The UK Daily Mail’s headline, as shown on Google, read “USS America aircraft carrier steams to intercept Chinese ships…”
The story behind the headline is that the USS America and the guided-missile destroyer USS Bunker Hill are being deployed to intercept a Chinese government survey ship and several Chinese Coast Guard vessels in a contested stretch of the South China Sea near Malaysia. US officials have accused China of taking advantage of the distraction posed by the coronavirus outbreak to increase its maritime presence in the region. The deployment of the USS America Expeditionary Strike Group is intended as a show of force.
Despite the Google headline, the USS America is not, at least according to the US Navy, an aircraft carrier. She is a Landing Helicopter Assault ship (LHA). Nevertheless, she has a flight deck and can launch and land jet fighters, as well as tiltrotor aircraft and a variety of types of helicopters. In addition to her operating crew of just over a thousand, she can also carry an expeditionary unit of 1,871 Marines.
With the Nimitz class carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt tied up in Guam attempting to cope with an outbreak of the coronavirus, USS America is the most powerful US naval vessel available in the Pacific.
The USS America is almost a carrier. She is the same size as the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle and India’s INS Vikramaditya, although a bit smaller than the RFS Admiral Kuzetsov or her Chinese sister, the Liaoning. America is considerably larger than recent aircraft-carrying ships constructed for the Korean, Japanese, and Australian navies. In most navies around the world, USS America would be considered to be an aircraft carrier in her own right.
To be fair, despite the Google headline, the Daily Mail article distinguishes between an aircraft carrier and a helicopter assault ship. That being said, whether helicopter carriers should be counted as aircraft carriers has been the topic of some discussion. While the US Navy considers only the 10 Nimitz class ships and the USS Gerald Ford to be carriers, other sources include the 9 US helicopter assault ships as carriers in order to fairly compare their capabilities to other national navies around the world.
Whatever her designation may be, the USS America is a formidable ship.
Helicopters and jets are aircraft, are they not? USS America carries aircraft, therefore, despite weird USN prejudices, she is an aircraft carrier.
Adam, USN prejudices are very durable, sad to say.
Shouldnt it be classified as a “pocket carrier” instead?
For those of us in the Submarine world she is, just like all surface vessels, nothing more than a target. A big target for sure, but still just a target that carries plane.
The Navy’s distinction is pretty much based on whether they have catapults or not, and thus can launch non VSTOL planes.
“For those of us in the Submarine world she is, just like all surface vessels, nothing more than a target.”
Given that submarines have losing records as war-winning weapons, I’m not sure I’d be entirely so dismissive.
A WW2 Cruiser looks just like WW2 Battleship but if you called it one everyone else would say you were ignorant.