Chapter 255: Avalanche
Aircraft carriers are highly maneuverable special airfields with surface mobility;
The significance of high maneuverability to take-off and landing aircraft has been mentioned earlier, so as a surface ship, it will inevitably face three threats: underwater, surface, and air, and the underwater danger has always been the biggest threat faced by aircraft carriers;
Although the aircraft carrier is a cow, the danger from under the water is the most deadly;
In the face of threats from other ships in the air and on the surface, aircraft carriers can detect these threats in advance and strike first because of the superiority of carrier-based aircraft in large-scale and large-radius operations and early warning aircraft battlefield perception.
And for underwater dangers, no matter how advanced anti-submarine measures are, they cannot be 100% guaranteed to be reliable, practice has proven countless times, even at present, the aircraft carrier is still most afraid of elusive submarines, especially nuclear submarines,
Modern submarines can only launch submarine-launched missiles from 100 nautical miles away with the support of data links, and modern intelligent torpedoes can launch deadly attacks with multiple salvos dozens of nautical miles away; Once locked by a smart torpedo, any large ship will almost have to sit still, because modern times there are no particularly effective measures against smart torpedoes;
Since the density of water is more than 800 times that of air, the same explosive yield, the power of explosion in water is many times stronger than that of an explosion in air, and any ship hit by a torpedo is more destructive than being hit by missiles and artillery shells, and the destructive power is much more serious, and a destroyer of seven or eight thousand tons can resist a direct hit by two or three Harpoon missiles. The pen & fun & pavilion www.biquge.info will not sink immediately, at least half of the crew can have time to abandon ship and flee for their lives, or there is still time to extinguish the fire and rush to repair;
However, if the same destroyer is directly hit by the MK heavy torpedo, the keel will be directly blown off, the whole ship will be split in half, and even if the crew is not immediately shocked to death, then no more than 20% of them will be able to escape, and if they are directly hit by the heavy torpedo, there is almost no need to rescue again;
If a destroyer is like this, then the same is true for aircraft carriers, an aircraft carrier of 6-100,000 tons can be directly hit by 10 harpoons, but will not sink immediately, while the same aircraft carrier, if it is directly hit by 2 or more heavy torpedoes, then there is absolutely a danger of capsizing, at least it must be tilted immediately and lose its combat effectiveness, and the aircraft carrier that loses power will become a real giant target, and its fate will be very tragic;
Since World War II, submarine torpedo anti-aircraft carriers are the most efficient and cost-effective, sinking more than 30,000 tons of Yorktown aircraft carrier's little devil's submarine, only a thousand tons, because as long as it can launch heavy torpedoes, the size of the submarine itself does not matter, the smaller the concealment, the better;
At present, conventional submarines and nuclear submarines can carry heavy intelligent torpedoes and long-range submarine-launched anti-ship missiles, while nuclear submarines and AIP conventional submarines can be ambushed in a large area for more than a few weeks, so the threat of advanced submarines to aircraft carriers has not only not decreased, but greatly increased the threat coefficient;
In the face of various advanced conventional and nuclear submarines, it is almost difficult for aircraft carriers to detect and strike ahead of time like other surface ships and aircraft, because advanced submarines are extremely concealed, and they can attack from a long distance, and it is becoming more and more difficult to counter-attack submarines in advance;
As a kind of floating ship on the surface, no matter how powerful it is, there is a danger of sinking, even if it is not sunk, once it is hit and tilted or loses power, it will completely lose its combat effectiveness, so compared with the aircraft carrier and the land airport, the ability to resist the war is much weaker, the land airport will never sink, even if it is blown out of the big hole, it can be filled in and continue to be used, and once the aircraft carrier is directly hit, or even hit by a heavy torpedo from underwater, then it will be scrapped or even sunk.
It is difficult to counter submarines in advance, so there is only one way for aircraft carriers to counter submarines, and they can't afford to hide, that is, to avoid and disengage from the submarine as soon as possible through high maneuverability and high speed;
High speed, high maneuverability, to the aircraft carrier itself and the aircraft carrier formation, is of great significance, high speed to the carrier-based aircraft is of great significance, and the anti-underwater submarine threat is equally important, conventional submarines, it is difficult to exceed 20 knots underwater, and when using the AIP system to cruise operations, it can hardly exceed 5 knots;
Nuclear submarines can be underwater for more than 30 knots, but no matter how advanced the nuclear submarine, once the underwater exceeds 20 knots, then the noise will increase exponentially, to about 30 knots, and it is impossible not to be exposed, so even if the advanced nuclear submarine, the general underwater will not exceed the cruising combat speed of 20 knots, close to 30 knots, and it will only be used when it is exposed to escape for its life, or when it follows the formation at high speed.
