why the u.s aircraft carrier is the most powerful ship in the world
aircraft carriers are symbols of american military might and recently a chinese military professor
caused a stir by calling for china to sink two of them to crush america's resolve the u.s military
conducted a sink exercise test in 2005 using the decommissioned uss america for target practice
to test the defensive capabilities of u.s carriers in order to guide the development
of future super carriers the ship was bombarded repeatedly and hammered in a variety of attacks
the carrier withstood four weeks of intense bombardment before it was finally sunk according
to the war zone these leviathans of the seas are beacons of american power for a reason
china could knock one of the us's 11 carriers out of the fight but sinking one of these 100
000 ton warships is another thing entirely that's not to say it can't be done it's just
no simple task experts told business insider it wouldn't be impossible to hit an aircraft carrier
but unless they hit it with a nuke an aircraft carrier should be able to take on substantial
damage said retired captain talbot manville who previously served as an aircraft engineer
and was involved in the design of the new ford class carriers
at 1100 feet long carriers are floating nuclear power plants fuel tankers bomb arsenals and an
airfield stacked atop each other like a layered cake they are then surrounded by cruisers and
destroyers to defend them from missiles fighters and torpedoes even if that means sacrificing
themselves u.s carriers are behemoths that are built to take a hit displacing more than a hundred
thousand tons the us navy's nimitz-class aircraft carriers are among the largest warships ever built
their ability to take a beating is a function of both their size and the compartmentalization of
the carrier clark explained in the case of the uss america the size alone resulted in it being pretty
survivable he said before calling attention to some other aspects of the powerful ships
each carrier has a number of main spaces which the crew would try to seal off should
the carrier take a hit below the water line say from a torpedo the ship is so incredibly large
that it would take a number of these compartments filling up with water for the ship to sink
the type of steel used on the ships also makes them difficult to penetrate
manville said it has an under bottom and side protection of several layers of steel there are
also voids that allow for warhead gas expansion the extra armoring is also designed to keep damage
from detonating the ship's weapons magazines where bombs and missiles are stored additionally the
u.s navy pays attention to how it moves weapons around the ship keeping these bombs and missiles
as protected as possible and steps have been taken to reduce the number of hot surfaces that
could ignite there are also a lot of redundant systems which means that critical systems can be
rerouted making it hard to take out essentials such as the propulsion system which would leave
the ship dead in the water if destroyed as long as the ship can move it can retreat if necessary
given enough time and weapons you can sink a carrier but if you have defenses people doing
damage control and propulsion the carrier can take damage and drive away to eventually come
back clark told bi u.s carriers can take a lick and keep on ticking manville who taught at the
u.s naval academy u.s carriers and their escort ships are armed to the teeth carriers and their
escort ships are armed with sonar and torpedoes to prevent the stealthy boats from getting close
enough for a torpedo attack and the battle group is also armed with electronic countermeasures
and kinetic interceptors for missile defense they also have various closing weapon systems to strike
at incoming threats as a last resort submarines are their gravest threat to sinking russian subs
for instance are often armed with one thousand pound torpedoes that were designed to destroy
carrier groups and it's conceivable that enough fired at once and on target could sink a carrier
for just this reason the us has put a lot of effort into anti-submarine warfare so u.s carrier
strike groups have the ability to put weapons on submarine contacts very quickly clark told bi
escort ships can launch torpedoes or rocket-fired torpedoes and sh-60 helicopters can drop torpedoes
or sauna boys to track submarines the u.s has also put a greater emphasis on electronic warfare
to prevent u.s carriers from being actively targeted by enemy missiles the chinese
could launch a weapon but it may not be accurately targeted enough to actually hit
a moving carrier from a thousand miles away clark further explained
there is also a keen interest in improved missile defense capabilities
there are lots of ways to shoot it down with kinetic interceptors like the sm-6 sm-2 rolling
airframe missile he added of course there is also the air wing which could include up
to 60 fighters as well as a number of jammers helicopters and early warning aircraft we have
a pretty robust air wing that can go hundreds of miles out to provide a buffer for incoming stuff
american carriers are never alone in hostile waters it's important to put the carrier where
it is least at risk surrounded by the battle group manville said u.s aircraft carriers are surrounded
by smaller ships known as escorts they sail in carrier strike groups consisting of at least one
carrier one cruiser and one or two destroyers and are capable of unleashing a lot of firepower when
needed they are exceptionally well defended you have to launch hundreds of weapons at the carrier
strike group to even get a few of them through clark explained that doesn't mean a strike group
can't be overwhelmed though there's a good chance china has the ability to do that at a recent talk
at the heritage foundation clark explained that china could hurl around 600 missiles downrange
at a carrier group which could on a good day down roughly 75 percent of the incoming chinese weapons
this however creates a dilemma for the chinese military the people's liberation army has to
make the hard decision on how many weapons it will throw away just to knock a carrier out for
a few weeks assuming it has merely been damaged and not sunk those weapons are gone they don't
have them for some other part of the fight clark said maybe that is worth it to them maybe it's not
and it's likely in a war that the us would destroy these missile batteries
with bombers and long-range missiles before it sends a carrier into their range
to strike a killing blow china has to get close really close china has decent torpedoes
and their submarines are increasingly capable but whether or not they're good enough to slip past
the defenses of a carrier strike group to deliver the kill shot to a u.s carrier is debatable
in 2006 a chinese song-class submarine reportedly managed to skirt the defenses
of the uss kitty hawk strike group surfacing within firing range of the carrier as it sailed
through the east china sea according to a report by the washington times some details of which
have been called into question the incident reportedly caused the u.s navy to re-evaluate
its approach to chinese subs the u.s navy can put a lot of fire on a submarine very quickly
and because submarines tend to be rather slow with limited defenses the enemy submarine could retreat
only once it was spotted thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe
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