The naming ceremony for the launch of the third aircraft carrier in mainland China was held at the Jiangnan Shipyard of China State Shipbuilding Corporation. With the approval of the Central Military Commission, the third aircraft carrier on the mainland was named "Fujian Ship of the People's Liberation Army Navy of the Chinese" and the hull number was "18".
Fujian is the first catapult aircraft carrier completely independently designed and built by the mainland, using a straight through long flight deck, equipped with electromagnetic catapult and blocking devices, and a full load displacement of more than 80,000 tons. Once launched, mooring and navigational tests will be carried out as planned. The three special nodes all mark the new achievements made by the mainland's scientific and technological undertakings again and again, and also reflect the ambition of a big country to advance and never stop.
From the birth of the world's first aircraft carrier "Fengxiang" in 1922 to the present, the aircraft carrier has gone through a hundred years of road.
The aircraft carrier is still like a 20-year-old youth, full of infinite vitality. And it is very different from the situation when the aircraft carrier was just born a hundred years ago, when few people valued it, but all countries that have a little pursuit on the sea want to have an aircraft carrier, because the aircraft carrier has proved its unmatched ability on the sea countless times.
Source: Chinese Navy
In 2022, the 100-year period of the advent of this aircraft carrier, India's domestic aircraft carrier "Vikrant", the United States Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Kennedy" will be in service, China's first domestic catapult aircraft carrier launched, Russia's only aircraft carrier "Kuznetsov" plans to complete the maintenance project, Japan's "Kaga" helicopter destroyer is in full swing to carry out aircraft carrier transformation, and France is continuing to steadily promote the construction of PANG aircraft carrier...
Text | Shi Hong, Executive Editor of Shipboard Weapons
Edit | Pu Haiyan Lookout Think Tank
This article is the original article of the Lookout Think Tank, if you need to reprint, please indicate the source of the Lookout Think Tank (zhczyj) and the author information before the article, otherwise the legal responsibility will be strictly pursued.
1
Britain set the precedent for an aircraft carrier, but the name of the first one was snatched up by japan
After the invention of the airplane, war soon entered three-dimensional space. Some people with a keen sense of smell began to try to combine aircraft with ships, so that the aircraft could be freed from the limitations of the ground base and could follow the ship to soar freely on the ocean. In this regard, the British were the most active, converting an old cruiser, The Athletic, into the world's first seaplane carrier in 1912. During World War I, the British Navy had 3 converted seaplane carriers in the war.
However, the British were not satisfied, and in 1917 the design of the cruiser Rage, which was under construction, was changed to make it the main ship carrying aircraft, but the Rage had not yet adopted an all-access deck design. The real all-access deck design was the Hundred-Eyed Giant, a passenger ship under construction, the Kaglin. On July 19, 1918, seven aircraft took off from the Hundred Eyes and attacked the German airship base, which was also the first instance in the world of an aircraft taking off from a ship to attack.
The Indian Navy introduced the british Navy's retired light aircraft carrier HMS Athletic and renamed it HMS Virat.
After summarizing the experience of the previous modification of many ships, the British designed the world's first specialized aircraft carrier and named it after the world's first seaplane mothership, the Athletic God, as a memorial. In terms of design, the Athletic God created the specification of the aircraft carrier configuration, which has not changed until now:
First, it inherits the all-through deck of the "Hundred Eyes Giant" aircraft carrier, making the flight operation more convenient;
The second is to use a closed bow to make the aircraft carrier have good resistance to waves, while also making the strength of the flight deck greater, suitable for combat in harsh sea conditions;
The third is to merge the bridge, mast and chimney into a large ship island, and arranged on the starboard side of the all-access deck, which is conducive to hull sealing, ship navigation command and flight control of the carrier aircraft, and is stronger than the lateral chimney and the reclining chimney.
Not only that, the "Athletic God" is also the world's first aircraft carrier to attach importance to air defense capabilities, which is equipped with 6 140 mm high-level dual-purpose naval guns, 3 102 mm anti-aircraft guns, and in 1934, 8 20 mm Ellirkon small-caliber anti-aircraft guns were added. The British were prescient because the brutal combat of World War II showed that the greatest threat to aircraft carriers was enemy aircraft, and anti-aircraft weapons were the carrier-based weapons that aircraft carriers needed most.
