Slashdot Mirror
Satellite Spots China's First Aircraft Carrier
Hugh Pickens writes "Commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe Inc. has announced that it has an image of the People's Republic of China's first functional aircraft carrier, taken during the carrier's first sea trials in the Yellow Sea. The carrier was originally meant for the Soviet navy, but its construction was halted as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and engineers in the Ukraine disarmed it and removed its engines before selling it to China in 1998 for $20 million. The vessel, an Admiral Kuznetsov class aircraft carrier measuring 304.5 meters long, and having a displacement of 58,500 tons, has been refitted for research and training in China. The Ministry of National Defense says the steam-powered aircraft carrier has completed all refitting and testing work as scheduled after its first sea trial in mid-August, and was heading back out to sea for additional scientific research and experiments. According to Andrew S. Erickson at the US Naval War College, China's long term strategic dilemma is whether to focus on large-deck aviation or on submarines (PDF)."
I would feel much safer to take off from a carrier that has ski-jump at end of the ramp. Without it you're basically taking off from under the deck, almost hitting water if you don't have enough speed. Ski-jump gives you much more vertical speed on take off.
China's aircraft carrier sounds like pretty old tech. Our aircraft carriers are the most advanced in the world, with nuclear power and now electromagnetic launchers. At something like $5 billion apiece, they aren't cheap. Maybe we can get back some of those dollars we've sent to China by selling them a fleet of our new Reagan-class aircraft carriers.
"According to Andrew S. Erickson at the US Naval War College, China's long term strategic dilemma is whether to focus on large-deck aviation or on submarines "
Does it really matter? Are we expecting WW3 anytime soon?
Time to drop the trade agreement for furs and hope they dont halve aluminum or uranium within their borders.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This was a brilliant move on China's part. A cold war is about making the other country spend too much money so that it collapses...at least that's basically what happened in the last cold war right? China spends 20 million on a ship...let's pretend they double that cost refitting it so maybe $40 million, and this will be used as an excuse for congresscritters to approve billions more in spending that we don't have on "defense."
our floating Chinese overlords.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Go and google "The Ukraine" and look up Oxford English Dictionary and you will find such interesting linguistic jewels. "The Ukraine", "The Crimea", "The Sudan", "The Netherlands", "The Congo", "The Ivory Coast". Now get off my lawn....
They've got thousands of young unemployed engineers, recent advances in the design of hulls and they invest in um, the height of Ukranian technology (OK, maybe borrowed Russian technology). Surely they could have done much better starting from scratch.
Three gorges dam is another strange project. Yes, you can build ONE BIG DAM or 1 hundred little ones that are cheaper, achieve better flood control, yield as much or more power and are easier to dredge when they silt up. And if one of a hundred dams break, it's not as big a deal. If the three gorges dam breaks, we have a real problem.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If you're fighting a real enemy who can shoot back, a carrier fleet is just a target-rich environment for cheap missiles. This is the modern equivalent of building battleships before WWII only to see them sunk by cheap aircraft.
Don't you mean arm chair Admirals? Or would that be Bathtub Admirals?
If they didn't stuff a nuclear reactor in it, they are probably burning Heavy Fuel Oil, sometimes referred to as Bunker C. It is a heavy oil which needs to be heated before you can even pump it. HFO is the nasty stuff left over after you refine the gasoline, diesel, and other useful oils out of crude. It burns dirty, but at sea nobody cares. In port, some countries/ports make you switch to marine diesel to improve the air quality. I didn't check, but I doubt China is concerned with burning HFO in their ports.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So they've finally figured out they have to Build them in the OCEAN?!?!?!?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It doesn't seem to be carrying an air wing.
That seems to be the fashion these days: the new British carriers aren't going to have any planes either.
If the daily mail ran a headline claiming that two times three equalled six, I'd double check on my fingers before believing them.
but considering they now are the source of a lot of stuff made in the world. if their leader went out and said. "i want 20 more in less then ten years" they will be able to build them in less then 5. and it takes us what about 2 to 3 years to build a single one of ours?
congratulations, the united states is like the early ww2 german war machine. were more advanced but it takes longer for us to build our tanks, ships, and planes while our enemies will be able in a short while replace that one much cheaper and faster made one with 2 or more every time we knock one down.
What even a modest carrier can do in the near term caught the Chinese by surprise in early 2005,when they watched in horror as Indian and Japanese carriers conducted post-tsunami relief operations. Thus, in reconceptualizing the PLAN carrier, China’s two potential role models—and competitors—are not the United States and the former Soviet Union but rather India and Japan. [Andrew S. Erickson and Andrew R.Wilson, "China's aircraft carrier dilemma," Naval War College Review, Autumn 2006, Vol. 59, No. 4, p. 36.]
Would that this were true -- it would be nice to see countries build military weapons platforms to compete with each other to provide the best humanitarian assistance possible. [/pollyanna] However. . . .
The US can barely handle a bunch of tribespeople with AK47s living in caves.
Congrats!
