Posted on 12/18/2010 8:08:10 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
It must be true when they say the military is fighting the next war with obsolete weapons. Aircraft carriers is one big fat target for cheap missiles.
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Lets see ‘em handle this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=4gGMI8d3vLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=S0yj70QbBzg
Instead of a car and people.....
.....we get to see a "Chinese Fire Drill" with an aircraft carrier and planes.
China is a very large country with dang near unlimited resources and the will to use those resources to accomplish their ends. And they don’t have to waste time with the messy intervention of amateurs (read: Congress) in the decision-making process.
They may be using old samples, but they will probably update them in ways we can’t predict.
We underestimate China at our peril.
A CV by itself may not seem like a good platform, but consider this. Each American CV(N) is carrying around 90 combat aircraft capable of neutralizing most targets within their range. Those targets that are out of range of these aircraft still have to contend with the carrier’s escorts, which usually consist of one or two guided missile cruisers, two to three guided missile destroyers and one or two nuclear submarines. I don’t know if modern carrier battlegroups stil contain an anti-submarine frigate or not, but the central point remains the same. Attacking a modern carrier is nearly suicidal unless you do so with massive numbers of weapon systems.
Carriers are still large targets, but not nearly as easily destroyed as you seem to think. There’s been several times in the past that the Carrier has been written off as obsolete because of submarines and missiles, but they’re still here.
People still discount the carrier’s strike power. The F/A-18E/F can fly hundreds of miles from the carrier and launch missiles with ranges from 90+ miles to take out ships.
That said, our carrier air wings are not what they were just 25 years ago. The number of aircraft is down from that 90-aircraft figure to closer to 70. In air-to-air combat, the US Navy no longer can claim the type of dominance it had when it had F-14D Super Tomcats on board. The Super Hornet does not compare favorably to the Super Tomcat in most measures of performance, especially combat radius. The latest Sukhois are a match for the performance of the Super Hornet and the USN only enjoys superiority due to the quality of naval aviators.
This is unfair to those naval aviators and could put them in the same position as their predecessors who had to fly against the Japanese Zero in the F4F Wildcat at the outset of WWII...
They had their change in the 15th century with Chengo-Ho; and they pissed it away. They wont get it back.
Chinese naval tech vs Spanish naval tech at the time.
Why did we retire the Super Tomcats again? That seems a little...stupid to say the least.
Furthermore, what’s up with reducing the number of aircraft in the Air Wings? Is it just a matter or replacing the Tomcat Squadrons or is there something else going on?
Nice video.. appreciated it.. Thanks..
your cheap missiles can only knock them out... if you know they are there in the first place.
our sub net has loads of holes after 3 years of no funding.
and we rely heavily on our satellites for reconnaissance... and the chinese have already demonstrated the ability to knock down orbiting satellites from the ground.
as for those saying china wouldn’t attack us... b*llsh*t.
I agree 100%.
Galleons began to be built about the same time and to similar or larger dimensions. The Scots built the Great Michael in 1511; she was 250' long.
Still, that big Chinaman would have made quite a stir if she'd dropped anchor in Cadiz harbor.
To prove that "Big Dick" Cheney had tons of swing and could beat up Grumman.
It was a squabble over a projected next-gen Tomcat project. Cheney (with Poppy Bush's nod) killed it -- and ordered the dies cut up -- to make a point. To make a point. Guess that means more in Bushworld than "the future security of the United States".
There were at least three designs left on the drawing-board for follow-on "improved" Tomcat designs when he did that.
>>There were at least three designs left on the drawing-board for follow-on “improved” Tomcat designs when he did that.<<
I loved the Tomcat — but part of me wondered whether VG was worth the complexity, given the performance profile of modern fixed-wing jets.
But I don’t design jets for a living, I just admire them from afar...
They're reducing the number of carriers so they're cutting the number of air wings. Eleven carriers, ten air wings.
I wasn’t aware that he had that done. I’m losing more and more respect for that man, especially as I learn more about what he did under Bush 41 to gut the Navy.
That’s not what I was talking about, but even that is interesting. I was talking about the total number of aircraft per Air Wing, not the total number of Air Wings. This may be the first time that I’m aware of though that the Navy had more Carriers than it did Carrier Air Wings.
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