Very rare for me to jump to Scooter’s defence but I think that it’s beholden on us to be honest if we decide to answer a question different to the one which a thread starts with. (Don’t get me wrong I like thread drift but …)

How will the wests big 4 work together.

EF goes high and fast as a perimeter, protects ingressing friendlies and ambushes opposition as they transit the battle space
F22s used to go looking for trouble and establish air superiority over key areas (and then later sent in to swat anything which flies over)
Rafaele does strikes and collection of elint
JSF used for SEAD DEAD

Simple

What new air assets and/or technologies would allow a smaller (say 65k ton) future carrier to accomplish what a larger current CVN does today? Or at least close the gap sufficiently to counter some of the ratio’s mentioned in http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2011-09/supercarrier-not-superfluous?

Hmmm,

My definition of a supercarrier (not the official but good enough for me) is that it can do Strike Carrier and Escort Carrier from one platform so capability wise:

Smaller, lighter, cheaper airframes with longer range and greater endurance. So we can cram more airframes on the deck and each can do its business further away from the ship.

STOVL without compromise. So we can operate in a wider range of weather conditions (stop then land vs. land then stop) without worrying about sailing into wind.

Smaller, lighter, cheaper AEWs definitely

A genuine counter to wake homers, putting a Frigate in the way is expensive and wasteful

Costwise

At the moment I do not believe that a 65k ton nuke flat top can be built and operated for half the price of a Ford so:

Cheaper non fossil fuel reliant propulsion. PV cells robust enough to be landed on or lifetime nuke fuel or or or

Cheaper, smaller, lighter, longer range, greater endurance etc escorts. Otherwise any nominal cost savings in the HVU get wiped out by cost of keeping them viable and safe

Automation to allow much lower manning levels whilst also giving enough spare bodies for NBCD

Accurate, long range, unguided munitions (cheaper see?)

I think I much agree with the conclusion of http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a227420.pdf

Difficult not to

The USN faces one similar problem to RN.

the fear that number of platforms will always be cut so a desire to make each platform as good as possible, and hence each platform is more expensive and more vulnerable to cuts in numbers.

If there was a genuine proposal to provide two CVF sized (but nuke powered) flat tops for the same money as one Ford class would the USN support it? I suspect not due to the fear that this would leave them with the same number of smaller and less capable carriers rather than twice as many.

Genuine question for genuine information.

If South Korea wants a platform to wipe out NK SAMS then why have Boeing not offered Growler?

It has the kit to detect launchers, it has harm integrated and (presumably) will be near the front of the line for SDB integration (if not already integrated) and Boeing have a good relationship with ROKAF.

Presumably no Jamming pods will be required so there are potentially plenty of hard points for munitions available.

What am I missing?

and also air to air you dont need very big bullet

Because there is no amour, almost all of the airframe contains something vital, and various the bits of metal/composite are already stressed and waiting to fly apart?

All of which is true but modern airframes have to be unbelievably strong (able to withstand a large load) which means materials with high tensile strength instrong structures which tends to lead to toughness as well (can withstand a shock load, like being hit by a fast-moving lump of metal)

The heavier rounds also ‘keep’ their kinetic energy longer in flight, have less tendency to drift with wind and are able to shift more of their kinetic energy into the structure they hit.

Added to which have you seen how much larger the propellant case is on those big 30mm rounds? 😮

I can think of the 666 one but 665???

The neighbour of the beast?

Of course we all know that 666 is NOT actually the number of the beast don’t we?

Wait…what? The speed of light slows down? Are you sure about that? Don’t say that too loud or scientists will be upset that you’re claiming the one true constant is actually a variable.

Speed of light IN A VACUUM is a constant.

Speed of light changes depending on the medium it is travelling through. If it did not then lenses would not work.