On June 17, 2022, amid the cheers of military fans and the expectations of the Chinese people, my country’s domestic aircraft carrier No. 003 was launched. After
was launched, No. 003 was officially named the "Fujian Ship". As a result, our country "held" three aircraft carriers, Liaoning, Shandong, and Fujian, and officially entered the stage of multi- aircraft carrier battle groups , becoming what people call it "World Powers".
As the Fujian ship sets sail, Chinese netizens can finally imagine the future combat scenarios of domestically produced aircraft carrier groups. Many military enthusiasts use existing information and war film clips to assist them in imagining the Fujian ship's operations. Live.
However, after watching these relevant war materials, everyone suddenly discovered that aircraft carriers seem to be very "explosion-resistant" existence.
For example, the USS Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier "America" was used as a target for live-fire testing by the US military when it was decommissioned. However, no matter how hard the US side tried, the Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier remained unsinkable. In the end, after 25 days, Three-sided attacks by sea, land and air, coupled with the installation of high-explosives, allowed the Kitty Hawk-class "America" aircraft carrier to be successfully "buried" into the Atlantic Ocean.
In this regard, some netizens suggested that the reason why the aircraft carrier is "explosion resistant" is mainly due to the five-meter-thick protective steel plate.
But are the steel plates of aircraft carriers really five meters thick? How many countries can manufacture such "explosion-resistant" steel plates?
"Five-meter steel plate": a myth in actual combat, over-exaggeration
Let's answer the first question first: it is impossible for the steel plate of existing aircraft carriers to reach five meters. The "five-meter steel plate" was completely created by aircraft carriers during World War II Just a myth.”
What contributed to this myth was the sinking of three US aircraft carriers from May to October 1942.
The first is the Coral Sea Battle on May 8, 1942, where the USS Lexington aircraft carrier fought fiercely against the Japanese aircraft carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku of the Fifth Air Force.
Although the Lexington was unfortunately sunk, it withstood the bombardment of 2 torpedoes and 2 heavy bombs by the Japanese army. "Last hit", and finally came to an end.
Then came the Battle of Midway after January. In this battle, the USS Yorktown withstood three bombs and two torpedoes from the Japanese carrier-based aircraft , and was also bombarded by the Japanese submarine . After being hit by 2 torpedoes and even being impacted by the destroyer that exploded nearby, it finally sank. The total withstand load was as high as 4 torpedoes and 3 heavy bombs.
The "Hornet" US aircraft carrier in the Battle of Santa Cruz in October was even more exaggerated. After being bombarded by 3 torpedoes and 5 bombs from Japanese carrier-based aircraft, the hull only tilted.
However, the US military did not want the "Hornet" to lose power and be captured by the Japanese army, so it fired 9 torpedoes at the "Hornet" and fired more than 400 127mm artillery shells, which completely eliminated the possibility of capturing the "Hornet" .
Seeing that there was no hope of capturing the Hornet, the Japanese army issued 4 more torpedoes. Under the bombardment of a total of 16 torpedoes, 5 blockbuster bombs and hundreds of artillery shells, the "Hornet" finally sank in the sea.
It was through the "resistance" of these three US aircraft carriers that the world was reminded that the steel plates of the aircraft carriers may be five meters thick.
However, Lenovo can only be Lenovo, because if the steel plate is five meters thick, the entire structure of the aircraft carrier will become very unreasonable.
According to the structure of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier announced by the United States, we can find that the aircraft carrier has a total of nine layers of structure from top to bottom, which means that the aircraft carrier will have ten steel plates in the longitudinal direction. If according to the "five-meter steel plate" Assume that the thickness of the steel plate alone on that aircraft carrier can reach 50 meters.
Moreover, this thickness does not include the functional area. If these reserved spaces are also included, the depth and height must exceed 70 meters.
However, the depth of the Nimitz aircraft carrier is actually only 30.64 meters. Whether it is the previously expected 50 meters or the imagined 70 meters, there is a huge gap between them.
This means that the "five-meter steel plate" statement is definitely wrong and not scientific.
How thick is the steel plate of the aircraft carrier?
Aircraft carrier’s steel plate: Thickness is not important
Judging from Nimitz’s shape depth and number of steel plate layers, the thickness of the aircraft carrier’s steel plate is actually not too thick, and may even appear “thin” compared to previous estimates. ".
Some people may find it impossible. After all, how can thin steel plates withstand the bombardment of torpedoes and artillery shells.
But this is the fact. According to the existing published data, the thickest protective armor of many aircraft carriers does not exceed 330mm. Note that the unit is millimeters. If the unit is "meter", then this number will become 0.33.
Moreover, this extremely thick protective armor will not be equipped on the entire ship. They will only be equipped on some extremely important parts, such as the periphery of the command room and the protection of the weapons depot.
Except for these important positions, the other parts of the armor look a bit "poor".
For example, the thickness of the ten internal steel surfaces we mentioned earlier is basically between 4 and 18 mm, which makes some interlayer steel plates even less thick than a mobile phone.
The "exposed" steel plates of the aircraft carrier are relatively thick, basically reaching 23-28 mm, which is slightly thicker than the internal steel plate sandwich, but it is only a few millimeters thicker, even if it enters the water Part of the steel plate armor is only 230 mm.
But these seemingly "thin" steel materials can really block the bombardment of artillery shells and torpedoes. For example, the 230 mm underwater steel mentioned in the previous paragraph can withstand torpedo bombardment.
Therefore, the steel of the aircraft carrier can be summed up in one word---------"It is more about quality than thickness".
