Recently, the aircraft carrier USS Ford (CVN-78) has once again attracted attention, and two major news stories are related to this. On 2 January, the US news reported that after a series of military deployments, the attack force of the US aircraft carrier "Ford" will withdraw from the Mediterranean Sea in the near future and return to Norfolk Harbor to rest in order to make full preparations for future military operations.
The USS Ford was the first aircraft carrier to provide support to Israel since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian War, and it was of vital significance in boosting the morale of the allies. However, the US side said that the departure of "Ford" is acceptable, because "Ford" will not stay in the Mediterranean for a long time. Contrary to what people think, the US postponed its withdrawal plan three times before announcing it to "deter" the Houthis in Yemen. But now, the mission of the "Ford" has been replaced by the Eisenhower, and the retreat is a matter of course.
However, the remarks of the US side have been doubted by many people. After all, the $13 billion warship did not deter the Houthis. According to people familiar with the matter, Allah Lebanon, the Houthis and Iran all intend to attack the USS Ford with new anti-ship missiles or drones, while the United States appears to be a little "weak-hearted" and decides to retreat. And before that, there were a lot of rumors that the Israeli military "couldn't move", and now they have even announced a ceasefire in certain areas. Therefore, the United States no longer needs to leave the Ford-class aircraft carriers there to provide support to Israel. Therefore, the U.S. ** team felt that it should retreat as soon as possible in order to better carry out the next operation. In short, in the face of tensions between Palestine and Israel, the reason why the aircraft carrier "Ford" left may be out of a threat to the enemy, or perhaps for its own reasons, in short, this aircraft carrier does not look reliable.
In the United States, another piece of news about the "Ford" broke out. According to an article in the US magazine "Power," the US commercial artificial satellite "Planetary Laboratory" "took random photographs" of a large desert in northwest China on 1 January, and as a result, it unexpectedly found a target very similar to the "Ford," the most advanced US aircraft carrier, at a certain firing range in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang. According to the US side, this target is about 330 meters long, and four very clear electromagnetic ejection trajectories are installed on it, and even the layout of the ship island is the same as that of the "Ford" class.
Its bow and stern are exactly the same as those of the "Ford". According to the inference of the US side, this new aircraft carrier has been built since November last year. Previously, there were similar small aircraft carriers with similar targets at the firing range in the Taklamakan Desert, but they were all destroyed. The U.S. side believes that the results of this study show that China has been conducting exercises to attack Ford-class aircraft carriers, most likely to test the destructive capabilities of the new anti-ship missiles. Moreover, it is quite possible that this new model of anti-ship missiles will be deployed in the PLA army in the future, with the possibility of being exported abroad, which is a great challenge for the survival of aircraft carriers of the "Ford" class.
We can use "answer correctly" to describe all the speculations of the Americans. After all, as the Americans say, creating targets on an American aircraft carrier and other warships is nothing new. China also has its own "imitations", such as the American "Nimitz" and "Arleigh Burke". Moreover, in the past, these targets were used to imitate long-range anti-ship missiles, anti-ship missiles, etc. As the Americans speculated, China has been strengthening its counter-intervention against its regional defense. At present, China is developing supersonic anti-ship missiles, including the Dongfeng-21 D and Dongfeng-26. Such a missile will put more pressure on the US aircraft carrier forces and make them defenseless.
Several teachers from North University of China published an academic research article on the attack formation of the American "Ford" class aircraft carrier in the "Journal of Testing Technology", China's top journal. Prior to this, a group of experts and scholars conducted dozens of deductions, and finally concluded that only 24 long-range anti-ship missiles would be enough to blow up the entire aircraft carrier battle group led by the "Ford" class aircraft carrier. In addition, the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke will also be sunk into the ocean.
And the US fleet, under the bombardment of 24 Dongfeng-type missiles, has a probability of surviving less than one percent. As soon as the report came out, many people expressed doubts about the accuracy of the information. Some people even suspect that these so-called "Mozi" computer deduction data have been manipulated to a large extent. But now it seems that our research team did not do it by computer, but in reality.
In general, the fact that the target of the American aircraft carrier "Ford" was found in the western part of China is not unusual, but its importance is evidence that China has never given up resisting the hegemonic behavior of the United States. However, there is still a big gap between attacking a stationary aircraft carrier with a single missile and an aircraft carrier floating on the sea. We still have to continue to work hard to better deal with American aircraft carriers.