They represent some of the biggest, most heavy firepower single pieces of equipment out there. Useless as they might be in the modern agility and precision based wars it’s pretty on brand for someone who wants to present themselves as some kind of macho strongman.
They were always vulnerable to torpedoes hell that’s one of the reasons why the old dreadnaught class was phased out. Regardless they still served their purpose during WW2 as a way to imperfectly fill the hole that modern destroyers now fill, also they were damned useful artillery platforms in the Pacific and during Korea.
They did have a use, but they were obsolete. Obsolete doesn’t mean useless. It means there are better options. You use what you’ve got, but you don’t make more of things that are obsolete.
My point is they weren’t obsolete by WW2, they were in a bit of a weird doctrinal area by the end of the war for sure but at the start of the war they were certainly still in their prime. Remember carriers were still being figured out during the inter-war period and weren’t exactly all that great, hell the first major use of a carrier during the war was during Pearl harbor and even then that only worked so well because of how small the harbor is which restricted movements and thus the reaction (Didn’t stop the Nevada from beaching itself and becoming a point defense platform) which was frankly luck for the Japanese.
Now by the end of the war they were showing their age especially with the modernized carriers that were being pumped out nearly as fast as battleships and with the improved destroyer and escort designs that could compensate for the relative lack of defenses on carriers. Frankly speaking carriers by themselves are kinda shit, they need an escort fleet to even function lest they be even more exposed than a battleship, hell there’s a reason why everyone kept trying to make carrier battleships for awhile.
I think, especially now in the age of drones, carriers are about obsolete too, yeah. They require the massive support fleets, are a huge, slow, expensive target, and nearly their entire job can be replaced with a much smaller drone carrier. It’ll be an interesting time for naval innovation, but it’s not going to be massive ships.
My money is that shits going to evolve into something like those weird Japanese carrier destroyers or someone is going to dig up the concept for carrier submarines to adapt to drones. Pretty hard to guess since there’s always the possibility that something is found that can hard counter drones kinda like how close air support broke the artillery doctrines post WW1.
It’s well known that ballistic missiles with kinetic payloads are essentially unstoppable, and can take out carriers, for example, for little cost. A fucking low tech Scud carries something like a ton. Imagine a supersonic swarm of 1000kg tungsten bullets raining on a carrier.
Battleships have been obsolete for nearly a century.
Next this fool is going to order catapults for his bungled attack on the Persians.
Well, he’s also a big fan of walls, so it kinda tracks.
They represent some of the biggest, most heavy firepower single pieces of equipment out there. Useless as they might be in the modern agility and precision based wars it’s pretty on brand for someone who wants to present themselves as some kind of macho strongman.
The naval equivalent of a useless fatass is also pretty on brand.
Bruh still hasn’t heard of the trebuchet…
About a century ago was WWI. Idk about that.
They were obsolete after WWI when the first aircraft carriers were introduced.
Come WWII they were food for torpedo bombers.
They were always vulnerable to torpedoes hell that’s one of the reasons why the old dreadnaught class was phased out. Regardless they still served their purpose during WW2 as a way to imperfectly fill the hole that modern destroyers now fill, also they were damned useful artillery platforms in the Pacific and during Korea.
They did have a use, but they were obsolete. Obsolete doesn’t mean useless. It means there are better options. You use what you’ve got, but you don’t make more of things that are obsolete.
My point is they weren’t obsolete by WW2, they were in a bit of a weird doctrinal area by the end of the war for sure but at the start of the war they were certainly still in their prime. Remember carriers were still being figured out during the inter-war period and weren’t exactly all that great, hell the first major use of a carrier during the war was during Pearl harbor and even then that only worked so well because of how small the harbor is which restricted movements and thus the reaction (Didn’t stop the Nevada from beaching itself and becoming a point defense platform) which was frankly luck for the Japanese.
Now by the end of the war they were showing their age especially with the modernized carriers that were being pumped out nearly as fast as battleships and with the improved destroyer and escort designs that could compensate for the relative lack of defenses on carriers. Frankly speaking carriers by themselves are kinda shit, they need an escort fleet to even function lest they be even more exposed than a battleship, hell there’s a reason why everyone kept trying to make carrier battleships for awhile.
I think, especially now in the age of drones, carriers are about obsolete too, yeah. They require the massive support fleets, are a huge, slow, expensive target, and nearly their entire job can be replaced with a much smaller drone carrier. It’ll be an interesting time for naval innovation, but it’s not going to be massive ships.
My money is that shits going to evolve into something like those weird Japanese carrier destroyers or someone is going to dig up the concept for carrier submarines to adapt to drones. Pretty hard to guess since there’s always the possibility that something is found that can hard counter drones kinda like how close air support broke the artillery doctrines post WW1.
Edit: ignore the previous comment lemmy freaked the fuck out.
deleted by creator
It’s well known that ballistic missiles with kinetic payloads are essentially unstoppable, and can take out carriers, for example, for little cost. A fucking low tech Scud carries something like a ton. Imagine a supersonic swarm of 1000kg tungsten bullets raining on a carrier.