Who could have thought that the USS Truman, an American aircraft carrier, was damaged and had not been repaired for 8 months. What's more ridiculous is that the Truman collided with a civilian cargo ship in the Persian Gulf, causing a noticeable dent on the side of the ship. These events not only embarrassed the Pentagon but also sparked global doubts about whether the U.S. military, the world's top force, has fallen into a systemic crisis.

What's even more troubling for the U.S. military is that if the Truman goes for repairs, it's not just about when it will get a spot, but also when it will actually be fixed. It's worth noting that the United States currently has only four active aircraft carriers: the "Washington," the "Carl Vinson," the "Truman," and the "Nimitz." If the Truman goes for repairs, only three will remain operational.

For the United States, the speed of maintenance and repair of warships is comparable to the speed of shipbuilding. For example, the Los Angeles-class attack submarine "Boise" (SSN-764) has been out of service since 2015 waiting for repairs, and it didn't start being repaired until 2024, with an estimated completion date in 2030, meaning a waiting time of 15 years. Everyone remembers the Sea Wolf-class submarine "Connecticut" that collided with another ship in the South China Sea a few years ago, which is still not in the drydock and is left exposed to the elements. Why hasn't it been repaired yet? Because there are no empty drydocks at the American shipyards!

Currently, over 100 military ships are waiting for repairs or are in a backlog at American shipyards. As a contrast, on March 26, 2024, the "DALI" cargo ship collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the bridge to collapse and the bow of the ship to be severely damaged. The "DALI" cargo ship came to the East China Shipyard in Fujian, China, and completed the repair in two months.

But these are not the worst things. What the U.S. military fears most is that Chinese sanctions have paralyzed its only aircraft carrier shipyard.

It's important to note that at least the U.S. aircraft carriers can still queue up for repairs. If the shipyard were to be paralyzed, there would be no hope of even queuing for repairs.

Recently, China sanctioned Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and its Newport News Shipbuilding subsidiary, the core reason being that the company has long been involved in arms sales to Taiwan, providing design technology and critical components for ships to the region.

At the same time, this is a countermeasure against the U.S. frequent use of "national security" as an excuse to suppress China's shipbuilding industry in recent years — the U.S. launched a Section 301 investigation against China, imposed high port fees, and restricted cooperation, attempting to hinder the development of China's shipbuilding industry.

This directly caused severe damage to the already weak American shipyards. First, the cutoff of key equipment supply led to production paralysis: the Ingalls Shipbuilding division of HII relies on 70,000-ton floating dock parts and maintenance services supplied by China, and the inventory can only last for 3 months. European alternatives cost four times more and take 18 months to deliver, directly dragging down the construction of the Ford-class aircraft carriers and the major maintenance of existing carriers.

Secondly, the blockade of strategic materials like rare earths dealt a fatal blow. After China cut off the supply of neodymium-iron-boron magnets and nuclear reactor alloys, the second Ford-class aircraft carrier "Kennedy" faced delays in delivery from 2022 to 2030 due to shortages of components for its electromagnetic catapult system and nuclear power plant. The third carrier "Enterprise" has already stopped. The Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarines face technical bottlenecks due to the rare earth supply disruption, with the first vessel's cost soaring to $16 billion, equivalent to 1.5 times that of the Fujian carrier.

Additionally, the entire American shipbuilding industry chain has suffered setbacks. A sharp decline in demand for military steel has reduced the utilization rate of domestic steel mills from 80% to below 65%, exacerbating issues of aging equipment and labor shortages. The U.S. Navy's "355-ship plan" has completely failed, and the current capability to deploy aircraft carriers is only one-third of what it used to be.

Therefore, what the United States is most afraid of is that Chinese sanctions will paralyze its shipyards, which not only means new warships cannot be built, but also that the maintenance and repair of warships will become impossible.

It should be noted that the weapons and equipment of the United States have already seriously affected their combat effectiveness due to lack of necessary maintenance. The reason for this is that there are not enough workers in the U.S.

Moreover, many suppliers who provide related parts have gone bankrupt. The simplest example is that the U.S. cruisers were supposed to retire, but the U.S. spent over $4 billion upgrading and maintaining them, but after spending the money, they still retired. Why? Because although they spent the money on maintenance, they ultimately couldn't use them anymore.

The problems caused by prolonged service and lack of proper maintenance have made the actual combat capability of the U.S. weapons and equipment questionable. Two classic examples.

· The first one is that in a military base in the Middle East, the U.S. defense system mistakenly identified its own drone as an enemy aircraft and shot it down.

· The second one is that during a confrontation with the Houthi forces, the radar of the U.S. aircraft carrier mistakenly identified its own Hornet and shot it down.

This shows a big problem: because of excessive service and lack of proper maintenance, the actual capabilities of U.S. weapons are no longer able to cope with modern information warfare.

Now, the U.S. aircraft carriers have not been repaired for 8 months, and they just put up a flag to cover it up, which is the grim situation of the U.S. Navy. Damaged warships often need several years or even decades to be repaired. From this, it's not hard to understand why the United States is afraid of Chinese sanctions on its aircraft carrier shipyards. If the sanctions continue, the number of aircraft carriers the U.S. can deploy may drop below three.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7559248263493337610/

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