Maybe, but very likely still useful. They are vulnerable if they can be directly attacked, but largely in the same ways and for the same reasons as an airfield. Same as for ground based airfields, if fighting is happening around and on top of the carrier things are already going very very badly. Doctorine generally centers on not letting anything hostile get close enough to take a shot at all, and so carriers can be found in the centers of fleets that are spread out to screen the carrier (in addition to the carrier’s own air patrols).
As already mentioned, there’s an arms race with respect to cruise missiles; missiles have become extremely capable in terms of range and finding a target, and extremely accurate. If one hits it’s probably sufficent to sink a ship regardless of size. Point defence seems to be lagging slightly at present, but it seems premature to call the race. Public information on exactly where an arms race like this is usually lags 10-20 years, but I’d consider the success of anti-satilite and anti-balistic-missile programs strong evidence that shooting missiles with other missiles has become reality.
As for drones, keep in mind that cruise missles of the type that can sink a large ship in one hit mass tens of tons; likewise for torpedos. While drones could certainly be a threat, it’s unclear they’d represent an asymetric threat (e.g. the carrier could presumably also launch drones too and so respond in kind). Submarines are very much an asymetric threat to carriers, but that’s not new, and I’d be skeptical that drones massively alter the balance of power there, given the extreme difficulty communicating with anything underwater—subs require significantly more autonomy than UAVs.
Maybe, but very likely still useful. They are vulnerable if they can be directly attacked, but largely in the same ways and for the same reasons as an airfield. Same as for ground based airfields, if fighting is happening around and on top of the carrier things are already going very very badly. Doctorine generally centers on not letting anything hostile get close enough to take a shot at all, and so carriers can be found in the centers of fleets that are spread out to screen the carrier (in addition to the carrier’s own air patrols).
As already mentioned, there’s an arms race with respect to cruise missiles; missiles have become extremely capable in terms of range and finding a target, and extremely accurate. If one hits it’s probably sufficent to sink a ship regardless of size. Point defence seems to be lagging slightly at present, but it seems premature to call the race. Public information on exactly where an arms race like this is usually lags 10-20 years, but I’d consider the success of anti-satilite and anti-balistic-missile programs strong evidence that shooting missiles with other missiles has become reality.
As for drones, keep in mind that cruise missles of the type that can sink a large ship in one hit mass tens of tons; likewise for torpedos. While drones could certainly be a threat, it’s unclear they’d represent an asymetric threat (e.g. the carrier could presumably also launch drones too and so respond in kind). Submarines are very much an asymetric threat to carriers, but that’s not new, and I’d be skeptical that drones massively alter the balance of power there, given the extreme difficulty communicating with anything underwater—subs require significantly more autonomy than UAVs.