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MoD may sell carrier to fill huge hole in defence budget Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent Britain may be forced to sell one of its flagship new aircraft carriers to plug a huge hole in its defence budget. Talks are taking place at the Ministry of Defence about finding a buyer for one of the ships being built at a cost of £5.2 billion for the Royal Navy. The financial crisis at the MoD has deepened after Chancellor George Osborne rejected a bid by Defence Secretary Liam Fox to get the Treasury to pay for the renewal of the Trident nuclear...

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The official photos from a major Asian security forum in Hanoi this week will likely show Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi dutifully smiling and shaking hands. But behind the scenes of the meeting, an ominous new Chinese weapons system that the Pentagon worries could alter the balance of power in the Pacific is further complicating the tense Sino-American military dialogue.

U.S. Ships Could Move to East Sea for Joint Drill South Korea and the U.S. are mulling a joint maritime drill in both the East and West Seas this month after China lodged a protest against a huge U.S. military presence on its doorstep. The idea is to deploy some of the bigger American ships including an aircraft carrier to the east of the Korean Peninsula instead. A government source on Monday said there is "near-consensus" for turning the planned West Sea drill into an exercise in both the East and West Seas to reflect the positions of Beijing and...

Living Target JULY 07, 2010 11:19 Chinese Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, told a Hong Kong TV station Monday, “If a U.S. aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it will become a living target.” Unleashing hard-line comments, he said, “Just as we’d block a snoring person from approaching one’s bed, can we allow other people to perform a sword dance right in front of our door?,” adding, “China is not fish but a tiger lion.” The official Chinese daily Global Times also said that if the U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington...

India's first naval fighter squadron turns 50 TNN, Jul 5, 2010, 12.38am IST NEW DELHI: The `White Tigers' turn 50 this week. No, not the ones from Rewa but India's first-ever naval fighter squadron, which takes its name from the famous tigers with white fur instead of the usual orange due to a recessive gene. It was on July 7, 1960, that the INSAS 300 squadron was commissioned at the British Royal Naval air station in Brawdy, propelling India into the exclusive club of countries which flew fighters from aircraft carriers. The squadron, with its crest depicting the white tiger...

Color footage of carrier action in the Pacific. Thie is my daddy's generation in action, just a bunch of kids then. One of my uncles was flying off a carriers, he flew Corsairs.

USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) successfully fired two Evolved NATO Sea Sparrow missiles and two Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) for the first time, to conclude its first Combat Systems Ship's Qualification Trials (CSSQT), June 23. CSSQT is part of the series of qualifications and certifications the aircraft carrier must undergo in preparation for her upcoming maiden deployment. According to Combat Systems Officer, Cmdr. John B. Vliet, CSSQT is a combined effort between the Combat Systems, Operations and Weapons departments to test the aircraft carrier's self-defense systems. "It's an end-to-end testing of the Combat Systems Suite, to include tactics, techniques,...

Keep U.S. Aircraft Carrier Out of Our Backyard, China Warns A state-run Chinese newspaper on Tuesday criticized the South Korean government for allowing the 97,000-ton aircraft carrier George Washington of the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet to join South Korea-U.S. military training scheduled late this month. In an editorial, Global News wrote the West Sea "is in proximity to China's political hub of Beijing and Tianjin. If a U.S. aircraft carrier comes into the West Sea, mainland China falls under the military strategic influence of U.S. military forces. The people of China will not accept South Korea having military demonstration involving...

Carrier casts a shadow over Northeast Asia * Source: Global Times * [02:56 June 08 2010] Recent media reports that the US aircraft carrier George Washington is being considered for participation in joint military exercises with South Korea on the Yellow Sea have generated alarm and antipathy among the Chinese public. There is no final confirmation from the Pentagon yet, though South Korean officials were trying to promote the idea Sunday. It is hard to tell if the idea is the South's alone, or if the US will try to test China with it. Either way, the decision should be...

Last month was the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). At the naval parade held to commemorate the event, in front of delegations from 29 countries, PLAN Commander General Wu Shengli declared that Beijing intended to build aircraft carriers, spurring widespread speculation over China’s blue-water ambitions. So what should we make of Beijing’s assertiveness and openness about its carrier plans? My advice: ignore it. Traditional measures of naval power fail to give an accurate picture of China’s maritime ambitions and capabilities. Beijing currently lacks the hardware and skills to keep a carrier at sea,...

debkafile's military sources report a decision by the Obama administration to boost US military strength in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions in the short term with an extra air and naval strike forces and 6,000 Marine and sea combatants. Carrier Strike Group 10, headed by the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, sails out of the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia Friday, May 21. On arrival, it will raise the number of US carriers off Iranian shores to two. Up until now, President Barack Obama kept just one aircraft carrier stationed off the coast of Iran, the USS...

