They admitted to shooting down a missile with CIWS, which is basically saying “it got close enough to shoot with a giant machine gun,” and even that can spray the ship with shrapnel. They’re definitely keen not to have that happen again.
I do wonder how much jet fuel a carrier can actually hold, like how long can they do 24/7 flights for? Do they have tankers for jet fuel as well?
They can refuel ships at sea so I assume they can keep the jet fuel topped up. They don’t have any ability to reload ship-launched missiles at sea, though, so if they run out they have to go back to a port with the capability to resupply those. I understand they fire two anti-missile missiles for every interception attempt, so it seems pretty likely they’d have ripped through their magazines pretty quickly.
Yes. Shit tons of fuel. Stored around and underneath on the bottom of the carriers. We used to grab a bit when we needed to clean up paint spills. JP5 is some potent stuff.
Then they duck out and get regular refuelings at sea. These refuelings at sea are a particualr vulnerable time for both the merchant marine tanker ship and the carrier. They are very very close to each other, hooked up by multiple lines, have almost no maneuverability during the procedure.
They admitted to shooting down a missile with CIWS, which is basically saying “it got close enough to shoot with a giant machine gun,” and even that can spray the ship with shrapnel. They’re definitely keen not to have that happen again.
I do wonder how much jet fuel a carrier can actually hold, like how long can they do 24/7 flights for? Do they have tankers for jet fuel as well?
They can refuel ships at sea so I assume they can keep the jet fuel topped up. They don’t have any ability to reload ship-launched missiles at sea, though, so if they run out they have to go back to a port with the capability to resupply those. I understand they fire two anti-missile missiles for every interception attempt, so it seems pretty likely they’d have ripped through their magazines pretty quickly.
Yes. Shit tons of fuel. Stored around and underneath on the bottom of the carriers. We used to grab a bit when we needed to clean up paint spills. JP5 is some potent stuff.
Then they duck out and get regular refuelings at sea. These refuelings at sea are a particualr vulnerable time for both the merchant marine tanker ship and the carrier. They are very very close to each other, hooked up by multiple lines, have almost no maneuverability during the procedure.
:wkuk-you-can-not-say-that-trevor: