Can a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier Be Sunk?

Summary and Key Points: U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, particularly the Nimitz-class, are enormous vessels designed for resilience and power projection. With a flight deck the size of four football fields, these carriers host a Carrier Air Wing and are protected by a Carrier Strike Group of submarines, cruisers, and destroyers equipped with advanced missile and defense systems.

-Even if an enemy missile or aircraft breaches these defenses, carriers are built with thick steel plating and watertight compartments to withstand damage.

-The 2005 tests on the decommissioned USS America demonstrated the incredible survivability of these ships, highlighting the challenge of sinking a modern carrier.

-The aircraft carriers of the U.S. Navy are behemoths. Most of the carriers in operation are Nimitz-class carriers. They are over 1,000 feet long with a crew of more than 5,000 sailors.

How U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers Are Built to Survive the Toughest Battles

Embarked is the Carrier Air Wing, the vessel’s raison d’etre. This wing consists of more than 40 strike fighters as well as a host of other support aircraft.

These aircraft are stored, launched, and recovered on a flight deck that covers nearly 4.5 acres, or the size of four football fields. 

All this adds up to a major asset, and carriers are the Navy’s primary means of power projection. Adversaries recognize this. Carriers have been prime targets since they first rose to dominance in the Second World War. But they are not easy to sink. 

How Are Aircraft Carriers Designed?

In order to sink a Navy aircraft carrier, an enemy ship, plane, or missile first has to get close enough. Carriers are screened by their air wing for hundreds of miles in every direction. The Carrier Strike Group of accompanying submarines, cruisers, and destroyers provides a powerful escort force capable of intercepting incoming missiles and aircraft.

The AEGIS arrays on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers can track and engage multiple targets using their 5 inch guns, missiles, and the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS). These ships also work with friendly submarines to counter enemy attempts to sink a carrier from beneath the surface. Powerful sonars make slipping by undetected a difficult task, while torpedoes and depth charges await those who fail to remain unseen.

Aboard the carrier itself, missiles and CIWS are primed to intercept and shoot down incoming missiles. Should a weapon manage to evade the air wing, the screens, and the carrier’s own defenses, it would struggle to penetrate the inches-thick steel plating that makes up the hull.

Even then, all modern warships are designed as a series of individually watertight compartments. Closing the doors, or “hatches,” between them can seal off a damaged and leaking compartment and save the ship. 

The process of responding to issues aboard the ship is known as damage control, and the U.S. Navy works very hard to ensure its sailors are trained in this art. Dedicated damage control teams report to lockers placed strategically throughout the ship that contain all the essential equipment for fighting fires and floods.

In several notable cases, swift and aggressive damage control responses have saved American warships. 

In 1988, the frigate Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf. Despite extensive flooding and a cracked keel — usually a death sentence for a ship — the crew managed to keep the ship afloat and extricate her from the minefield.

More recently, when the USS Fitzgerald was struck by a container ship in 2017, most of the crew were asleep. They swiftly sprung into action, however, and fought flooding and structural damage for 16 hours straight to save the ship.

The Peculiar Case of the USS America

All of this adds up to ships that are just plain hard to kill. In 2005, the Navy selected the former carrier America to serve as a test platform following her decommissioning.

The vessel was towed off the coast of North Carolina and subjected to nearly four weeks of explosive tests to provide the Navy with critical information to design the next generation of carriers, the Ford class. 

Despite the Navy’s best efforts, after four weeks the America still floated. It wasn’t until a special demolition team went aboard to scuttle her that the ship finally slipped beneath the surface.

The survivability of a 40-year-old aircraft carrier like the America is a testament to the strength of carriers, and a sure sign that the brand new USS Ford will be very difficult to sink. 

About the Author: Maya Carlin

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. 

Image Credit: Creative Commons