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Longer than the Houses of Parliament and able to launch up to 108 air strike sorties per day, Britain’s new aircraft carriers will make potential enemies “think twice” about starting future wars, their senior naval officer has said. The new Queen Elizabeth Class carriers will be become Britain’s most potent conventional weapon and change the way the Royal Navy does business, Capt Simon Petitt said. The two vast 67,000 tonne vessels, which have cost £6.2bn for the pair, are the largest warships ever built in Britain. The first of the ships to be ready, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is due to...

Each day and night some 5,000 men and women pour into the docks at Rosyth to work on the two giant aircraft carriers that in the next three years will become the pride of the Navy’s fleet. HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are the biggest warships ever built in this country, and will be the cutting edge of the Royal Navy’s capability, giving it the second biggest carrier force in the world. The carriers don’t come cheap — £6.3 billion for the ships alone — and don’t come without controversy, both political and military. Construction work is...

The design of the nuclear aircraft carrier project 23000E "Storm" could form the base to build a ship of a similar class for the Indian Navy. This decision will be made during a forthcoming tender process in Delhi. The Indian Navy seeks to get an aircraft carrier with a displacement of 65 thousand tons, one that is 300 m in length, and 70 m wide, equipped with a nuclear power plant. And although the United States and France are participating in the technology race, according to "Izvestia", the Russian proposal is leading the race. The Project USS 23000E aircraft carrier...

The world's oldest aircraft carrier INS Viraat will be converted into a hotel to attract tourists after it is decommissioned from service later this year. The Defence Ministry has approved a proposal from Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) to convert the Centaur-class aircraft carrier into a hotel. The decision was conveyed to the state authorities on the sidelines of the International Fleet Review (IFR- 2016) at the coastal Andhra city of Visakhapatnam. The state government has drawn up plans to convert Viraat into a 500-room hotel, the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said. The warship would be docked at...

<p>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran flew a surveillance drone over a U.S. aircraft carrier and took "precise" photographs of it as part of an ongoing naval drill, state media reported Friday. The U.S. Navy said an unarmed Iranian drone flew near a French and American carrier earlier this month, but couldn't confirm it was the same incident.</p>

hina's second aircraft carrier, which is now under construction, will focus more on military operations training and technological experiments to improve its defence systems as the 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) undergoes massive revamp. "This aircraft carrier will have different missions than those for the Liaoning (the country's first aircraft carrier)," said Senior Captain Zhang Junshe with the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute. "We use the (the first carrier) Liaoning to test the reliability and compatibility of systems on carriers, and to train personnel. The second carrier will mainly do what a genuine aircraft carrier is supposed...

Success would be achieved when the offensive forced the North Vietnamese to meet at the negotiating table and stop supporting the Viet Cong. U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine airmen flying from bases in Thailand and South Vietnam and from aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin were to apply that pressure in the North by disrupting supply routes and destroying resources that facilitated aggression in the South. Specific targets included electric power, war-supporting industry, transportation, military complexes, petroleum storage facilities, and air defenses. Unfortunately, the campaign was compromised and circumscribed by unprecedented micromanagement emanating from the White House and...

Early in 2015, a curious and disturbing report surfaced briefly and then disappeared—almost without a trace. The report, apparently published and then quickly retracted, had been posted by the French Ministry of Defense and concerned the successful operations of the French nuclear submarine Safir in an exercise pitting it against the U.S. Navy’s Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier battle group. The somewhat shocking content of the report—that the French submarine had succeeded in sinking “half the battle group” during the exercise—may explain its rapid purging from the internet. After all, close brothers in arms may demonstrate their tactical and operational prowess...

While the French Navy Carrier Strike Group (CSG) was originally planned to deploy to the Persian Gulf, plan has now changed. Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, French President Hollande announced today that the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would leave its base on Thursday to deploy to the Eastern Mediteranean. Navy Recognition understands that the air wing will be larger than usual. In the meantime French and American defence officials agreed to increase their cooperation. The French Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) Charles de Gaulle (R91) is expected to deploy with up to 34 aircraft on board. This...

Two Russian warplanes flew within one mile of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, forcing the U.S. Navy to launch four fighter jets in response Tuesday, a Navy spokesman told Fox News. The USS Reagan was sailing in international waters east of the Korean peninsula, Stars and Stripes reports. It adds that the U.S. is currently engaged in joint military exercises with South Korea.

In an explosive report we learn that ever since 2012, the United States has been spying on Israel in order to prevent the Jewish State from attacking suspected Iranian nuclear sites, according to Friday’s Wall Street Journal. The White House had sent an additional aircraft carrier to the region after learning that Israeli aircraft had flown into Iranian airspace in what U.S. officials feared was a test run for an attack on Iran’s Fordow plant. The carriers had attack aircraft on board prepared to respond to any Israeli attack on Iran.

