China has started 3rd aircraft carrier construction (semi officially leaked)

Gee , that sure sounds like Japan in 1939 ...............Hmm.............

a reply to: Zaphod58

The Reason Being that Not All " Asian Nations " Think Alike . Thank Gawd ! ....)

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: face23785

They're not talking about the status of just our forces. Russia and China have completely rewritten how they fight based on what they've learned from watching our operations over Syria and Iraq the last few years. And that's discounting the electronic data they've gotten from SIGINT/ELINT operations.

Add in the AF doing nothing about the loss of a dedicated EW platform over 25 years ago, and you see a paradigm shift of huge proportions. We're no longer leading the way in terms of military capabilities, and not just because we've worn out our equipment.

As for escorts, China already has some seriously capable air defense ships and escorts available, already built.

Point taken.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Vector99

There's a huge difference between what anyone makes for selling to the public, and what they make for military use. When you're selling to the public, you can get away with making things that die in a few years. People expect it, and the tech changes so fast they don't bitch much.

Build something for the military that's crap quality and doesn't last long, and you're risking potentially billions in sales by getting frozen out of future contracts. And that's if the government of somewhere like China doesn't throw you in jail and seize your company, or worse.

China seem to like executing corrupt CEO that screw the government

a reply to: sdcigarpig

Actually there is a school of thought that carriers should be smaller. Then some want both, AKA the high/low mix.

a reply to: gariac

Here's a great video on the concept and configuration of the new Ford Class carriers. Also included are insights on medium versus large aircraft carriers, and what he thinks he screwed up.



I think small aircraft carrier might make sense - STOVL aircraft only or maybe ski-jump, but a large carrier has too many benefits over a medium if they are both fitted with arresting wires, catapults, and reactors or some combination thereof.

a reply to: C0bzz

I don't think I want to invest 48 minutes of my life on that lecture. I view carriers as sitting ducks. Their mobility in the 21st century is basically nonexistent. The fleet is easily tracked.

I don't see the point of projecting power with carriers. Any major country can below them out of the water by a number of means. The Russians will gladly sell whatever you need to whack a ship.

The Navy is a jobs program. I do see some value in underwater craft, but submarine detection isn't that difficult these days for modern countries.

power projection

The DPRK just laughs at our power projection.

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: C0bzz

I don't think I want to invest 48 minutes of my life on that lecture. I view carriers as sitting ducks. Their mobility in the 21st century is basically nonexistent. The fleet is easily tracked.

I don't see the point of projecting power with carriers. Any major country can below them out of the water by a number of means. The Russians will gladly sell whatever you need to whack a ship.

The Navy is a jobs program. I do see some value in underwater craft, but submarine detection isn't that difficult these days for modern countries.

power projection

The DPRK just laughs at our power projection.

Do you think it's possible if you invested the 48 minutes you might hear a different perspective explaining why carriers are still worthwhile?

a reply to: face23785

I read much of the debate on carriers. The Navy obviously has an agenda. The Navy desperately wants to stay relevant. I rather deal with the think tanks.

That Ford class carrier needs a billion and three years just to qualify it. And then what? Park it off some coast and project power. From a diplomatic perspective, you can't say a Navy is for defense. That is laughable. A Navy is for offense. You can at least pretend the Army and Air Force are for defense, even when in reality we only employ them offensively. A domestic air base could be used domestically. And the presence of an air base or army base does deter an attack. I see value in the USAF and Army. The Navy...not so much.

I haven't looked at the stats in a while, but basically the US has a few hundred bases around the world. The next closest country was the UK, with less than 20. Fine, we are projecting plenty of power. I don't see the need to plop down a carrier battle group off a coast to project more power at a ridiculous cost. I rather build domestic rail lines, highways, etc. Or do soft power much like China's One Belt One Road initiative.

I look at the big picture, and I don't see sitting ducks being a useful investment.

a reply to: gariac

The thing about the US base count is greatly exaggerated

For this question, we turned to an official Pentagon accounting of U.S. military bases around the nation and the world, the "Base Structure Report, Fiscal 2010 Baseline."

According to this report, the U.S. has 662 overseas bases in 38 foreign countries, which is a smaller number than the 900 bases Paul cited. But here again, the list omits several nations integral to active operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it’s conceivable that the actual number of sites approaches 900.

Here's the key part though:

Still, caveats are in order here, too. Of the 662 overseas sites listed -- that is, those outside the active war zones -- all but 32 of them are either small sites (with a replacement value of less than $915 million) or sites essentially owned on paper only.

