Japan unveils new carrier-like warship, largest since WWII

[Aesop]

Personally, I'd hope that during their first sea trials, they use the ship to track down and obliterate all the effing hippies from Whale Wars, including strafing their liferafts afterwards.
If they then proceed to transplant the penguin flocks used to generate the scenes for another sequel to Happy Feet to somewhere a few thousand miles away it would be a similarly stellar service to humanity.

[Termite]

Carriers are cool, carriers are grand........until a rogue nation with a "fuck it" attitude does the math.

Here's the math: one 50KT nuke tipped ballistic missile equals one carrier. All it has to do is get close; as in a couple of miles. And at sea, they don't have to worry about fallout drift.

[mekender]

Carriers are cool, carriers are grand........until a rogue nation with a "fuck it" attitude does the math.

Here's the math: one 50KT nuke tipped ballistic missile equals one carrier. All it has to do is get close; as in a couple of miles. And at sea, they don't have to worry about fallout drift.

I am guessing you dont even need a nuke... With modern guidance packages, a couple of free fall bombs will likely do the trick.

[blackeagle603]

re: Falklands
neither side had what one would call an"airforce" in the game. Some scooters v Harriers yes. A comprehensive force with integrated AEW/AW C3 directing CAP and strike assets -- nah. That is what Japan and potential adversaries are in a whole different league.

As for nuking a carrier. First yah gotta find it. Seriously. Non trivial task.

It is not just a matter of finding ang then tracking it. You hsve to determine what is really the CV and what is a small boy decoying mimicing a CV EM signature. Suffice to say, when we went blue water the soviets didnt find us unless and until we wanted tbem to.

[workinwifdakids]

Carriers are cool, carriers are grand........until a rogue nation with a "fuck it" attitude does the math.

Here's the math: one 50KT nuke tipped ballistic missile equals one carrier. All it has to do is get close; as in a couple of miles. And at sea, they don't have to worry about fallout drift.

During the Cold War, our carrier battle groups were always followed around by a Russian fishing trawler, occupied by very organized young Russian... fishermen. Odd thing, these fishermen never seemed to fish. They must've loved music, though, because their trawler had enough antennas to blot out the sun. Rumors were these boats were tasked to simultaneously lob a nuke each at every deployed American carrier if their masters ever ordered a bolt from the black.

So the idea has been around for a long, long time.

[Aesop]

re: Falklands
neither side had what one would call an"airforce" in the game. Some scooters v Harriers yes. A comprehensive force with integrated AEW/AW C3 directing CAP and strike assets -- nah. That is what Japan and potential adversaries are in a whole different league.

What makes that precisely relevant is that Japan has now stepped up to where their capabilities approach or exceed those of GB in that conflict, whereas outside Russia, China, or the US, any other potential adversary would be in a position against Japan closer to replicating Argentina than not.
(And taking Russia or China out of that package may be a courtesy beyond their actual capabilities.)
Except Japan, unlike the British, has upgraded E-3s on a 767 platform, and their (30-80) maritime suveillance planes are P-8s on steroids, with AEW/ABCP capabilities, something the Brits notably lacked in that conflict, to the detriment of the Sheffield, Atlantic Conveyor, etc.

I can't imagine the development cheers anybody up between Sri Lanka and the International Dateline, any more than would Andrea Merkel revealing that the German Federal Republic was deploying several new panzer divisions. And it isn't the same as if the Swedes, for instance, announced a new ship class. Japan has a history in the East Pacific that quite literally scares the crap out of everyone thereabouts except us, as we're the only nation present in EastPac not notably their bitch continuously anywhere from 1903-1945. As has been pointed out a few thousand times since 1989, with the fall of the Soviet Union, our national objectives and those of Japan have been gradually diverging, and the day's going to come where they decide it's time for our bases there to go, so they can run their own foreign policy in the region. Us mothballing ships and even carrier groups due to budgetary cutbacks is hastening that day, and they're making slow but deliberate steps to fill the vacuum we're creating.

Look up "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and tell me who looks upon any potential return to that day with joy, including ComPacFlt.



workin:
The trawlers were a poor man's GPS before it existed, and intel platform. They vacuumed up electronic signals and signatures, and closely observed our underway ops for 40 years. Any suggestion that there was any offensive combat capability, nuclear or otherwise, beyond putting some serious butthurt on any potential ragtag piracy attempt, is cold-war comic book fantasy. The Russians only grudgingly put nukes in the field with sub commanders. Doing it with trawlers? Sources, or its pure Art Bell mythos.
I have no doubt they would cheerfully have provided a tidy homing beacon for the incoming nuclear-tipped antiship missiles fired from elsewhere, and died gloriously for Mother Russia, presuming they weren't swatted into oblivion 0.2 seconds after the carrier group commander was given weapons free options.

[Steamforger]

re: Falklands
neither side had what one would call an"airforce" in the game. Some scooters v Harriers yes. A comprehensive force with integrated AEW/AW C3 directing CAP and strike assets -- nah. That is what Japan and potential adversaries are in a whole different league.

As for nuking a carrier. First yah gotta find it. Seriously. Non trivial task.

It is not just a matter of finding ang then tracking it. You hsve to determine what is really the CV and what is a small boy decoying mimicing a CV EM signature. Suffice to say, when we went blue water the soviets didnt find us unless and until we wanted tbem to.

Even a dirty, old, slow oiler could cut the EM back to something more...expected of a civilian cargo ship, open every porthole on the aft superstructure, switch the navigation lights to the set on the aft superstructure, rigorously enforce light discipline on the forward superstructure, and disappear into the night. Did it many a time.

For those that don't know, US Navy ships are infamous for disappearing onto the dark and not being where anyone thought they were.

You hsve to determine what is really the CV and what is a small boy decoying mimicing a CV EM signature.

Yep. Little, grey, missile sponges.

[randy]

+1 on calling BS on the trawlers carrying any offensive weapons, especially nukes.

And on more than one occasion captains of trawlers (and Soviet warships) have done a scan of the horizon at first light and stated "Where in the hell did they go!"

Neighbor had several deployments in the Med, and if a CVBG can pull a disappearing act there...

If necessary, a couple of destroyers could focus their attention by getting, unusually "affectionate", during the night while the rest of the group motivates over the horizon.

[HTRN]

The Japanese are still hated, but not so much feared. The Chinese on the other hand.. They've been getting increasing obnoxious in SE Asia, hence this new ship. Korea has been building smaller carriers as well for largely the same reason.

[Greg]

And on more than one occasion captains of trawlers (and Soviet warships) have done a scan of the horizon at first light and stated "Where in the hell did they go!"

Neighbor had several deployments in the Med, and if a CVBG can pull a disappearing act there...

I remember reading about NORPAC '82. Midway and Enterprise operating undetected 200nm from Petropavlovsk, launching alpha strikes (but on reciprocal headings) each day... And the Soviets invested a LOT of resources in maritime reconnaissance.