in 20 years our fleets will have railguns. a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing coastguard ship would be capable of sinking a carrier once armed with those things.
With the use of Raiguns you will see a resurgence in america using battleships for coastal bombardments again. Railguns can do more damage with one non explosive shell than a BGM 109 tomahawk missile, and they are massively cheaper to use than the cost of several missiles (so much in fact, that in the case of a large bombardment the savings on not having to use missiles would outweigh the fuel costs of the battleship!).
Hood was also a relic from the first world war, the Mismark, and in fact all battleships made after 1930, outclassed it in every way besides size *which the bismark also beat it out of to).
I am sorry, you are exactly right...I should have said 'King Geroge the V class'. That said, the British had a total of 8 15in guns and 10 14 in guns to Bismarks 8 15in guns and the Bismark was also out on her maiden effort. The Hood was newer than most of our US aircraft carriers are today. All told the Germans had two ships while the British had 6 battleships/battlecruisers, 2 carriers, 13 cruisers, and 21 destroyers. My point remained...numbers matter. Our Navy is shrinking while the Chinese Navy is growing fast.
Actually they are quit real, the navy has test fired them even (you can see one on youtube from 2008, and it is spectacular). "On January 31, 2008 the US Navy tested a railgun that fired a shell at 10.64 MJ with a muzzle velocity of 2,520 m/s.[17] Its expected performance is a muzzle velocity over 5,800 m/s, accurate enough to hit a 5 meter target over 200 nmi (370 km) away while firing at 10 shots per minute. The power was provided by a new 9-megajoule (MJ) prototype capacitor bank using solid-state switches and high-energy-density capacitors delivered in 2007 and an older 32-MJ pulse power system from the US Army’s Green Farm Electric Gun Research and Development Facility developed in the late 1980s that was previously refurbished by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (EMS) Division.[18] It is expected to be ready between 2020 to 2025." While fully automatic railguns and ones small enough for soldiers to use are a thing of scifi/the distant future, artillery and deck gun ones are being built and tested as we speak. Also, ray guns, are a possibility, hell we have a newly developed crowd control one in the military that was finally put into production in the last year. It is a plate that can be mounted on a Humvee and once pointed at a crowed and turned on, anything in front of the beam will have its surface temperature raised to 140 degree`s, the lowest temperature at which humans naturally flinch away at, it takes 4 minutes of standing in the beam to actually receive a burn, so it is the perfect non lethal CC weapon. Now think about this.... a version of that that shoots a beam that is several hundred/thousand degrees.... DEATH RAY! We could make one (but their use would be very limited and would likely violate something in the Geneva convention).
Not anymore. 'The Senate just drove a stake into the Navys high-tech heart. The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future? Terminated.' http://survival.us.com/?p=3643
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG! Well, it is always something we can go back to working on 10 years from now once the economy is somewhat back to normal. Other countries (besides England) havn`t shown much interest in railgun tech so we shouldn`t have to worry about our fleets getting outclassed any time soon. We will get back to work on them eventually, you can`t stop progress (particularly when it comes to military tech). Railgun tech could also be put to other uses, like cheap spaceship launches, which is one of the reasons i find it cool and i think it should be developed.
Obama won't allow a Racist Bigoted Homophobic Imperialist colonialist American Navy of the Future to have such an edge as "Railguns", funding will be slashed & delayed .
Good points. About foreshadowing, this will lead to further China-India Conflict, a strengthening military-alliance between China-Pakistan and the question of whether that leads to US involvement is at the top of many annalists minds. Personally, I think war between China and the US is inevitable, unless China makes a leap toward the democratic-Freedoms that we enjoy.
If there was ever a China/American conventional war then China would lose, badly. That isn't American arrogance, that is military fact. The only way China could ever come close to winning would be nuclear war when we all lose. Sure the rest of the world can have aircraft carriers, but if war ever erupted they would sink...tomorrow. But as you said, our economies are so intertwined that a war would probably never happen. It would economically destroy both countries which would literally destroy both countries.
There is not a rail gun on a single ship nor are there any ships on the ways with such weapons...theory v reality.
No dip there arn`t any ships equipped with railguns Sherlock. But eventually (likely within the next 20 or so years) there will be. Also i was responding to you saying railguns are a scifi myth, when they clearly are not. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1q_rRicAwI&feature=related"]Navy's Record-Breaking Railgun Shot - YouTube[/ame] (that aint fire comin off the back of that thing, thats (*)(*)(*)(*)ing plasma!)
