Daily Mail (UK) brings us this satellite image of China's first aircraft carrier afloat in South China Sea (sans-aircraft, apparently) which Beijing insist is 'just for research'.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2074336/China-aircraft-carrier-Satellite-captures-picture.html
It is when it appears near the gulf states that you have to worry!!
AntwortenLöschenThe Chinese are the first to own and operate surface ships that have no other practical purpose but to sink air craft carriers.
AntwortenLöschenMaybe the research is target practice.
The Chinese also own and operate conventional submarines that run deeper, longer and quieter than any in the world, including all the nukes.
Well they got it launched without it sinking straight down - that's always a plus. I'm not sure aircraft carriers are anything other than very large targets these days though when it comes down to it. The only way the US gets away with using them is to make sure the opponent is backwards enough they don't have any decent medium range missiles.
AntwortenLöschenActually aircraft carries are for launching aircraft.
AntwortenLöschenwhich works fine if your enemy doesn't have any large surface to surface missiles. If they do the ships are kind of easy to blow up. In WW II you had to find them first, obviously that is less of a problem these days.
AntwortenLöschenSubmarines can make an aircraft carrier go away pretty quickly too. Hence the nickname the submariners have for the surface Navy: "targets".
AntwortenLöschenHowever aircraft are one of the most effective ways of sub hunting, so there is a bit of a cat and mouse game there.
I'm not too worried as being able to finish and refit an old Soviet carrier isn't the same as being able to build one from scratch. Having a carrier isn't the same thing as being able to operate one effectively.
FWIW the US effectively has 20 carriers (11 CVNs and 9 LHD/LHA). While I doubt that can be sustained, the US will likely continue to have more an larger carriers than anyone else for quite some time.
The air force are not so reverant, hence their nickname for the submariners: "bogies".
AntwortenLöschenIt is typically the job of naval aviation (whether land or sea based) to perform ASW. Air forces as a general rule focus on land and air targets.
AntwortenLöschenEven with aircraft, finding a sub that doesn't want to be found is difficult. Since the trick for ASW aircraft (particularly in the case of a carrier) is to take out the sub before it takes out your floating airfield it ends up being a bit of a cat and mouse game.
this is going to change things - good chance things will get weird
AntwortenLöschenThis trip I found myself in the middle of the Chinese and Philippine Spratly Islands conflict. This is a sensitive issue. Therefore, I can only blog what the Wall Street Journal / Associated Press have reported.
This was my small part - RETURNED FROM THE SPRATLY ISLANDS
And that is SOOO awesome. Rome was never this bad ass!
AntwortenLöschenThe 'Sunburn' missile may deserve a post of it's own here, perhaps someone with some military expertise could do a review for us? I'd also like to know more about North Korea's 'Taepodong' missiles.
AntwortenLöschenAs I understand it, Sunburn variety are very effective against ships, skimming across the water and very quick, so hard to intercept. Iran are believed to have them, also possibly China. Must admit, googling it, the first source that comes up is rense-com, which is never a good thing.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/moskit.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22
AntwortenLöschenA very effective bit of kit do doubt, but I notice that it is in the hands of China's allies not the NATO lead fleets. Maybe some of these will find their way onto that ship or at least onto the carrier group ships around.
AntwortenLöschenOf course, 30 years ago, we experienced the effectiveness of anti-shipping missiles in the Falklands which is why so much time and energy has been put into anti-missile defenses on our ships. It would be interesting to know (in theory at least) how effective these are against such a weapon as you linked to.
Just saying there is no need to go into cold-war freakout mode and start a counter-productive arms race.
AntwortenLöschenhttp://defensetech.org/2012/01/03/close-up-photos-of-chinas-carrier/
AntwortenLöschenSome close-up shots of the carrier.
Look at all the stealth planes on the deck :P
AntwortenLöschengood one
AntwortenLöschen