Recently, a sentence said by Zhang Zhaozhong five years ago suddenly became popular again.
In 2019, when the first amphibious assault ship of the Chinese Navy was launched, Zhang Zhaozhong once posted a long article, which mentioned that the two aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom have become chicken ribs and cannot form combat effectiveness within three years, and may consider ** or mothballing an aircraft carrier after five years.
Now, five years have come to pass, and that prophecy has come true.
According to the British "Daily Mail", a source in the British Royal Navy revealed that due to the shortage of funds, Britain is considering selling or mothballing the aircraft carrier "Prince of Wales", which cost 3.5 billion pounds to build.
It is said that the Royal Navy's maritime planning group is specifically responsible for keeping an eye on the future plans and strategies of the Royal Navy, and some time ago, this group has discussed plans to save money with aircraft carriers, and one of the panelists revealed, "We have realized that a second aircraft carrier is a reserve asset, a very expensive, but rarely used piece of equipment, so if we want to solve the balance sheet problem, it may be a good option to share it with allies in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States." ”
All in all, although in principle, the British Royal Navy would like to continue to operate two aircraft carriers, the budget is really insufficient, and in fact, in recent years, the British aircraft carrier battle group has been relying on the help of allies such as the United States and the Netherlands to barely operate. But allies can help once, but they can't help forever, not to mention that allies in the Western world also have an exchange of interests for mutual assistance, so for Britain, if it can't allocate more financial budget to operate aircraft carriers, it can only "lay off".
In the eyes of former British Royal Navy commander Tom Sharp, the Red Sea crisis is actually a great opportunity for Britain to solve this problem, if Britain directly sends an aircraft carrier battle group to the Red Sea to escort ships, then it can not only demonstrate Britain's strength, but also earn enough operating funds from aircraft carriers. It's just that for political reasons, Britain didn't dare to do this, so after losing this opportunity, Britain could only be forced to accept its fate, and Zhang Zhaozhong's ** made five years ago was officially fulfilled today.
In fact, the British aircraft carrier "Prince of Wales" has been shrouded in the shadow of being ** since its birth, because many people felt at that time that this kind of thing was not of much use except for giving Britain face, and it was also a gold-swallowing beast, and Britain had no way to operate independently. So before the aircraft carrier was launched, the project was almost canceled, but the British ** found that the cost of canceling the project was higher than the cost of completion, so it was spared. Therefore, it is not difficult to be able to mothball or ** aircraft carriers in the United Kingdom, but the difficulty is to calculate the time accurately, which shows that the bureau has a deep insight and long-term tracking of the British aircraft carrier project after the Cold War.
Selling aircraft carriers is a big deal, and if Britain wants to sell it, who will be the "pick-up man"?
At present, I am afraid that only India has the money and the demand for aircraft carriers.
But no matter who the buyer is, British netizens said that they could not accept it, in their opinion, even the aircraft carrier was sold, "the country is ruined".