Posted on 12/28/2017 5:15:06 PM PST by iowamark
Japan, once a world leader in aircraft carriers, is preparing to wade back into the world of fixed wing aviation. The Pacific country, which swore off flat-tops in the aftermath of World War II, is preparing to reverse decades of government policy and add fighter planes to so-called “helicopter destroyers" to counter Chinese air power.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japan was an aircraft carrier superpower. Japan had more carriers than any other country, including the United States, and its pilots were trained to a high standard by years of war. A little more than four years later, all but one of Japan’s carriers were on the bottom of the ocean, and most of the pilots had been killed in battle.
Japan, which reinvented itself under American control as a pacifist country, swore off “offensive” weapons of war such as marines, bombers, and aircraft carriers. Despite this, for decades Japan’s navy, the Maritime Self Defense Force, quietly plotted a return to naval aviation. Over the years it has gradually built ships with increased aviation duties in mind, from destroyers with large helicopter landing decks to tank landing ships with full-length flight decks.
Japan’s latest aviation ships, the Izumo class “helicopter destroyers,” are aircraft carriers in all but name. Izumo and her sister ship Kaga resemble miniature carriers, with an island, full-length 814 foot long flight deck, a spacious hangar, and elevators that shuttle aircraft between the flight deck and the island. At 27,000 tons, the ships are roughly a third the size of the U.S. Navy’s Ford-class supercarriers.
I neglected to check excerpt. Full article at:
Why not just buy one from us?
Doable? Gotta keep their shipbuilders working.
Then buy the plans from us.
ping
Didn’t they already try this once? Like 7 or 8 decades ago?
A named carrier predecessor was sunk at The Battle of Midway.
Converted ships always have some drawbacks.
Well, we had Jeep carriers, now it looks like Japan will have Nisan carriers.
“Converted ships always have some drawbacks.”
Looking at pictures of these ships they look like aircraft carries, even down to deck elevators.
I would bet that they could do a new construction of one or two that would make them more than conversions
Why don’t they just construct a purpose-built aircraft carrier.
Converting a ship from one purpose to another involves too many compromises.
Forgive me for splitting semantic hairs but this might be more of an... adaptation, to a purpose quietly anticipated back to the drawing board, rather than a conversion of say, a cargo (for example a coal ship, i.e. the USS Langley) ship to another purpose.
Hmm, recall them doing that once before...
They are already aircraft carriers, just helicopter carriers in name only to get around rules.
“In 2010, Forecast International reported that some design features were intended to support fixed wing aircraft such as the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II;[9] although neither the Ministry of Defense nor the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force have mentioned the possibility of introducing fixed-wing aircraft.
“The ship has neither a “ski-jump” nor a catapult, typical features for launching fixed-wing aircraft.[10] If Izumo-class ships were to operate fixed-wing aircraft, it would be limited to STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing) aircraft, such as the F-35B/”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JS_Kaga#Aircraft_carried
Do they have catapults and arresting gear?
How many do we have in moth balls?
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