The "Athletic God" aircraft carrier has a total length of 182 meters, a width of 27.4 meters, a standard displacement of 10,950 tons, a full load displacement of 13,200 tons, a power system of 6 boilers, two steam turbines, a total output of 40,000 shaft horsepower, and a maximum speed of 25 knots. Initially, the number of carrier-based aircraft was 20, but due to the increasing size of carrier-based aircraft, the number of aircraft carried by the "Athletic God" aircraft carrier dropped to 16 by 1942.
However, to the dismay of the British, although the very well-designed aircraft carrier "Athletic God" began construction on January 15, 1918, nearly 2 years earlier than the Japanese "Fengxiang", the British greatly slowed down the construction speed due to the end of World War I, resulting in the Japanese "Fengxiang" coming later. On December 22, 1922, fengxiang joined service with the Japanese navy; The British Athletic did not enter service until 18 February 1924. In this way, the "Fengxiang" snatched the crown of the world's first aircraft carrier from the British.
However, in terms of design level and technical performance, the Fengxiang is obviously inferior to the "Athletic God": for example, the Fengxiang still uses an open bow, and as a result, it encountered a strong typhoon during the exercise held by the Japanese Navy in September 1935, and the front flight deck was completely destroyed; Another example is that the island and chimney of the "Fengxiang" are designed separately, and the island is deeper than the flight deck of the "Athletic God", which seriously affects the take-off and landing of the carrier-based aircraft, and later had to be dismantled. However, after the dismantling of the ship island, the navigation of the "Fengxiang" and the flight control of the carrier-based aircraft were greatly affected. In short, the "Fengxiang" is an aircraft carrier with a relatively crotch design, which cannot be compared with the "Athletic God" at all.
The first U.S. aircraft carrier was the USS Langley, a coal carrier converted from the JUPIG. In the process of modification, the Americans dismantled the superstructure and crane of the upper deck of the "Jupiter" coal tank, erected 13 unit trusses from the bow to the stern, and laid an all-access flight deck with a length of 165.3 meters and a width of 19.8 meters. An aircraft lift was set up in the center of the deck. Four of Jupiter's original six coal tanks were converted to Langley's hangars, and the remaining two were converted into aviation gasoline depots, ammunition depots, and lifting machine chambers.
The U.S. Navy mainly used the "Langley" to verify aircraft carrier technology and explore aircraft carrier tactics. Through the use of the "Langley", the U.S. Navy has accumulated a relatively rich experience and technology of aircraft carriers, and has created the classic tactical idea of modern aircraft carriers - full-deck attack, that is, the combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier depends on the number of carrier-based aircraft parked on the flight deck, rather than the number of carrier-based aircraft carried in the hangar.
2
During World War II, aircraft carriers showed great power, replacing battleships as the hegemons of the sea
The Washington Naval Treaty, signed by naval powers in 1922, severely restricted the construction of capital ships such as battleships, battlecruisers, and heavy cruisers, but few restrictions on aircraft carriers. As a result, the United States, Britain, Japan and other naval powers began to vigorously develop aircraft carriers. In the following 10 years, naval powers were dominated by modified aircraft carriers.
Because the Washington Naval Treaty limited the tonnage of capital ships, the United States, Britain, and Japan had to convert some of the capital ships originally planned into aircraft carriers, such as the United States converting 2 Lexington-class battlecruisers into aircraft carriers of the same name; The British converted the heavy cruisers Brave and Glory into aircraft carriers of the same name, and the battleship Admiral La Torre, which had previously been purchased by the Chilean Navy, was repurchased by the British Navy and rebuilt as the eagle aircraft carrier.
In addition, the British have also deeply modified the aircraft carrier "Fury" to make it a real aircraft carrier; Japan converted the Amagi-class battlecruisers Akagi and Kaga into aircraft carriers of the same name.
On 25 February 2004, the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal docked at Greenwich Docks in downtown London. Photo | Xinhua News Agency
In 1930, the London Naval Treaty was signed, which not only continued to restrict capital ships, but also restricted destroyers, but did not add much restriction to aircraft carriers, which made the United States, Britain, and Japan continue to vigorously develop aircraft carriers. In the same year, britain began to design a new aircraft carrier , the Ark Royal . This time, the British have made many innovations in aircraft carrier technology, including the use of fully enclosed hangars, integrated island superstructures, powerful flight decks, hydraulic catapults, etc., making the "Ark Royal" aircraft carrier the world's first aircraft carrier in the modern sense.