Therefore, this makes the strength of aircraft carrier steel must be extremely high, even to the point of "terrible". They must simultaneously meet the requirements of high and low temperature resistance, non-deformation, corrosion resistance, high toughness, high strength, large layout, and resistance to corrosion. magnetic.
After all, as an all-weather combat weapon, an aircraft carrier will inevitably encounter extremely cold or extremely hot environments. At this time, high and low temperature resistance must become a basic attribute of steel.
Then the sea is not always calm. Hurricane waves and the maneuvers of the aircraft carrier itself will cause the aircraft carrier steel to withstand extremely strong forces, so the characteristics of "non-deformation" and "high toughness" are also necessary.
It is precisely because aircraft carriers operate in the sea, the steel must be able to resist the corrosion of seawater. In addition, the aircraft carrier itself is still a military unit, which means that it is inevitable to encounter war. Therefore, strong, high and large layout have also become aircraft carrier steel Our “required courses”.
At the same time, changes in modern information and radar warfare have put the behemoth aircraft carrier at a great disadvantage. This has led to the need for aircraft carrier steel to be "anti-magnetic", so as to maximize the protection against detection by enemy magnetic detection equipment.
It can be seen from this that every piece of aircraft carrier steel is an "all-rounder". In industry terms, it is called " special steel ". So where does this kind of special steel come from?
Production of special steel: only three countries, development is bitter
As mentioned above, aircraft carriers have many and extremely strict requirements for steel, which means that the forging and smelting of special steel must also be extremely technical.
First of all, it is resistant to high and low temperatures and corrosion. This is something that most other countries can do. It can be said that any country that can produce its own steel can do it.
But if you add "anti-deformation" and "high toughness", this will screen out a large number of countries, because the characteristics of pure steel itself cannot meet this attribute at all, which makes it necessary to add nickel, chromium, and aluminum when producing steel. , vanadium and other elements, and it is not added blindly, it must be proportioned according to the proportion.
It is precisely this matching process that will cause many countries with incomplete industrial supporting facilities to be "daunted".
However, the aircraft carrier special steel is not finished at this step, because there is still an "anti-magnetic" property that is not satisfied.The attribute
sounds easy to understand, but it should be noted that magnetism is a characteristic that steel cannot get rid of. This means that if you want special steel to be antimagnetic, you must directly change the attribute ratio in the steel, not just add some elements. simple.
Moreover, these complex attributes must be reflected together, which leads to a geometric increase in the difficulty of forging special steel. From this, it can also be seen that countries that can forge special steel must have strong strength.
Therefore, looking at the world, there are currently only three countries that can manufacture this kind of aircraft carrier steel: the United States, the Soviet Union, and China.
Among them, the United States enjoyed the talent and technological dividends from the first and second world wars, which enabled the United States to quickly develop complex and superb special steel.
Russia has this leading technology only by taking over the "mantle" of the Soviet Union.
However, our country suffered humiliation and blows in the world war, so it is not as "lucky" as the above two. On the contrary, the research on my country's special steel technology is still a bit bitter.
In 2000, my country, through a tourism company in Macau, reached a deal with Ukraine for the "Varyag" aircraft carrier --- purchasing an empty aircraft carrier shell for US$20 million. Although
encountered extortion from Turkey when hauling the empty shell of the aircraft carrier, fortunately Greece came to help, and finally the Varyag successfully arrived in China.
However, new problems also emerged.
The "Varyag" is a ship whose production was interrupted due to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the Varyag itself has not completed all assembly, which means that China must complete the remaining production alone.
But producing an aircraft carrier is not easy, especially the production of special steel, which is simply unheard of for China.
Therefore, China asked the United States and Russia, which were able to produce at the time, for help, but what they received in exchange was the indifference of the two countries, which made China feel a little helpless.
Fortunately, Anshan Iron and Steel (Ansteel) Group stepped forward and promptly broke through the production process of aircraft carrier special steel at such an urgent juncture, which was a real rescue of the country.
This allowed the "Varyag" to quickly complete assembly and was successfully delivered to the Navy in 2012 and named " Liaoning ", becoming the Republic's first aircraft carrier.
This sounds a bit easy, but in fact it is a very difficult thing to do. The best proof is the unlimited "bounce" of of India's "Vikrant" aircraft carrier.
According to relevant information, India's aircraft carrier began to be manufactured in 1999. However, due to insufficient supply of special steel , the assembly of the "Vikrant" aircraft carrier has been continuously delayed.
has not been launched even today. According to Indian officials, it will be launched in August this year, but everyone still holds a "pessimistic" attitude towards this. After all, there is no breakthrough in self-produced special steel technology, and many processes must rely on foreign supplies. , which makes India’s progress in building aircraft carriers unable to be “autonomous” at all.
However, looking back at our country, during the "delay" time of the Indian aircraft carrier, our country has successively completed the construction of three aircraft carriers, "Liaoning", "Shandong" and "Fujian".
For such a powerful aircraft carrier "capacity", we should be grateful to the scientists who worked hard for it and the workers responsible for the construction of the aircraft carrier. Because of their existence, China made a deafening roar.
References
[1] "How is aircraft carrier steel produced?" 》--------Lanqi.com
【2】《Break the monopoly of the United States and Russia! It is extremely difficult for China to build high-strength special steel for aircraft carriers. How did it do it? 》-------Sina.com
【3】《How difficult is it to make special steel for aircraft carriers? Only two countries in the world can produce and ban exports, but China has successfully caught up" --------- Strait News
[4] "Indian "Vikrant" aircraft carrier: wandering between "building blocks" and " "Between Rubik's Cube" development models" --------- Xinhuanet
[5] "What kind of steel is used in aircraft carriers? 》--------Zhonggang.com Information