They are in the same class as Hitlers imaginary weapons...until they are on ships in serious numbers they are just an idea...and one the rest of the world will steal and develop within months of our deploying it.
They are not "just an idea" they are real, they are being tested, and eventually they will be mass produced. With your train of though you could say that editions first successful light bulbs "were just an idea" because no one else was using them yet...
Yeah, Railguns are real in the same way that Stealth is real. I dont know when it would actually be deployed, but it isnt science fiction. They are even less sci-fi than lasers; The technology is real and proven.
China gonna increase the size of its navy... Chinese navy eyes major expansion Tue, Apr 10, 2012 - China is not satisfied with a single refurbished aircraft carrier and has plans to build two conventional and one nuclear-powered aircraft carriers by 2020, as well as 200 more vessels, a Russian military analysts Web site says.
Nothing to get excited about. An obsolete ex-Russian ski jump carrier with no catapults. In a war it would last until a US submarine found it. then it would become an artificial reef.
I don't get the issue save they can start doing more humanitarian missions and UN support missions when they get some carrier battle groups of their own. And why would we have to worry we can destroy them with our submarine ICBM's alone not to mention our aircraft and land-based missles if pushed. We should welcome another nation seeking them.
There is no doubt the old Varyag will kill more Chinese than Americans. The old USS Langley killed a bunch of Americans back inthe 1920s as we learned to do carrier aviation. Likewise the Hosho in Japan. The Chinese have no c-qual pilots at all and really no way to train them unless Obama agrees to train them, or they learn the hard way like we did. Ski-jump carriers demand a lighter and less capable plane than carrier that have catapults. Nobody else in the world has catapult carriers. Nobody else has the Catagory 3-B ILS we have that allows fully automatic carrier landing at night and in hurricane force winds.Yup. The Chinese will kill a lot of air crew and deck crew learning the trade. Yes theChinese could build catapult carriers and Cat 3-B ILS. They might even work eventually. The could build nuclear subs that are quieter than the Purdue Marching Band, but they haven't yet. The US technological edge is priceless and must be maintained. Also, its not the bases in Germany, Japan, and South Korea that are bankrupting us. Those bases are fully subsidized by the host countries. What is bankrupting us is that over half the federal outlay goes down the entitlement rathole. Even more if ObamaCare stands.
It seems to me that they would strike the West Coast with help of Russia and Iranian crude. This is why their navy will be gas powered. If I was China I would team up with Russian military, fueled by Iranian oil, strike Alaska first and make inroads from there into Canada, Seattle's sound, Portland, San Francisco and see where I had luck penetrating and taking a foothold. Naturally I would firebomb the Panama canal with help from Venezuela to hamstring naval reinforcements moving to the West. I'd move into Mexico too in order to complete a land invasion. All the while I would be taunting the US in other arenas to bleed what's left of her economy dry; and employ currency manipulation etc...pretty much what they're doing right now in order to bring the US down. If you back up and look at it unemotionally, it's like any other strategy. The simplest strike at the most vulnerable areas. With Japan crippled now, and no other real national ally to worry about in the Pacific that would stop the fleet, it's a stright shot right to the US from China and Russia. (*)(*)(*)(*) close in fact when you go north. If I were the US, I'd keep a close eye on Alaska, Mexico & the Panama Canal and be thinking of alternative sea routes. That's of course just for the hypothetical..
Thats one of the reasons we had to bail out the auto industry. those factories will be needed if push comes to shove.
we could probably sink that tin can with a single torpedo. Especially since an aircraft carrier is utterly useless without first class aircraft on board which theirs doesn't.
They would go after Japan, south Korea, the south china sea, or Russia all before us. Perhaps they will eventually make a landgrab on Mongolia to act as a buffer state between them and Russia's growing military prowess. and thats only if their people don't over throw the government in a violent revolution. their property bubble is going to collapse around 2017 and when that happens... oh boy, (*)(*)(*)(*)s gonna hit the fan.
The northwest passage is open most of the year now, and our battleships would be able to crush thorugh any ice in the way as well as any ice breaker. We have Ohio class subs in the Pacific. as long as those are there, it is completely, and unequivocally impossible for a sea or land invasion to occur.
