As one option said, the PLAN (PRC navy) is getting better at blue water ops, there was a story on CNN a while back about a Chicom Kilo penetrating a CVBG's ASW screen. (The Kitty Hawk group, IIRC)

Yes it was a publicity stunt by the chinese, in real life if the USN or any navy was sailing into potential hostile waters, it would have been found the chinese submarines are not exactly the suttlest of things.

I don't see how we can really make an educated guess. Most of what we know about the current naval capabilities of any country (definately including the U.S.) is unclassified information. I highly doubt that any unclassified info is less than five or six years old. Though I'm sure we can all agree that the U.S. has far more naval power than any other nation at the moment, how are we to know what technological and/or shipbuilding advances are being made by other countries.

All that being said, I don't think there will be any blue water conflicts until another nation has a sufficiently powerful carrier force. All naval forces must have air cover in these modern times, and the only way to have it without a carrier is to be close to land-based aircraft. And right now no other nation posesses a single carrier as large and sophisticated as those of the U.S. Navy, let alone three or four (which is the minimum number that would be sent to a major engagement).

The Russian Kuznetsov and, to a lesser degree, the French Charles De Gaulle have about two-thirds the air power of a Nimitz class carrier. And each country only has one unit in service and no plans to build two or three more any time soon.

So my vote is a "Heck if I know" leaning towards a no within the next 20 years or so.

On a slightly different note, though chinese subs are not nearly as sopisticated as they'd like everyone to believe, they should in no way be underestimated. The fact that a fairly "useless" sub was able to surface within weapons range of a U.S. CV is something to consider. If such a sub could do it in peacetime, how many more sophisticated subs (such as the Project 636 Improved Kilo) would it take to get within weapons range in wartime conditions?

Blue water battles are neither a thing of the past nor unlikely. It only takes the right set of events to bring it about.

The Song is not a useless submarine. It is a modern diesel sub in every sense of the word. While there are many examples of subs being able to successfully penetrate carrier group defenses, I'm not sure we have all the details regarding the circumstances of this incident. And we still are unable to validate the effectiveness of conventional subs in wartime conditions vs. real ASW efforts directed at them, and other assymetric tactics to reduce their effectiveness. When the CSG is not limited to a confined battlespace in an exercise, I'd really love to see if a conventional sub can actually track one down. There would probably have to be team tactics and forward positioning involved. Even so, something tells me it wouldn't be as easy as one can deduce from naval exercise results.

that being said about the Song class, one has to keep in mind that it's not hard to penetrate a battlegroup when its on a 'peacetime' footing. Had the kitty hawk group been battle ready or wary of a sub threat (as they would be in time of crisis or war), getting through the ASW screen becomes a bit harder.

I bet it would be a LOT harder to penetrate a wartime battlegroup. However, the point I was trying to make was, one Song managed to penetrate the screen in peacetime. How many Project 636 class Kilos with full Klub-S loads would it take to get a hit on a wartime carrier? They could each be more than 20 nm from the carrier and, with say four Kilos, could launch a salvo of 24 supersonic missile which reportedly perform evasive maneuvers during terminal homing. I suppose they would have to be enabled early to be as hard to knock down as possible, but a carrier is always the biggest radar signature in a battlegroup and would probably draw most of the missiles. Even if they all failed to lock onto the carrier, losing two-four AEGIS cruisers/destroyers would seriously impair a CSG's ASW/anti-missile screen which would allow another group of torpedo-armed subs or cruise missiles to penetrate more easily.

Anyway, this is all hypothetical and probably wildly innacurate due to the fact that I have no classified information about CSG ASW capabilities or the Kilo/Klub combination. On the other hand, what if this attack was coordinated with a massive bomber strike and surface vessels all firing sophisticated cruise missiles? On the other hand, the US would never send a single CSG into a war zone, so this really isn't much of a possibility. I find it hard to imagine that any hostile country would stand a chance against three or four CSGs plus whatever USAF assets were deployed in the area.

What all this really is supposed to say is that it is definately possible for someone to kill a US carrier, but that it probably wouldn't be much of an issue.

The problem with the USN at the moment is that it lacks a sutible sole ASW unit, the perry is all well and good it has torpedos and two helos, great send it out, chances are the submarine will hear it before the perry find it, and as its supposed to be an ASW unit it would get sunk, now with a missile its not that hard four Klubs simaltaniously fired at a perry would overwhelm them, because they no longer have MK13 Launchers for the SM-2, so 50% of thier own self defence weaponary has been taken away.

phalanx can only deal with one missile at a time and only when its within 1.5nm range of the ship so the enamy is garenteed at least one is going to hit which would kill a perry, the only other defence a perry has is the nixie good when one torpedo is fired at you but when three in a spread are fired your screwed first torpedo goes after the nixie boom, the second and third home in on you and kaboom.
Another big issue is note that most other naval platforms have twin screws why well incase one cant be used due to damage or something, the perry has a single screw disable that and you got a nice floating target.