Therefore, as the main force of surface warfare, the aircraft carrier and its formation, can maintain a high speed for a long time, for its own combat and evasion of underwater threats, is a very important tactical parameter, once the aircraft carrier formation more than 30 knots sailing, and constantly change direction and maneuver in the vast waters, then whether it is a conventional submarine or a nuclear submarine, it is difficult to ambush such a formation, and a conventional submarine wants to pursue the nuclear submarine formation, at present, it is simply not possible.
There is an exponential relationship between the maximum speed of large ships and the power output, and for modern aircraft carriers, 27 knots is basically the minimum threshold for speed;
Large ships with a full displacement of more than 50,000 tons, basically there is no maximum speed of more than 35 knots, and civil ships do not exceed 30 knots, modern large civil ships with high speed, generally container liners, cruising speed can reach more than 20 knots, and the most advanced sustained speed can reach 25 knots, which is already the highest speed of large ships galloping at high speed on the ocean. The Panamax class is 5 to 70,000 tons, and the super Panamax class is more than 80,000 tons, and the largest container clipper is about 100,000 tons, with a hull width of nearly 50 meters and a length of more than 300 meters; Just looking at the hull, it is basically similar to the size of the American supercarrier, wide body, and length, but the deck of the aircraft carrier is relatively large, and the upper part is wider, and the width of the waterline under the deck of the aircraft carrier is also between 45 meters and 50 meters, which is very similar to the container liner, and has a bulbous bow that wears the waves;
Regardless of whether the aircraft carrier is a civilian clipper, the hull is full of 100,000 tons and the speed is 35 knots, which is already the current technological limit of mankind, and if you want to achieve more than 100,000 tons and ships with more than 35 knots, it will not be possible to do it in at least 20 years.
Some people say that the aircraft carrier will be more than 300,000 tons? Then, this is equivalent to the hull size of a super tanker or super ore ship, such a large ship, generally a hypertrophied ship type, that is to say, the length-to-width ratio, basically can not exceed 7, that is, the length of the ship does not exceed 350 meters, the width of the ship is generally 60 meters or even larger, this fat ship type, no matter what power system, will not exceed the maximum speed of 25 knots, the same super tanker and ore ship, the maximum cruising speed is only about 15 knots, or even lower, because the timeliness of these goods is not strong, It's acceptable to go slower, but you can't do it faster, the motivation can't stand it, and the cost can't stand it. Technically, it can't be done either. Some people say, why should the ship type be so fat, a 300,000-ton ship, can't it be 50 meters wide and more than 400 meters long, and sail at high speed? In fact, this is also impossible to do, because the strength of steel is limited, it is impossible to make the ship infinitely long, human beings so far, have not made more than 450 meters of giant ships, because more than 400 meters, has exceeded the stress length of the steel structure itself, such a long ship, needless to say that the triangular wave breaks the keel, even under the small wind and waves, it will lose its use value because the deformation stress is too large;
Therefore, under the premise that the aircraft carrier must have a high speed, the relationship between tonnage, ship type, and power capacity determines the current full displacement of more than 100,000 tons, which is the ultimate tonnage of the aircraft carrier.
