Leaked U.S. war games show China could sink USS Gerald R. Ford carrier in potential Taiwan conflict.

A leaked U.S. wargame assessment known as the Overmatch Brief reports that Chinese missile, cyber, and space-based attacks repeatedly disabled or sank the USS Gerald R. Ford during Taiwan conflict simulations.

On December 8, 2025, the New York Times revealed a leaked U.S. wargame assessment known as the Overmatch Brief, which states that China could sink the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier in a conflict over Taiwan. The leak describes multiple simulations in which Chinese forces destroyed or disabled the Ford before U.S. airpower could influence the battle. The scenarios show concentrated missile salvos, cyber operations, and counter-space attacks working together to degrade U.S. defenses surrounding the carrier during the opening phase of combat.
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The Overmatch Brief simulations indicate that, once the protective bubble is weakened, the Ford itself becomes increasingly exposed to precision strikes that can damage the flight deck, critical sensors, or propulsion systems, even if the ship is not sunk outright. (Picture source: US Navy)

The Overmatch Brief indicates that Chinese strikes routinely neutralized the Ford early in the simulations by combining long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, and electronic disruption. It notes that Chinese forces employed a coordinated sequence beginning with cyber intrusions similar in profile to Volt Typhoon activity targeting electrical grids, communications nodes, and water systems supporting U.S. bases. This was followed by attacks on surveillance and navigation satellites that support targeting, routing, and battle management for U.S. ships and aircraft. Once these systems were degraded, the simulations show Chinese forces massing successive waves of anti-ship missiles that exceeded the defensive capacity of Aegis destroyers and the strike group’s own layered defenses, resulting in the Ford being sunk or rendered unable to operate aircraft.

The assessment attributes this outcome to China’s deliberate development of capabilities tailored for a Taiwan contingency. It describes an expanding inventory of anti-ship ballistic missiles, including DF-21D and DF-26 variants, combined with land-based aircraft such as the H-6K fitted for long-range maritime strike and supported by reconnaissance platforms providing over-the-horizon targeting. It also highlights the expected use of cyber campaigns meant to delay mobilization and impose friction on U.S. military logistics, as well as counter-space systems able to disable or damage satellites used for early warning, communication, and precision navigation. In the scenarios, these capabilities were concentrated inside a theater where Chinese forces can employ large numbers of missiles, aircraft, and naval platforms within a relatively short distance from Taiwan, accelerating the tempo at which U.S. forces are targeted.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is described in the Overmatch Brief as a critical platform whose loss would significantly reduce available U.S. airpower in the Western Pacific during a crisis. The ship displaces about 100,000 tonnes, is powered by two A1B nuclear reactors, and operates from a flight deck roughly 333 meters long. Its air wing is planned to include more than 75 aircraft, and its systems include the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, Advanced Arresting Gear, and an advanced radar suite. The assessment notes that the Ford-class is central to long-term U.S. Navy planning, with the Navy intending to procure multiple hulls based on the same architecture. It also notes the ship’s estimated construction cost of around $12.8 billion, along with additional research and development expenditures for the class.

In the wargame, the Ford operated with escorting cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and carrier air assets, but these combined defenses proved insufficient against large-scale missile saturation. The brief explains that air and missile defenses were gradually overwhelmed by the number, speed, and flight profiles of the incoming weapons. It emphasizes that even partial damage to the flight deck, sensors, or propulsion systems could prevent the carrier from launching sorties, regardless of whether the ship remained afloat. According to the simulations, Chinese strikes that hit critical systems regularly achieved this effect, which removed the carrier from the battle and forced commanders to decide whether introducing another carrier group would incur similar losses.

The brief attributes a significant part of this outcome to China’s rapid expansion of hypersonic and anti-ship missile stockpiles. It states that China has accumulated up to 600 hypersonic weapons that can travel at around five times the speed of sound or faster while performing in-flight maneuvers that complicate interception. These systems are used alongside anti-ship ballistic missiles and land-based cruise missiles launched from mobile platforms, as well as missile-equipped surface ships, submarines, and long-range aircraft. The assessment notes that in the simulations, China employed these weapons in coordinated salvos using targeting data from satellites, radars, and unmanned systems to generate overlapping engagement zones. It concludes that within these zones, a carrier strike group such as the Ford’s faced a high probability of being neutralized before completing its planned operations.

The Overmatch Brief links these tactical outcomes to broader structural issues in U.S. force design and industrial capacity. It states that high-value platforms such as carriers, fifth-generation aircraft, and major satellites are vulnerable to comparatively inexpensive weapons that can be produced in large quantities. It notes that U.S. defense spending, measured at about 3.4 percent of GDP, is near its lowest level in roughly eighty years, and that current production capacity is insufficient for a prolonged conflict with a major power. The assessment argues that concentrated force structures increase risk, and that the United States would need more distributed platforms, faster munitions production, hardened bases, resilient communication networks, and a greater role for unmanned and smaller vessels to absorb attrition. It concludes that protecting a platform like the Gerald R. Ford in a Taiwan scenario requires significant adaptation in U.S. planning and industrial output.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.