The only way to make an effective defence using the perry is couple it with a burke DDG to provide its defence against missiles, but then thats a complete waste of a ship that could be doing other things like escorting a much more mission critical vessel like a carrier, so basically you have just robbed from peter to give to paul, and the AEGIS system is good for ASUW and no good for ASW.

This is the sole reason why the swedish gotland submarine has run rings around the USN for over a year, the USN lacks a sutible vessel to conduct ASW warfare.

The royal navy has thier type 23's
The Russian navy has Udaloys and Krivacks and Grishas
The french navy has D'estine D overs
Germans have type 122
japanese have asagiri class (i think)

so why does the USN fizzle out thee most important part of naval warfare to come?

The USN is all about multi-mission warships. And completely intertwined with joint warfare concepts. Your scenario of a lone Perry, or a measly escort and a Perry is completely unrealistic. The USN will deploy assets based on threat assessments and intelligence outlooks. Right now, there isn't much enemy wise that can deal with the USN. Perry class ships as dedicated ASW vessels right now is a no-brainer. The launcher has been removed because the Perry does not have the ability to handle large AAW or ASuW engagements. Never really did. From this point on, it will be an primary ASW ship. While I wish she could still support the other two missions, this doesn't really present that much of a problem right now as Russian Naval forces are largely anemic(presents no credible threat), and China is still trying to figure itself out.

Perry ships will never operate alone. And USN can put alot more submarine assets into play than Russia or China could. I mean actually deployed and in theatre with support.

Absolute nonsense. The USN has more than 70 AEGIS ships, and alot of carrier strike support. Would you like to discuss the potential USN submarine presence or joint ops with the USAF? How about US National Command Authorities ability to pre-emptively strike enemy land-based components.

Again, total BS. USN AEGIS surface units excel at AAW. But can conduct ASuW, ASW, deep Strike Warfare, and a variety of support roles. And they are all very good in any of these roles. In addition, they are gaining momentum in the Ballistic Missile Defense role. These are ships nobody has been able to match. Other nations who have been given our support to build their own versions of our AEGIS ships have gotten a real deal.

The work on it continues. Despite this, there was a link from last year where a commander of a participant vessel said they were tracking Gotland. Just not consistently. Quiet diesels in the littorals are a problem for any country that will face them. But even these conventional subs have their limitations. And to my knowledge, the USN is the Navy best equipped to deal with it.

Fizzle out?? Where do you get this garbage? Despite the fact that the USN scaled back their surface ASW mission from Cold War days, they are still the most robust and capable in this mission. The USN uses Perry class FFG's, Tico's, and Arleigh Burkes of all varieties. Have we forgotten about US Navy subs and aircraft that also conduct ASW missions? The USN is not fizzling out, quite the opposite is true. It's really unfortunate they got rid of S-3 aircraft and Sprucans. Those were good ASW assets. But what the USN has is more than adequate if used correctly and if development in ASW equipment and tactics continues. In fact, it's still significantly much more than the nations you list here. The Russian Udaloy's, Krivaks, Grisha's are largely obsolete Cold War relics that have not seen much technological updates at all. In fact I've seen many USN periscope shots at close range on these units. I doubt any Russian ASW surface unit would survive against USN submarine forces.

LCS is a single mission ship. Assuming they ever build more...

All this talk about the Perry...you are forgeting one major thing Kapitan.

They were built cheaply and quickly to escort our convoys in case Europe was attacked. So, that being said...multiple units would escort the convoy to "help" the defense inadequacy in this regard.

Near Term Naval Conflict
 

Near term naval conflict (next 6-9 months) will probably resemble the recent riff between the US and those Iranian speedboats.

I'm not so sure that's accurate. LCS as conceived was supposed to carry mission modules that would allow it to configure for differing missions based on needs from their respective commands. They were to carry a minewarfare module, an ASW module, or an ASuW module. Unless that's changed recently, LCS was to be a multi-mission platform able to carry out a variety of naval tasks.

Sea Demon/Sea Queen,

I believe you are both right in part. The LCS is modular which gives it the ability to be swiftly modified for a certain mission. On the other hand this means the LCS, once comitted to a mission cannot easily attempt another. If equipped for ASW, for example, the LCS would have to retreat to a tender or dock to switch modules, whereas a truely multirole ship would be capable of ASW and other missions in the same action.

As it stands right now, it would have to go into port to switch modules.

Personally, I think the single mission-ness of the LCS needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Even though on paper, it's only capable of performing one role at a time, there's nothing preventing the LCS-SuW, say, from stowing a few ASW torpedoes somewhere. Similarly, they might also decide to put an MH-60S on an LCS and add more Hellfires. My suspicion is that if they build any more LCS, in practice they will be forced by reality to perform as multi-role ships. I think that will end up being the true measure of their flexibility as warships. In this respect the baseline LCS with it's modules is really the least interesting thing about the LCS. I'm curious to see how they adapt it, given that it's basically a single mission ship that will in all likelihood be confronted with adversaries intent on challenging multi-mission warships.