{"id":178404,"date":"2018-12-08T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T01:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/12\/08\/so-not-reassured\/"},"modified":"2018-12-08T20:25:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-09T01:25:00","slug":"so-not-reassured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/12\/08\/so-not-reassured\/","title":{"rendered":"So Not Reassured"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 360px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/brLaKmV.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/brLaKmV.jpg\" width=\"350\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>&#8220;Helicopter Destroyer,&#8221; my ass!<\/i><\/div>\n<p>I read this yesterday, December 7, and for some reason, I was not reassured at reports that <a href=\"https:\/\/warisboring.com\/japanese-navy-could-acquire-aircraft-carriers\/\">the Japanese Navy will be reconstituting its aircraft carrier fleet<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Japanese government announced on Nov. 27, 2018 that it plans to modify its two Izumo-class helicopter carriers to support F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters. <\/p>\n<p>The announcement follows <a href=\"https:\/\/news.usni.org\/2015\/03\/25\/japan-commissions-largest-ship-since-world-war-ii\">years of speculation<\/a> that began even before Izumo commissioned into service in 2015. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince we are equipped with such vessels, it is desirable that we will use them for various purposes,\u201d Japanese defense minister Takeshi Iwaya <a href=\"https:\/\/www.janes.com\/article\/84846\/japan-considers-procuring-f-35b-for-its-izumo-class-helicopter-carriers\">told<\/a> reporters. \u201cWe would like to advance our research and studies on this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Japan\u2019s post-war constitution forbids offensive military operations. For decades, the country\u2019s leaders have interpreted the prohibition to mean the Japanese navy legally could not possess aircraft carriers.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese fleet sidestepped the carrier-ban by acquiring what it called \u201chelicopter destroyers\u201d \u2014 that is, surface warships with hangars and unusually large flight decks.<\/p>\n<p>The Izumo class stretched the credibility of the \u201chelicopter destroyer\u201d moniker. The type lacks major weaponry. Its flight deck extends from stem to stern. It\u2019s a carrier in everything but name. In practice, Izumo and sister ship Kaga, which commissioned in 2017, only have embarked helicopters.<\/p>\n<p>Each 814 feet long and displacing 27,000 tons of water while fully loaded, Izumo and Kaga are small for carriers. The U.S. Navy\u2019s supercarriers each are a thousand feet long and displace more than 100,000 tons. The Americans\u2019 amphibious assault ships \u2014 which support helicopters, AV-8B Harrier jump jets and F-35s \u2014 are around 850 feet long and displace 41,000 tons.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yep, nothing to see here, move along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Helicopter Destroyer,&#8221; my ass! I read this yesterday, December 7, and for some reason, I was not reassured at reports that the Japanese Navy will be reconstituting its aircraft carrier fleet: The Japanese government announced on Nov. 27, 2018 that it plans to modify its two Izumo-class helicopter carriers to support F-35B Lightning II stealth &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,493,379,445],"class_list":["post-178404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-japan","tag-military","tag-naval"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}