MRVd ASBM with EMP warheads.

Finn McCool said:

The idea of carrier-attacking submunitions delivered by ballistic missile is, I think, a sound one. Releasing ball bearings shouldn't be impossible, and this is just an idea, but what about using a sort Russian nesting-doll-like arrangement of the main missile, a smaller reentry vehicle designed to de-celerate, and then a larger munition like a torpedo as the final released payload?

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i think that kind of technolofy is prolly out of reach for now. i like the dart idea better

King_Comm said:

A 100g tungsten dart is basically the penetrator of a 20mm APFSDS round, which are usually fired at a muzzle velocity of around M 3, doubling the speed will not melt them. And 20,000 of them will occupy less space than a conventional warhead of the same weight. And the distribution of the darts don't have to be perfect, the density is achieved by multiple warheads. And the darts don't have to penetrate the flight deck.

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The projectile weight of a 20 mm round is 92 grams. Twenty thousand such rounds will weigh 1840 kg. This will not fly. Your notional payload is much too heavy.
Now, lets talk about the amount of energy such a round can impart on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The weight is, as stated, 92 grams. The latest 20 mm penetrator round in USAF service has a terminal velocity of 1050 m/s. Do not ignore the fact that your sub-munition will reach a drag determined terminal velocity in the atmosphere. How many joules of energy does such a round impart? About 4443 Joules. I do not think you will damage a 100 mm thick flight deck with this. It would require a density of hits I do not think achievable to damage such a flight deck. I don't think it will be possible to achieve enough hits in close enough proximity to do any damage.
To sink a carrier you need the amount of ordinance used to sink Yamato and Mushashi, i.e well over a dozen torpedo hits combined with well over a dozen hits by big air dropped bombs.

While you are correct in saying that atmosphere will slow down the sub-munition, you ignored the fact that said sub-munition will have a much higher initial velocity than merely 1 km/s. Furthermore, at 1 km/s, your result of 4443 Joules is still 10X too small. If we assume that the sub-munition will lose up to 50% of the initial velocity, it will still impact the deck at some 3 km/s, and that 450 KJ of energy will be concentrated onto a very tiny spot. Not enough damage? I don't think so.

If the sub-minitions hit the island and parked aircrafts fully fueled and armed, the ship will lose much of its electronics, communication gears, and fire and weapons from the destroyed aircrafts will engulf and punched through the flight deck as what happened to USS Enterprise.

It is unlikely the aircraft carrier will sink, but it will be in danger of follow on attacks.

In 1969, on USS Enterprise one Zuni rocket from F-4 cooked off, causing heavy fire that destroyed 15 aircrafts, killed 27 sailors and injured 314. There were several holes on the amoured flight deck caused by exploding munitions.