Source: Privy Council No. 10
After several months of nesting at Sasebo Base in Japan, the amphibious assault ship "America" carried an F-35B stealth fighter again on the 15th to conduct exercises in the East China Sea; the US aircraft carrier "Carl Vinson" in the South China Sea carried an F-35C stealth fighter, and the amphibious assault ship "Essex" was also heading north. This means that there is a supercarrier and two "lightning carriers" in the waters around China.
And that's not all: the USS Lincoln, which left the U.S. mainland on Jan. 3 with F-35C fighter jets, is approaching the Western Pacific Sea — and it's likely that in the near future, china will gather as many as four U.S. aircraft carriers capable of taking off and landing stealth fighters.
Such a large-scale buildup of US Navy aircraft carriers is rare after the Cold War, and both the number of fighters carried and the performance of aircraft carriers far exceed the "three countries and four aircraft carriers" gathered near Okinawa by the United States, Britain and Japan, which were sensational last year.
What exactly is the Pentagon planning to do?
Photos released by the U.S. Department of Defense on Jan. 15 showed the USS America amphibious assault ship and F-35B fighter jets conducting aviation operations near the East China Sea.
With the existing 11 supercarriers "insufficient," the U.S. Navy modified some of its amphibious assault ships with straight-through decks to carry F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters that can take off/land vertically. Amphibious assault ships that have undergone this modification are called "lightning carriers" and can act as auxiliary forces for supercarriers.
As a cutting-edge amphibious assault ship of the U.S. Navy that entered service in 2014, the USS America was designed to enhance its aviation capabilities and accommodate more aircraft and aviation fuel. Theoretically, it could carry more than 25 F-35B fighter jets, with the largest capacity of aircraft carriers in the U.S. Lightning Carrier. It's unclear exactly how many F-35Bs the U.S. carried on this trip, but the U.S. Marine Corps at Iwakuni Base in Japan already has two squadrons (32 F-35Bs).
USS Carl Vinson
At the same time, the South China Sea situational awareness platform said on the 17th that the US Navy's "Carl Vinson" aircraft carrier has left the South China Sea from the Mindoro Strait after maneuvering around the Spratly Islands. Together with the USS Essex amphibious assault ship, which is accompanying the carrier, "it is expected that one aircraft carrier strike group and two amphibious readiness groups operated by the US military in the West Pacific will further converge for a '1+2' joint exercise." ”
If you count the "Lincoln", which is moving too far to the west, the future will appear in the waters around China, a combination of two supercarriers + two "lightning carriers", far larger than the "three countries and four aircraft carriers" that appeared in Okinawa waters last year - the latter including the US "Carl Vincent" aircraft carrier and the "Us" amphibious assault ship "America", the British "Queen Elizabeth" aircraft carrier and the Japanese "Ise" quasi-aircraft carrier.
What does the United States really want to do?
You know, even the U.S. Navy has a hard time concentrating multiple aircraft carriers in the same sea. Usually, single-carrier battle groups are standard for the U.S. Navy to conduct conventional deterrence cruises; in regional tensions, dual-carrier battle groups are concentrated for "unforeseen needs"; and three-carrier battle clusters usually mean serious crises or extremely ostentatious warnings of force; as for the four aircraft carriers, if not in response to regional armed conflict, it is already the strongest demonstration...
Last year, Anglo-American and Japanese aircraft carriers gathered in Okinawa waters
The US "Forbes" website claimed last year that the firepower of the "three countries and four aircraft carriers" and their escort ships was stronger than the entire fleet of most countries, so the assembly in Okinawa waters was "to deter the People's Liberation Army from invading Taiwan."
The veteran driver noticed that recently the United States and Japan have made a big fuss about the Taiwan issue, and their intention to try to interfere in the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become more and more obvious. From this point of view, the United States has once again put together a larger and more powerful four-aircraft carrier combination, which is likely to be the same attempt to "deter China."
It is worth noting that this time the four US aircraft carriers also have a trend of high coordination between the US Navy and the Marine Corps. The F-35C fighters carried by the CARL Vinson belong to the U.S. Navy, the F-35C from the Lincoln belongs to the U.S. Marine Corps, and the F-35Bs equipped with the U.S. U.S. belong to the Marine Corps, and they can also take off and land on the Essex.
In other words, the U.S. Navy has assembled four aircraft carriers this time, and the core carrier-based aircraft carried is actually the F-35 series fighters of the U.S. Marine Corps. In recent years, the U.S. Marine Corps has held high the banner of "strategic transformation, claiming to "return to the old business" and perform a series of offensive tasks, from island capture to assisting the U.S. Navy. From this point of view, the gathering of these four US aircraft carriers around China has a very strong sense of offensive direction.
It's just that for the Pentagon, the ideal is beautiful, but the reality is too bone.com. Both the Carl Vinson and Essex have been deployed overseas for several months and are about to return to port for recuperation. This also means that the "strongest demonstration" in the United States is only a flash in the pan.