Maintaining an aircraft carrier is expensive.
They have 2 keels or more started. Supposedly, one is nuke powered. Likewise, they are turning out 1-2 new attack subs and 1-2 new ballastic subs each year. They have a protected sub base from which they are hiding construction and provide protection for the subs.
Offhand, I would not say that they are doing this slowly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Slavic languages do not have articles.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Having been in the Navy for 14 years I do not see China being able to operate a carrier effectively for a decade at least. First you need to have planes an pilots that can land on one, then you have to be learn how to replenish at sea (*not* an easy task), then you need a grunch of ships and submarines to protect the carrier, not to mention operations for achieving that, and of course the entire logistics and training infrastructure to pull the whole thing off.
A half dozen ships were lost in the Falklands conflict. Besides ARA General Belgrano and HMS Sheffield, HMS Ardent, HMS Antelope, HMS Coventry and MV Atlantic Conveyor were also sunk. HMS Argonaut and HMS Brilliant were also badly damaged, and this by a military which was known to be incompetent.
The british also believed that when they sent their navy to the Falklands, and not only did they begged the french to stop supplying the argentinians with Exocets, they were also desperate enough to put the SAS on a suicide mission just to eliminate the hand full Exocets available to Argentina. And the Exocet was designed to target small war ships, and since then 30 years of science and technology have passed, with a lot of smart people spending their time designing better anti-ship missiles which pack a bigger punch. So, to expect the US navy to be invincible when they get routinely beaten in NATO war games by navies with inferior equipment is a bit naive and dangerous.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
But even the most conservative candidates (like Ron Paul - who ironically is very isolationist) don't speak much to cutting the US defense budget
"The Department of Defense would see $832 billion disappear from its budget during Paul's first term in office"
(source)
It's one of the side effects of the semi-permanent Russian/Ukrainian linguistic flamewar. In Russian, when you speak about something happening in Ukraine, you use the preposition that is normally reserved for generic nouns rather than names, different from most other countries.
This is because the word "Ukraine" (warning: academically most popular, but contested theory follows) comes from historical Slavic "oukraina", meaning "borderlands" ("krai" means "edge") - it was precisely that for both Muscovite Russia, and for Lithuania / Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth / Poland. Similar use of the word can be seen in the short-lived Republic of Serbian Krajina. Historically, Russia also had places like e.g. "Siberian oukraina", during the period of Siberian conquest. Consequently - since "borderlands" is not really a name, but rather a description - the preposition that applies to such generic descriptive nouns is used.
Now that Ukraine is a sovereign country, this language mode has become a point of contention - many nationalist Ukrainians believe that it is used to denigrate the status of Ukraine, refuse the recognition of its distinct history and culture, and hint at its subservient status to Russia. The correct way to speak, according to those people, is to use the preposition that is used for most other countries. Russians generally tend to tell them to GTFO and not teach other people how they should speak their own language, and add that this has been the normative way to speak Russian for something close to a thousand years, and they're not about to change it now for the sake of someone's sensitivities.
Now, this whole little debate cannot be literally translated to English, because English does not have quite the same distinction in its prepositions (it would roughly be "in" vs "on", but not quite). However, one way to frame it such that it can be understood by English speakers is to speak of Ukraine as the Ukraine - which kinda implies that there are a bunch more ukraines around - you know, an ukraine here, an ukraine there - and you just happened to be speaking about this particular one.
Personally, I would suggest that Americans and other English-speaking people adopt the same tried-and-true attitude, and kindly tell Ukrainians to not tell them how they should speak English. But then, as a Russian, I may be biased. If you want a (what looks like an) Ukrainian take on the matter, here it is.
Wow, you went from a geographical style of reference in English that has been used throughout my lifetime and is fairly common, to including racial slurs, and holocaust denial all in just 3 paragraphs.
You may take offense at use of "The Ukraine" rather than "Ukraine" but the use of that form in English probably dates back to the Crimean war, and there is no insult attached to it in meaning that I am aware of as an English speaker.
As someone else pointed out there are a lot of geographical locations that English speakers commonly attach "the" to when speaking about them. I have lived in the province of Alberta in Canada, its part of our prairies here. I can't think of a single Canadian who would feel like it was an insult to refer to Alberta and the other 2 prairie provinces as "The Prairies" - in fact its very common usage.
I would not deny the holocaust that happened in the Ukraine - I am well aware of it - nor denigrate its people or culture - There are a lot of Canadians who came from the Ukraine.
What I think is happening here is that in Ukraine the country they are aware of this distinction, but in English speaking countries - at least for those not of Ukrainian origins - its a meaningless distinction and we use the "the" or not, as we see fit.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
The Ukrainians are pissed about that because they were a regular old country called Ukraine until the Soviets took them over and converted them into a region rather than a state. It was an emasculation of sorts, and when they got their autonomy back, they preferred to be called by the correct name. Same thing with Yukon in Canada. "The Yukon" was a region, and then it became the Province of Yukon, or just Yukon.