The United States has developed a new Yorktown-class aircraft carrier. Based on the experience gained on the "Langley" aircraft carrier and the characteristics of the United States facing the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Americans required the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier to be able to carry a large number of carrier-based aircraft, with a high speed of more than 30 knots and a large endurance.
In 1936, the Washington Naval Treaty and the London Naval Treaty expired, and the three naval powers of the United States, Britain, and Japan were completely freed from their shackles and launched a new round of naval arms race. For example, Japan began to build the Shōkari-class aircraft carrier and converted 2 Soryu-class air cruisers restricted by the London Naval Treaty into official aircraft carriers; Britain began building the Tejas-class aircraft carriers.
After the outbreak of World War II, aircraft carriers quickly showed strong combat capabilities. For example, the British Navy's attack on the Italian military port of Taranto by the aircraft carrier "Shining" and the Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor with 6 aircraft carriers have achieved great results. The U.S. and British navies realized that the era of aircraft carriers was coming, and the capital ships represented by battleships would no longer be the protagonists of naval warfare, so both countries began to develop aircraft carriers as the most critical ships.
Although the Japanese Navy did not have the same sense of smell as the American and British navies, it also realized that the importance of aircraft carriers had increased unprecedentedly. In particular, the Japanese swept through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean in the early days of the Pacific War, and the carrier mobile fleet played an extremely important role, and the Japanese Navy relied more and more on aircraft carriers.
The Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942 was the first naval battle in the history of world naval warfare in which two ships did not meet each other and only used carrier-based aircraft to attack each other, marking the beginning of the replacement of battleships by aircraft carriers as maritime supremacy. A month later, at the Battle of Midway, the U.S. and Japanese navies once again engaged in an aircraft carrier showdown, while the battleships were completely reduced to spectators. After this war, aircraft carriers completely replaced battleships as maritime hegemons, and the U.S. Navy went all out to build aircraft carriers, and battleships were used as escort ships for aircraft carriers.
During World War II, the United States started 24 Essex-class fleet aircraft carriers alone, of which 17 were completed and commissioned during the war, and the other 5 were completed and commissioned shortly after the end of World War II; The Japanese Navy also vigorously built aircraft carriers, but because Japan's national strength is far from the United States, it lags far behind the US Navy in the speed of aircraft carrier construction, which also makes the Japanese Navy face the huge force of the US Navy with aircraft carriers as the core in the late Pacific War, and it is more and more powerless, and finally completely destroyed.
The British built aircraft carriers during World War II second only to the United States, and the United Kingdom also let the United States build many escort aircraft carriers for it, which also made the British Navy have 96 aircraft carriers at the end of World War II, second only to the United States Navy.
3
During the Cold War, the performance of aircraft carriers jumped, and the United States rode in the dust
After World War II, aircraft began to enter the jet age, and aircraft carriers had to adapt to the new era. Due to the weight and speed of jet carriers, aircraft carriers designed and built during World War II could not meet the requirements and must adopt new technologies.
In this regard, the British once again demonstrated amazing creativity, successively developing the three key technologies of modern aircraft carriers - angled flight decks, steam catapults and optical landing aids, which solved the problem of the use of jet carriers on aircraft carriers in one fell swoop. However, britain's national strength declined badly after World War II, and the number of aircraft carriers it retained decreased sharply, so although the British made great contributions to the technological development of modern aircraft carriers, it was the Americans who really carried these technologies forward.
Because Britain and the United States are "old iron", after the British developed angled flight decks, steam catapults and optical landing aids, the Americans immediately got these technologies and made great improvements to make these technologies more perfect.
The U.S. Navy uses these technologies to modernize some of the Essex-class and Midway-class aircraft carriers on the one hand, and on the other hand, it designs large aircraft carriers with larger main scale and tonnage and can carry more jet carriers, including Forrest-class and Kitty Hawk-class conventionally powered aircraft carriers, as well as Enterprise and Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. For example, the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has a full load displacement of more than 100,000 tons, and can carry up to 100 jet carriers, fixed-wing propeller early warning aircraft and helicopters, becoming an amazing supercarrier.
