The arguments that the targeting problem is "too hard" to be effectively solved ring hollow when viewed through the lens of the full anti-acess area denial suite that a country can buy these days (see
http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publicati...Sea_Battle.pdf and
http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publicati...Battle__A_.pdf for the best open source discussion out there).

One has to keep in mind that it is hardley flawless, however!

The crux of the problem is in assesing the "magazine war" - how many cruise and ballistic missiles can a near peer accumulate compared to the relatively static number of VLS cells in a CSG. The "ship's a fool who fights a fort" adage gets played out by sheer numbers, even if large numbers of missiles are lobbed no where near the CSG. The Shooter can be wrong many times. The target dies if its wrong once.

Tiered ISR systems from space on down, coupled with misiles with hundreds (or thousands) of miles of range dramatically limits the complexity and time required to execute the "sensor to shooter" loop - one which typically is dominated by politcal decision-making, not technology. The ability to pick a random time and say "I want to sink the CSG now!" is not realistic, but if one says "inform me of the next opportunity to attack, and be ready to executue it" the wait will likely be hours to days, not days to weeks.

Historically, (oversimplifying at bit but I think the following cycles are fairly illustrative) we have seen several periods of ascendency of the offense. followed by defense at sea. Defense was acesndent in the WWI era leading to inconclusive clashes, the poster child being Jutland. WWII saw the airplane put the BB at severe risk, leading to the abandonment of armored defenses and a rise in the efficc of the SAM at sea. The early "T" SAM era (Tartar, Terrier and Talos) made aircraft attacks highly risky,leading to the rise of high speed diving cruise missiles, from Backfire regiments and the likes of Oscar SSGN and Slave CGs. The Aegis system was developed to counter this threat and its success is eveident by a shift from high-speed diving cruise missiles to sea skimming varieties to reduce the number of opportunites to attack. Cooperative Engagement Capability addressed this issue and now the rise of high-speed sea skimmers and anti-ship ballisitc missiles is turning the tables yet again.

The current CSG (Carrier Strike Group) is, in the parlance of Capt Wayne Highes (Fleet Tactics author) "tactically unstable" meaning that too much combat power is tied up in too few platforms to fight effectively. When you couple that with entering a period of "offensive ascendency" you have a very unstable and risky "Fleet design". I recommed reading Bradley Fiskes The Navy as a Fighting Machine. to get some insight. The problem is that the "machine" is coming up against the stops of response time and command and control, with the sheer volume of attacking missiles and paltry few seconds to deal with them ushering in a new era of offensive superiority.

Our soultion to the tactical instability of the CSG is to invest in High Energy weapons with the hopes that they offer a solution to the magazine and speed of engagement issues that are rapidly backing defenses in o a "one shot-one kill" requirement. historically speaking, the tables WILL get turned again, the question is when, by what means?

When the Machine gun and high volume artillery broke the paradigm of concentrated waves of men in the attack on land, the vulnerability to overwhelming firepoer was to disperse, and fight a scouting/anti-scounting battle before general offensives. For the navy, the current entery into a period of firepower being able to overwhelm defenses will not lead to the death of the surface ship, just as machine guns and artillery did not obsolete infantry. It did cause it disperse - and that is one way the navy can address the problem. It is the tactically undstable CSG that is in danger of being rendered obsolete. Even high energy lasers still have an engagement time that limits the number of engagements they can undertake. It only takes N+1 to ruin a ships day.

Surface ships, like infantry may be requred to enter a period of becoming smaller, more numerous, and more tactically agile - exploiting littorals and sea lanes. IT may also mean that submarines will need to dramatically increase their "tooth to tail" ratio. A 2B$ Virginia class SSN that only carries 12 tomahawks and is otherwise totally oriented to ASW may require rethinking along the lines of the 150+ weapon capacity of the Ohio SSGN.

Currently the Navy is crusing along happily, certain of its plan to move to high energy laser defensive weapons to at least return defense to parity. The prpoblem is that this ignores the tactical instability problem that has crept in as frigates have left CSGs and LCS's are eyed for lots of non-CSG type tasking.

The scenario of the lost naval war in the excellent link above will not occur because of lack of technology, but by cultural attachment to a "Fighting Machine" that is already overly long in the tooth.