> It's one of the reason that warships in general (including carriers) are designed to be compartmentalized, to have redundant backups (and backups to the backups), etc., is because it is expected they might have to survive battle damage.
For a carrier, not-sinking != operational. The flight deck, catapults, and arresting gear are necessarily exposed to anything that explodes above them. Take them out and the carrier is basically useless.
A carrier can be severely damaged or even sunk by just a few comparatively-small bombs if they're well-placed, intentionally or fortuitously. This was vividly demonstrated at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 [1], where four Japanese carriers and one American carrier were sunk. (It only took one U.S. bomb to sink the unfortunate Akagi.)
In January 1969 my former ship, the USS Enterprise, was taken out of action for several weeks by an accidental fire on the flight deck that cooked off ordinance, spread, and killed 27 sailors [2]. (It was before my time there.)
I would imagine that a ground-launched ballistic missile could carry a much bigger payload than I've been talking about. But yes, it'd be no small navigational challenge to make sure an ASBM actually got to the (moving) target and past the last-ditch defenses.
However USS Yorktown was "taken out of the action" a couple of times in WWII and still put back into the fight and playing very important roles in that fight, before eventually being sunk by a Japanese submarine. So it's definitely fair to say that simply damaging a carrier is not nearly as catastrophic as sinking one.
> So it's definitely fair to say that simply damaging a carrier is not nearly as catastrophic as sinking one.
It is fair to say that the situations are not equal.
If the carrier can't fight, it's out of the battle until it's fixed. Fixable don't count if the war is over in weeks, or months.
Fixing a modern carrier might can take a while.
Yorktown was not a complex warship. She takes a hit on the deck. Patch up the holes in her deck (I'm simplifying) and she's back in business.
Hit Ford in the same location and you damage catapults, arresting gear. Ford is out of the war until she is fixed and this will not happen soon. How long to replace a catapult: I'd guess months at best. Where do they even keep the spares?
For a carrier, not-sinking != operational. The flight deck, catapults, and arresting gear are necessarily exposed to anything that explodes above them. Take them out and the carrier is basically useless.
A carrier can be severely damaged or even sunk by just a few comparatively-small bombs if they're well-placed, intentionally or fortuitously. This was vividly demonstrated at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 [1], where four Japanese carriers and one American carrier were sunk. (It only took one U.S. bomb to sink the unfortunate Akagi.)
In January 1969 my former ship, the USS Enterprise, was taken out of action for several weeks by an accidental fire on the flight deck that cooked off ordinance, spread, and killed 27 sailors [2]. (It was before my time there.)
I would imagine that a ground-launched ballistic missile could carry a much bigger payload than I've been talking about. But yes, it'd be no small navigational challenge to make sure an ASBM actually got to the (moving) target and past the last-ditch defenses.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway#Attacks_on_the...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)#Vietnam...