Posted on 04/21/2020 7:33:06 PM PDT by RomanSoldier19
Thanks for letting me know.
USS America has F-35s aboard.
https://news.yahoo.com/navy-prepared-uss-america-f-213000439.html
And there’s a Cruiser in company.
Not much China can do about it.
The Tarawa-class LHAs had well decks; the America-class LHAs ditched the well deck to focus more on their aviation role.
(I had incorrectly assumed that the LHA designation indicated a well deck regardless of the class; I was wrong here.)
It would be beyond silly for anybody to take this bait, so we win either way.
The one-child-policy and it’s unintended social consequences will have an impact of the nature of the individual Chinese soldier.
Don’t know if it will make him a better or weaker warrior. We’ll see.
It’s all show and hopes of no tell at this point. The crap was already in the fan When Halsey got the “The world wonders” message. If this gets to that level the breaks are off.
“It’s not a birdfarm?
I thought they were called a HORNETS’ NEST.
Hope it has an SSN escort.
We’re already at war. Covid was the first strike....
We’ve been at war with China since Chaing Kai-shek and the free Chinese fled to Taiwan. They knew it, we ignored it and Clinton bohica’d to it. Trump knows it. Time shitbirds here in the USA wake up to it. We’re still fighting the Cold War with Russia and a warmer one with China. The whuflu ain’t nothing if this goes hot.
1600 Marines and a flock of Ospreys. Just enough fighters for local air defense.
No hovercraft. They took out the well deck to make more room for the larger fighters and the Ospreys.
Steaming.
Bears closer scrutiny.
You are correct about the former USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2), a ship that I knew very well decades ago. But you might not realize a new Wasp-class USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) was commissioned in 2001. She's the seventh of eight Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock amphibious warfare vessels that are essentially small aircraft carriers with flooding well decks for amphibious landing craft in addition to helicopters and F-35 jets.
Before I came onboard (1970) there was a destroyer squadron homeported in Taipei. When is closed every ship traveling to and from Vietnam went through the Taiwan Straits.
Amphibious Assault Ship?
Looks like an Aircraft Carrier to me.
Why the fancy name?
********
It’s standard issue duty is part of a USMC MEU.
Here’s some info on that.
SIX HOURS: Forward Deployed Marine Expeditionary Units
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciLST5zeMWE&list=PLD4743007E011AD13
7 vids already in play order. None more than 5 minutes long. The problem they’re working up in the vids is to put a company of USMC infantry plus support elements ashore for a raid on a target. it’s one of the final test exercises before a MEU goes on float.
This will give you an idea of what’s in a MEU:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_expeditionary_unit
The wiki link also has a list of the MEUs and their home units and areas of responsibility.
Units rotate in and out of the MEU structures. There’s a MEU afloat, units working up and training up to replace those units in that MEU when that float is done.
The MEUs are permanent. The units that make up the MEU change every float.
The units that make up the MEUs come from the general USMC unit rosters of the bases from which the MEUs are attached.
Amphibious Assault Ship USS America Arrives In Japan
By: Ben Werner
December 6, 2019 4:11 PM
https://news.usni.org/2019/12/06/amphibious-assault-ship-uss-america-arrives-in-japan#more-71799
If the USS America is set up as a “Harrier Carrier” (ironic term since those are F-35B Lightening IIs in the picture), all the helicopters (except some UH-1s for SAR) are sent ashore and additional F-35 are flown aboard to create an embarked fighter squadron of 18-22(?) aircraft (including spares).
That’s about 1/4th the complement of a super carrier like the T Roosevelt.
However...no catapults means no takeoffs at full ammo and fuel load. In addition, aviation ordnance magazine capacity, although much better in the America than its predecessors, is limited. Air assault and close air support operations burn through aviation ordnance stores at considerable rates. That’s where the large, numerous, and multideck aviation magazines of the super carriers cannot be matched.
Can the MV-22 Osprey tanker top off the fighters once they are airborne? I thought that was something they had in the works a few years ago.
p
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.