"The Age Of Carriers Is Over." (Sort Of.)

Townhall ^ | 1/17/07 | Hugh Hewitt

[SoCal Pubbie]

Compare that to the bigger German tanks:

" The Tiger had reliability problems throughout its service life; Tiger units frequently entered combat understrength due to breakdowns. It was rare for any Tiger unit to complete a road march without losing vehicles due to breakdown. It also had poor radius of action."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I

And the Tiger II:

"With the Third Reich hard pressed, the Tiger IIs were sent directly from the factories into combat. As a result of the abandonment of post-production testing and preliminary trials, the tanks had numerous technical issues. Notably, the steering control would often break down under the stress of the vehicle's weight. In addition, not only were the engines prone to overheating and failure, but they also consumed large amounts of fuel. This can be attributed to the fact that it used the 700hp Maybach engine of the far smaller Panther tank. The engine had to constantly run at full power just to get the tank moving. Henschel & Son's chief designer Erwin Adlers explained that "The breakdowns can be attributed to the fact that the Tiger II had to go straight into series production without the benefit of test results." The engine and drivetrain was overburdened by the weight and would have required more testing to weed out problems, a common problem among heavy tanks that pushed the limits of powerplants and transmissions. A version of the Maybach HL230 engine with direct fuel injection was being designed that would have improved power to about 1,000–hp, Henschel proposed to use it for future production and retrofitting to existing Tiger IIs, but the deteriorating war situation meant the upgrade never left the drawing board."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II

It's also interested to note that when the Germans overran France in 1940, it was the French who had the bigger, better, more powerful tanks bu the results were the same. That's why Patton preferred the Sherman to the Pershing, despite the latter's advantages.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Barnett couldn't find his backside with both hands if you spotted him nine fingers.

[mdmathis6]

China will have calculated("wrongly in my opinion") that Americans would never escalate beyond a tactical response and might even just go home due to political abhorence of nuclear war at home. They'll wait until the right party is in power(Dem's)(legislature and presidency) and then do their dirty deeds.

Knocking out a carrier or trying to by conventional means would be still a dicey undertaking with all the screener ships and flankers about and there would be much retaliatory strength left in the fleet. It would take a nuclear shot or some type of exotic EMP pulse weapon to disable the fleet. Destroying our military satellites might be somewhat blinding, but our military strategy generally plans for worse case scenarios. The Chinese would need to go nuclear to halt our fleets and they know it!

[mdmathis6]

There might be an initial shut down, but there are such things as overide controls once it was judged that the reactors were not leaking.

[jagusafr]

Seen it - too close to true to be funny! At least with some. I'm happy to say the tide's turning - hell, we're doing ILO duties as convoy escorts in the AOR! Of course, cable's a recurring issue - some things are nonnegotiable!

Colonel, USAFR

[Valin]

Translation: Anyone I disagree with MUST be stupid, because I am the font of all wisdom and knowledge.

[A.A. Cunningham]

A bloke as loquacious as yourself needn't be so coy. Do elborate.