Weapons change and so do tactics. When the U.S. sends out an aircraft carrier it is protected by many other ships. It sails within a group of warships, both surface ships and submarines. The idea is to protect the carrier from any possible threat. If a nuclear war started, the main task of the ships surrounding the carrier would be to at least protect it long enough for it to launch all of it's planes. Doing this might mean the destruction of many other ships, but it is their duty to protect the carrier at all costs. Things were a lot simpler a few years ago than they are now. The task of protecting a carrier gets harder ever year, or at least it seems that way. With all the advances in weapons, the percentage of assurance for carrier protection seems to go down. This is a tricky area because we know that there are some weapons that are secret and these could change the balance in a ship to ship fight. This also includes submarines.

So what is going on here? Well from my perspective, it seems that we think that we must always have an enemy. This is good for the military, since it allows them to get more money in their budget and the military contractors love this because they can push the humongous weapons programs that they couldn't if there were no enemy. The Soviet Union made a great enemy because they were technologically proficient and could create great weapons thus causing the military industrial complex in this country to be able to push weapons that cost billions and billions of dollars each. I am not saying that we didn't need some weapons, but we actually were buying weapons that either didn't work as advertised or had cost overruns of many times the original quoted costs.Look at the patriot antimissile system. We kept hearing how great it worked in the first war with Iraq and then later we found out that the missiles missed most of the time. The system certainly was not battle ready before it was rushed into the war. Then there were all those Star Wars antimissile tests, where we missed the target almost every time until the military finally had to use computer simulations to say we were hitting the target, but in real life we were still missing even though we knew the trajectory of the missile we were trying to intercept.

Why are other countries like China mad at us. I guess that one reason is Taiwan. It is a shame that this country can not make amends with China proper. When Hong Kong did, things seemed to work out. Since we have vowed to protect Taiwan., there is no incentive for Taiwan. to try and negotiate. There is a lot of spying going on in the world right now and a lot of it is being done to us. Even our so called friends have been caught spying on us. We counter with spies of our own and satellites. Unfortunately satellites. flying over countries are constant reminders that we are spying on them. Every time a satellite passes over a country like China, it is a reminder of what we are doing. This also works the other way, when one of their satellites. passes over us. I think that the time has come for all countries to accept the fact that this is the way things are today. China has been trying to blind our satellites. with lasers and we are working on counter measures. I can't say what we are doing to do to other countries' satellites, because I don't know, but it is said that we possess a new plane that is capable of flying into orbit and this would make it very easy for us to shoot down satellites. Private companies are even controlling satellites, and all countries should realize that you can't turn back the clock.

There are other dangers out there besides those from space. A new class of non atomic submarine has been developed that is completely undetectable. It is being manufactured by several countries and purchased by many others, some of which we consider enemy countries. How worried are we about this new sub? We are so worried that we leased one for a couple of years from Sweden so that we could study it. The name of the sub is the Gotland. The two things that a conventional sub was weak in was noise and the fact that it couldn't stay submerged for too long. The Gotland is different, it has solved both problems. It can sit on the bottom for a month and when it moves, it uses a new system of propulsion called Air Independent Propulsion and this system makes it invisible to sonar right now. The new sub is not the only thing we have to worry about either, there are also new torpedoes. The new torpedoes. are rocket powered and can travel at least 300 mph under water and some say they have the capability to reach 600 mph or more. While our navy says that they are not worried about the new torpedoes, the truth may be much harder to swallow. Anything moving at this speed under water could strike the target so fast that the target wouldn't have a chance to react. If a sub fired a 300 mph torpedo from a mile away, it would reach the target in a couple of seconds, if my calculations are correct. If the torpedo traveled at 600 mph, it would hit almost instantly.

We are not even considering the fact that newer and faster missiles are also being developed. It seems to me that it is getting harder and harder to protect carriers. What is really needed here is something that has been talked about for many years and was only perfected and employed in a very limited way by the Japanese in World War II, it is the underwater aircraft carrier. The Japanese had developed one that held five planes. If bombers were loaded into these subs, you could fit three with folding wings. The subs had a hanger deck that was water tight and were called the Sensuikan Toku class and they were 400 feet long, over 39 feet high, held a crew of 144 men and could reach a depth of 330 feet. The were the largest subs ever built, until the atomic missile subs were constructed. The British had the very first submarine carrier in 1928, it even had a steam catapult and waterproof hanger and could launch a seaplane, but it was not very practical. The French also built one in 1929 and put it on a submarine that was built for surface combat. This sub was named the Surcouf and was launched in 1929. It had 8 inch gun turrets forward and aft and these guns could fire a distance of 15 miles. She was the biggest sub constructed up to that time. The Italians had the Ettore Fleramosca another sub that carried a plane in a water tight hanger, but the hanger was removed before the submarine was delivered.

So why did all the research seem to stop on underwater aircraft carriers? It is strange, isn't it? You would think that this would be the weapon that we would be aiming at. Perhaps it is too hard to hide even a submarine the size of an aircraft carrier under water. Maybe the navy is scared that if anything happens and the sub sinks, the loss of life and equipment would just be too great. We have to remember that it takes a crew of about 5,000 or a little less to make a carrier fully operational. This is being trimmed down as new electronics are taking over some of the tasks formerly performed by crewmen. I don't know why we really stopped this type of development, but it seems that no one is carrying out this type of carrier experimentation. If we could develop carriers that could submerge and carry about 30 planes each, we could send out 3 of these in a carrier group instead of one big fat target.

That new rocket torpedo uses an envelope of gas that it travels inside and theoretically can reach the speed of sound. This is not only limited to torpedoes. however. Undersea craft can be developed using the same system. According to Scientific American, there is a link between the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk and these weapons. The rocket torpedo has been around since 1997. At that time it was know that there was no defense against it. It is said that that Chinese submarines are equipped with the new torpedoes. In contrast, the fastest known torpedo the U.S. has travels at 80 mph. In 1998 U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that China had already purchased 40 of these torpedoes. It is said that the torpedo has a range of 7,500 yards. The Chinese navy is now arming itself with silent submarines, rocket torpedoes. and stealth missiles.

Is it time to stop building conventional aircraft carriers? Some experts believe this to be the case unless some new technology is discovered that can absolutely protect them from a threat that is quite real. By the way, many believe that now the Americans also have rocket torpedoes as do the British, but since this is an offensive weapon it doesn't counter the threat of incoming torpedoes.