jasonof2000
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Defence Talk - China?s Aircraft Carrier Is A Highly Vulnerable Extravagance
Did you guys know about this?
I didn't know about this. :?
Seems it may run with Chinese equipped Sukhoi SU-33s.
Wiki - Shi Lang
It will be a big ass flag waver for the Chinese, but nothing much for the US Navy to be bothered about, as I suspect the SSNs will be pleased to have something new to play with and track.
Old news, originally bought by a private concern to be turned into, get this, a casino, of course that was just a front but it was towed from the Ukraine to China almost a decade ago. It has since been in heavy refit since they had to install engines (none were installed), pretty much the entire interior (the hangar elevators were left open and the interior was exposed to the elements) and the Chinese have been ripping out all the old Soviet era weapons since as originally designed it was more heavy cruiser with a flat deck than an aircraft carrier.
This ship and her sister the Kuznetsov are the worst carriers in the last 50 years, only able to launch lightly planes since it doesn't have catapults or "jump jets".
Even after its long refit and removal of the Soviet equipment it will have lots of limitations compared to even Korean war era Midway's and refitted Essex class ships and modern small carriers like the French Charles De Gaulle. There are several ways to launch aircraft off a ship. The "best" is catapults and arrestor wires, it allows for large, heavily armed aircraft but it is expensive to maintain especially if you have a small number in service. Next is using a VSTOL type plane like the Harrier or F-35B preferably with a ski-ramp but that has range and payload implications but it is better than nothing. Lastly you have what this POS has, a ramp and arrestor wires, so you need a larger ship than if you went with VSTOL planes since you need a fairly long runway, a nice big space hogging ski ramp and arrestor wires, the down side is that the planes need a lot of room to take off, they can't carry much (the Russian's just put some air-to-air missiles on their planes since it was an air defense platform for the SSBN bastions) and you can't do simultaneous take off and landings.