During World War II, the U.S. and Japanese forces fought fiercely in the Pacific theater for several years.
In the end, the Japanese army was constrained by the fact that the battle line was stretched too long, and fell into a bitter battle on the battlefield, and the supply of materials could not be supplied, and it went to the abyss step by step.
In this naval battle, which lasted for more than three years, the combat effectiveness displayed by the Japanese army was completely not inferior to that of the United States, but what was surprising was the strong military manufacturing capacity of the United States.
Because for every time the Japanese army sank one US warship, the United States could produce two or three warships in a month's time, and the more one side fought, the poorer it became, and the more the other side fought, the more "fattened" the other side became.
Especially after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States went full throttle, and in less than five years, they built 1,197 warships of various types.
Among them are 131 aircraft carriers, and this production capacity is like our dumplings for the New Year.
Now that more than 70 years have passed, we have a conjecture when we compare the military production capacity of the United States in the past and present.
If a world war breaks out, will the United States still be able to build aircraft carriers like it did in World War II?
1. How powerful was the U.S. military industry in World War II?
At the beginning of World War II, the combined fleet of the Japanese army actually outwhelmed the American army in terms of overall strength.
In 1940, the Japanese Combined Fleet had 10 aircraft carriers, 38 cruisers, 112 destroyers, 75 submarines, and 236 warships of various other types, with a total tonnage of 1.2 million tons.
At that time, the US military had only 3 aircraft carriers, 21 cruisers, 67 destroyers, and 12 submarines, and the total tonnage was only half of that of the Japanese army.
It is precisely because of this numerical superiority that the Japanese army dares to challenge the position of the US military as the leader in the Pacific.
On November 26, 1941, the Japanese dispatched a supercarrier strike group consisting of 6 aircraft carriers, 2 Kongo-class battleships, 2 Tone-class heavy cruisers, 9 destroyers, and 3 submarines.
Although the U.S. intelligence department had detected the Japanese anomaly and strengthened the defense of Pearl Harbor, it only missed the worst weather conditions in the north.
It was on this route that the U.S. military thought was impossible, and after an 11-day voyage, the Japanese suddenly appeared only 320 kilometers away from Pearl Harbor.
In just 30 minutes of concentrated fire, the main warships of the US army were lost, and another 188 warplanes were blown up.
And the U.S. military has spent decades building this fleet, which also shows the terrifying power of the aircraft carrier battle group on the ocean.
In fact, because of the heavy losses in the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military chose to die for more than a year after that, and from this point of view, the Japanese army had achieved their strategic objectives.
But what Japan did not expect was that the US military did not work in vain during the more than a year of rest.
Because of the fiasco at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military accelerated the research and development of the F-14 fighter, and it was precisely because of the emergence of this air supremacy, known as the strongest carrier-based aircraft in World War II, that the U.S. military completely controlled air supremacy.
But what is even more surprising is that this sneak attack by the Japanese army has caused the huge military industrial machine of the United States to burst out with amazing energy.
From 1941 to the first half of 1945, the United States produced a total of 131 aircraft carriers.
Of these 131 aircraft carriers, 33 are medium and large aircraft carriers, but if you count all the escort-class aircraft carriers, this number has exceeded 150!
Japan, on the other hand, was far behind the United States in terms of production capacity, although it had a strong numerical and tactical superiority in the early stages of the war, and even was ahead of the United States in terms of technology.
During the entire period of World War II, Japan actually did not have the ability to build a new large aircraft carrier, and the 17 aircraft carriers newly commissioned were actually converted from large merchant ships, and their combat effectiveness was limited.
Second, aircraft carriers determine the fate of maritime hegemony
The reason for this disparity is the lack of resources in Japan itself.
Even though Japan's industrial level had reached a very high level before World War II, they could only build a dozen aircraft carriers with all their might.
Half of them were "aircraft carrier reserve ships", which were barely completed by plundering resources in the later period.
The Japanese government was well aware of its inferiority, so from 1933 onwards, they planned to build a large number of large passenger and cargo ships for wartime renovations.
For example, aircraft carriers such as the Chitose-class, Flying Eagle-class, Great Eagle-class, and Seahawk-class are actually transformed from merchant ships.
Therefore, Japan's main aircraft carriers were actually dispatched when they attacked Pearl Harbor, and more than half of the others can only be regarded as "special aircraft carriers".
Another maritime hegemon, Britain, after the end of World War II, also had an astonishing number of aircraft carriers, reaching 96 ships, but today, only 2 remain.
Due to the failure of the struggle for world hegemony with the United States, Britain lost a large number of overseas colonies.
For this reason, the UK's economic situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and a large number of aircraft carrier projects under construction have been postponed indefinitely.
From the 50s, Britain was forced to sell its aircraft carriers one by one in order to balance the economy.
Compared to the United States, these British aircraft carriers are already a whole generation behind in technology.