The united States applies nuclear power to aircraft carriers, because the advantage of nuclear power is that it can significantly improve the endurance of aircraft carriers - a single load of nuclear fuel can continuously travel hundreds of thousands of nautical miles, so that the aircraft carrier has nearly unlimited endurance. In addition, the use of nuclear power also allowed the aircraft carrier to cancel the large chimney, which not only significantly reduced the impact of chimney smoke exhaust on flight operations, but also significantly reduced the size of the island, thereby increasing the flight deck area.
Compared with the U.S. Navy during the Cold War, which was extremely poor in aircraft carrier technology, other countries' navies are much inferior in aircraft carriers.
Britain, the former maritime hegemon, has been shrinking in the number of aircraft carriers after World War II due to the severe decline in national strength. A large number of Fleet Aircraft Carriers, Light Aircraft Carriers and Escort Aircraft Carriers from the World War II period were decommissioned and sold; Except for a few that were not completed, the rest were all dismantled; All those originally included in the construction plan were cancelled. As a result, the British Navy had fewer than 10 aircraft carriers left by the end of the 1950s, and the new fleet aircraft carriers built after World War II were only 2 50,000-ton Eagles and Ark Royal, as well as 4 new Centaur-class light aircraft carriers.
By the 1970s, the British fleet had all retired aircraft carriers, and only the light aircraft carriers were left, HMS Athletic. In this case, the British began to design a new light aircraft carrier, which is the invincible class. Although the combat effectiveness of this light aircraft carrier is far less than that of the previous fleet aircraft carriers, it will not leave the British completely without aircraft carriers available. After carrying the "Sea Harrier" vertical/short take-off and landing fighter, the invincible level can basically meet the local war of medium and low intensity. In the design of the invincible class, the British have an innovation, that is, the slide deck. Don't look at this as a curved slanted plate, but it can greatly increase the range and combat radius of vertical/STOL fighters.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Navy built 2 Moscow-class helicopter carriers, 4 Kiev-class medium aircraft carriers, 1 Type 1143.5 aircraft carrier, and began to build Type 1143.6 and Type 1143.7 aircraft carriers. However, the Soviet Navy's understanding of aircraft carriers for most of the Cold War was very different from that of the U.S. Navy, mainly using aircraft carriers as carrier platforms to drive away NATO anti-submarine aircraft, so the Kiev class carried Yak-38 vertical/short take-off and landing fighters.
At the same time, the Soviet Navy also gave the Kiev-class aircraft carriers the heavy responsibility of anti-ship and air defense, which made the Kiev-class equipped with a large number of anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapon systems. Therefore, the Soviet Navy referred to the Kiev class as a carrier cruiser, not only to circumvent the Montreux Convention's restrictions on the entry and exit of aircraft carriers into and out of the Black Sea, but also largely because the Soviet Navy used the Kiev class as a cruiser carrying more carrier-based aircraft.
It was not until the design of the Type 1143.5 aircraft carrier that the Soviet Navy began to regard carrier-based aircraft as the main combat force. The Type 1143.5 aircraft carrier is very innovative in design, and is the first aircraft carrier in the world to use a sliding jump takeoff fixed-wing carrier-based fighter, while using a block landing method to recover fixed-wing carrier-based fighters.
The subsequent Type 1143.6 aircraft carriers were basically the same as the Type 1143.5, with only slight improvements. Although these two types of aircraft carriers have enhanced their aviation combat capabilities, they still continue the previous aircraft cruiser ideas, and are equipped with a large number of shipboard weapons, such as 12 SS-N-19 long-range anti-ship missile launchers under the bow flight deck.
The Type 1143.7 is the first large aircraft carrier in the Soviet Union to get rid of the aircraft cruiser design and completely use the carrier aircraft as the main combat force, not only has a displacement of 80,000 tons, but also adopts nuclear power, and the take-off method of carrier-based aircraft is also a unique sliding jump + catapult. This may be that the Soviet Union was not at ease with its steam catapult, retaining the sliding jump take-off method, so that the carrier-based aircraft would not lose the ability to take off from the aircraft carrier when the steam catapult dropped the chain.
