Radio War Nerd EP #631 — Why Hasn't Iran Sunk A US Aircraft Carrier? Anti-Ship Missiles vs Naval Defense Systems, feat. Amerikanets
Guest: Eric (Amerikanets)
Recorded: August 20, 2026
Eric ("Amerikanets") returns as promised to dive deep into the evolution of anti-ship missiles and US Navy missile defense systems to answer the question: Why hasn't Iran sunk a US aircraft carrier, let alone any naval ship? Along the way, we discuss everything from the V-2 to the Soviet Legenda & more...
Subscribe to Eric's substack Amerikanets. Follow him on Twitter.
The Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere (AIRS) of the Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile (source: Amerikanets):
Music interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out music from his group Mountains here
Total time: 2:03:33
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Sound production by Telescope Audio
Comments (41)
Shame John had to miss this one, his early 2000s anti-ship missile doomerism was my first introduction to war nerd
Such a great episode
As I recall the DF-21D is possibly nuclear tipped with a ~0.5 MT yield bomb. So even if you get interceptors after it on the coast phase, it can detonate and still wipe out the carrier group. Get everyone's favorite Italian academic on to talk about the Chinese nuclear program!
I've often wondered if one of the motivations keeping Iran from launching a cruise missile swarm is that if they did sink a carrier it would be a profound blow to US prestige and the notion that the US is this invincible shield that can defend you. I can see the Israelis freaking out and deciding to launch nuclear strikes on Iran if their protector/client state is shown to be a paper tiger in such a dramatic fashion. 'If the guys who saved us in 1945 and 1973 can't save us now, we go to the Sampson Option.' might be the line of reasoning and I think Israeli nuclear strikes are something Iran wants to avoid even with all their talk of martyrdom.
Beryllium is pretty toxic stuff.
I was just reading it was banned from Formula 1 engines in the early 00s because it's basically impossible to handle this material without risk and it's incredibly toxic lol. I think there's still some armor-plated waivers you can get if you can prove that your application double-requires it but
Long time listener, first time commenter: Could I suggest an episode on visual art to do with/inspired by war? You've done great episodes on war poetry, war songs, many many war novels, and I think it would be a fitting complement. I have to say that I miss the thematic/wide sweep of history episodes, though with so much war all the time now I get that there are many other things to focus on.
Most war nerd War Nerd episode in awhile, really good stuff
An amazing discussion on a great topic. One thing that I still struggle to understand is apparently US warships were in the gulf the entire early part of the war. If you recall during that jd vance summit in Islamabad the US tested Iran by trying to have two Arleigh Burke destroyers pass through the strait. The UKMTO maps showed one of them went east to west then turned around and the other went west to east then turned around.
Sweden was the first country with an in service Sea Skimming anti ship missile the RB04. It entered service in 1961 and was aircraft launched. Inter service rivalry led to the Navy never getting it. There was nothing comparable for over a decade, it did everything the exocet did in 1961 which was before the in service date for the older air defence systems in the falklands (Sea Cat, Sea Slug) that was useless in the Falklands. The missile flew at 6 feet or 30 feet selected before launch. The pilot manuals are declassified these days.
This guest is a clear winner for regular correspondent status re current warfare and systems. Fits in naturally the way Annibale does for historical topics.
More like this
I may have missed it, but does Eric have a view on the aircraft carrier laundry room incident? Is that really what happened there?
Damn what a fanfuckingtastic episode…
A couple more notes on the P-700 Granit, which is one of my favourite missiles: They have onboard defensive jamming and are armoured against the 20mm shells from a CIWS. In the 80s, there was no greater antiship missile. The only problem with it is it's just so big. These missiles the size of a city bus could only be carried on submarines or cruisers, which could hold 20-24 of them. Once every US carrier group had hundreds of interceptor missiles ready to fire from VLS cells at a moment's notice, the huge carrier-killing size was a bit of a liability. A smaller missile that could be deployed in larger numbers was more likely to be able to make it through the defences. So, the Russians followed it up with the P-800 Oniks, a scaled-down version 40% the size, and proportionally smaller warhead, but with the same range. Four of them would fit where one Granit could, so not only could a submarine or cruiser launch 80-96 onikses rather than 20-24 granits, it can also be carried by smaller ships, aircraft, and land batteries. Thus, the amount of missiles that could actually be fired to saturate a fleet's air defences increases by more than fourfold, making a saturation attack realistic again.
