Posted on 09/25/2012 10:25:51 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
BEIJING — In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas.
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The mark “16” on the carrier’s side indicates that it is limited to training, Chinese and other military experts said. China does not have planes capable of landing on the carrier and so far training for such landings has been carried out on land, they said. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This thing isn’t even a match for Japan’s “Hyuga”. That said, that isn’t it’s purpose.
China is 80-yrs behind the US in Carrier Ops, and if they are going to try it, they have to start somewhere. Even the U.S. had the Langley. Russian carrier experience probably isn’t the best of examples to learn from, so they have to start from scratch.
They have a lot to learn.
As the age of the carrier draws to a close, its utility will be more more limited to applications of power against second-rate military powers. The real aircraft carrier will be a satellite in space. Hopefully, by the time the Chinese catch up with ocean going carriers we will have a new administration in place who extends the arms race into space.
The ChiComs are starting from scratch. I guess there are some advantages of government controlled news media.
When the Chinese are not using this new carrier to train their
pilots to crash into it’s fantail, big U.S. retailers can rent
it out for use as a huge container ship to bring in more
junky ChiCom crap.
The ChiCom’s should have named it the “Bentonville”. That’s where the money came from to build it.
“The ChiCom’s should have named it the “Bentonville”. That’s where the money came from to build it.”
Or the “Dayton-Hudson”. Or the “Fry’s”. Or the “Dollar General”.
It’s a whole lot more than just Wally responsible for this.
China finds itself in the exact opposite position from the Russians. The Russians only had to interdict, not control our sea lanes, to win the war at sea.
To feed the Economy, China has to CONTROL the sea lanes to their resources. We only have to interdict that.
The Chinese have to make the leap from Interdiction, to control.
That is a VERY big chasm for them to get over.
Good point but are these old equations as applicable to the atomic age?
Besides, it is not clear that the best way to control chokepoints and sea lanes will be with carriers rather than satellites.
I wouldn't bet on that being more than idle speculation.
Equally likely being named after Liaoning province suggests it's considered a major warship. (Destroyers and below only get city names)
Though flying close air support and bombing Third World bridges wasn't the grand vision for these “floating cities” it was those missions that have kept these ships relevant. The WWII gun cruisers were so effective in Vietnam they burned out their barrels firing round the clock.
One word: “Skynet”.
They can use it to launch drones, helicopters, Vistol planes, as well as launch an attack—they can’t land on the thing yet, but they could do an attack on someone—like Taiwan, or those Japanese islands, or the navy of the Philippines. They would have to land back in China or make it a one way trip—like we did off the Hornet in the Tokyo Raid in 1942. It has value—even if its only propaganda.
I thought we had one, from 1980-1988. Whatever happened to Star Wars?
Isn't it much better to ride to the space station in the back of a Russian vehicle? Much cheaper.
lol
Gay Ass Look
I have to agree. Working both in competition against them, and also with them (vendors), in an industry decimated by Chinese competition, I have learned that the Chinese are NOT to be underestimated. They are not superhumans, but they are smart, hard workers, and very motivated. They can even do remarkably good quality control under the right direction / circumstances, though this is not presently the norm, of course. The most likely things that might keep them from surpassing us are: Social issues / economic mismanagement (too big an elephant to ride?), corruption, resource starvation, and too much mercury and other pollution in their environment. (Medical and clean-up cost issues.)
As the age of the carrier draws to a close, its utility will be more more limited to applications of power against second-rate military powers. The real aircraft carrier will be a satellite in space. Hopefully, by the time the Chinese catch up with ocean going carriers we will have a new administration in place who extends the arms race into space.
We actually have most of the technology needed for this:
For perspective, non-B5 fans, that baby is a mile long... It's not practical yet, but as a fellow engineer once told me "Anything can be done for enough money." (Sell California, maybe?) [/sarc]
Check out the specs...
http://roleplaying.diraven.net/babylon5/equipment/god_satellite.html
It's got arrestor wires now.
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