Monday, June 9, 2008

Underwater Carriers, Just A Fantasy?


During the boom in aircraft carrier production in WWII, Japan developed the only official submersable aircraft carriers ever to exist. These carriers, while clumsy (the aircraft needed to be reassembled to load/unload), proved to be a working concept. However, surface carriers became the exclusive choice post-war.
However, in the modern day, aircraft carriers are now a symbol of both navy and air supremacy; nuclear submarines remain the stealthiest yet most powerful aquatic vessels. Combining the two concepts could create a weapon system that could, theoretically, be secretly traversed around the globe while able to achieve temporary air supremacy.
Such a weapon could also hold its own inter-continental ballistic missiles (like most subs), which could have the capacity to strike dozens of targets with a strategic nuclear strike (due to MIRV technology). It's aircraft would not be conventional fighters though, most probably VTOL craft (Harriers or F-35) or a tube-launched UCAV (unpiloted combat air vehicle).
The above photo is a CGI of the Hrimfaxi, which is one of two sister ships in the game "Ace Combat 5". In the game, both the Hrimfaxi and Scinfaxi become the most feared Yuktobanian weapon systems because of their ability to deploy anti-aircraft burst missiles from untouchable distances and with stealth. The aircraft on board was used for self-defensive purposes. In reality, the most likely canidate for such a craft would be a Russian Typhoon class nuclear submarine because of their immense size and luxuries.

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