Unfortunately, these aircraft carriers were built at the end of the Soviet Union, only the 1143.5 type was completed, and they were snatched by the Russian Navy to become the "Kuznetsov" aircraft carrier when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Varyag type 1143.6 was still in a state of launch outfitting at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and was later sold to China by Ukraine, and later rebuilt and modified by China to become the Liaoning ship of the Chinese Navy. The 1143.7 "Ulyanovsk" had no possibility of completion at all and was dismantled by Ukraine on the ship's platform.
Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov.
France leased aircraft carriers from the United States and Britain in the early days of the Cold War, and began to develop aircraft carriers independently in the 1950s, building two 30,000-ton conventionally powered medium-sized aircraft carriers, Clemenceau and Foch. At the end of the Cold War, France designed a 40,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle". Construction of the Charles de Gaulle began in 1989, but it was not until 2001, 10 years after the end of the Cold War, that it entered service with the French Navy.
The performance of the "Charles de Gaulle" aircraft carrier is average, especially its use of boat reactors to save money and the use of marine reactors with serious power shortage problems, so that the maximum speed of the "Charles de Gaulle" is only 25 knots, which is the slowest aircraft carrier in the world. In terms of the crucial steam catapult, France was reluctant to develop it itself, and purchased the C-13 steam catapult directly from the United States. To this day, the Charles de Gaulle was the only aircraft carrier in the French Navy.
The navies of Italy, Spain and other countries were unable to develop medium-sized or above aircraft carriers during the Cold War, and like the United Kingdom in the middle and late Cold War, they developed light aircraft carriers mainly carrying AV-8B vertical/short take-off and landing fighters, and all adopted sliding decks. The Italian Navy is the Garibaldi and the Spanish Navy is the Prince of Asturias.
During the Cold War, the Indian Navy has introduced two British second-hand aircraft carriers, named "Vikrant" and "Villatt", which mainly carry British-produced "Sea Harrier" fighters. However, the HMS Vikrant (formerly the British Navy's Dignity Class light carrier Hercules) carried seahawk fighter jets and Tradewinds anti-submarine aircraft in the early years of service with the Indian Navy.
In 1971, during the Third Indo-Pakistani War, the Indian Navy's aircraft carrier "Vikrant" played a major role, and its "Seahawk" and "TradeWind" carrier-based aircraft attacked Chittagong in East Pakistan, and also successfully blockaded East Pakistan, which made a great contribution to India's final dismemberment of Pakistan. This also made the Indian Navy more obsessed with aircraft carriers, and the introduction of the retired "Athletic God" light aircraft carrier of the British Navy and its renaming "Virat" was based on the Indian Navy's greater ambition for aircraft carriers.
The navies of Australia, Argentina, Brazil and other countries all bought Britain's second-hand Giant-class light aircraft carriers during the Cold War. The Australian Navy named the Giant class the "Melbourne", which was commissioned in 1956 until decommissioned in 1982 and sold to a Chinese shipyard for dismantling in 1984. The Argentine Navy named the Giant class "May 25", which was commissioned from 1969 until 1993, when it was sold to an Indian shipyard for dismantling. The Brazilian Navy named the Giant class Minas Gerais, which served from 1960 until 2001.
4
The United States has "sung down" the aircraft carrier several times, but no one has echoed it
After the Cold War, the United States began to develop the successor model of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, which is the Ford class. Compared with the Nimitz class, the Ford class uses many new technologies, such as electromagnetic catapults, electromagnetic blocking systems, electromagnetic ammunition lifts, integrated electric propulsion systems, active phased array radar, etc., and the performance is much more advanced than the Nimitz class.
The first ship, the FORD, began cutting the first steel plate in 2005, placed the keel in November 2009, launched on October 11, 2013, delivered to the U.S. Navy on May 31, 2017, and officially entered service with the U.S. Navy on July 22, 2017. However, because most of the new technologies used by the "Ford" are immature, especially the technology of electromagnetic catapults, electromagnetic blocking systems and electromagnetic ammunition lifts has not fully reached the standard until now, so that the "Ford" has not formed combat effectiveness after 5 years of service.
On July 22, 2017, the U.S. Navy's latest generation of Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the first ship, Gerald Ford, was officially commissioned at Naval Base Norfolk, Virginia.
