The main weapons and equipment of an aircraft carrier are all kinds of carrier aircraft it carries. Fighters, bombers, early warning aircraft, fixed-wing anti-submarine aircraft, electronic fighters, rescue helicopters and other aircraft carriers. Use carrier-based aircraft for air interception and sea-to-land attack, and directly destroy the enemy in the area hundreds of kilometers away from the carrier. Carrier-based aircraft is the best attack and defense weapon for aircraft carriers. No shipborne radar can exceed the scanning range of early warning aircraft, no shipborne anti-ship missile can exceed the range of fighter, and no shipborne anti-submarine equipment can exceed the anti-submarine capability of anti-submarine aircraft or anti-submarine helicopter. The entire carrier battle group can search, track, lock and attack hostile targets hundreds of kilometers away under the overall control and command of the carrier, so there is no need to install other offensive weapons.

Aircraft carriers are also equipped with self-defense weapons, including artillery weapons and missile weapons. The aircraft carrier of the former Soviet Union was also equipped with long-range ship-to-ship missiles. From this point of view, the aircraft carrier of the former Soviet Union is "a mixture of aircraft carrier and cruiser". There are also air defense, anti-ship and even anti-submarine missiles, and self-defense weapons are unambiguous, which plays a great role in self-protection.

function

As a platform to support the navy's three-dimensional air and sea operations, modern aircraft carriers should have the following main functions:

Operate, maintain and support combat aircraft, allow aircraft types to be updated during the service period, and provide basic command and control functions.

Have sufficient maneuvering speed and certain self-protection ability.

Have the ability to effectively take off and land combat aircraft.

Capable of taking off and landing fighters at the same time

Have the ability of quick air alert attack.

Allow long-term continuous air missions.

Allows air missions to be performed with reduced power output.

Takeoff device

Steam ejection take-off? Using a flat deck as an airstrip, the steam-driven ejection device drives the plane to take off in two seconds.

An F 18 is ready for ejection.

Flight speed. Only the United States has the mature technology to produce this steam catapult. From the working principle, the steam catapult uses high-pressure steam to push the piston to drive the slider on the ejection track to eject the carrier aircraft connected with it. It is huge, consumes a lot of steam and wastes a lot of electricity when working. Only about 6% steam is used. In order to manufacture and transport steam, the aircraft carrier should be equipped with seawater desalination devices, large boilers and countless pipelines, which has an amazing workload and maintenance. Its biggest drawback is that it is too powerful to launch drones. Because of its light weight, active unmanned aerial vehicles are likely to be torn by acceleration during ejection.

There are two ways of steam injection:

One is front wheel traction ejection? In 1964, the US Navy successfully tested that the front wheel bracket of carrier aircraft is equipped with a traction rod, and the front wheel is directly hung on the carriage. During ejection, the sled directly pulls the front wheel of the aircraft to accelerate takeoff, so that the personnel on the 8- 10 deck do not need to hang the towing cable, which shortens the ejection time and shortens the directional safety of the aircraft. However, the front wheel of this carrier-based aircraft is specially designed, and this take-off mode is adopted by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the US Navy.

The other is traction ejection? As the name implies, it is an ancient ejection method to use steel tow rope to tow aircraft to accelerate takeoff, which is not as good as the former in all aspects. Only the French Kerry Duhamel Du Monceau class aircraft carrier is used. When towing the catapult, the deck personnel first hang the plane on the skid with a steel towing rope, and then fix its tail with the rear end of the catapult with a steering release lever. In the process of ejection, the sliding block dashed forward will break the fixed tension bolt on the index release lever, resulting in the rapid acceleration of the aircraft along the track. At the end of the flight path, the plane accelerates to the straight takeoff speed and leaves the deck, and the towing cable falls off the plane. The slider returns to the starting point of the catapult to prepare for the next work.

Ski jumping and taking off? Some aircraft carriers have a "platform" at the front of their deck to help the aircraft take off. Even if the front of the deck is inclined upwards, the carrier aircraft rushes out of the deck along the inclined slope at a certain speed that has not yet reached the take-off speed, forming an oblique throwing motion.

Taxi and take off

Continue to accelerate in the air within a distance of (tens of meters) to reach the take-off speed. This take-off mode does not need a complicated ejection device, but the weight of the aircraft is not as good as that of steam ejection during take-off, which limits the oil load, bomb load, range and operational radius of the carrier aircraft to some extent. Due to technical limitations, Britain, Italian, Indian, China, Russian and other countries can't develop a steam catapult that can really pass the technical and technological barrier, so they can only use the sliding deck on their own aircraft carriers. An aircraft carrier using a take-off carrier-based aircraft must sail against the wind at a speed of more than 20 knots (36 km/h) when the carrier-based aircraft takes off, so as to improve the relative speed of the carrier-based aircraft and help the carrier-based aircraft take off.