Free Republic

By W. Alejandro Sanchez An obscure fact of Latin American military affairs is that the Brazilian Navy possesses its own aircraft carrier. The vessel, now five decades old, is currently undergoing repairs so that it can serve for at least a decade more. Nevertheless, given the fast pace of South American geopolitics and geosecurity affairs, serious questions should be raised whether or not Brazil actually needs a carrier in its fleet. The Carrier Brazil acquired its carrier from France in November 2000: the vessel is a non-nuclear, 36,000 ton, Clemenceau-type carrier, which was constructed in the early 1960s.The carrier, originally...

UK armed forces cuts will limit the country's ability to be a major player on the world stage, ex-US defence secretary Robert Gates has warned. The UK plans to cut 30,000 armed forces personnel by 2020, leaving 147,000. ...On the UK's military cuts, Mr Gates told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "With the fairly substantial reductions in defence spending in Great Britain, what we're finding is that it won't have full spectrum capabilities and the ability to be a full partner as they have been in the past." The spectrum refers to the ability of a country's military to fight...

Taipei, Jan. 18 (CNA) The first aircraft carrier built entirely by China is being constructed in the northeastern city of Dalian, a Communist Party official said Saturday, confirming for the first time that the Chinese are building the vessel from scratch. Wang Min, party secretary in Liaoning Province, made the disclosure during a meeting of the provincial people's congress, according to the online edition of the Chinese-language Takungpao daily in Hong Kong. Wang told the delegates that the aircraft carrier is being built in a shipyard in Dalian and is expected to take six years to complete, Takungpao reported. Wang...

MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti) – A naval task force led by Russia’s largest warship has passed through the English Channel on its way to the Mediterranean, a Russian military official said on Friday. The group carried out naval aviation exercises while passing close to UK territorial waters, Captain 2nd Class Yevgeny Kirillov said. The group of ships, consisting of the Russian Navy’s sole aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and five escort vessels from Russia’s Northern Fleet, had days earlier anchored in the Moray Firth off the coast of Scotland due to inclement weather, the UK Defense Ministry confirmed on its...

Review raises doubts about launch capacity, other vital systems in new vessel WASHINGTON — The US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, a multibillion-dollar behemoth that is the first in a next generation of carriers, is beset with a number of performance problems, even failing tests of its ability to launch and recover combat jets, according to an internal assessment by the Pentagon. The early tests are raising worries that the USS Gerald R. Ford, christened in honor of the 38th president in November, may not meet the Navy’s goal of significantly increasing the number of warplanes it can quickly launch —...

The Maritime Self-Defense Force’s newest ship has a flight deck its entire length and is nearly the size of the Shokaku and Zuikaku aircraft carriers that took part in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, yet Japan insists it is not an aircraft carrier. With a length of about 250 meters and standard displacement of 19,500 tons, the Izumo is the biggest ship in the fleet. Up to nine helicopters can land on its deck at the same time. Even so, the Defense Ministry and MSDF insist the Izumo, which was launched last summer, is simply a destroyer capable of...

Photo Op of the year: PLAN's 1st Carrier Battle Group (CVBG) CV Liaoning and her "entourage" return to Qingdao after a 37-day training exercise at sea. Note the company of three Shang class nuclear attack subs among this over-the-top photo o

Chinese Navy (PLAN) exercises it's Carrier Strike Groupwith it's LPD and escorts, including two SSNs During the last week of December, the Chinese Navy, the PLAN, conducted exercises with a large group of vessels in what some are calling the Chinese combined fleet. It included their carrier, the Liaoning, CV-16, which is a modernized and refitted Russaain carrier and sister of the Russian, Kuznetsov. it included one of the Chinese large Landing Platform Docks (LPD) which is similar in size and function to the US Navy San Antonio Class LPDS. it included one of the Chinese Type 052C, Lanzhou...

Past fears that carriers were vulnerable to new technologies weren’t proven right… nor were they proven wrong. Over at The National Interest this week, former Naval Diplomat shipmate — U.S. Marines say there are no former Marines, just Marines; are there former shipmates? — Bryan McGrath wades into the debate over Tom Ricks’s Washington Post column urging the U.S. military to get smaller to get better. Let me wade in as well; the water’s fine. Ricks takes aim at the U.S. Navy’s fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in particular. He cites the expense of CVNs, but Bryan zeroes in mainly...