For instance, the sole site listed for Canada is 144 square feet of leased space -- equal to a 12-foot-by-12-foot room. That’s an extreme case, but other nations on the list -- such as Aruba, Iceland, Indonesia, Kenya, Norway and Peru -- have just a few U.S. military buildings, many of them leased. Some of the sites are unmanned radio relay towers or other minor facilities. "Most of them are a couple of acres with a cyclone fence and no troops," Pike said.

So no we don't have hundreds of bases around the world, at least not in any conventional sense of the word "base". I realize there was more to your post than this but the exaggerations about the US military are a pet peeve of mine.

On the assertion the Navy is strictly an offensive force these days, I'd have to disagree. For one, carriers aren't the whole Navy. Many of the other ships can absolutely be used for defensive purposes. And carriers can as well. Especially for a nation that's surrounded on both sides by ocean, which any potential invasion force would have to traverse to try to engage our Army and Air Force on US soil.

The Navy has only been used for offensive purposes for quite a long time. That doesn't mean that's its only function. You could make the same argument about nuclear weapons. We've only ever used them offensively. At first glance, they are purely an offensive weapon, because it would be very costly to use them on an invasion force that has made it into your nation, destroying and irradiating your own territory. But their mere existence acts as a deterrent, which is by its very nature a defensive function. The same can be said of the Navy.

a reply to: gariac

Do you have a link to these think tanks regarding what you are saying about the Navy in general?

a reply to: anzha

The DOD needs to put the full afterburners on the B-21 and the 6th gens, building more Virginia's and getting the Columbias built, ramping up Ford production and expanding the carrier fleet, even if it requires building ramp-ified America's as escort carriers for the gator navy, as well as replacing the C-135 and its many derivatives.

With the rate that China is building up her armed forces, we really can't afford to do anything less than undergo the biggest military buildup/re-armament that we've seen since the 1960s.

a reply to: Barnalby

They're talking about ordering two Fords at once for the next round and saving a lot of money.

a reply to: gariac

High/low is the way to go, and it was a big part of why we beat Japan in WWII. Their carrier force was almost exclusively comprised of large, flagship-tier carriers like the Akagi or the Hiryu, which ended up being torpedo magnets in the big battles and very quickly they lost a huge percentage of their power projection abilities as their giant, fancy carriers found themselves repurposed as fish housing.

Compare that to the USA, which arguably entered WWII with a high/low mix of carriers (the "highs" being the Saratoga/Lexington and possibly the Yorktowns, the "lows" being everything else) and it meant that when we inevitably lost big carriers like the Lexington or the Yorktown, it made much less of a dent in our power projection capabilities because we had a large number of smaller, cheaper escort carriers that could easily fill the gap. (The Essex's honestly were mostly irrelevant as the Pacific war was essentially won by the time they entered service in meaningful numbers and they only served to help hasten the inevitable, though I'd imagine that they would have been crucial to an invasion of the mainland, even if they would have been essentially operating unopposed in that theatre.)

What I would love to see would be a 21st century version of the Sea Control Ship/ Principe De Asturias, built off of a Zumwalt or possibly a San Antonio hull, and capable of operating 6-12 F-35Bs as well as assorted helicopters and STOVL drones while avoiding the amphibious warfare aspect of the Tarawa/Wasp/America ships to keep size, cost, and crew complement down significantly, roughly to Zumwalt levels. Once the cost is under $2bn/each, build 20-30 of them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'd imagine that building the class out as pairs of "twins" would also significantly drop the cost of maintenance, refits, and overhauls, since the incremental changes as the class was built across the class could be implemented on two ships at a time, rather than like the Nimitzes where no two ships are really the same.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Barnalby

They're talking about ordering two Fords at once for the next round and saving a lot of money.

The ultimate buy-in-bulk discount?

a reply to: gariac

Smaller would not work in the care of an aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier, the main weapons are aircraft. Once said aircraft are in the air, the carrier becomes a target, that is not able to defend itself too much. Hence why such are sent out with a battle group, and those ships jobs are ultimately to protect the carrier from other ships and or aircraft.

Smaller is nice, however, physics takes priority. Most aircraft, require a runway to take off, and a carrier, has to also hold the fuel for the aircraft and the ammo as well. Smaller would not work unless the aircraft is smaller, and can be launched vertical and, the requirements for fuel and ammunition goes way down, or gets lighter.

What I am pointing out is that if this new carrier can carry twice the compliment of aircraft, along with the fuel and ammo, it becomes a game changer.

Its about a large amount of aircraft strikes being able to launch quickly and being able to provide continued pressure until the mission is fulfilled.