However, the U.S. Navy did not slow down the pace of building the Ford class, but on the contrary, it was still accelerating. So far, the U.S. Congress has approved a total of 5 Ford-class construction plans. The first ship, the Ford, has been in service for nearly 5 years; The second ship, the USS Kennedy, was launched on October 29, 2019, and is scheduled to be delivered to the U.S. Navy this year; The third ship "Enterprise" was planted on April 5 this year; The fourth ship, the USS Miller, is scheduled to plant the keel in 2026; The fifth ship is scheduled to house the keel in 2027.
It is worth mentioning that the US Navy has sung the decline of aircraft carriers several times, but no country has followed the United States. The reason is very simple, the United States sings about the decline of aircraft carriers, but the strength of the development of aircraft carriers has never been leaked, so the outside world generally believes that the Americans are deliberately fooling others not to develop aircraft carriers, so that the United States has always dominated the aircraft carrier.
The United States has been the most wanted ship in the eyes of the navies of various countries, but anyone with a little money in his hand can't help but tinker with the aircraft carrier.
Thailand's economy began to take off in the middle and late Cold War, so as soon as the Cold War ended, it used its spare money to purchase a light aircraft carrier from Spain for its navy, which was the Chakri Nalubet. Unfortunately, when the aircraft carrier was built, Thailand was hit hard by the Asian financial crisis, and the aircraft carrier basically did not go to sea after serving in the Thai Navy in 1998, and only played the role of a commemorative ship in the port for the Thai people to visit.
Japan has always been obsessed with aircraft carriers, and wanted to develop them during the Cold War, but it has not succeeded under the constraints of the peace constitution. After the Cold War, Japan took advantage of the gradual relaxation of U.S. control over it and built four helicopter carriers of type 2 under the name of helicopter destroyers, namely Hyuga, Ise, Izumo, and Kaga.
In recent years, the United States has relaxed its military restrictions on Japan more and more, and Japan has not only seized the opportunity to elevate the peace constitution through various amendments to the law, but also no longer conceals the development of aircraft carriers. Now, Japan has carried out the first phase of the Izumo aircraft carrier modification, allowing it to carry the F-35B vertical/stubble stealth fighter. The second ship, the Kaga, is also undergoing an aircraft carrier transformation. At the same time, Japan has also purchased 42 F-35B fighter jets. It can be seen that in the next few years, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force will have two light aircraft carriers carrying F-35Bs.
After the Cold War, Britain decommissioned all three invincible-class light aircraft carriers and replaced them with two 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, mainly F-35B fighters developed by the United States. There are still many innovations in the design of this class of aircraft carriers, such as integrated electric propulsion systems, right-hand dual islands, and gas turbine power. At present, 2 Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are in service.
The Italian Navy built the aircraft carrier Cavour after the Cold War, which also gave the Italian Navy a dual aircraft carrier. Compared with the previous light aircraft carrier "Garibaldi", the "Gaful" is much more capable. The Italian Navy procured F-35B stealth fighter jets for the aircraft carrier Cavour, which will further enhance the combat effectiveness of the carrier.
After the Cold War, Spain developed the light aircraft carrier "Juan Carlos I" with a ski-jump deck, but because it also had a docking cabin, which was a mixture of aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, it was only called a quasi-aircraft carrier by the outside world, while the Spanish Navy called it a strategic delivery ship. Spain developed this kind of ship because it had limited financial resources and wanted to make its ship as versatile as possible.
Interestingly, this game in Spain has attracted the attention of many countries. The Australian Navy directly procured two variants of the Juan Carlos I, which entered service in 2014 and 2015 under the names HMS Canberra and HMS Adelaide. The Turkish Navy introduced the technology of the Juan Carlos I, then built it itself and named it anatolian.
The Indian Navy decommissioned the aircraft carrier HMS Vikrant in 1997 and the HMS Vilaat in 2017, replacing it with two new carriers. One is a second-hand aircraft carrier imported from Russia, the Admiral Gorshkov, which the Indian Navy has asked Russia to overhaul to carry MiG-29K carrier-based fighters. The Indian Navy renamed the converted Russian-made aircraft carrier HMS Vikramaditya and officially entered service with the Indian Navy in January 2014. The other is india's own aircraft carrier "Vikrant", inheriting the name of the first aircraft carrier in the history of the Indian Navy. After the carrier entered service on August 15 this year, the Indian Navy will also enter the era of dual aircraft carriers again.