New Delhi, Dec. 3: The Indian Navy is designing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that it wants in its fleet, costs permitting. An indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, the Arihant, is now in trials in the Bay of Bengal. The Indian Navy “desires” to have three operational carriers in its fleet but the only one in use currently, the INS Viraat, is rusting away faster than it would like. “The INS Viraat is ‘long in the tooth’ (outdated and too expensive to maintain),” the chief of naval staff, Admiral D.K. Joshi, said here today. Naval headquarters is gradually beginning to take the view...

The launch of a multi-million dollar exotic car demands something more than palm trees and beaches. That’s why Lamborghini parked its Veneno Roadster – one of only nine to be built – on the deck of an Italian aircraft carrier docked in Abu Dhabi LAMBORGHINI The Lamborghini Veneno Roadster is one of the most extreme (and extremely expensive) supercars ever built. With 750-horsepower and a lightweight carbon-fiber chassis, this 2-seat roadster can hit 221 mph. You’ve got to go the extra mile when planning the public introduction of one of the rarest and most expensive exotic cars in the world....

During its three-week exercise in open seas, Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier was able to launch three Shenyang J-15 fighters simultaneously from its flight deck according to an article written by Greg Waldron for Flightglobal, a UK-based news and information website related to the aviation and aerospace industries. Waldron said the Liaoning has a total of three jet blast deflectors. While two parallel deflectors are located immediately forward of the island superstructure, a third is located closer to the stern of the ship. With all three positions fully operational, the aircraft carrier is capable of launching three J-15s from its...

The long-delayed $2.3-billion aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov) will be inducted into the Indian Navy by defence minister AK Antony during his Russia visit slated between November 15 and 17. The 45,000-tonne Kiev class warship, rechristened by the Navy as Vikramaditya, sailed out of the Sevmash shipyard in northern Russia in July this year for trials. After ‘sustained full-power’ trials, it will now return to the shipyard for final polish and will be ready for handover to the Navy on November 15, when the defence minister visits Russia, MoD sources said. Antony will ‘accept’ the aircraft carrier on November...

The Navy has christened its newest aircraft carrier, which will join the fleet in 2016. The USS Gerald R. Ford is the lead ship in the Navy’s next class of aircraft carriers. It was christened Saturday at the Newport News shipyard where it was built.

US offers help for next generation aircraft carrier The United States has offered to develop the next generation aircraft carrier technology with India, visiting deputy secretary of defence Ashton Carter said Wednesday. The technology on offer, Electro Magnetic Aircraft Launch System, will be a quantum leap for the Indian Navy that currently relies on the Russian ski-launch technology. Both Indian carriers, INS Vikramaditya, coming in November, and INS Vikrant, being built in Kochi, can ski-launch only light fighter aircraft. But EMALS would make it possible to launch heavy aircraft, including early warning systems, refuellers and transporters, from future ships. India...

Isn't the first question that should always be asked in a potential conflict is, "where are the carriers?"

On August 6 last week the MSDF unveiled its new helicopter “destroyer,” the Izumo (22DDH). While much media and diplomatic fuss has been made about this being an “aircraft carrier in disguise” with potentially “offensive” applications, there are some legal, practical, and future considerations that need to be understood for a balanced discussion of its significance to take place. Following on from the discussion in the previous instalment of this series, the question that one should reflect upon is whether the Izumo could be regarded as “war potential” given that many regard aircraft carriers to be exclusively offensive in nature....

Russian-built aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya ready to sail, finally It is without doubt the largest warship ever to be operated by the Indian Navy. But if there is a record for the longest time spent by an Indian warship in a shipyard, the INS Vikramaditya would hold that too. After a long a painful process of renegotiations, price escalations and delays, India's new aircraft carrier finally seems to be on its way home. The refurbished ship — it was originally the Gorshkov, launched in 1982 — is currently undergoing an exhaustive series of trials in the Barents Sea to test...

As you can see in the Google Maps image above, the airfield (located about 300 miles from Qingdao, the homeport of China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning) is freshly built and the northern end of the runway features a fake carrier flight deck that appears to be used to practice carrier landings (there are clear skid marks on the landing area). The southern end of the runway features two "ski-jump" ramps that are likely used by pilots to rehearse taking off from Liaoning's bow-mounted ramp. (Notice how only one of these ramps is complete in the imagery above while the...

China to build second, larger aircraft carrier, says report China will build a second, larger aircraft carrier capable of carrying more fighter jets, the official Xinhua news service reported late Tuesday, quoting a senior officer with the People's Liberation Army (PLA ) Navy. The report comes after Chinese officials denied foreign media reports in September 2012 that China was building a second carrier in Shanghai. "China will have more than one aircraft carrier ... The next aircraft carrier we need will be larger and carry more fighters," Xinhua quoted Song Xue, deputy chief of staff of the PLA Navy, as...