: : Having served aboard the U.S.S Constellation, the U.S.S.
: : Ranger and the U.S.S. Saratoga, I would suggest that it ain't
: : all that easy to get near an aircraft carrier - even when it's
: : major defenses are being otherwise deployed. During Desert
: : Storm (I was on the "Sara" in the Red Sea) several Iraqis in a
: : rubber boat found out late one night that not all eyes or
: : defenses were being "used against other forces".

: I don't know the details of what happened in the Persian Gulf war, but I'm pretty sure that no Iraqi cruisers appeared out of nowhere to take on the Allied fleet and otherwise distract the aircraft carriers and their escort ships.

: Nor, I am sure, would the United States arrogantly send its escort ships away from the carriers.

: The analogy or what-if scenario really requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief to compare what happened in Star Wars with what happens in real life.

: : The kind of close encounter that is being suggested (along
: : with underwater attacks by divers) has already been
: : considered. Some of the defenses are classified, but I can
: : assure you that carriers may appear big and lumbering
: : behemoths, but they're well defended.

: As the Death Stars were not. Remember, Darth Vader only took two other Tie fighters up with him in the Battle of Yavin, and he wouldn't let the other two pilots shoot anyone. Nonetheless, my point was that a small vehicle could be used to deliver a decisive charge to an aircraft carrier.

: I suppose a jet could take a lesson from "Independence Day" and ram the carrier with a live warhead (but, again, this assumes that the carrier's defenses are already engaged with other attacks, as the Death Stars' Tie Fighters and other defenses were being drawn away from the craft which delivered the precision shots to the power system).

: And I would guess the jet would have to come in low over the water to get as good a chance at delivering the device as possible. And that's not a scenario I would want to see enacted in real life, I assure you. But the odds are that some day, something will come along which will render our carriers as ineffective as the Death Stars. Mankind finds a way to become more and more destructive every generation.

That is certainly true. As Mr. Spock once said, "Military secrets are the most fleeting of all." And of course every weapon has its counter-weapon. Helm's Deep had its impenetrable walls, which were breached by some form of blasting powder. Hannibal avoided attacking Rome by sea and crossed the Alps and nearly succeeded in winning. But currently we can detect low flying aircraft even if they're skimming the water. If it's moving it's detected. Of course when and if other countries begin incorporating stealth technology detection might be a problem.

At any rate, I didn't mean to turn a light hearted discussion into a debate about real life wars and military hardware. My original post was merely written to correct the impression that aircraft carriers could be as easily disabled or destroyed as the Death Star. Though the concept of dropping a bomb down the stack of a ship is not farfetched. I believe it's been done. But I suppose if you drop enough bombs, one of them will hit a soft spot in the armor.