Aircraft carrier "Nimitz"
The flagships of the US Navy, the embodiment of American scope, power and flight of engineering and military-technical thought, are ready to disappear from the seas and oceans. Like dinosaurs that once lived in great numbers and then disappeared completely and forever …
Such prospects for the monsters of the American navy draws Ben Ho Wan Beng, Senior Analyst at the prestigious School of International Studies, headquartered in Singapore. It is his report on the topic of threats to aircraft carriers, published by the US Naval Institute, that actually sounds like a requiem for this type of ships that is untimely going out of our time into the depths of history.
Firstly, it is a rather small range of carrier-based aircraft. Most of the F-18 fighter-bombers (McDonnell Douglas F / A-18 Hornet) cannot move more than 500 nautical miles (926 km) from the base. And if the ship is located at such a distance from the coast, the "Hornet" (as translated from the English Hornet) is deprived of the possibility of penetrating deep into the enemy's territory. If the target of the attack is not a small island, but a country with "strategic depth", then there is no sense from the F-18.
Reference: McDonnell Douglas F / A-18 Hornet. 1480 aircraft were produced. The unit cost varies between $ 29 and $ 57 million - depending on the modification and the year of manufacture.
Promised to replace the F-35 (in the American press, the epic with the development of this project is already, without hesitation, called "soap opera"), the problem also does not solve, since its combat radius is greater than that of the "Hornet" by only 10% (up to 550 sea miles or 1019 km).
Reference: Fighter-bomber Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. As of December 2015, 174 aircraft were built. The total cost of the program in 2011 was estimated at $ 382 billion. In the projection of 55 years of production of aircraft of this type, experts today estimate the possible costs for it at $ 1.508 trillion, taking into account inflation. The cost of one aircraft, depending on the modifications (there are currently three of them), ranges from $ 153.1 million to $ 199.4 million.
Secondly, the two main potential adversaries of the United States - China and Russia are developing a new generation of long-range missiles that can be "pushed" deep into the continent - the above-named specialist believes that it is realistic to launch them from a distance of 800 miles (1482 km) from coast to targets located at a distance of the maximum range of US carrier-based aircraft. The missile defense line, due to its distance from the coast, high speed and low flight altitude, makes missiles virtually invisible to aircraft carriers.
Thus, the defending side does not need to attack aircraft carriers with dozens of coastal aircraft - according to the expert, a hit of one DF-21 missile made by China is enough to launch a 335-meter vessel with a crew of about 6,000 people to the bottom. It is difficult to say where the planes that have flown away on the mission will land after that (and there are 66 to 84 units on Nimitz-class aircraft carriers).
Reference: Aircraft carriers of the "Nimitz" class (Nimitz class). Length - 332.5 m, displacement 101 600 - 106 300 tons. Power plants - 2 nuclear reactors A4W Westinghouse, 4 steam turbines, 4 diesel engines. The hike range is unlimited. Travel speed - 30 knots (56 km / h). Crew: 3200 ship crew and 2480 air wing. Air group - from 64 to 90 aircraft and helicopters. There are currently 10 units in service. The cost of building each is $ 4.5 billion.
A new series is planned - the Gerald Ford class. The first of them was launched in 2013. The construction of the second is planned for 2019. Tactical and technical characteristics (TTX) differ slightly from those of "Nimitz".
The need to use this type of ship, in the existing conditions, disappears. In the same way, the need for the construction of new ones disappears.
reference: DF-21 (Dongfeng-21, literally: "East Wind-21", according to NATO classification - CSS-5 mod.1), Chinese two-stage solid-propellant medium-range ballistic missile. Flight distance - up to 1800 km. It is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead with a yield of up to 300 kilotons. According to the US Department of Defense, China has 60 to 80 such missiles and 60 launchers at its disposal.
Chinese PGRK with a DF-21D missile at the parade
Aircraft carriers, which by their mere appearance near enemy territory were supposed to catch up with animal fear on the enemy and give birth to the only thought in his head - to surrender, turn into a bulky vessel, suitable at best as a props for filming. At worst - for scrap. Titans turn into Titanics.
And the global program for their construction seems to serve more for "cutting" funds allocated by the state: very few people will be able to scare someone with such weapons, and pushing money offshore is easy.
There is another reason why the US military may insist on "continuing the banquet" with aircraft carriers - in a similar way, in the 1980s, the US pushed the USSR to invest huge amounts of money in a response program to the US SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative). In the end, Star Wars turned out to be pure bluff, but it dealt a powerful blow to the economy of the Soviet Union. But if today the American "Nimitz" and "Gerald Fords" are being promoted for the same purpose, then hardly anyone in the Russian Ministry of Defense will fall for such a bait again.
