain, required huge manpower" but rather because the carrier could project its force over a much greater range.
The carrier was more flexible than the battle ship.
It could bomb targets over land, far beyond the range of any at sea big gun.
It could provide better anti air cover to a task force than a battle ship.
The list goes on.
Could a carrier be neutralised by a destroyer or submarine?
I think a submarine stands a better chance.
The carrier and its task force (including submarines) have to hope they are doing a better job than their enemy.
There's a bit in Sandy Woodward's "One Hundred Days" which goes something like this. Imagine you have an exocet with a range of 20 miles. On a ship you are bothering other ships 20 miles away. Stick that missile on an aircraft with a range of 200 miles and you are bothering other fleets 220 miles away.
If there isn't friendly runways around then you need a carrier to get that reach. Also it's the fleet air arm that has been shooting down enemy aircraft since the end of WWII not the RAF.
Harriers in the Falklands is proof of that.
The Falklands conflict is a fascinating study of the strengths and weaknesses of the Royal Navy in 1982.
The Harrier, a twin role aircraft, was definitely a success.
OK thanks guys. So the huge aircraft carrier of today is just as vulnerable as the huge battleship of yesteryear.
But the two should not be compared in that respect because of the great flexibility and long range of firepower afforded by the aircraft 'belonging' to the mother carrier lies well beyond the scope of the battleship.
Battleship or aircraft carrier - You will always run the risk of it being taken out by enemy action. It's just the gamble the Royal Navy has taken for a long time indeed. The technology and weapons change but the risks remain fairly constant i.e. blow a big hole in the right place on a boat and sink it.
Having aircraft carriers along with a variety of other vessels (including submarines) makes a navy more flexible in how it can operate and be deployed. Our Navy is frankly a shadow of it's former self, but that's due to loss of Empire and poor decision making down the decades.
Argentina doesn't have the capability to take on the Royal Navy as things stand, which is why they've tried other ways of getting hold of them. It's the mineral wealth of the Falklands that interests the Argentinian Politicians more than the nationalistic stuff, while for us it's a mix of defending the Islanders and also wanting the mineral wealth.