On the bridge of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, there’s a 20-year-old quartermaster with a No. 2 pencil, a compass and a big map unfurled on a table. In one of the ironies of America’s modern Navy, that map and that quartermaster are the official method of navigation for the $4 billion carrier and the 5,000 souls on board. Even as the Navy installs the most high-tech equipment on its carriers — including the San Diego-based Carl Vinson, which recently returned to the fleet after a four-year overhaul — none of the nation’s 11 flattops is certified to rely on...

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) departed Naval Air Station North Island for sea trials May 18. The event marks the first time that Ronald Reagan has been underway since Oct. 21, 2009, when it completed its fourth deployment in four years. The three-time Battle "E" award-winning carrier is concluding a six-month planned incremental availability (PIA), a scheduled maintenance period designed to upgrade ship's systems and quality of life for its Sailors. Sea trials allow these systems to be tested and necessary quality checks to be performed. Upon successful completion of sea trials, Ronald Reagan's PIA will officially conclude and the...

After a laborious two-year overhaul beset by delays, cost overruns and unforeseen problems, Navy officials said Monday that the military's oldest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is once again ready for war. The 49-year-old Enterprise, which has been docked at Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard since April 2008, was originally slated to return to service six months ago. That plan changed after repair crews discovered damage and decay - from rotted pipes to fried electronics - far beyond what they'd anticipated. As the list of repairs grew, so did costs, to nearly $700 million from an initial estimate of $450 million. That's...

THE Navy’s flagship deployment of 2010 is underway… with the nation’s flagship kicking it off. HMS Ark Royal departed Portsmouth on a glorious spring morning as the Auriga 2010 deployment to the Eastern Seaboard of North America began. When the exercise reaches its peak off Florida in July, it will see the carrier joined by HMS Ocean and Albion, plus American assault ship USS Kearsarge (a combination of Ark/Ocean, but twice the size…). The road to Florida begins in rather chillier climes, however. Ark’s first ‘stomping ground’ on the deployment is the west coast of Scotland and the regular Joint...

After laying hands on the record-breaking 61.5 mph speedboat, built for a British sporting adventurer, the Iranian navy plans to arm it with the reputedly fastest torpedo in the world, the Russian-designed Shkval (Squall), which moves at speeds of 360 kph. debkafile's military sources report Tehran is aiming for a seaborne weapon able to sink a US carrier in the Persian Gulf. Blogs tracking the international weapons trade and the Financial Times reported Monday, April 5, that after purchasing the Bladerunner 51 powerboat from a Florida boatyard in 2005, the British sailor Neil McGrigor smashed the Italian-held record for the...

/begin my summary China to Deploy its First Carrier in 2012 Hong Kong = Lee Hang-su America's Admiral Willard Report (to Congress) China completed remodeling a carrier purchased from a former Soviet country. "China would deploy its first aircraft carrier in 2012 and launch its first domestically manufactured carrier in 2015," report by Admiral Willard, Commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet to Congressional Armed Service Committee. Dalian Daily in Liaoning Province reported that Varjag's remodeling was recently completed at Dalian Shipyard and it is moved out of drydock and now in the water before the shipyard South China Morning Post reported,...

www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=4gGMI8d3vLs For part II Night Ops: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=4gGMI8d3vLs

Kong Wednesday amid heightened tension between Washington and Beijing over arms sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama's plan to meet the Dalai Lama. The stop by the USS Nimitz, one of the world's largest warships, came just weeks after China said it would suspend military and security contacts with the United States over Washington's 6.4-billion-dollar arms package for Taipei. It also coincided with a trip to Washington by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama for a long-awaited meeting with Obama, a visit that has infuriated Beijing which has denounced him as a separatist bent on independence for his...

Now that the Department of Defense has made clear its intent to move a Norfolk-based aircraft carrier to Mayport, Fla., the battle between Florida and Virginia shifts to Congress. Members of the Hampton Roads congressional delegation have pledged to fight tooth and nail to block any more money for the project. They’re taking on Florida’s congressional delegation, who outnumber the Virginians by more than two to one and are already claiming victory. Hampton Roads representatives said they are not ready to talk about what might happen if the carrier battle is lost. “We have to continue to have a united...