Andrew Latham
Key Points and Summary – U.S. and Chinese aircraft carriers are evolving for fundamentally different roles, not as mirror images.
-China’s carriers are “mobile nodes” designed to operate under the protective “umbrella” of their land-based missile and sensor networks, thickening their anti-access bubble in their near seas.
Pacific Ocean, July 25, 2005 – USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) performs a high speed run during operations in the Pacifc Ocean. Ronald Reagan and Carrier Air Wing One Four (CVW-14) are currently underway conducting Tailored Ships Training Availability (TSTA). Official US Navy Photo by Photographers Mate 1st Class James Thierry. (RELEASED)
-In contrast, America’s Ford-class carriers are becoming “roaming nerve centers” for distributed warfare.
-Operating from safer distances, their air wings act as quarterbacks, finding targets and cueing strikes from other ships, submarines, and allies, thereby managing a theater-wide battle network.
China and the U.S. Are Building Aircraft Carriers for Two Completely Different Wars
With hypersonic and ballistic anti-ship missiles, persistent multi-sensor nets, subsurface and undersea threats, and electronic disruption saturating the maritime battlespace, both China and the United States are reassessing the role of the aircraft carrier in their naval strategies.
China has adjusted to this new ecosystem by turning its flattops into floating nodes in an anti-access umbrella rather than self-contained mobile strike platforms.
The United States is adapting by reimagining carriers as roaming nerve centers of distributed kill chains at range: emphasizing endurance, hard-to-target networking, deception and magazine management while cueing third-party shooters and keeping big decks outside the densest threat rings until the fight can be shaped.
No comments:
Post a Comment