If 20 years ago, someone told me that China would build the most advanced aircraft carriers in the world, and that the United States would try to study the correct way to fight asymmetric warfare in order to counter China's advanced aircraft carriers, I would have thought that this person would probably not have woken up.
Now, 20 years later, this has come true.
During recent exercises, the U.S. Army tested the use of PRSM ballistic missiles, which are weapons developed by the United States specifically to deal with large warships such as aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. At present, some social media in the United States speculate that the US military is engaged in this weapon to imitate China's combat thinking in the past 10 years, when the main tactic used by China to counter US aircraft carriers was to attack with anti-ship ballistic missiles.
According to a public statement by the U.S. Army, the missile performs very well and can effectively hit targets with the help of high-altitude detection balloons.
The U.S. Army released a high-altitude reconnaissance balloon at Guam's Vampat International Airport, hundreds of kilometers away from Palau, and then guided the missile through electromagnetic sensors and communication equipment carried on board, and the U.S. also arranged for an ultra-long-endurance drone to locate above the ship. Under the coordination of a battalion headquarters, the missile finally succeeded in accurately hitting the target and sinking the target ship.
The Americans have proven one thing in this operation, they have now developed a missile with almost the same performance and positioning as the Chinese.
In other words, the Americans have subconsciously put China's aircraft carriers in a more threatening position.
Some people may be concerned about whether the performance of US missiles can be compared with that of China.
Personally, I don't think this is something of comparative value, after all, how many years China has developed anti-ship ballistic missiles, how many years has the United States developed talents, and when the mainland launched the Dongfeng-21D, the Americans were still discussing whether the anti-ship ballistic missiles themselves have actual combat value.
The Americans have lagged behind China on this project for too long. So there is no comparison at all.
In particular, the most important point is the high-temperature wave-transmitting material for missiles, which is a technology that the Americans have not had. As a result, when the United States is developing high-speed anti-ship ballistic missiles, the speed of the missiles has not been raised due to material problems. This directly leads to the fact that the anti-ship ballistic missiles developed by the Americans themselves have a serious problem of insufficient speed. In terms of performance, it is not an opponent of Chinese missiles, and the probability of being intercepted when attacking Chinese aircraft carriers will also increase.
What really interests me is why the Americans would try to study the asymmetric tactic of attacking aircraft carriers with missiles.
I am afraid that the core reason is that the current state of US aircraft carriers is not very good.
As of June of this year, the US Navy had only one aircraft carrier at its disposal. What I'm talking about here is an aircraft carrier that can be freely dispatched at sea and has entered the deployment period, and the only aircraft carrier is the USS Roosevelt.
In other words, although the Americans claim to have 11 aircraft carriers, only 1 can really go to war.
So how much combat power does this aircraft carrier have? Not much, actually. Because all aircraft carriers in the United States are facing the problem of aging equipment because they are on duty for a long time.
At present, the US aircraft carrier is in an unqualified state in terms of combat effectiveness, service life, and equipment integrity. The aircraft carriers that are not currently in the dock are the USS Reagan, which is suspected of having a nuclear leak, the USS Eisenhower, which has lost its combat effectiveness due to overdue deployment, and the USS Truman, which is capable of fighting, but is in a state of training, and there is still some time before it can be redeployed.
On the other hand, on the Chinese side, the Fujian ship will soon be put into service, and the Liaoning ship will be refitted immediately, and the technology used by the Fujian ship far exceeds that of the American aircraft carrier, so if there is no global all-out war, the combat effectiveness of the American aircraft carrier is inferior to that of China.
It is precisely for this reason that the Americans are now beginning to make preparations with two hands, one is to deploy more F-35 fighters, deploy more amphibious assault ships, and use amphibious assault ships as quasi-aircraft carriers. Another preparation is to develop anti-ship ballistic missiles, using the same methods that China used to deal with Chinese aircraft carriers.
It can also be seen from this that the current US military strength and industrial capacity have indeed declined by a large margin. After all, if there is really no way, who wants to study the asymmetric combat mode and directly use the aircraft carrier to fight the decisive battle? That's what China is doing now, anyway.
However, now that Americans are copying China, it is a good thing from a certain point of view, because it is impossible to make a profit if they rely solely on plagiarism.