The most important aspect of the technology is Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) that enables submarines to remain underwater for over two weeks, steps ahead of the current fleet that needs to surface after a few hours to take in oxygen for burning fuel.
Times are Changing: Are Super Aircraft Carriers Still Survivable?
Advances in missile and submarine technology put in question whether such large and expensive ships are survivable when operating within striking distance of an enemy coastline.
Here s What You Need to Remember: Today’s supercarriers will likely serve on for decades. However, the new threats arrayed against them, combined with the limited range of the current generation of carrier-based aircraft, suggest they may prove too vulnerable to operate within striking distance of near-peer opponents.
On May 31, 2017, the U.S. Navy accepted into service USS Gerald Ford, the first of up to four new fleet carriers. The massive 1,100-foot-long vessel will eventually embark around sixty aircraft, including twenty-four F-35 Lightning stealth fighters and another twenty to twenty-four FA-18 Super Hornets. It features a faster elevator for loading munitions, and new electromagnetic launch catapults (EMALS) and arresting hooks
New Carrier, Old Threat: The Navy Is Struggling to Counter Torpedos
In 2019, a potentially revolutionary new torpedo-defense system installed on five American aircraft carriers had proven unsatisfactory and would be withdrawn from service.
Here s What You Need to Remember: The ATT is, in fact, a spinoff of a program to develop cost-efficient high-speed miniature torpedoes called the Common Very Light Weight Torpedo. The Navy’s 2020 budget documents now suggest that the anti-torpedo torpedo may instead show up on U.S. submarines as an “Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Compact Rapid Attack Weapon” system for potential integration into the AN/BYG-1 weapons loading systems used by U.S. submarines, as first reported in detail by The Drive.
The Chinese government is not disposed to transparency regarding its military accidents.
Here s What You Need to Remember: Only high standards of maintenance, manufacturing and crew training can avert lethal peacetime disasters standards which are difficult for many nations to afford, but which the PLA Navy likely aspires to it as it continues to expand and professionalize its forces at an extraordinary rate.
On April 25, 2003 the crew of a Chinese fishing boat noticed a strange sight a periscope drifting listlessly above the surface of the water. The fishermen notified the People s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which promptly dispatched two vessels to investigate.