China says its aircraft carrier is combat ready - here's how it stacks up to other world powers'
This is China's only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. Like much of China's military hardware, the Liaoning is a reworking of an older Russian-made model.
Over the last four years, China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had to build up carrier operations out of nothing. It has never operated an aircraft carrier before, so it faced a steep learning curve.
The Liaoning launches planes off a "ski-jump" style deck because it lacks the catapults that US carriers have.
This means that the J-15 Flying Shark aircraft that take off from the Liaoning can't carry as much fuel or as many bombs as the US's carrier based planes can. This greatly limits their range and effectiveness in combat.
But while the planes must travel light, the Liaoning boasts a heavy arsenal of its own.
China has announced building at least one other carrier. Here satellite imagery reveals the second carrier will have a modular design, but still conform to the ski-jump" mold of the Liaoning.
Source: Business Insider
The Admiral Kuznetsov, which the Liaoning is based on, is Russia's sole aircraft carrier. The ships have the same size and speed, and they both feature the "ski-jump" platform.
The Kuznetsov, currently carrying out its first combat deployment in the Mediterranean bolstering the Syrian regime, has a troubled past plagued with mechanical difficulties. Everywhere it sails, a tug boat accompanies it in case it breaks down, as was the case in 2012.
China's southern neighbor India operates two smaller aircraft carriers with a third in production, but they are more reliable. In 2014, the Liaoning experienced unexpected power failures while at sea.
For the past few years, the Liaoning has been designated a training vessel.
Source: Business Insider
China's eastern neighbor, Japan, has smaller "helicopter destroyers," or flat deck carriers that sport helicopters and short or vertical takeoff aircraft as well as heavy armaments and missiles.
Source: Business Insider
But Japan has a trick up its sleeve. Japan recently launched a larger class of helicopter carrier, the Izumo class. Soon, these carriers will support the F-35B marine variant, which experts expect will provide unprecedented dominance in the air and seas.
Source: Jeff Head
But the US is the world's undisputed king of carriers. The USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the US Navy's 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, is larger and carries more planes than the Liaoning, and it features catapults to launch heavier planes.
US carriers boast nuclear powered cores, so they can sail around the globe without being refueled or relying on tankers.
Pound for pound, US carriers don't carry as many weapons as their foreign counterparts, but they travel in strike groups, which include guided missile destroyers to defend them.
Not pictured: submarines.
Furthermore, the US is developing an even larger, more advanced class of aircraft carrier with an outsized power core to support weapons of the future like railguns and lasers.
Also, US carriers use a whole team of aircraft: Transport planes handle logistics; electronic warfare squadrons backup fighters; airborne warning and control planes (AWACS, like the E-2 Hawkeye pictured below) transmit huge amounts of targeting data from the sky; helicopters hunt submarines and move personnel.
To put things in perspective, this graphic shows the relative sizes of aircraft carriers from around the world.
And let's not forget that the US has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined.
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