Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

So you want to make it into Pykrete?

Could it be possible for a B-2 or Stealth aircraft to sneak up on a carrier group undetected? Assuming they "had their guard down",relatively.

Whose carrier group?

That, Detective, is the "right question."

If it's a US Navy carrier group circa 1943, absolutely. US Navy carrier group in 2019? Maybe? Dunno. Might depend on if the carrier knows they're coming, and what strategies they're using to make the approach, and if they're coordinating with other forces. I bet a flight of B-1s or fighter bombers could improve the B-2's odds by making a distraction, making it less likely for an over-tasked radar operator to notice the relatively small signature the Spirit would be throwing up.

Yeah, this was under the assumption of the US Navy.

Though I wonder, if the brass wanted to test this, would they tell the respective captains of the fleet?

Define “sneak up”, and define “had their guard down”. Could a stealth aircraft overfly a carrier at combat alert? Definitely not. Could they get close enough to launch stand-off weapons on a carrier sailing during peacetime? Probably. It’s all relative.

Why couldn't they, tho? If a carrier group can detect a stealth aircraft then what's the point of calling it "stealth"? One would think the US expected to use stealth planes, potentially to attack Naval targets.

Wouldn't need a stealth plane to sneak up on the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov. Just need to hide in and follow the (very thick) smoke trail.

Edited by MajorTom on Apr 18th 2019 at 9:51:50 AM

Stealth isn’t total invisibility. That’s probably the single biggest misconception the public has with those aircraft.

At a combat alert a carrier is going to be aggressively scanning the sky around it and integrating data from numerous airborne platforms. That would be a difficult environment for any stealth aircraft to get into. They’d need to stay at a distance, and they’d need to be operating as a team with other aircraft to be able to carry off a successful strike.

Edited by archonspeaks on Apr 19th 2019 at 2:47:27 AM

Yah, stealth is a spectrum. Various technologies and tactics have been devised over the years both to improve stealth and to defeat it. Sometimes it's a sophisticated stealthy design built from the wheels up, sometimes it's a conventional fighter with some radar-absorbent paint layered over it to let it get just a wee bit closer before being picked up (for example, American F-16CJs modified for Wild Weasel missions, hunting for enemy Anti-Air sites.)

I admit that Im curious regarding what scenario you have created that pits US Airforce aircraft against a US carrier fleet.

My money is on the carrier fleet, but a lot depends on the specific circumstances. If the carrier believes that the B-2's are friendly, they could be sitting ducks.

The easiest justification is a wargame, to determine things like whether or not a US carrier group is vulnerable to stealth aircraft or strategic bombers, or how viable those same aircraft are at fending off enemy naval forces (one of the traditional roles of heavy bombers in the US Air Force, actually, given their long range.)

Wargames tend to be run under rather narrow rules and procedures, because they dont want to risk actually losing people or equipment, which I think favors the carrier. During a real war, pilots are allowed to take more risks, which favors the planes.

Realistically a bomber strike against a carrier group would be done with as many standoff weapons as they could fire in a given pass. Dropping bombs directly on ships is more for low-risk operations. Ideally, it would be the Carriers CAP (Combat Air Patrols) the bombers would have to worry the most about evading. They can give the carriers a potent signal relay from a high altitude and see a lot further than the surface ships can. The US Navy demonstrated that several years ago that data link can be used for targeting and fired an AA missile an impressive distance.

Assuming that the bomber SOMEHOW makes it through, anti-ship tactics involve massed salvos of A Sh Ms. How many ship-killers can you fit on a B-2?

^ A metric fuckton. However many you can fit into 80,000 pounds of carry space.

The only anti-ship capability the B-2 currently integrates is the AGM-154 glide bomb. It’s not an ideal weapon for naval strike missions though, if it came down to a strike on a carrier group they’d probably use AGM-158s launched from a B-1 or a fighter. Theoretically the AGM-158 could be integrated on a B-2, I’d guess it could probably hold 20-30 or so.

What you’d probably see is the bombers and their escorts run right up to the maximum range of their weapons (300ish miles for the AGM-158, 100ish for the AGM-154) and deploy them all immediately, then turn around and bounce. These are low-profile weapons so they’re very difficult to intercept, I can’t imagine you’d need a huge amount of them. It wouldn’t be just one bomber making the attack either.

The F-35 is probably the platform of choice for an attack like this. Each one can only carry 4 AGM-158s in a clean configuration, but a group of them could deploy a large salvo, and send them in from multiple angles at once.

If enough planes can survive long enough to get off a salvo of missiles, the ships are in trouble. Getting there is the challenge.

Carrier is probably safe. Doubt they’d be able to sink it

"She's made of iron, sir, I assure you she'll sink!"

There's a chance that a fleet carrier could take a ship killer or two. I mean, the USS Forrestal survived about half a dozen planes daisy chaining off it's rear hull but like the Forrestal disaster, that's not something you want to happen. With all that fuel and ammo any hit would be a mission kill.

In the USS America SINKEX, they unloaded a lot of ship killing and not so ship killing ordnance into the carrier. A suspected, known by everyone but officially still classified reason is to find out how a "modern" post-WW 2 aircraft carrier holds up to modern weaponry and if various improvements to damage control and design can be gleaned.

You can read more about that and see the only released photo from the SINKEX here.

Considering how much they hit it with, it’s amazing it held up as well as it did. I’ll also point out that was without any active damage control aboard the ship, either.

If they had the watertight doors closed, you're talking about a lot of buoyant volume to fill with water before that thing sinks. Like trying to shoot holes in a helium airship until it finally drops.

I don't know how it'd happen, but I'd want to know what would happen if a MOAB was dropped on the flight deck of a Nimitz.