Would you like to ear my three cents? I know you don't but here it is anyway! It's fun to post unwanted long-winded posts about everything and nothing.
1.
Let's start with the obvious -
historia magistra vitae est. And while we're at it let's eat some crayons like the marines do!
- nuclear submarines
- conventional supercarriers
- nuclear supercarriers
- nuclear cruisers
July 1951 - USS Forrestal (CV-59) ordered
August 1951 - USS Nautilus ordered
July 1952 - USS Saratoga (CV-61) ordered
March 1953 - prototype reactor (S1W) operational
February 1954 - USS Saratoga ordered
July 1954 - USS Ranger (CV-62) ordered
September 1954 - USS Independence (CV-63) ordered
December 1954 - USS Forrestal launched
October 1955 - USS Forrestal commissioned
October 1955 - USS Kitty Hawk (CV-64) ordered
July 1956 - USS Constellation (CV-65) ordered
October 1956 - USS Long Beach ordered
December 1957 - USS Long Beach keel laid down
November 1957 - USS Enterprise ordered
February 1958 - USS Enterprise keel laid down
October 1958 - prototype reactor (A1W) operational
July 1959 - USS Long Beach launched
September 1960 - USS Enterprise launched
October 1960 - USS America (CV-66) ordered
September 1961 - USS Long Beach commissioned
November 1961 - USS Enterprise commissioned
April 1964 - USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) ordered
March 1967 - USS Nimitz ordered
There was
four years between first naval reactor achieving critical mass and first nuclear supercarrier order and
eight years between it and CV commissioning.
There was
six years between first supercarrier (CV-61) order and first nuclear supercarrier order and
three years between first supercarrier commissioning and first CVN order.
Both the application of nuclear power for naval propulsion and the application of the supercarrier design was done within a
decade. At the time both nuclear power and supercarrier design were new solutions and were not tested. All procedures and safety regulations had to be
invented.
If we want to use an absurd (but plausible) argument then China could in a very literal sense copy the CVN-65 design and build A2W reactors to have a working nuclear supercarrier.
Nuclear power is not a mystery anymore. If you understand how it works inside a ship then you can replace conventional propulsion with nuclear power.
China has used nuclear propulsion for decades now and has built between fifteen and eighteen working nuclear submarines which is
more than the number of SSNs built by USA until CVN-65 order was made.
The 4th carrier being nuclear-powered is a natural and logical choice if everything is working as intended during the development and contruction of the 3rd.
To argue otherwise is to claim that what was achievable to the US in the 1950s is not achievable to China in the 2020s. And that's without assuming they can read English and study from all those 1950s historical sources.
2.
Carriers are tools of
aerial power projection at naval distance. USA is separated by
two oceans from its
two areas of engagement (AoE). Because due to its
imperial posture US needs
constant presence in its AoE to maintain influence it must keep its carriers in rotation and at high readiness. This explains the minimum number of 9-10 carriers that is postulated by USN planners. It's necessary to be able to maintain 3-4 at sea at any time in both AoE and surge 5-6.
This is how USN views its intended deployment:
View attachment 87799
As long as China doesn't require constant presence in the Atlantic it needs half of that to
match the USN. Because China has geographical advantage in the Pacific and Indo-Pacific it might not need as many in the region either.
This is a map of distances and travel times I made some time ago - large image, zoom on.
Compare travel time between Ningbo and Guam and Pearl Harbor and Guam. PLAN has 1 day advantage meaning that before USN carriers arive PLAN SSNs are already waiting. This is why USN needs to many carriers and so many forward positions. Neither side can live of the sea and China has more land at closer distance.
Viewed as energy military power is no different than electron orbitals (or any energy system in the universe). You can shift between discrete amounts and as soon as you lose energy necessary to occupy a higher energy orbital you move into the next orbital. Quantum leaps are everywhere. Geopolitics or geostrategy is really about retaining energy and information at a distance from source of energy and information. It is therefore reducible to basic physics.
USN needs more resources just to remain in forward position for the sake of having a forward position.
As long as USN is present in the 1st island chain all the positions between 1st and 2nd island chain are covered. Once it loses the energy to remain there it will perform a
quantum leap to the 2nd island chain as a forward position etc etc. There is no point in forcing it out of those positions. Just drain the energy that keeps it in place and the quantum leap will occur spontaneously.
Here are some angry circles:
China doesn't need the carriers for defense of the 1st island chain line but it doesn't have the capability to project power onto the 2nd island chain in any meaningful way. The waters between the two are empty, contested area that is better suited for "A2/AD" than sea control. Until China has ability to put troops on the 2nd island chain it doesn't need the carriers.
More carriers will follow an established amphibious capability which will require a minimum of 8 LHDs with a trained complement of both crews and marines. Once that is in place there is a reason for more carriers. Until then only so many are necessary as is required to train crews and develop knowledge. That is a much longer and complex process than building any ships.
Rhetorical questions:
- Why build more supercarriers without air wings?
- Why build more supercarriers without escort, including SSN?
- Why build air wings if current 4gen/manned structure is different from future 5gen/unmanned structure?
- How many supercarriers are necessary to train air wings and escorts?
From this it follows that PLAN should develop (1) surface fleet, (2) SSN fleet and (3) bomber fleet before moving on to expanding carrier fleet beyond what is necessary for training. Firstly because (1-3) will provide the necessary power projection within its AoE to drain energy base from USN. Secondly because they will provide the foundation for carrier escorts (1-2) and a large portion of future carrier wing (3) - drones, software, space infrastructure, ISR.
If the construction of Type 004 is followed by 09V and H-20 then it means I'm smart enough to work for PLA strategic planning department and make mediocre coffee because I can't speak Mandarin and would be of no other use no matter how many crayons I ate.