Missilepilled tunnelcels rise up
On the sinking of HMS Sheffield, it was only hit by the exocet because the Anti-Air Warfare Officer was playing cards despite being on duty and the junior officer he left in charge was taking a shit. The two planes were sighted by HMS Glasgow but there had been no call to action stations when the ship was hit. Even then it might have survived if the missile hadn't destroyed the sea water main used to fight fires
the most disastrous bathroom break of all time?
My mom is german and has told me many times how she demonstrated against the Pershing 2. I would love to read that book you mentioned on the disinformation campaign about Korean Air 007. What is the title of that?
Mark does a great machine gun noise. He would have killed it on the playground with that
The question Mark had about analog computing in early missiles is very rabbit hole worthy. Missile guidance and missile defense were central to the development of control theory, cybernetics and the study of feedback loops and algorithms. To oversimplify the case of a missile, 1) measure how far you are from your target path with some sensors, 2) alter the path a little bit if you're close, a lot if you're far, 3) go back to step 1. This same framework was then used to study systems in biology, economics, etc. This felt like a big thread in the book Gravity's Rainbow (named after the parabola of the V2 missile)
There is also an interesting wartime experiment which involved training pigeons to peck at a picture of an enemy ship to create a guided bomb. The idea was that you would have 3 pigeons in the bomb or missile pecking away at the ship in the window and the weapon would use those pecks to guide itself onto the target
analog computers are nuts, it's basically spinning plates with rotating gears on top, like an incredibly advanced version of an old car speedometer
it's basically the difference between a computer as in a machine that computes a specific mathematical function vs a general-purpose programmable computer, which is what I'm typing on right now
Thanks mark!
“We don’t have to go through all of them” “Uh yeah we can” Beast mode
after so many Mark 6-7s it's low key insane with it that we got a Aura Farming Moment mentioned on RWN
Tokyo Driiift!
Brendan really went full Philipp Glass with this interlude, I like it!
2 hours in, yeah, they could just exhaust the entire USN interceptor inventory immensely faster than they can be cranked out. If PRC would actually enforce its ban on rare earths and other technology being used for weapons or dual-use, that would be great. But evil will always win because good is dumb or chickenshit.
This is a good example of why the supermajority of war nerds care mostly or entirely about the toys. All the specs are porn they get off on.
I like hearing about the toys every once in a while as a little treat, otherwise I’m cool just learning about eetler
Who knew little bits of aluminum were so effective.. missiles really chaff when they see it
You. Out.
Did bro just… “the missile knows where it is” us?
no he said the missile knows where it is because of GPS
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't.
The missile is a sleepy little guy who needs to get to bed
Excited to listen. My thought is the Navy controls a lot of nukes and Iran knows what losing a carrier could do to their emotional stability.
There's no reason to sink an aircraft carrier when you can accomplish everything you need to accomplish just by *threatening* it. *Sinking* a carrier is possible, but it wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be worth it. They fired at least one missile at the Lincoln, which was intercepted, and that's all that was needed to keep the Lincoln from doing much of anything for the rest of its deployment. I mean, put it this way: even if they can't sink the carrier, they can sink its resupply ships. An aircraft carrier is a floating city, and like a city it requires constant, massive logistical support to keep its crew alive, let alone perform its military function. As always, everything comes back to Dune. "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." When the target is valuable enough, a credible threat alone is sufficient.
just read the substack yesterday and said, damn I wish we got an episode about this!