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Chinese government news service Xinhua reports that a newly built aircraft carrier was floated in the sea at Dalian (also known as Port Arthur). The ship must "undergo equipment debugging, outfitting and mooring trials." As yet, the Soviet-built Liaoning is China's only operating aircraft carrier.
According to Shanghaiist and Voice of America (U.S. government outlet), the carrier is named Shandong. Some other reports said that it is unnamed.
Additional coverage:
- New York Times
- Washington Post
- CNN
- livemint.com (editorial)
- Reuters
- BBC News
- Time
- Business Insider
- Bloomberg
- SBS (has additional photos; Javascript required to view them all)
- Irish Times
Previously on SoylentNews: China Moving Full Speed Ahead in Construction of Aircraft Carriers
Chinese State Media Boasts About its New Electronic Reconnaissance Ship
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Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 27 2017, @04:05PM (4 children)
You wouldn't even need a nuke, just look at the number of ships crippled or killed by Japanese Kamikaze in WWII
Not really that many? I think you're overselling here.
Australian journalists Denis and Peggy Warner, in a 1982 book with Japanese naval historian Sadao Seno (The Sacred Warriors: Japan’s Suicide Legions), arrived at a total of 57 ships sunk by kamikazes. Bill Gordon, an American Japanologist who specialises in kamikazes, lists in a 2007 article 47 ships known to have been sunk by kamikaze aircraft. Gordon says that the Warners and Seno included ten ships that did not sink. He lists:
three escort carriers: USS St. Lo, USS Ommaney Bay, and USS Bismarck Sea
14 destroyers, including the last ship to be sunk, USS Callaghan (DD-792) on 29 July 1945, off Okinawa
three high-speed transport ships
five Landing Ship, Tank
four Landing Ship Medium
three Landing Ship Medium (Rocket)
one auxiliary tanker
three Canadian Victory ships
three Liberty ships
two high-speed minesweepers
one Auk class minesweeper
one submarine chaser
two PT boats
two Landing Craft Support
Note that these are all piddly-ass or not really combat ships. Escort carriers were not exactly built to take hits, as they sailed in task forces with other stuff to protect them. Also there was a war on and they were designed to be cheap--the real money was spent on the smaller number of fleet carriers.
And this was before armored flight decks. With an armored flight deck, a kamikaze who hit it was basically just a nuisance inasmuch as they have to scrape him off the deck before resuming flight operations.
U.S. carriers, with their wooden flight decks, appeared to suffer more damage from kamikaze hits than the reinforced steel-decked carriers from the British Pacific Fleet. US carriers also suffered considerably heavier casualties from kamikaze strikes; for instance, 389 men were killed in one attack on USS Bunker Hill, greater than the combined number of fatalities suffered on all six Royal Navy armoured carriers from all forms of attack during the entire war (Bunker Hill and Franklin were both hit while conducting operations with fully fueled and armed aircraft spotted on deck for takeoff, an extremely vulnerable state for any carrier). Eight kamikaze hits on five British carriers resulted in only 20 deaths while a combined total of 15 bomb hits, most of 500 kg weight or greater, and one torpedo hit on four carriers caused 193 fatal casualties earlier in the war – striking proof of the protective value of the armoured flight deck.[37][38]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday April 28 2017, @02:17AM (3 children)
You missed the point and kinda just proved mine, thanks. Just look at how long that list was and then note that was done with untrained pilots in obsolete airplanes now imagine that those were replaced with mach 2 aircraft flown by expert pilots...still think it wouldn't be a threat?
With a drone they could easily make it into a flying bomb, picture a cruise missile that can turn with the agility of a fighter...the carrier fleet would be royally fucked.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 28 2017, @02:41PM (2 children)
I don't think I'm missing your point. I'm just disagreeing on its validity.
In an era of mach 10 missiles and drones you can just spam carriers
Considering a U.S. military drone costs $12 million, spamming hundreds of them at a single carrier would get pretty expensive. $1.2b compared to a $8b Gerald Ford carrier is a pretty good ROI I suppose.
During World War II, about 3,862 kamikaze pilots died, and about 19% of kamikaze attacks managed to hit a ship.[1]
[definition of the term]; accuracy was much better than a conventional attack, the payload and explosion larger, although a negative aspect to this tactic was that only 11% of kamikaze attacks were successful.
And like I said, this was back when the U.S. wasn't armoring its carrier decks, and literally all the ships sunk were soft targets. I have my doubts whether these hypothetical drone strikes would do much unless they were targetted at the command island. And there's such a thing as CIWS now. How many miles out would standard CAP see them coming?
With a drone they could easily make it into a flying bomb, picture a cruise missile that can turn with the agility of a fighter
Who is this hypothetical army? China or Russia? Because I have a hard time imagining anyone else burning all the money to try what you're talking about.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 28 2017, @02:46PM (1 child)
There's also this, to specifically defend against what you're talking about:
The carrier will be armed with the Raytheon Evolved Sea Sparrow missile (ESSM), which defends against high-speed, highly maneuverable anti-ship missiles.
The wiki page says "2" of them in the armament, which I assume means two batteries, not two individual missiles.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Friday April 28 2017, @09:53PM
Two missiles would be pretty funny. "Shit, they have *three* anti-ship missiles!"