T2k13, Another new carrier

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by RN7

How India with a defence budget smaller than Saudi Arabia can afford all of this while maintaining a respectable nuclear weapons capability, an army of over 1 million regular troops and an air force of 1,400 aircraft is another question?

Economic growth from all our outsourcing?

- C.

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Economic growth from all our outsourcing?

- C.

LOLOL

And where do you think the other countries call when some important electronic piece breaks down.

[stormlion1]

I love history and its easy to see the parallels to the Naval Arms Race of the early 1900's in this as a mix of pride, desire for raw materials, and plain ambition begin to take hold. I notice that all these Navy's are adding ships to there fleets, the Japanese have added a Oversized Helicopter/Destroyer and is adding submarines to there fleet the Chinese have added a rebuilt Russian Carrier and I think is building one as well and is adding to its surface fleet as well, India has added a new Carrier and is build another and a Nuclear Submarine. And there all in the same area and compete for the resources under the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Philippines are even getting into the game by buying ships, mainly smaller ones from the US, Japan, and South Korea as well as getting more assistance on the cash front from the US. I even think the Vietnamese navy is adding Kilo Subs to its navy bought from Russia.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

I love history and its easy to see the parallels to the Naval Arms Race of the early 1900's in this as a mix of pride, desire for raw materials, and plain ambition begin to take hold.

Well the US has by far the most powerful navy in the world, possibly more powerful than all of the world's other navies combined. Aside from global force projection, how do you characterise the reasons for that? Just curious.

[Olefin]

For the US to have the biggest navy in the world? Well you could start with the fact that the US has two very large coastlines to defend on opposite sides of a continent, requiring a two ocean navy. Then you have Hawaii, Guam, the Marianas and Alaska, all of whom were attacked from the sea in the last war and requiring a navy to defend them.

Add in the necessity to defend oil shipments to and from the Persian Gulf from both rogue nations like Iran and pirates and you can see why the navy is still so big today.

Another reason can be seen in the pages of World War Z where one of the main characters goes over the list of items that the US imported before the war and that now they cant get because every available ship is loaded with refugees and how that worked against the US war effort. We are very dependent on imports and if we had a small navy it would definitely open us up to having them cut in time of war.

[Olefin]

Keep in mind too that Spain, Italy and Thailand have aircraft carriers as does Brazil. And the Japanese carrier is a pure helo carrier without a skyjump to operate aircraft whereas the Spanish, Italian and Thai carriers have those.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Keep in mind too that Spain, Italy and Thailand have aircraft carriers as does Brazil. And the Japanese carrier is a pure helo carrier without a skyjump to operate aircraft whereas the Spanish, Italian and Thai carriers have those.

True, but it wouldn't be too difficult to add a skyjump ramp in a pinch. Back in the early 1980s, the Brits added a skyjump to their old flat-topped HMS Hermes to improve the load-carrying capacity (at take off) of its new Sea Harriers.