"Military and Military Sub-Plane" Author: Big Ivan
Currently, the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine has broken out for 130 days.
Yesterday: According to news from the Russian Ministry of Defense and Luhansk , the 90th Tank Division directly under the Russian Central Military District and the Luhansk People's Army troops captured the last stronghold of Luhansk Oblast, located in Beidun. Bilogorivka on the south bank of the Netsk River. This means that the entire territory of Luhansk has been captured by the Russian army and the Luhansk People's Army. The Ukrainian General Staff also issued a brief statement last night, announcing that the Ukrainian army had "withdrawn" from Lisichansk . President Zelensky came out to make up for it, saying that although the Ukrainian army had withdrawn from Lisichansk, , but we are "advancing in Kharkov , Kherson , and at sea." In short, our heroic Ukrainian army will definitely regain the land lost today.
Regarding Zelensky’s statement, Big Ivan’s point of view is: Go to bed quickly, you will have everything in your dreams. After all, from the outbreak of the conflict to the present, let's not talk about the offensive capabilities of the Russian army. However, the Ukrainian army's offensive capabilities are simply a mess. This is no problem. This can be seen from the fact that the Ukrainian army conducted 114,514 major counterattacks in Kharkov and Kherson, but had no decent results. At the same time, as the Ukrainian army is depleting more and more of its manpower, veterans with proficient combat skills are either dead or captured, either captured or missing arms and legs. Now a large number of Ukrainian troops are relying on 150 If you mobilize soldiers one by one to resist the line, it will be difficult for these soldiers to squat and defend, so there is no talk of mobile attack.
Therefore, for the Ukrainian army, it can rely on the defense arcs of Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, and Don Constantinlovka to block as much as possible The Russian army broke through this main defensive zone and caused relatively large losses to the Russian army. This is already an extraordinary performance. As for counterattack or something like that, this is not something that the Ukrainian army should consider now, so don’t dream about it.
"Shandong" ship upgrades drone deck?
Having finished talking about the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict that has gradually entered a "step-by-step" process, our eyes still have to return to the country, to the Chinese Navy's "Shandong" aircraft carrier located on the coast of the Bohai Sea and undergoing maintenance. Since the "Shandong" ship completed the maintenance in the dock a few days ago and was towed out of the dock to berth, the details of the ship have become the focus of comments among military fans from all walks of life, and everyone quickly "discovered the Hua Dian":
Liang A newly added external floating deck (Source: Dabao)
Some people discovered that the "Shandong" ship had two additional external floating decks above the bow gangway and on both sides of the deck, and before " On the "Liaoning" ship , two decks were also installed at the same position. The role of these two decks quickly attracted the attention of many military fans. In connection with previous reports from the CCTV Military Channel, the "Shandong" ship experimentally deployed small reconnaissance drones on the ship's deck. These two decks The deck is interpreted by many people as a "drone launch platform".
So, are these two "floating decks" that don't look amazing, as some military fans have speculated, are they for deploying "small drones" on aircraft carriers? What is the role of drone combat systems in the future? What is the significance of the Chinese Navy aircraft carrier? Will the Chinese aircraft carrier deploy many types of drones in the future?
Let’s talk about the first question first. In fact, judging from the appearance and position of the two external floating decks, it is obvious that it has little to do with the use of drones on the ship. After all, the area of the two decks is too small. There is not enough space for the human-machine take-off platform or the space for installing the drone launch rail.Of course, if you want to say that a "DJI" drone can be deployed here, and it can fly up and take selfies on the aircraft carrier, then Ivan didn't say that.
The small baffle is located just behind and above the HQ-10 short-range point air defense weapon system on the bow platform of the "Shandong" ship. (Source: Dagong Wenhui.com)
The installation position of these two decks is just above and behind the HQ-10 short-range point air defense weapon system on the "Shandong" ship's ramp. We all know that the HQ-10 close-in defense weapon system has a procedure for throwing the rear cover and thermal launch when launching the barrel. In this procedure, the rear cover thrown by the gas may be thrown onto the flight deck. When ignited, gunpowder and gas will be sprayed onto the flight deck.
However, whether it is the discarded back cover or the gunpowder gas that may contain solid rocket propellant residue, as long as it is sprayed on the flight deck, it may pose a threat to flight safety. If the HQ-10 close-in defense weapon system happens to be used when organizing the take-off of the carrier-based aircraft , then the gunpowder gas sprayed back may interfere with the carrier-based aircraft's take-off route.
Therefore, from this point of view, it is a natural option to add a spoiler above the HQ-10 close-in defense weapon system to block the back cover thrown by the HQ-10 system and the gunpowder gas sprayed back. This floating structure that looks like a deck is actually just two spoilers for the HQ-10 weapon system. At the same time, this kind of use of aircraft carriers to enter the factory for maintenance and PIA (planned incremental maintenance) cycles to carry out corresponding technical modifications is a normal thing for both the Chinese Navy and the US Navy's aircraft carriers.
