That's basically perfect for the JMSDF. It doesn't need to be the biggest or anything, but its a good fleet flag and could probably get a good task force built around it. That is one solid carrier. 9.5/10
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -FighteerFor what it's worth, Kaga is roughly the same size (bit smaller by tonnage it seems) as the USS America
(LHA-6), which is similarly not an aircraft carrier.
Actually, America seems to be in the same weight class as an Essex-class carrier.
Edited by AFP on Nov 3rd 2020 at 2:27:59 AM
I'm trying to find some good comparison numbers for what an Essex air wing would look like in 1944 vs 1991. I'm betting the wings were much smaller later in their career as aircraft got bigger. A Bug weighs about 4x as much as a Hellcat, after all. OTOH, I don't think any LH As or similar not-carriers in USN service were ever equipped with catapults or angled decks either.
Edited by AFP on Nov 3rd 2020 at 2:10:16 AM
Several Essexes that didn't receive the angled flight deck retrofit were actually used as LHA/Ds after WWII.
Also, except for Essex herself, every Essex class had at least one flight deck catapult (Yorktown, Intrepid, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Franklin, Hornet, and Ticonderoga had one and the remaining fifteen Essexes had two) and Yorktown, Intrepid, Hornet, Wasp, and Bunker Hill had a transverse hangar-deck catapult, which was later removed because it was terrifying and a stupid idea. That said, their original catapults were almost certainly not powerful enough to launch modern jets, though the retrofit steam catapults might be able to yeet a STOVL plane.
Looks like their late service air wing was two squadrons each of F-8s and A-7s plus a smattering of other craft like E-1s and recon planes.
Edited by Balmung on Nov 3rd 2020 at 3:26:59 AM
rollin' on dubs
Essex class Aircraft Carrier
from the other wiki:
Landing platform helicopter–converted ships such as Boxer never had an angled landing deck installed and flew only helicopters such as the UH-34 Seahorse and CH-46 Sea Knight. Four converted Essex-class ships served alongside the purpose built Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships providing floating helicopter bases for US Marines. The LP Hs were sometimes also used as aircraft ferries for all branches of the U.S. armed forces. The AV-8A arrived into Marine Corps inventory too late to see regular fixed wing operations return to these ships. It was possible to launch and recover small aircraft like the OV-10 Bronco without need of catapult or arresting wires, but this was very rarely permitted on these straight-deck ships for safety reasons and to avoid interruption of helicopter operations.
Along similar notes, a lot of the smaller escort carriers from WWII saw postwar service as transports. Turns out those big open flight decks and hangars are handy for filling with cargo.
Sometimes you'll see a story floating around about the Vietcong sinking a US aircraft carrier during Vietnam which was actually one of these transports, the USNS Card. And not only was it not an aircraft carrier at the time, but it didn't quite sink either, since the water was too shallow in the harbor. Card was patched up and refloated within a few days and would remain in service for another six years.
Edited by AFP on Nov 7th 2020 at 4:39:26 AM
The US Army Has Officially Selected The Navy's(!) SM-6 Missile To Be Used In A Strike Role.
Army wants to use Navy missiles, was THAAD and the others that bad or is it just expanding the roster? I know the multi-purpose nature of the Standard missile family is greatly desirable.
Did they ever express any interest in using THAAD as a Surface-to-Surface missile? Could just be that it's less development work since the Standard can already be used for that.
Also, I'd always assumed that the THAAD was just a modified/repurposed existing missile design hooked up to a fancy radar. Looking at the Wikipedia page, I'm surprised to learn that it seems to actually be a purpose-built design.
That said, it wouldn't be the first time that another service adopted a Navy missile. Air Force (eventually) did that with the Sidewinder, getting rid of the less-than-impressive AIM-4 Falcon (which, ironically, evolved into one of the Navy's more famous air-to-air missiles, the AIM-54 Phoenix).
rollin' on dubs
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Major Tom - THAAD isn't designed for a strike role. It's a kinetic kill missile (that overcame it's 90's era faults btw).
At one point RIM-174 family was considered as a supplement to THAAD - but AEGIS ashore beat it out.
Standard missiles have been striking ground targets for decades. In fact one test had them hitting a GPS jammer - home on jam is something we've worked on since the Cold War.
Ground launched Tomahawk is the interesting one here. Given that the PLA is all in on those islands in the South China Sea - Tomahawks can put the fear of God into the PLA.
Edited by TairaMai on Nov 8th 2020 at 6:03:51 PM
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....F
Edited by MajorTom on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:26:49 AM
Flooding Threatens To Put HMS White Elephant II Out Of Action For Six Months.
Come on man! I expect this kind of mishap from the Russians!
Having to have the entire propeller shaft replaced because it lost a fight with a fishing net for starters?
More seriously that they paid 3 billion pounds for a carrier, but then wouldn't fork out the extra 1 million for a catapult, when that was all it would have cost and let them launch a much larger verity of aircraft then just the F35's that it didn't even have a single one of for years after launched, and still doesn't have a full compliment of.
Much more capable aircraft, and ones that fit niche roles too.
Basically if your already spending that much, you can afford an extra 00.03% for a component that is important to complete functionality of the ship, so now it can only launch one type of airplane, and some helicopters.
Hell I would put forth the argument that the Izumo class is more capable as carriers, and well, there "not carriers" acording to the government. Izumo is only 30 meters shorter, currently carries MORE aircraft (admitantly the Queen Liz is capable of storing more, but that capacity doesn't mater when its not used), and has the same limits in what she can and cant launch for 1/3rd the price.
And you know, hasn't lost a fight to a fishing net.
Edited by Imca on Dec 8th 2020 at 1:52:51 AM
Before we give them too much crap over the fishing net, I'm curious how other ships would have fared under similar circumstances. On the face of it, it sounds like if we were criticizing the F-35 due to a hypothetical birdstrike when birdstrikes are pretty catastrophic for pretty much all fast-moving aircraft.
Edited by AFP on Dec 9th 2020 at 3:35:46 AM
From what I understand fishing nets actually are a fairly reasonable cause of damage, the reason I give her shit for it specifically though is that normally when it causes it damage (there is also often it doesn't), it fucks up the the propeller blades and you have to do repairs to the vessel that are... annoying but not a huge hold up, more of an in and out job, since its all external and easy to repair components.
With Queen Liz though, it took and bent the shaft all the way down from the torque, and damaged seals, the whole... like internal components of the ship needed replacement, holding her up in port for a length of time normally relegated to battle damage, not a navigation oopsie, that I actualy don't blame any one on the ship for since those things don't exactly like to show up either.
IE: Its like if some one broke there tibia from stubbing there toe on the door.
Edited by Imca on Dec 9th 2020 at 3:54:23 AM
That's one way to phrase it. Normally navigation hazards such as fishing nets don't completely wreck the transmission and propulsion systems of a ship like that. So yes, it would be like stubbing your toe and somehow breaking your leg because of it when normally running over a fishing net is either a cleanup job or some external repairs, not a complete replacement.
A similar way to phrase it would be like driving over a nail in the road and popping a tire in a car only to need to replace the engine block or transmission because of it.

There probably better carriers then the Queen Liz class, but definitely worse then a Nimitz or Charles De Gaul class... they aren't going to compare to a nuclear carrier with a catapult that is just out of there leuge.
But still they are absolutely gigantic girls
◊, and interestingly SDF Kaga dwarfs her WWII namesake which was a full fledged fleet carrier made out of a converted battleship.
So yes, it is absolutely insane levels of denial at this point.