00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread

[Andy1974]

While I wish the carriers were for offense, I do believe they are defensive in nature and doctrine.

During high tensions or war China will still need to trade with the world, most of that is seaborne and they will probably start using shipping convoys.

Those convoys should be protected by a carrier.

Chinas biggest maritime threat is enemy SSNs, carriers can be amazing ASW platforms. It was interesting to see how many helicopter take offs and landings were reported in the recent exercise, because that could indicate a major ASW role for Chinas carriers.

Finally, I just want to put out a thought, that China doesn’t need the blue Pacific Ocean for trade during war. It won’t be trading with North America, and it can trade with Latin America via CPEC or ASEAN, going around friendly South Africa, or through Africa with multimodal routes.

So, perhaps carriers in the Pacific will be ASW focused, and carriers in the Indian and South Atlantic will be protecting convoys.

 

[no_name]

There is no really such thing as defensive war. It's like if I punch you back once hard enough will you stop hitting me. No once fighting starts you lay the guy on the ground. There's a difference between defensive war and a war in self-defense. The Korean war for example was in self-defense, but I won't say it's 'defensive'.

The reason China seem focused on 'defensive' war for potential maritime related conflict involving naval great powers in the past was not due to mindset, but due to lack of options. (For example their actions in South China Sea against Vietnam in the 70s was quite aggressive) If they can have nuclear carrier, they will work towards it. If they are working on something like the H-20, they are going to go for nuclear carrier.

The Chinese don't have defensive mindset. They have a realistic mindset and adopts defensive stance due to lack of options. What did Deng Xiaoping say to his compatriots when he decided to open up to the west? If you think he was defensive you're not looking far enough ahead.

 

[Blitzo]

I think everyone advocating for more conventional CVs versus going for CVNs, need to first review what the timelines for their proposals would be.

Everyone agrees that the PLAN will go for more carriers, but I think there is a discussion to be had as to when they would actually be comfortable and interested in procuring more carriers.
After all, building more carriers for entry into service between 2025-2030 is different to building more carriers for entry into service by 2030 or after.

Two or three years ago, the idea of more carriers in the 2025-2030 period seemed reasonable and almost a no brainer, but the westpac geostrategic environment is changing and I believe the CMC's perspective as to "likelihood of conflict" in that period is also changing.

Given the length of time and amount resources it would take to properly workup a carrier to be combat capable, I think there is an open question as to how high of a priority/opportunity-cost for the PLAN to procure more carriers for entry into service in the 2025-2030 era. It may well be that for the specific period then, then will put more focus onto other platform types instead.


However, during this time the PLAN will of course continue actually developing technologies for CVNs.

Putting it another way, I think we need to consider whether it makes more sense for the PLAN to go for "additional conventional CVs after 003" or to go for "CVNs directly after 003" in two time periods:
A) buying more carriers that will enter service the 2025+ period and onwards
B) buying more carriers that will only enter service in the circa 2030 period and onwards

 

[Biscuits]

There is no really such thing as defensive war. It's like if I punch you back once hard enough will you stop hitting me. No once fighting starts you lay the guy on the ground. There's a difference between defensive war and a war in self-defense. The Korean war for example was in self-defense, but I won't say it's 'defensive'.

The reason China seem focused on 'defensive' war for potential maritime related conflict involving naval great powers in the past was not due to mindset, but due to lack of options. (For example their actions in South China Sea against Vietnam in the 70s was quite aggressive) If they can have nuclear carrier, they will work towards it. If they are working on something like the H-20, they are going to go for nuclear carrier.

The Chinese don't have defensive mindset. They have a realistic mindset and adopts defensive stance due to lack of options. What did Deng Xiaoping say to his compatriots when he decided to open up to the west? If you think he was defensive you're not looking far enough ahead.

I think when we talk about defensive we mean the distances involved.

China stretches all the way out the to first island chain besides South Korea. Any attack by a foreign military there would be a defensive war.

If the potential aggressors are close neighbors such as Japan, Guam or Okinawa, then a retaliatory invasion would be close enough to Chinese borders that it would still be a defensive war campaign in terms of geographical location.

For me I'd call it an offensive war if China had to go for example all the way to the East Pacific, South America, Africa etc. And its that which I think is not a priority at all.