"Liaoning" ship island has been painted with hull number "16"
For example, "Liaoning" aircraft carrier , the deck markings and waterline painting of the "Liaoning" aircraft carrier have been changed many times. , the "16" sign on the aircraft carrier island was also painted and erased. During a DPIA (Planned Docking Incremental Maintenance) cycle, the portholes on the ship island and the appearance of the flight control room were even changed, from Soviet-style small portholes to American-style large portholes. It looked like It’s really a lot more foreign-styled. This is the first time that the "Shandong" ship has entered the factory to start the PIA (Planned Incremental Maintenance) cycle. Technical additions and modifications are also indispensable, so just take it lightly.
China’s aircraft carrier’s future drone squadron
Now that it is clear that this unique floating deck is no different from the deployment of drones on the "Shandong" ship. So, will the future Chinese Navy aircraft carrier be incorporated into the corresponding drone squadron in the carrier-based aircraft force? Big Ivan believes that the possibility is not only possible, but also quite large, from three aspects:
As we mentioned before, the "Liaoning" ship has already started the experiment of deploying drones on the aircraft carrier some time ago. Of course, the deployment Or a small drone. From the appearance point of view, it is a brigade-level reconnaissance drone. The reconnaissance range is not large enough, and the airborne time is not long enough. Compared with large drones, the detection capabilities are average. At most, it can assist in detection at medium and short distances. Let’s take a look at the sea surface targets, such as unmanned boats, submarines periscopes and so on. However, judging from this technology trend, we can already find that the Chinese Navy has begun to consider putting drones on ships.
The U.S. Navy One of the main technical advantages of the electromagnetic ejection device of the "Ford" class aircraft carrier is that it can also support the operation of large-scale carrier-based drones.Of course, the U.S. Navy is currently also cautious about the issue of ship-based drones on ships. Currently, there is no trend of main combat drones being put on ships.
The MQ-25A "Stingray" drone performs aerial refueling for F-35
In the 2025 version of the carrier air wing compiled by the US military, it only mentions the intention to deploy an MQ-25A type ship on the aircraft carrier in 2025. A squadron of unmanned tankers. This type of UAV mainly serves the U.S. Navy's distributed lethality and long-range engagement capabilities. To put it bluntly, it intends to release carrier-based aircraft from the second island chain, and follow the air relay method to carry out carrier-based aircraft one by one. The machine is transported to the first island chain of and goes inside .
The MQ-25 carrier-based UAV was transported to the USS Bush for sea trials
Of course, as a carrier-based UAV with a relatively flexible configuration, the MQ-25A UAV will appear in reconnaissance configurations in the future. It is not a difficult matter to build a drone or an integrated surveillance and attack configuration. It is a high probability event that the US Navy carrier air wing will deploy an integrated surveillance and attack drone before 2030.
Finally, from the perspective of the tactical missions they undertake, future integrated surveillance and combat drones and even combat drones will have considerable technical advantages in high-intensity battles. After all, in air combat, the future fourth-generation manned fighter jets will bring multiple unmanned wingmen to expand the scope of airspace situational awareness, enhance the ability of sustained air combat, and even serve as air combat decoys. This is basically a confirmed form of combat. At present, everyone They are all developing in this direction.
In ground attacks, attack drones with low detectability performance have greater technical advantages than manned fighter jets. They can undertake high-intensity ground attack missions in some high-threat airspaces, and have become the future The direction of air force equipment development. Since air force equipment has developed in this way, then naval equipment will naturally follow the same development trajectory, at least there will be a big difference between the two. Therefore, from this perspective, it is tactically necessary for the naval carrier aviation to deploy drones, especially large-scale surveillance and combat drones or even combat drones.
Of course, there is still a long way to go from "necessity", "certainty" and "high probability event" to the actual deployment of carrier-based drones on aircraft carriers. After all, compared with the U.S. Navy, which has already mastered the MQ-25A UAV and is preparing to launch an aircraft carrier, the Chinese Navy has not yet unveiled a corresponding model, and our demand for aircraft carrier-based unmanned tankers is certainly not as high as that of the U.S. Navy. urgent. What we need more is a carrier-based aircraft-inspection and attack-integrated UAV similar to the land-based attack-11 UAV, and this is the shortest and fastest way to directly develop a carrier-based attack-11 UAV. Carrier aircraft model, and shipboard testing will be carried out at the same time.
attack-11 drone
At the same time, due to the old Soviet-style aircraft carrier foundation of the "Liaoning" ship and the "Shandong" ship, the tactical missions undertaken by these two aircraft carriers are relatively specialized air defense interception missions, which seem to be similar to deployment. This kind of attack drone is a bit inconsistent. Only large-scale flat-deck aircraft carriers such as the "Fujian" have the objective conditions to operate integrated surveillance and attack drones, which will limit the time for our military's large-scale drones to board the ship and form combat effectiveness.
However, in any case, now that it is clear that loading large drones on ships is the future technological development direction, our aircraft carrier-based aircraft forces will inevitably work hard in this direction. Maybe at this year's Zhuhai Air Show, we will see models of a new generation of naval carrier-based drones in the aviation industry model exhibition hall, let us look forward to it together.