As new U.S. fighter jets dominate the global market, the British find that most of their aircraft carriers are not equipped with new U.S. fighter jets, which also greatly reduces the value of their aircraft carriers.
In recent years, the U.S. economy has been sluggish, and although their military still has a strong and overwhelming strength, it has been difficult to maintain hegemony, and the world pattern has quietly changed dramatically.
The successive outbreaks of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict reflect the reality that the current US military is no longer able to provide strong military assistance to their allies.
However, the United States still has a strong military industry, so there is such a conjecture: if the world war resumes, will the United States be able to mass-produce aircraft carriers in a short time?
Before we discuss this topic, it is necessary to compare aircraft carriers during World War II and what are the differences between modern aircraft carriers.
First of all, it is certain that there is a gap of 70 years between the two, and the two are no longer the same in terms of technology, construction cost and cycle.
Take the "Essex" class aircraft carrier of the US military in World War II as an example, this aircraft carrier is only 33,000 tons, and the deck is made of wood, only a layer of light armor is wrapped in the wood.
And now the main force of the US military, the "Ford" class aircraft carrier, in terms of displacement, is three times that of the "Essex" class.
The whole ship uses special aircraft carrier steel, which is nuclear-powered and has an electromagnetic catapult device.
The strength of the US aircraft carrier does not lie in the aircraft carrier itself, it exists as a system.
In addition to a powerful escort group and advanced fighter planes, it is unimaginable that 70 years of changes have been brought about in terms of electronics and informationization.
To put it simply, an aircraft carrier in World War II was a large warship at best.
The construction period of the "Ford" class aircraft carrier will take eight years, and it will take about four years to form combat effectiveness after continuous debugging.
So just from the point of view of the time cycle, it is already impossible to build a large number of aircraft carriers in a short period of time.
What is not known is that the only shipyard in the United States that can build aircraft carriers today is the Newport News Shipbuilding Company.
During World War II, there were 50 shipyards in the United States that had the capacity to produce aircraft carriers, so even without considering the cost, the United States is now unable to build aircraft carriers in large quantities.
Does this mean that the production capacity of the US military industry has seriously declined?
The answer is yes. The reason for this consequence is that the United States has chosen "deindustrialization".
3. The truth about the decline of the U.S. military industry
The United States was also the first country in history to deindustrialize on a large scale, and they said it was for the sake of environmental protection and alleviating land scarcity.
But in fact, in the past, the basis of the high development of American industry was that they frantically plundered resources overseas, and many small countries have nearly exhausted their mineral resources such as steel.
Coupled with years of war, the domestic economy of the United States finally began to decline, and in order to stop this decline, the United States began to reduce production costs.
The main approach is to push basic manufacturing to East and Southeast Asian countries.
But in retrospect, the reason why the United States can dominate the world is precisely because of its unparalleled military industry.
Unfortunately, since World War II, the U.S. military industry has been fully privatized.
At that time, 90 percent of the U.S. military products were produced by government-led enterprises, and now 80 percent are produced by private companies.
As a result of deindustrialization, "Made in China" can be seen everywhere, and to put it bluntly, without Made in China, the daily operations of the White House will have problems.
In 2015, the United States realized the negative impact of "deindustrialization" on them and began to "set things right", but it was too late.
This is because the cost of overseas production is lower than that of the United States.
In terms of resources, taking rare earths as an example, 90% of the world's rare earths are controlled by China, and rare earths have now become one of the most important resources in the military industry.
Returning to the technical level, after decades of development, the United States has found that in the past they were stuck in China's neck, and now in many fields, the roles of the two sides have been reversed.
Therefore, from all aspects, it is impossible for the United States to manufacture aircraft carriers and other large-scale military products in large quantities as it did back then.
epilogue
As we mentioned earlier, of the more than 100 aircraft carriers produced by the United States during World War II, only about 20 were actually large and medium-sized aircraft carriers, and the others were basically escort aircraft carriers.
At present, the United States is absolutely not as fast as China in building aircraft carriers.
In the past few years, the United States has repeatedly been hindered in the Dark Eagle missile project, and many flight tests have ended in failure.
The reason for this is that the chips of the thrusters of the Dark Eagle missiles are from Asia, and the launchers are from a small country in Europe, and the United States has become an assembly workshop.
Now the U.S. military industry has been hollowed out by those big families, leaving a seemingly huge empty shell, without the terrifying deterrent power of the past.
The recent war in Ukraine is a clear proof that the United States and NATO together are fighting for the military industry with Russia, and Russia is not necessarily left behind, and the decline of the United States is already a sure fact.
References:
Yuanheng Defense 2024.4.16 "Once the war starts, the United States will immediately "dumpling"! Can it build hundreds of aircraft carriers and warships?"
Scientific Knowledge Points 2023.6.21 "Once the war starts, the United States will immediately "dumpling"! Can it build hundreds of aircraft carriers and warships?"