China launches 'Fujian,' its most advanced aircraft carrier:
China launched its largest and most advanced aircraft carrier on Friday at a shipyard in Shanghai, in what state media called a "short but festive ceremony."
The 80,000-ton Fujian, named for the southern coastal province opposite Taiwan, is the first of China's three carriers to be fully designed and built domestically. Unlike China's Liaoning and Shandong carriers, which use ski-jump ramps, Fujian will launch planes using electromagnetic catapults, the technology used on current U.S. carriers.
"Although it will be years before the [carrier] enters military service and achieves initial operating capability, its launch will be a seminal moment in China's ongoing modernization efforts and a symbol of the country's growing military might," said analysts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, in an article earlier this month.
China launches third aircraft carrier: State media - Times of India:
[...] However, it will take years before it reaches operational capacity, as the Ministry of Defence has not announced a date for entry into service. "Sailing and mooring tests will be carried out as planned after the ship is launched," CCTV reported. China has two other aircraft carriers in service. The Liaoning was commissioned in 2012, and the Shandong entering service in 2019.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @05:38PM (1 child)
10 miles? Hardly. The first bomb dropped during Operation Crossroads, an A-bomb test designed to test the effects of an atomic blast on ships at sea, was off target by less than half a mile, and that resulted in most of the ships that were supposed to sink surviving. And these were (obviously) uncrewed, inactive ships. The observation post for that test was about ten miles away, the observers said the test was unspectacular.
Although we have larger thermonuclear weapons today, they are not mounted on tactical missiles. It would take the Tsar Bomba to sink a warship from ten miles away, and nobody is putting anything like that on a missile (the Soviets could barely fit it into a bomber).
As for why China wants an aircraft carrier, not everything is about Taiwan. The purpose of the ship is to project power into the Pacific Ocean and, especially, the South China Sea, which China thinks belongs to them. (I guess it does have their name on it, but it definitely isn't theirs).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 18 2022, @09:21PM
You should look into the "Ripple" bomb design [soylentnews.org]:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794729 [jhu.edu]
I'm not saying that this changes your analysis or that these are even being built today, just that it is theoretically possible that Tsar Bomba-like 50 megaton yields could be realized in a "small" package. If the U.S. decides to modernize its nuclear arsenal and start producing new bomb designs, something like this will probably make its way in there. Given the lineup of ever more powerful supercomputers that have been used for nuclear simulations for decades, I bet there has been additional development of the Ripple concept, just no testing or production.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]