Re: @ wolfetone
"Lets face it if ever theres a proper shooting war then all these carriers, and the planes still on the deck, will be on the bottom of the sea within about an hour."
"If it gets to that point the airfields will be smoldering holes in the ground and the cities will be ashes"
well, no, think of tactical nukes: they can take out an aircraft carrier, even a big one, and infest everything in a radius of 100km around it, but if it's on open see no land will be harmed. So yes, indeed, in case of a true war, the aircraft carriers are going to be the first targets of (Russian) U-boats (*). Therefore, it's easy to conclude that aircraft carriers are only there to bully countries that can't shoot back.
(*) EDIT: and there's nothing to do about it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
