Реферат: The Invention Of The Aircraft Carrier Essay

carrier battle of Midway of June 3-6, 1942, cost the Japanese four carriers;

America lost one, the Yorktown. This victory gained the U.S. mastery of the

skies and of the seas and turned the tide of the war. By 1944 the Japanese

navy had been destroyed primarily by carrier-based aircraft assault, in

addition to submarine action. In the European theater, England used carriers

in support of operations in Norway and for convoy support in the Atlantic

and Mediterranean. Carriers were also part of the British Eastern Fleet.

Since World War II, carriers have been designated by size and mission

and grouped by class?that is, by similarity of construction and capabilities.

All the present U.S. fleet is of the attack class, with capabilities for

conversion to use as submarine warfare, utility, and assault helicopter aircraft

carriers. They bear the classification symbols CV or CVN, the N denoting a

carrier propelled by nuclear energy.

In 1989 the U.S. was the world’s principal user of carriers, with a fleet

of 15 and 2 under construction. Two carriers were of the old Midway class,

completed shortly after World War II, and eight were built in the 1950s and

’60s. Five others were nuclear powered. One of these, the Nimitz, which are

the largest warships in the world have the following traits: a 4.5 acre deck, 2

nuclear reactors, four geared steam turbines, four shafts. The length is 1,040

feet(317 meters). The beam is 134 feet(40.34 meters) The displacement is

97,000 tons when fully loaded(87.998 metric tons). The speed is 30+

knots(34.5 miles per hour). It can hold approximately 85 aircraft. It has a

crew of 3,300 for the ship’s company and a crew of about 3,000 for the Air

Wing. The armament is four NATO Sea Sparrow missile launchers, 20 mm

Phalanx CIWS mounts, and other armaments that are classified. The ship

costs about $4.5 billion each.

The sonar system is the hull-mounted Type 2016 active/passive search

and attack sonar by Thomson Marconi Sonar. The ship’s radar systems

include: GEC-Marconi Type 909 G/H-band fire control radar, housed in the