Quote:
Originally Posted by RWebb
Virtually every country with a coastline has a navy of some sort. Most are like our Coast Guard - near shore coastal defense. But, several countries have real-live "Blue Water" Navies.
As an aspiring regional or world power, India - like China - has more than one might think. The Chinese recently 'floated' their plans for a carrier. Several countries have 1 or 2; we have 10 or 11.
Building helicopter type carriers makes sense for many countries - they are well-suited to coastal defense, anti-piracy/hijacking, and to the coming relief ops that will be needed as more and larger coastal cities are hit by storms and flooding. They are also a good R&D project preliminary to building your own big-ass 24 hr. round the clock attack carrier fleet....
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India has a very good navy...including two surplus British carriers and a bunch of subs. They fly a wide variety of aircraft from their surface ships.
We have come to look down on smaller navies because we don't think they are very, "sophisticated".
How's that working out for the pirates?
The US Navy is still stuck on the 11 aircraft carrier paradigm and doesn't seem willing to budge...much like the Battleship navy of the 20's and 30's.