Key Points and Summary – In a 2005 SINKEX, the U.S. Navy subjected the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS America (CV-66) to four weeks of “brutal bombardment” to test its survivability.
-The results were “shocking”: the Cold War-era ship proved “extremely tough,” absorbing repeated hits from missiles, torpedoes, and bombs before finally being scuttled with internal charges.
Navy Aircraft Carrier USS America sinking in a controlled detonation. Image Credit: U.S. Navy.
-The test validated the robust design of large carriers and informed the development of the new Ford-class.
-However, the analysis notes this 20-year-old test doesn’t account for modern threats (like “carrier-killer” missiles) and reveals a key lesson: a carrier can be “mission-killed” (e.g., flight deck damage) long before it actually sinks.
What We Can Learn from the USS America Sinking
In 2005, the United States Navy conducted a live-fire sink exercise (SINKEX) using its decommissioned aircraft carrier, USS America (CV-66).
Rather than simply scrapping the ship, the Navy towed her to a deep-water site off the U.S. East Coast. It subjected her to repeated attacks – by torpedoes, missiles, and bombs – to assess how a larger carrier would fare under extreme combat conditions. And the results were, frankly, shocking.
What the Navy found is that the carrier, despite its age and years of use, was still extremely tough.
It took four whole weeks of testing before the ship finally went under, proving that Cold War-era carriers were extremely robust.
The exercise also proved just how much it would take to take out carriers built more recently.
The Aircraft Carrier and the Exercise
USS America was a Kitty Hawk-class conventional-powered supercarrier, commissioned in 1965 and decommissioned in 1996.
Her service included deployments during the Vietnam War, operations throughout the Mediterranean and Atlantic, and participation in several major conflict-readiness drills.
After her years of active service, the aircraft carrier was kept in reserve until the Navy ultimately chose to use her for SINKEX rather than preserve her in a museum or dismantle her at a yard.
The exercise that sank USS America began in April 2005, when the carrier was moved to a location off the coast of North Carolina for the live-fire testing.
Over the course of roughly four weeks, the Navy used a range of weapons to attack the carrier in different ways.
They used surface-to-surface missiles, ship-launched torpedoes, bombs dropped from aircraft, and finally a series of internal demolition charges. But despite the brutal bombardment, the ship remained afloat for far longer than many involved with the exercise expected.
It was only after repeated hits and deliberate scuttling charges – the use of explosive devices used to intentionally sink a ship by creating holes in its hull – that the boat finally fell to the ocean floor to depths of around 17,000 feet.
The ship finally succumbed to the attacks on May 14, 2005.
In practical terms, the test illustrated a lot. Specifically, it proved that the ship’s large deck, layered compartmentalization, and robust structural design of the Cold War carrier made it far more difficult to kill than one might assume.
The Navy had to repeatedly escalate the level of damage and assess the ship in ways adversaries likely couldn’t to sink it.
What They Learned
The sinking offers several key takeaways. First, on the point of survivability, the USS America’s ability to remain afloat after weeks of severe attacks suggests that the design of large carriers does, in fact, work.
Compartmentalization means that flooding and fire can be contained in the event of an attack, so even if one part of the vessel is compromised, it doesn’t necessarily mean that water will flood neighboring compartments.
Double hulls and reinforced structures help prevent explosions and collisions from causing fatal damage. And then there’s the ample reserve buoyancy, which provides a safety margin to stay afloat even if it takes on water, is loaded with extra weight, or sustains damage. Designers knew this in theory, and the sinking exercise proved it works in practice.
Insights from the exercise also played a role in the design and survivability features of the newer Ford-class carriers.
For example, the newer carriers included greater resilience to underwater blasts and shock, as well as a series of improved damage-control systems.
And while the test did prove that Cold War-era carriers can take a lot of punishment, the now two-decade-old test doesn’t necessarily provide much insight into how a modern carrier might withstand attacks from more modern weapons systems. For example, the test doesn’t offer much insight into how a more modern carrier would withstand an attack by a Chinese DF-21D missile.
That said, it has given engineers plenty to work with in designing new, more resilient vessels. The Navy must, therefore, constantly assume that the next conflict will be more advanced, and the subsequent attack more precise.
Nimitz-class carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) transits the Atlantic Ocean while offloading munitions via helicopter to the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), June 27, 2025. Gerald R. Ford, a first-in- class nuclear aircraft carrier and deployed flagship of Carrier Strike Group Twelve, incorporates modern technology, innovative shipbuilding designs, and best practices from legacy aircraft carriers to increase the U.S. Navy’s capacity to underpin American security and economic prosperity, deter adversaries, and project power on a global scale through sustained operations at sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jarrod Bury)
Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
What the USS America experiment ultimately revealed wasn’t just the strength of old carrier design, but the limits of what that strength means today.
The test proved that a ship could take an enormous amount of damage, but also that sinking one isn’t the same as neutralizing it. Modern carriers may be able to survive longer, but they can still be mission-killed – meaning they float but don’t fully function as intended – quickly through damage to decks, systems, or even sensors. The lesson for the Navy, perhaps, should be that toughness alone doesn’t guarantee effectiveness.
In a future war defined by electronic warfare, drone bombardments, and precision strikes, new carriers must be resilient in more ways than one.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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