China's new naval jet goes through carrier tests

Wow thanks for that. I suppose you do have to compete with the sheer vast of the pacific. Would you not of thought that china would of spent more time and money on developing a tanker fleet ? But then I suppose you need somewhere to station those tankers in strategic waypoints. With the US they can use Hawaii and midway etc

F-18 buddy tankers can only provide enough fuel for 1.8 approaches to the carrier. Not enough gas to really do anything with. They are there for basically emergency ops when a jet has trouble catching on the carrier.

a reply to: boomer135

But it's that much less fuel that the tanker has to offload. It's not much, but for ranges we're talking here every bit the tanker can save for later is invaluable.

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

I don't think China spent time on developing a tanker fleet because they aren't really concerned with being able to strike globally with their strike aircraft. Their sights, right now, are set squarely on local territories that do not require long range endurance from their aircraft and keeping us at bay while they bully their position with the neighbors.
If it came down to a shooting match between the US and China (and if it didn't go nuclear) they would strike what ever assets they could that were in the region already, allowing them time get a foot hold on the land they wanted.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

The Aegis BMD system is designed for theater range systems, it won't be effective against the DF-21 or an ICBM system.

The DF-21 is a medium range BM - exactly what the SM-3 is supposed to engage.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

If it's true they've developed a MIRVd version even the SM-3 will have a hard time stopping it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yes MIRV's never help - but then of course MIRVs are a lot smaller and so able to contain less terminal guidance machinery and will have a smaller warhead - remember they're supposedly targeting these on ships, and using a conventional explosive warhead.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

Yes, but all they really have to do is hole the deck, which they could do without even putting a warhead on it at those speeds. As far as a carrier is concerned a mission kill IS a kill.

a reply to: Zaphod58
I'm pretty sure US carrier have some repair ability - and of course they also now have effectively armoured flight decks by virtue of making the flight deck part of hull "box"* - the 1.5"-2" might not stop a hole being punched - but it will certainly minimize the size of that hole and damage below it.

* - the "argument" between armoured flight decks and unarmoured ones (British vs American) from WW2 was decisively won by armour when US carriers became so big that the "strength deck" - ie the top of the structural hull box - had to be moved up to the flight deck. This is because the larger to cross section of the "box" the more torsional stress it can handle, and keeping the hanger deck as the strength deck was insufficient from the Forrestal class onwards.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

Sure they do, against conventional weapons. But you're talking hypersonic speeds, which changes everything.