Unless you plan to drop them quite regularly, the issue is more that you can get close enough, sit quiet, and launch. Subs are still quiet enough to get close. And one nuclear torpedo or missile can really mess things up.

It's not exactly accurate to say 'there's always a comeback'. It is fair to say that the dance between the performers 'defensive systems' and 'offensive systems' is a constant race of one to counter and surpass the other. But at any given point, one can be significantly ascendant (think the invention of A-bombs).

The modern day threat to the battlegroups could well be nuclear terrorism or things like hypervelocity missles (from various sources above and below water or on land). And orbital threats may not be that far in the offing.

Ultimately, the US battle group exists to project power (both soft power in the form of intimidation or shoring up without expecting to fight) and hard power (the ability to provide naval fire, naval air assets, and the ability to land assault waves). It has a limited defensive role. Most Western countries that lack significant main line strikers that can do land strike in one way or another do not have foreign policy that would require it (and/or they depend on the major powers because without them nobody would attempt a lot of the adventurism around the world - no logistic fleet and air logistic capability to move and supply on a large scale in any meaningful time scale).

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 9:59 PM Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml list) < xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, June 16, 2020, 06:34:52 PM MST, Jonathan Clark <xxxxxx@att.net> wrote:

Meanwhile meanwhile, Phil Pugliese wrote:

> Actually the USN & now the PRC (maybe the UK too) doesn't see the CVN as too much
> of anything except a critically necessary asset.

An acquaintance of mine, retired XO on a USN boomer, was known to refer to a carrier
battle group as 'a big fat hairy target'. My POV is that a nations naval forces are,
these days, fundamentally a transport fleet. Nothing wrong with that, of course. One
could make the same argument about current-day "fighter" planes, which could be seen
as just a transport mechanism for missiles and smart bombs.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, there's a lot of that "mine is bigger(better) than yours" style banter.

I'm sure that old BB 'salts said the same thing about CV's 'way back when'.

As far as SSN's go one could easily reply

;

"Hey dude. ever heard of a nuclear depth charge (re:SUBROC)?

Just one will make a bunch of your SS's 'go away' for good!"

There's always a counter comeback.

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