However, the Indian Navy is not satisfied with the MiG-29K carrier-based fighter and is re-selecting a new carrier-based fighter, planning to choose one of the French Rafale M and the American F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which means that the Vikrant will be available without fixed-wing carrier-based fighters for several years after its service, and it will not be able to form combat effectiveness.
After the Brazilian Navy decommissioned the aircraft carrier Minas Gerais in 2001, it was replaced by the second-hand aircraft carrier Foch, which was purchased from France, and renamed "São Paulo". On November 22, 2018, the carrier was decommissioned, ending the brazilian navy's history of owning an aircraft carrier.
After the Cold War, Russia only had the "Kuznetsov" aircraft carrier, so Russia cherished it, but the condition of the aircraft carrier has not been very good.
Russia began overhauling it in 2016, but in the latter stages of the repair it encountered the sinking of the PD-50 floating dock, where a crane next to the floating dock collapsed, smashing the flight deck of the Kuznetsov into a large hole. Later, the "Kuznetsov" aircraft carrier encountered another fire, which basically invalidated the previous maintenance effect. Reluctantly, the Russian Navy dragged the kuznetsov to the 35th Repair Shipyard in Murmansk for re-repair, but progress has been slow.
Russian media said it plans to complete all repairs to the carrier by September this year. But now the situation is still not optimistic, it is likely to be unable to complete the maintenance on schedule. If repairs are completed after September, the waters around Murmansk will enter another ice period, and the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier will not be able to conduct sea trials until next spring after it thaws.
China purchased the Varyag, which had a completion rate of about 68 percent in 1999, and arrived at the port of Dalian on 4 March 2002. On April 26, 2005, Dalian Shipyard began to continue construction and modification of the Varyag. On September 25, 2012, the aircraft carrier was officially renamed the Liaoning and delivered to the Chinese Navy for service. As a result, the Chinese Navy has its first aircraft carrier and realizes the dream of owning an aircraft carrier. Since then, Dalian Shipyard has built the first domestic aircraft carrier of completely independent design. On December 17, 2019, the first domestically produced aircraft carrier entered service with the Chinese Navy and was named "Shandong".
During the chinese Navy's Liaoning fleet's combat training in the far seas, carrier-based fighters conducted night take-off and landing training (file photo). Photo | Xinhua News Agency
Both the Liaoning and Shandong warships belong to the 50,000-ton ski-jump take-off and interception landing aircraft carriers, and the types and number of carrier-based aircraft carried are not very many, and there is still a big gap between the comprehensive combat effectiveness and the catapult-type large aircraft carriers. Therefore, China has designed a larger tonnage, more technologically advanced catapult aircraft carrier, known to the outside world as the 003 type.
Now, the Type 003 aircraft carrier has been launched, and its true appearance is fully displayed in front of people, which is very powerful. With the approval of the Central Military Commission, the third aircraft carrier was named "Fujian Ship of the people's liberation army navy of Chinese" and the hull number was "18".
On June 17, 2022, the naming ceremony of China's third aircraft carrier was held at Jiangnan Shipyard of China State Shipbuilding Group Co., Ltd., and the aircraft carrier was named "Fujian Ship of the people's Liberation Army Navy of the Chinese" and the hull number was "18". Photo | Xinhua News Agency
Fujian is the first catapult aircraft carrier completely independently designed and built by the mainland, using a straight through long flight deck, equipped with electromagnetic catapult and blocking devices, and a full load displacement of more than 80,000 tons. The advent of the aircraft carrier, especially the application of electromagnetic catapults on it, marks the entry of China's aircraft carrier technology into the world's first-class. In the future, after the aircraft carrier is in service, the Chinese Navy will have 3 aircraft carriers, and the high-sea combat capability will step to a new level.
Source: People's Navy
Source: Lookout Think Tank
Zhiling, the official subscription number of the China Engineering Science and Technology Knowledge Center of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Pay attention to the dynamics of science and technology, popularize scientific and technological knowledge, carry forward the spirit of academicians, and disseminate scientific ideas. China Engineering Science and Technology Knowledge Center_Academic Community has been formed, add WeChat: xpcztym invite you to join the group