USS Enterprise:
After entering service, the Enterprise initially operated on the East Coast of the United States. CV-6Enterprise
He joined the Pacific Fleet in April 1939. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the ship escaped the event when it was on a mission to transport planes to Wake Island and was delayed by bad weather on the way back. Since then, the USS Enterprise has participated in most of the naval battles of the Pacific War, becoming a legendary warship of the U.S. Navy with outstanding decories. On January 11, 1942, Vice Admiral Halsey commanded the TF8 formation (1 aircraft carrier, 4 heavy cruisers, and 6 destroyers) with the Enterprise as the core and the TF17 (Yorktown, 1 light cruiser, 4 destroyers, commanded by Rear Admiral Fletcher) to complete the operation to reinforce Samoa, sending a total of 5,000 troops to the island. On February 1, 1942, on the way back from Samoa, TF8 carried out an air raid on the Japanese bases on Roy Island, Kwajalein Atoll, Watji Atoll and Maloelap Atoll, the most fortified defense of the Japanese-occupied Marshall Island, sinking 4 Japanese small ships, destroying 18 aircraft, and even Major General Yashiro Yukichi of the 6th Base Squadron was also killed, which was the first organized counteroffensive of the US Army since the beginning of the Pacific War. And Halsey has become a hero in the eyes of the American public. On April 8, 1942, the Enterprise left Pearl Harbor for the Aleutian Islands, where it rendezvoused with the USS Hornet aircraft carrier group to cover the Hornet formation on a mission to bomb the Japanese mainland. In the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Enterprise, the Hornet and Yorktown of the same class were ambushed in the waters northeast of Midway, sinking four aircraft carriers of the Japanese Navy's mobile force in one fell swoop. In August 1942, the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Combined Fleet began the naval battle east of Lomon in the waters of the southwest Pacific Ocean, after which the Enterprise caught fire and the flight deck was seriously damaged. In this operation, the TF61 formation to which the Enterprise belonged sank the Japanese light aircraft carrier Ryuchi, severely damaged the seaplane carrier Chitose, and shot down 75 Japanese planes. On Oct. 16, after a month-long refurbishment, the Enterprise was strengthened by the newly formed 10th Carrier-Based Aircraft Group (AG-10), which included elite pilots from the damaged Saratoga and the sunken Yorktown. On October 26, 1942, in the unprecedentedly fierce naval battle of Santa Cruz between the United States and Japan, the Enterprise was hit again with six 250-kilogram bombs and one missed, but narrowly escaped all torpedoes. The Hornet, on the other hand, was not so lucky, and after being hit by 10 torpedoes, 1 800-kilogram bomb, 7 250-kilogram bombs, and more than 300 rounds of 127mm shells, the Hornet sank. In this battle, the U.S. forces lost the aircraft carrier Hornet, the Enterprise was heavily damaged, 81 aircraft were lost, and 266 people were killed (44 killed and 75 wounded on the Enterprise). It shot down and destroyed 92 Japanese planes and severely damaged two Japanese aircraft carriers, the Shozuru and Zuizuru. At the same time, a large number of outstanding pilots, including the Japanese Shozuru flight captain Murata Shaoza, Seki Wei Shaoza, and Zuizuru flight captain Shiichiro Imajuku, were killed in battle, and the combat effectiveness of the Japanese mobile units was greatly weakened. Before the Enterprise was repaired, the U.S. military had no aircraft carriers available in the South Pacific. The Japanese Army's 2nd Division launched the Kuah Offensive, and at the same time, the Combined Fleet sent Kongo-class battleships to bombard the Kuah airfield around November 12. On November 11, the Enterprise sailed out of Noumea and rushed to the waters east of Kuah with the repair ship USS Vesta AR-4 to fight while repairing and maximizing the U.S. air power. In the early morning of November 13, the Japanese "advance team" in charge of the artillery mission met the US TF67 cruiser formation, and a fierce battle broke out, in which the US lost 2 light cruisers and 4 destroyers, sank 2 Japanese destroyers, and severely damaged the battleship Hiei. After dawn, the Enterprise went out and beat the water dog with the TBF (torpedo attack aircraft) that took off from Kuah Island, causing the Hiei to hit one mine and sink the stern. It finally sank around dark on the 13th, the first battleship lost by Japan in the Pacific War. At this time, the Enterprise was still the only U.S. aircraft carrier available in the Pacific, and the sailors painted the hangar deck with the slogan Enterprise against Japan (Enterprise VSJapan). On January 30, 1943, the Japanese launched 11 land attacks to bomb the formation of American surface ships near Rennell Island, and the Enterprise shot down 7 of them, but 8 Japanese planes still fired torpedoes, and the Chicago Heavy Cruiser (CA-29) was sunk. On May 26, 1943, the USS Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor to receive the Presidential Unit Commendation from Admiral Nimitz on behalf of President Roosevelt. )