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Another view.
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I asked commenters whether this remarkable, undoctored photo was a near miss on a US Nimitz class carrier by one of China's DF-21D anti-ship "carrier killer" ballistic missiles?
The mystery is solved. China is blameless as no missile
was fired and none missed.
In the comments section:
Vigilis advised: "Normally the first ship in a
class, in this case [USS Nimitz (CVN-68)], would be shock tested prior to
deployment. However, Nimitz was never tested and the testing fell to [USS Theodore
Roosevelt (CVN-71)].
This was in mostly in accord with the link provided by Anonymous http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/top-tester-tells-navy-to-test-carrier-destroyer-defenses-with-real-missiles-explosions/ .
I mainly used the last few paragraphs of the link to reflect possible reasons why USS Theodore
Roosevelt was shock tested and not USS Nimitz. Reasons include:
- shock testing takes time and money - particularly time. If the US Navy has tested the Nimitz itself, it would take months more to enter service at a time when the carrier fleet was too small, mainly conventionally propelled and too old to perform all its roles.
- testing the Nimitz carried more technical risk because it was first of class. On the other hand testing the Roosevelt, which had a longer technical track record built on years of experience with the Nimitz, involved lower technical risk and more clarity in the test results. So shock testing is placed on the second of class or even later.
- another major reason to shock test the Roosevelt first and not the Nimitz first was that unlike the Nimitz the Roosevelt and all succeeding Nimitz class carriers were built using modular
construction. So the Roosevelt was probably more typical of the whole Nimitz class than the Nimitz
itself.
“Daffy D” indicates hands on experience in
commenting:
“...The ship Teddy Roosevelt is undergoing Shock
Trials. I think it was 1987. How do I know? Because I used to be part of a team
that did such trials. My job: set up the mitigations and get the environmental
clearances. Cheers”
Anonymous (of March 7, 2015 at 11:08 PM) provided a RT ("Russia Today") article which gave useful coverage of the carrier Roosevelt's
embarrassing exercise "sinking" by a French SSN.
The RT article article carried an excellent Youtube http://youtu.be/ogmVzCqkTAI of the effects of a shock-trial on those aboard the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill. The effects indicated why a ship chosen for a shock-trial takes months to recover.
The RT article article carried an excellent Youtube http://youtu.be/ogmVzCqkTAI of the effects of a shock-trial on those aboard the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill. The effects indicated why a ship chosen for a shock-trial takes months to recover.
Thanks All
Regards
Regards