One glance at the map below, showing the current distribution of U.S. naval assets, reveals something that has almost never happened at any time in the past decade: As the map shows, US aircraft carrier, CVN 71 Theodore Roosevelt is currently on its way out of the Persian Gulf, leaving just the LHD-2 Essex Amphibious Warfare ship group to defend the Persian Gulf and more importantly, leaving the hotly contested middle east without U.S. carrier-based air support for the first time in years. How did this happen? According to USNI News, the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group left U.S. 5th...

Well, it's official now. Egypt is getting an aircraft carrier. FRENCH MISTRAL-CLASS WARSHIP. NEXT PORT OF CALL: EGYPT. IMAGE SOURCE: FRANCISCO GONZALEZ VIA FLICKR. Actually, two aircraft carriers. Earlier this month, we told you about Egypt's plans to buy both of the Mistral-class amphibious assault ships France had been trying to sell to Russia -- then refused to sell after Russia invaded Ukraine. At that time, France had only confirmed that Egypt presented one of multiple "serious options" for offloading its aircraft carriers. Other nations, including the United Arab Emirates and Canada had also expressed interest. But last week, the...

In the early 1980s, the Reagan Administration was looking to fund high visibility defense programs. Reagan had been elected on a platform of rebuilding the armed services after the “hollowing out” of the early 1970s. One example was the reactivation of four World War II-era Iowa-class battleships, which started in 1982. Each of the four ships, Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey and Wisconsin was refurbished, their sixteen and five-inch guns brought back online. Each battleship was also equipped with sixteen Harpoon anti-ship missiles, thirtytwo Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and four Phalanx close-in weapon systems (CIWS) for defense. The four battlewagons...

This is how one of the U.S. Navy's biggest war machines celebrated its first time on the seas after almost two years cooped up in a naval yard. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, an enormous, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, blasted out to sea off the coast of Virginia and put its tuned-up systems to the test. Footage of the voyage - its first since fall 2013 - was recorded in late August and shows the vessel's huge engines pushing it through high-speed turns at some 35mph.

TAIPEI: China is building two aircraft carriers that will be the same size as its sole carrier, a 60,000-tonne refurbished Soviet-era ship, according to a new Taiwanese Defence Ministry report on the capabilities of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Little is known about China's aircraft carrier programme, which is a state secret, although Chinese state media have hinted new vessels are being built. The Pentagon, in a report earlier this year, said Beijing could build multiple aircraft carriers over the next 15 years. One of the new vessels is being built in Shanghai and the other in the northeastern city...

Russian media reported in early 2015 that the Kremlin is preparing blueprints for a huge new aircraft carrier to replace the Russian navy’s current flattop, the relatively small and aged Admiral Kuznetsov. But Moscow’s new carrier is likely to remain a paper concept. A quarter-century after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia lacks the money, expertise and industrial capacity to build aircraft carriers. A new flattop could boost Russia’s military power by providing air cover to warships sailing far from Russian shores and by giving Moscow another option for launching air strikes on distant enemies — a particular concern for the...

For the first time, the size and specifications of the Indian Navy's future aircraft carrier have been officially acknowledged. The navy has written to at least four major global shipbuilders, asking for proposals to help in designing a 65,000 tonne carrier that would be about 300 metres long. The letter of request, issued by the Indian Navy on Wednesday, specifies the carrier should be capable of speeds greater than 30 knots (56 km per hour). However, it is silent on whether it prefers nuclear propulsion, or conventional diesel or gas turbines. The navy's letter states the carrier will embark 30-35...

An online campaign group made the stark warning amid concerns Armed Forces are facing even more cuts with another Defence Review scheduled for later this year. Save The Royal Navy believes the service will be hard pushed to man even one of the massive ships because of the depleted number of sailors. The organisation also expressed concerns the record low staffing levels will lead to “dangerously small crews” while uncertainty over the number of aircrafts on board the carriers and lack of escort vessels could leave them vulnerable to an attack. So far only three of the eight F35 type...

Russia’s defense and industrial sector is developing a promising aircraft carrier for the Navy worth up to $5.6 billion, which has no analogs in the world, Northern Fleet Commander, Admiral Vladimir Korolyov said on Monday. The new aircraft carrier will enable the Russian Navy to operate more effectively, the admiral said, referring to the developments by the Krylov Research State Center in St. Petersburg but gave no estimates for the new ship. The center’s developments are known under the codename Project 23000E Storm. "Considering that the Northern Fleet forces perform a great variety of missions in the distant Oceanic zone,...