Simple Math Favors the Attacker of Ships
Meet the US Navy’s new $13 billion aircraft carrier
The new tech can accelerate a 100,000 pound object to a speed of 125 miles per hour in less than 300 feet.
How Russia’s lone aircraft carrier will change the fight in Syria
The Kuznetsov, with its ramped flight deck and lack of a catapult system, can’t launch its jet aircraft — a mixture of MiG 29Ks and Su-33s — fully loaded with weapons and fuel, Gorenburg said. But for the Russians, that isn’t nearly as important as their military being able to field carrier-capable aircraft and training pilots in the extremely difficult task of taking off and landing from a floating runway in the middle of the ocean.
.. “This show of force, and great power status, is largely for a domestic audience,”
The Agenda Stop the Navy’s carrier plan
.. the USS Gerald Ford, which cost $15 billion to build
.. The U.S. Navy currently possesses 10 of these behemoths, and while China, Russia, Brazil, India and France each claim a single carrier in their naval inventory, none comes even close to matching the capabilities of an American flattop.
.. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with carrier-based aircraft, naval strategists began looking at carriers in an entirely new light.
.. That period of grace may have ended as China and Russia are introducing new weapons — called “carrier killer” missiles — that cost $10 million to $20 million each and can target the U.S.’s multibillion-dollar carriers up to 900 miles from shore.
.. The Navy could also revamp the carrier’s relevance by repurposing a program to develop a carrier-based drone, which is currently intended solely for surveillance missions, so that it is also capable of performing long-range strike missions. Sixteen stealthy unmanned aircraft built to fly 1,500 miles while carrying three tons of precision-strike ordnance would allow the U.S. to launch strikes from the carrier while keeping it out of the range of carrier-killing missiles.