What sinking the Russian flagship means:

[krispos42]

50. In shallow waters, maybe

We still have the logistical problem of having to transport a vast quantities of goods over the ocean in the event of a war. Those ships need to be escorted for weeks at a time against submarine, surface, and air attacks... and that can't be done by shore-based missiles or aircraft. You'd need six fighters or more for every one on patrol over the convoy, as at any given times some fighters will be in transit to or from the convoy, and others will be on the ground being maintained and repaired. Plus a tanker to keep the fighters fueled up as they travel to and then orbit around the convoy. Same problem with patrol anti-submarine and anti-ship aircraft.

You'd need something like an AWACS aircraft, a tanker, a half-dozen air-superiority fighters, and a couple of anti-submarine patrol planes (with limited anti-ship capability) actually escorting and protecting the convoy at any given time, and more planes either en route to relieve them or returning to base. A half-dozen air-superiority fighters can protected the convoy from a small-to-medium-sized air attack, but if there's a saturation attack the couple of dozen missiles carried by the fighters won't be enough. And if you're seriously worried about a serious attack by naval vessels, something like a B-52 or B-1B loaded with dozens of anti-ship missiles should be nearby.

By the time you have enough planes, aircrew, and groundcrew to replace a guided-missile destroyer... you've spent more than the guided-missile destroyer. An Arleigh Burke destroy has 90 vertical launch cells that can hold either a Tomahawk, a Standard surface-to-air missile, an ASROC anti-submarine rocket, or a quad-pack of Sparrow surface-to-air missiles. That's a hell of a lot of firepower.



Yeah, nowadays we can fly in troops fast... we can militarize the entire US passenger fleet iand fly thousands of troops per day per destination airport if needed. But we can't airlift the logistical train that follows those troops. Food, fuel, ammo, vehicles, and other supplies ultimately have to come in by ship, rail, and truck. They're bulky and heavy

And then there's amphibious warfare...