[Roninf5-1]

The threat is not the carrier itself its the fact that the Red Chinese now have the industrial, technological, and financial capacity to build and field such a thing. What will they be building in ten or twenty years. What will the US have the capacity to build and field in ten or twenty years? The way things are going in a few years the Red Chinese could very well buy our entire navy, cheap.

[colorado tanker]

The Chinese didn't actually build it. It's an old Soviet carrier, the Varyag, that was incomplete when the Soviet Union fell. It transferred to Ukraine, which stripped it. China bought the hulk at auction and is completing and fitting it out.

It was never intended to be a general purpose carrier like ours, but rather to support the Sov's ballistic missile and ASW operations. It has a curved front deck reminiscent of the Brit jump carriers.

So, the Chicoms are hardly building Nimitz class ships, at least not yet. Still, this thing could be intimidating to some folks in their near neighborhood.