Aircraft carrier "Gerald R. Ford" on the raid in Faliro

The USS Gerald R. Ford CNV-78 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier anchored in Faliro Bay on the morning of Thursday, July 27.

This is one of the largest ships in the world. The length of the aircraft carrier is 300 m, the crew is 5 thousand people. The US Navy intends to acquire ten of these ships to replace existing aircraft carriers, starting with the lead ship of this class, the Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), which will replace the Enterprise (CVN-65), and later the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

Its construction was officially started in November 2009, and in 2017 it was commissioned by then US President Donald Trump. The construction of the next two ships of this class has already begun.

According to CNN, the new aircraft carrier is equipped with advanced technology and, according to US Navy officials, “is about three times as powerful as the Nimitz-class ships.” It also uses an electromagnetic aircraft lifting system instead of steam catapults, and is equipped with high-tech dual-band radar.

This class of aircraft carrier is named after former US President Gerald R. Ford.

US aircraft carriers regularly visit Greece, thus demonstrating US naval power in the region.

On May 25, 2023, the news was published that a group of specialists from the Northern University of China conducted a computer simulation of the battle of the Chinese army against the American fleet. Simulations have shown that the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) is capable of destroying an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Gerald R. Ford.

How informs According to the South China Morning Post, in more than two dozen simulated battles, Chinese forces sank the carrier strike group Gerald R. Ford with a salvo of 24 hypersonic anti-ship missiles. The carrier group, in addition to the aircraft carrier itself, includes the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS San-Jacinto and four Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyers.

The simulation used two variants of hypersonic missiles with different parameters. Some of them were launched from the Gobi desert (that is, from a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers from Taiwan, where, according to the scenario, US ships approached). The blow was delivered in three waves to deceive the enemy’s air defense systems.

Scientists concluded that a relatively small number of hypersonic missiles are enough to “reliably destroy” an enemy aircraft carrier group.

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