The Navy Thread

Archon: I am thinking less Invasion stripes and more where each craft belongs. All a plane has to do is eyeball what planes are on the carrier deck to know which ship is which if they are steaming along together.

Who watches the watchmen?

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking, invasion stripes are just a very well known example of paint schemes serving an identification purpose.

They should have sent a poet.

And even then, the invasion stripes were only used for a brief period of time, and mostly only by single-engined aircraft (it was the rare airman or soldier who'd confuse a B-17G for anything the Luftwaffe operated).

Kitsap Naval Base in Washington State had a peculiar visitor.

Apparently a contact naval mine has showed up, origin and model unknown.

And US Navy EOD blew it up.

The photos look like an old WW 2 vintage one. Probably one of the many mines still left out there that haven't been swept up or destroyed. Especially since the latter article makes mention the Navy said it had decades of organic growth on it.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

And in direct relation to this.

Cross Posted from the OTC UXO thread.

There is approximately tens of millions of tons of UXO both conventional and chemical in the world's oceans which of course represents a notable hazard. The Gulf of Mexico has a large and dangerous quantity of the material.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 29th 2018 at 6:00:52 AM

Who watches the watchmen?

And Now We Know Where The Mine Off The Puget Sound Came From.

A more than a decade ago exercise the Navy screwed up and never cleaned up after. The mine was inert.

Stupid squids.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Inside China's Plan To Build The Second Biggest Aircraft Carrier Fleet In The World.

Only 4 flattops? Chuichi Nagumo is not impressed.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

AFP mentioned the iconic "shark mouths" of the Flying Tigers on the last page.

Those were actually first painted by German Bf-110 airmen in North Africa, which photos taken by the RAF then made their way into hands of the AVG then assembling in Burma. The Americans got inspired, and the rest is history.

As the article notes, 4 carriers is enough to compete with the US Pacific fleet unless we abandon some other global commitments, or it would be if the Type 001 and 002 were able to compete with a Nimitz or Ford on a one-to-one basis instead of being a slightly more capable competitor to the QE class (I will never get over how dumb it was to make those behemoths as STOVL carriers and therefore permanently tie their airwing strictly VTOL jet development, when building them as STOBAR would at least allow them to shop around or pursue support aircraft, or hell, even just the more capable C model of the F-35).

It's also possible this could lead to a carrier race (similar to the dreadnought races of old) with the other emerging power of Asia, India.

They won't ever be able to compete with the US carrier fleet with ski jump carriers. It is too much of a handicap.

Who watches the watchmen?

^ Type 002 is allegedly CATOBAR though. Which means they might have one carrier capable of contending with a US flattop.

Unless Type 002 is the lead ship in a series of carriers, at which point anything can happen.

And if a new "carrier race" does begin (kinda like happened between the US and Japan a little over 80 years ago), the US has the option of building more carriers in turn as well. It ain't gonna be India vs China, the Pacific is US turf.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

One CATOBAR isn't going to cut it when they are still floating mostly ski jumps.

Who watches the watchmen?

That assumes "Type 003" the next in line is a ski jumper as well. It's probably CATOBAR like Type 002.

Liaoning was proof of concept/training vessel, akin to the original USS Langley. Type 001 is proof they can build the same thing from scratch rather than from a half-built Ukrainian hulk. Type 002 appears to do a "lessons learned" approach from Liaoning and 001 in that it's committed to CATOBAR. Anything subsequent to Type 002 is likely going to only build on that.

Edited by MajorTom on Sep 10th 2018 at 10:15:34 AM

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Nah, they'd just need to outnumber US carriers about 2:1 and their STOBAR design could achieve parity. Which is probably why the Type 003 (which they are expected to build at least two of) and models after it (which are expected to be nuclear powered) are expected to switch to CATOBAR, and why India wants to use CATOBAR for its upcoming carrier, INS Vishal. Both India and China know STOBAR is less capable, but they're working on their familiarity with carrier ops and the other aspects of carrier construction with the simpler STOBAR (which they can also incrementally work from due to past carriers, including Soviet surplus vessels they completed) while they make sure they can actually build a working catapult (interestingly, both seem to want to skip steam catapults and jump straight to EMALS). It's a conservative approach, but it does get them ships in the water and experience operating them before having to work out all the kinks in more expensive and sophisticated designs.

@Tom: Type 002 is STOBAR - it's basically a slightly upgraded follow-up to Type 001. It's Type 003 and on that are supposed to be CATOBAR.

Edited by Balmung on Sep 10th 2018 at 12:25:48 PM

The US has too much of a head start for them to try to race it in any meaningful sense. However, India and China have conflicting interests in regional hegemony and border disputes that could potentially turn hot, and if they do, neither would want to be the party with the weaker navy.

Regarding the shark teeth, painting aircraft in animal motifs does go back to WWI as well. Not sure who started it though.

Edited by AFP on Sep 10th 2018 at 11:27:57 AM

STOBAR is not going to give them any meaningful edge. The launch ramps limit what and how many craft it can carry and loft and even limits what the craft can carry.

Trying to jump from a steam to Electromagnetic design is frankly stupid. The Chinese technical knack is frequently failing on more sophisticated systems. Skipping other catapults and jumping to the most complex variety is only going to bite them in the ass. The only reason the US can realistically consider using said system is decades of experience in the first place.

Who watches the watchmen?

Are they even trying to compete with the US? I could have sworn India had good relations with The States.... and I imagine the matchup is much more favorable against China.

The problem with that is geography. India and China do at spots share land borders. They're not in the same oceanic basins. Any naval expedition on either side is headed a long way from home past a fair few folks who aren't going to be quiet about them being there. (Especially with regards to the Chinese operating near US interests/possessions in the western Pacific.)

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Barring severe incompetence on the part of the US the “carrier race” is already over. There are no meaningful competitors among nations that operate carriers.

They should have sent a poet.

Hi.

Uh, yeah. The best China could realistically hope for in the near future I think is to gain a regional advantage. The USA simply has too many carriers, and could probably wrangle the French or British into covering for them if they needed to pull carriers away from a region for a crisis. As for India...in a theoretical second Sino-Indian War, I could see a carrier battle occurring, but I highly doubt it would make much of a difference, as most of the fighting would be along the borders in Kashmir and maybe Arunachal Pradesh. That goes double if Pakistan gets involved, which would, again, be largely a land confrontation.

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer

A more likely use for both India and China is to use them as the proverbial "big stick" to compel weaker nations in SE Asia to let them do as they please, and sometimes doing as one pleases may involve not doing as the other pleases.

Though, also, if one party has operational carriers and the other does not, it does mean that they're at risk of airstrikes in regions that would otherwise be relatively safe.

Regional Dick Waving makes more sense given there are only a handful of nations would give them real pause in risking any of their small number of carriers.

Who watches the watchmen?

^ Assuming they ever figure out proper carrier operations and battlegroups.

Otherwise all it takes is one torpedo up the screws from a helicopter, plane, boat, submarine or proper warship and your big expensive flattop now resides at the bottom of the sea.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

I don't post here much ... but I'd just like to say I have 53 more days until I go on terminal leave and exit the Navy.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw