[Poohbah]

What the battleship was in 1941, the aircraft carrier is now: a big, proud, expensive...sitting duck.Aircraft carriers came out of WW II looking powerful, but that was before microchips. Now, when an enemy tanker can fire 60 self-guiding cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away, no carrier will survive its first real battle.

This assumes that the enemy tanker can detect the target reliably.

There's only one nation that can do over-the-horizon targeting on a consistent basis.

And that nation is the United States of America.

[A Longer Name]

This assumes that the enemy tanker can detect the target reliably.

So these huge behemoths must rely on invisibility for protection. This doesn't sound good.

Besides, I suspect there is a way to detect them, or will be in the future. For example, a swarm of toy-sized unmanned aircraft scouring the area.

There's only one nation that can do over-the-horizon targeting on a consistent basis.

Well, even an inconsistent basis may do it. The enemy just needs to get lucky once or twice out of dozens of tries. And again, the technologies available to everyone keep improving and there is nothing we can do about it.

[SauronOfMordor]

This assumes that the enemy tanker can detect the target reliably. There's only one nation that can do over-the-horizon targeting on a consistent basis.

At the moment, and as far as we know.

At the point where there are enough satellites up there to track every ship in the sea (by optical, radar, infrared, and picking up emissions) carriers will be in trouble. Particularly when any random container ship or tanker within a couple hundred miles could be concealing launchers for a couple of hundred cruise missiles