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An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Carriers have evolved since their inception in the early twentieth century from wooden vessels used to deploy balloons to nuclear-powered warships that carry numerous fighters, strike aircraft, helicopters, and other types of aircraft. While heavier aircraft such as fixed-wing gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, it is currently not possible to land them. By its diplomatic and tactical power, its mobility, its autonomy and the variety of its means, the aircraft carrier is often the centerpiece of modern combat fleets. Tactically or even strategically, it replaced the battleship in the role of flagship of a fleet. One of its great advantages is that, by sailing in international waters, it does not interfere with any territorial sovereignty and thus obviates the need for overflight authorizations from third-party countries, reduces the times and transit distances of aircraft and therefore significantly increase the time of availability on the combat zone.
A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles.
The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use.
The People's Liberation Army Navy, also known as the Chinese Navy, PLA Navy or PLAN, is the naval warfare branch of the People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of China and, by default, the national armed forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLAN can trace its lineage to naval units fighting during the Chinese Civil War and was established on 23 April 1949. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union provided assistance to the PLAN in the form of naval advisers and export of equipment and technology. Until the late 1980s, the PLAN was largely a riverine and littoral force. However, by the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union and a shift towards a more forward-oriented foreign and security policy, the leaders of the Chinese military were freed from worrying over land border disputes. Having traditionally been subordinated to the PLA Ground Force, PLAN leaders were able to advocate for a renewed attention towards the seas.
The Tarawa class is a ship class of Landing Helicopter Assault (LHA) type amphibious assault ships operated by the United States Navy (USN). Five ships were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding between 1971 and 1980; another four ships were planned, but later canceled; instead they were joined by the Wasp-class amphibious assault ships.
The Wasp class is a class of landing helicopter dock (LHD) amphibious assault ships operated by the United States Navy. Based on the Tarawa class, with modifications to operate more advanced aircraft and landing craft, the Wasp class is capable of transporting almost the full strength of a United States Marine Corps Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and landing them in hostile territory via landing craft or helicopters as well as providing air support via AV-8B Harrier II attack aircraft or F-35B Lightning II stealth strike-fighters. All Wasp-class ships were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding, at Pascagoula, Mississippi, with the lead ship, USS Wasp, commissioned on 29 July 1989. Eight Wasp-class ships were built, and as of June 2018, all eight are in active service, though USS Bonhomme Richard was seriously damaged by fire on 12 July 2020, and will be decomissioned and scrapped.
The Alfa class, Soviet designation Project 705 Lira, was a class of nuclear-powered attack submarines in service with the Soviet Navy and later with the Russian Navy. They were the fastest military submarines ever built, with only the prototype submarine K-222 exceeding them in submerged speed.
Nuclear propulsion includes a wide variety of propulsion methods that use some form of nuclear reaction as their primary power source. The idea of using nuclear material for propulsion dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 it was hypothesized that radioactive material, radium, might be a suitable fuel for engines to propel cars, planes, and boats. H. G. Wells picked up this idea in his 1914 fiction work The World Set Free.
The Spruance-class destroyer was developed by the United States to replace the many World War II–built Allen M. Sumner- and Gearing-class destroyers and was the primary destroyer built for the U.S. Navy during the 1970s and 1980s.
The names of commissioned ships of the United States Navy all start with USS, for "United States Ship". Non-commissioned, primarily civilian-manned vessels of the U.S. Navy under the Military Sealift Command have names that begin with USNS, standing for "United States Naval Ship". A letter-based hull classification symbol is used to designate a vessel's type. The names of ships are selected by the Secretary of the Navy. The names are those of states, cities, towns, important persons, important locations, famous battles, fish, and ideals. Usually, different types of ships have names originated from different types of sources.
The Kiev class, Soviet designation Project 1143 Krechyet (gyrfalcon), was the first class of fixed-wing aircraft carriers built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy.
The Royal Australian Navy, although a significant force in the Asia-Pacific region, is nonetheless classed as a medium-sized navy. Its fleet is based around two main types of surface combatant, with limited global deployment and air power capability. However, in 2009, a white paper, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, was produced by the Australian government which set out a programme of defence spending that will see significant improvements to the RAN's fleet and capabilities.
The People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force is a branch of the People's Liberation Army Navy in China. It consists of all surface warships in operational service with the PLAN. It operates 661 ships. The ships are organized into three fleets: the North Sea Fleet, the East Sea Fleet, and the South Sea Fleet. The People's Liberation Army Navy is turning away from its traditional focus on coastal and littoral warfare and instead prioritising the development of blue water capabilities. This has led to a significant reduction in fleet numbers as the PLAN has replaced a larger number of smaller ships with a smaller number of larger and more capable ships, including destroyers, frigates, corvettes, amphibious warfare ships and large auxiliary ships.
A merchant submarine is a type of submarine intended for trade, and being without armaments, it is not considered a warship like most other types of submarines. The intended use would be blockade running, or to dive under Arctic ice.
An amphibious warfare ship is an amphibious vehicle warship employed to land and support ground forces, such as marines, on enemy territory during an amphibious assault. The largest fleet of these types is operated by the United States Navy.
The Korean People's Army Naval Force or the Korean People's Navy (KPN), is the naval service branch of the Korean People's Army, which contains each branch of the North Korean armed forces.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the Russian Navy struggled to adjust Cold War force structures while suffering severely with insufficient maintenance and a lack of funding. However, improvements in the Russian economy over the last decade have seen a significant rise in defence expenditure and an increase in the numbers of ships under construction with a focus on blue-water vessels.
India's Ministry of Defence had finalised a project for the procurement of four Landing Helicopter Docks in order to upgrade the Indian Navy's disaster response, amphibious warfare and island protection capabilities. The project was worth ₹16,000 crore, and tenders were issued in December 2013 to three domestic shipyards.
References
- ↑ SS / SSG / APSS / LPSS 282 Tunny (submarine datasheet from the Globalsecurity.org website).
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 The First Soviet Giants - Polmar, Norman, book excerpts adapted for Undersea Warfare, Fall 2001, Issue 4, Vol 1
- ↑ US Covert operations submarines (from the hazegrey.org private naval history website)