North Korea has recently threatened that it will turn the US's rash arrogant aircraft carriers into a lump of scrap metal but can they
there are only two realistic ways in which North Korea would be able to destroy a US aircraft carrier, the first would be to use torpedoes the North Korean Navy does operate about 40 to 60 submarines mostly submarines are however extremely old first built a half-century ago the more dangerous among these will be the Sang-O, Yono and the new Sinpo class boats
these subs are slow and relatively noisy meaning that they're much easier to detect compared to modern US and Russian boats, the U.S. Navy also benefits from having over 100 years of ASW or anti-submarine warfare experience most you have ships carry MH-60 helicopters that will patrol the waters around the ship these are armed with Sonobuoys which will be dropped to listen for enemy submarines and air launch torpedoes to attack once detected
some ships are also armed with RUM-139 VL-ASROC missiles which are basically just torpedoes placed on top of the rocket to extend its range, for North Korea to stand a chance to get past these defenses and get close enough to fire on the carrier they would have to attack with more than a dozen submarines at that point it would just be a matter if the US could detect and sink all the subs before one gets through but odds are the US Navy would be able to detect all these submarines long before they even got near the carrier at which point because these submarines are much slower than US ships US vessels can easily get away
the second option for the North Koreans to attack a carrier would be with missiles the main weapon to do this with our anti-ship missiles, now North Korea does have several anti-ship missiles in this Arsenal, for example they are known to have the KH-28 a short-range but very fast missile the Chinese C-602 and the Chinese C-802 slightly longer range but subsonic, the Russians Silkworm with a range of 75 to 150 miles and also subsonic and a much newer KH-35 as a subsonic missile with a range of about 150 miles
all of these missiles except for the KH-35 are relatively old and able to decoys and jamming and while the exact figures are unknown it is reasonable to assume that North Korea has a very small number of each one of these types, the US carrier would be hundreds of miles off the coast of North Korea meaning that they would have to get much closer to the carrier so that they can fire, north Korea has very few options to deliver these missiles with only a few ships able to fire anti-ship missiles namely the two Najin and possibly the three Soho and Nampo class frigates and maybe about a dozen smaller missile boats like the Osa class, although these ships would most likely be destroyed before they got within firing range it is possible that North Korea could get lucky in a surprise attack and getting close enough in this case they would need to fire as many missiles as possible
the US has developed and deployed some of the most advanced missile defense systems in the world designed exactly for this purpose to shoot down incoming anti-ship missiles, the US Navy has trained in prepared its forses to defend against such missile attacks for decades during the Cold War, the North Korean anti-ship missiles would then have to get through a barrage of SM-6, SM-2, RIM-116 and Phalanx fired from the carrier and its escort ships,
if they launch a ballistic missile armed with a nuclear warhead it is possible that they would damage this ship however North Korea's nuclear bombs are still relatively weak the most powerful warhead would only actually destroys ships within about a half kilometer radius and with the aircraft carrier moving and the large CAP or circular air probability of their ballistic missiles odds are it would not detonate close enough to the ship and this is assuming that North Korea even has nuclear warheads small enough to fit on ballistic missiles,
and finally North Korea would have a very difficult time even locating a US carrier at sea in the first place they do not have any dedicated maritime reconnaissance aircraft any recon satellites etc, so North Korea could theoretically sink or at least damage the US aircraft carrier if they were extremely lucky in a surprise attack although to do this they would have to throw almost everything they have just to have that slim chance chances of success are almost nothing this is just one more practically baseless threats in a torrent of rhetoric coming out of the DPRK.
