USS ‘Ronald Reagan.’U.S. Navy photo
Forbes: The U.S. Fleet Could Lose Four Aircraft Carriers Defending Taiwan
The U.S. Navy’s fleet of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers fared poorly in a series of war games, simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026, that the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. recently organized.
Even when the United States and Japan successfully defended Taiwan—as they did in most of CSIS’s 24 simulations—the Navy lost at least two carriers … and sometimes as many as four.
And it happened fast. “Typically, the United States lost both forward-deployed carriers within the first turn or two,” CSIS analysts Mark Cancian, Matthew Cancian and Eric Heginbotham explained in their summary of the war games. A turn represented 3.5 days of fighting.
While the carriers were getting blasted by Chinese missiles, the Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarines and the U.S. Air Force’s heavy bombers not only were dodging Chinese attacks for the most part, they also were managing to sink more than enough Chinese ships to win the war.
Read more ….
WNU Editor: It is also estimated the US will lose a quarter of its submarine fleet …. The U.S. Navy Submarine Force Could Sink The Chinese Fleet And Save Taiwan, But At The Cost Of A Quarter Of Its Boats (Forbes).