Why what happened to the Russian warship Moskva won’t happen to American aircraft carriers
Russian military failures in its attempt to conquer Ukraine have some wondering about the vulnerability of traditional US forces — especially icons like American aircraft carriers.
If the Black Sea Russian flagship cruiser Moskva can be taken out by Ukrainian missiles, they argued, then what chance would an American carrier have against the likes of a China — or even an Iran.
But their reasoning is foundationally flawed and in no way should Russia’s inability to safeguard its own capital warship be used to project the fate of an American carrier. Russian operational concepts, tactics, overall defenses and damage-control procedures simply don’t measure up to nearly the same level as what the American navy demands, especially for its carrier fleet.
To recap: Ukraine struck the Moskva on April 13 with two indigenously manufactured Neptune anti-ship missiles while the ship was operating in the Black Sea about 65 nautical miles off the Ukraine coast. The Russian cruiser sank the following day.
Russians blamed rough seas for the ship’s sinking after the Moskva, — they claimed — had suffered a fire on board (although they neglected to say what caused that fire), not from the missile strikes. Moscow said the vessel sank after a fire. Whatever the cause, the Moskva was the largest Russian warship sunk during combat since World War II.
The first point here is that no American carrier would have nave been operating in such a perilous position to begin with. That’s not because US Navy strategists fear putting a carrier in harm’s way — it’s because carriers operate farther from shore, using their airwing assets to conduct strike, reconnaissance or other missions.
The greater distance would have enabled better preparation and operations of a carrier’s defense network. And it is a network — a carrier strike group of ships and aircraft that creates a defensive web of sensors and systems, layered and interconnecting. Each of those platforms is quite capable — combined they create a sea and air fortress.
How capable? As Brent Sadler, the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense’s senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology, pointed out shortly after the Moskva sinking: In 2016, the US destroyer USS Mason defended itself and two other warships from cruise-missile attacks in the Red Sea from Houthi rebels. Key was the Mason’s Aegis radar and combat system, which provides 360-degree coverage and layered long-range and point defenses. Sadler also noted that the old-time Soviet design for the 1979-built Moskva banked more on weaponry than on damage control.
With US warships, on the other hand, damage control ranks among its chief requirements. The ships are meant to be the Timex of the seas — to take a licking and keep on ticking. And that’s especially true of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The navy not only has outfitted those ships with redundant systems and enhanced its survival chances with additional watertight compartments and firefighting systems, the service also has drilled its ships’ crews incessantly on damage control.
When it comes to at-sea combat, no other naval ships are better defended and survivable than those in the American fleet. US carriers, as it turns out, are more vulnerable targets for critics than they are for enemy missiles.
