The China Tide...Who Will Rule the Waves?

 

China sent its first aircraft carrier into formal service on Tuesday amid a tense maritime dispute with Japan, a show of naval force that could worry its neighbours.
 
China's Ministry of Defence said the newly named Liaoning aircraft carrier would "raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy" and help Beijing to "effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests".

 
In fact, the aircraft carrier, refitted from a ship bought from Ukraine, will have a limited role, mostly for training and testing ahead of the possible launch of China's first domestically built carriers after 2015, analysts say. 
 
But China cast the formal handing over of the carrier to its navy as a triumphant show of national strength - at a time of bitter tensions with neighbouring Japan over islands claimed by both sides...Read More

The US response to China's sabre rattling in the Pacific Rim...

Introducing the USS Zumwalt, the Stealth Destroyer

By the end of the decade, 60 percent of U.S. naval forces will be stationed in the Pacific—a historic high that reflects Asia’s increasing strategic importance to the United States, as well as concerns over China flexing its power in the region.

The expanded U.S. presence will include the Navy’s next-generation warship, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, named after the former chief of naval operations Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr. The first of these 600-foot, 15,000-ton vessels is being built by General Dynamics in Maine at the Bath Iron Works, which had to construct a $40 million facility to accommodate the project.

The new destroyer was designed to operate both in the open ocean and in shallow, offshore waters. And it incorporates several stealth features, including: a wave-piercing hull that leaves almost no wake; an exhaust suppressor to reduce the vessel’s infrared (heat) signature; and an exterior that slopes inward at a steep angle, creating a radar signature said to be no larger than a fishing boat’s.

Escalating research and development expenses compelled the Navy to scale back its initial plan for 32 ships to 3 (each of which now costs more than $7 billion). The first of the new vessels, the USS Zumwalt, will be christened in 2013.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Introducing-the-USS-Zumwalt-the-Stealth-Destroyer-169817436.html#ixzz27m0kvraU