The carrier will never go away. When surface ships become obsolete, we will build them in space and call them battlestars. 😀

Don’t know. Carriers and their aircraft keep getting more and more expensive. Pilots too, and fuel, and maintanence. Using a railgun to put a 50lb warhead on a target 500 miles away is going to be WAY cheaper than trying to get it there with an aircraft and it’ll get it there faster too. Once they’ve got the technology down I just don’t see how you can compete from a cost standpoint. “but the zoomies think airplanes are cool” is only going to get you so far.