After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's only superpower, and 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers established the status of the strongest navy and world hegemon. With these ** equipment, it can reach almost any place in the world, so as to further interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, loot interests, and implement its own hegemonism.
While propagating the so-called "theory of the uselessness of aircraft carriers" to the outside world, the United States is intensively iterating on its own aircraft carrier replacement plan, planning to replace the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier with a Ford-class aircraft carrier.
At present, the US Navy currently has 11 aircraft carriers, 10 Nimitz-class and 1 Ford-class, all of which are about 100,000 tons of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, with a total of 9 carrier-based flight wings, each of which usually includes 4 combat attack squadrons equipped with carrier-based fighters.
Each squadron is equipped with 12 F A-18E F fighters, or 10 F-35C fighters, 1 electronic warfare squadron, equipped with 5 7 E A-18G electronic warfare aircraft, 1 air early warning and control squadron, equipped with 4 5 E-2C D AWACS aircraft, two *** squadrons, equipped with 6 10 MH-60S R*** and 2 3 carrier-based transport aircraft, C-2A or CMV-22B.
From these equipment, we can see why a fully staffed aircraft carrier strike group is equivalent to the naval force of a medium-sized country.
These Ford-class aircraft carriers also have an impressive displacement of 110,000 tons, making them the largest heavy aircraft carriers in the world. In comparison, China's aircraft carriers can only be regarded as medium-sized aircraft carriers. However, the United States is not without "opponents", and in terms of displacement alone, there is a country in Asia that has built a sea giant with a displacement of as much as 1.1 million tons, which is comparable to 10 Ford-class aircraft carriers.
The ship is a "Pioneering Spirit" built by South Korea's Daewoo Shipyard, with a double-hull layout and a length of 422 meters, a width of 124 meters, and a draft of 30 meters. This data is quite staggering, nearly 90 meters longer and more than 40 meters wider than the Ford-class aircraft carrier. The most important thing is that it took only 3 years for South Korea to build it, and the enthusiasm used by it was also built according to the standards of aircraft carriers, breaking many world records.
In terms of power, this sea giant uses 8 high-power diesel engines that can output up to 110,000 kilowatts of power for the operation of the hull. However, it is only used for civilian engineering development, and is currently mainly used for the transportation of submarine pipelines and offshore platforms.
With this precedent, some countries began to think that they could use their catamaran design and tonnage for the construction of aircraft carriers, so that they could carry more carrier-based aircraft and increase their combat effectiveness geometrically.
But from a military point of view, the fatal flaw of the catamaran design is that one side is damaged, and the other side cannot be driven. It is better to have funds for the construction of one catamaran aircraft carrier than to build two aircraft carriers, and the rest of the money is invested in overcoming technical difficulties.
However, the future is changing rapidly, and no one knows what technology will develop in 20 years, and future battles will inevitably not be limited to land and naval battles, and perhaps the emergence of aerospace aircraft carriers will be seen in their lifetime.
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