Tomahawk's quoted range of roughly a thousand nautical miles supplies the benchmark for a question about the continued value of strike carriers. The example imagines an aircraft carrying a missile of that reach a further thousand nautical miles from its carrier, producing a combined strike range of 2,000 nautical miles. Even a reduced figure of 1,800 nautical miles would let the moving carrier threaten targets from far away. This is an illustration of combining aircraft and missile ranges, without specifying a particular aircraft and missile installation. Satellites and other carrier-tracking systems remain part of the opposing effort to find and counter the force. Escort capabilities and air-to-air refuelling would give the task group further options. An adversary would have to judge when the carriers were within striking range, well before the ships reached the immediate area of operations.
Notable Point · 16:48-18:58
Why carrier aircraft still matter beside missiles
An illustrative calculation adds a missile's range to an aircraft's reach from a mobile carrier, putting targets roughly 1,800 to 2,000 nautical miles away within striking distance.