 

[Lethe]

Two or three years ago, the idea of more carriers in the 2025-2030 period seemed reasonable and almost a no brainer, but the westpac geostrategic environment is changing and I believe the CMC's perspective as to "likelihood of conflict" in that period is also changing.

Given the length of time and amount resources it would take to properly workup a carrier to be combat capable, I think there is an open question as to how high of a priority/opportunity-cost for the PLAN to procure more carriers for entry into service in the 2025-2030 era. It may well be that for the specific period then, then will put more focus onto other platform types instead.

It seems that you are taking my argument to the next stage. My main argument for constructing additional Fujian-type carriers, rather than going straight to nuclear propulsion for the next carrier, is that the greater up-front costs of nuclear-powered carriers make them a less efficient short/medium-term response to China's deteriorating security environment than conventional carriers. Your post seems to go one step further: what if carriers are an inefficient response to that deteriorating environment, period, such that a short-term pause might be considered, with resources to be diverted elsewhere instead?

It seems plausible. It would certainly help to address the budgetary challenges around scaling up nuclear submarine production and operations in the near future. I guess the reason my thoughts hadn't gone there is because when we think about these things we are seeking to extrapolate from the known to the unknown, according to whatever theories we have of PLAN's desired end-state, strategic goals and means of attaining them, etc. The idea that PLAN might call a temporary halt to carrier construction is a more significant departure from the "known" than the idea that the next step might be another Fujian. If Shandong didn't exist it would be easy to think of Fujian as v2.0 of China's carrier "experiment", and the idea that there might be an extended period of learning before embarking upon carrier v3.0 would be easy enough to accept. But Shandong does exist, which points to PLAN thinking of its carriers not just as developmental platforms, but as having real operational utility. In that context, calling a temporary halt after Fujian would indeed seem to represent a shift in priorities.

 

[Blitzo]

It seems that you are taking my argument to the next stage. My main argument for constructing additional Fujian-type carriers, rather than going straight to nuclear propulsion for the next carrier, is that the greater up-front costs of nuclear-powered carriers make them a less efficient short/medium-term response to China's deteriorating security environment than conventional carriers. Your post seems to go one step further: what if carriers are an inefficient response to that deteriorating environment, period, such that a short-term pause might be considered, with resources to be diverted elsewhere instead?

It seems plausible. It would certainly help to address the budgetary challenges around scaling up nuclear submarine production and operations in the near future. I guess the reason my thoughts hadn't gone there is because when we think about these things we are seeking to extrapolate from the known to the unknown, according to whatever theories we have of PLAN's desired end-state, strategic goals and means of attaining them, etc. The idea that PLAN might call a temporary halt to carrier construction is a more significant departure from the "known" than the idea that the next step might be another Fujian. If Shandong didn't exist it would be easy to think of Fujian as v2.0 of China's carrier "experiment", and the idea that there might be an extended period of learning before embarking upon carrier v3.0 would be easy enough to accept. But Shandong does exist, which points to PLAN thinking of its carriers not just as developmental platforms, but as having real operational utility. In that context, calling a temporary halt after Fujian would indeed seem to represent a shift in priorities.

To be honest, for the last 1-2 years I feel like we have not really had any clear indications as to "when" the next Chinese carrier would emerge.
That is to say, in terms of the "null hypothesis" of extrapolating the "unknown" from the "known" -- we are already basically rudderless.

The longer we go without rumours that another carrier has started work, the more rudderless we become.


Similar to you, I do not consider CV-16, CV-17 or CV-18 to be "experiments" but rather they should be viewed as steps in seeking a large scale mature carrier capability, but where all of those three carriers themselves are fully combat operational.
The question IMO has always been about how long it would take for them to reach that "large scale mature carrier capability" and the opportunity/costs incurred during that process.


If there is a pause between CV-18 and the next carrier after it, it may not reflect a desire to absorb the lessons from CV-18, but perhaps a recognition that building more carriers for the 2025-2030 period would not develop a sufficiently competitive capability for the risk of a high intensity conflict in that period, and money and resources at that time could be better spent elsewhere.
Additional, if there is a pause between CV-18 and the next carrier after it, additional technologies could sufficiently mature to a state where they are comfortable to produce a more capable carrier in the 2030 onwards period as the development of various subsystems mature in the intervening period (for example, nuclear propulsion).


In the PLAN as a whole, I think that over the last 3-4 years we've seen them take stock of the emerging geostrategic situation and the procurement of some vessels and capabilities have emerged and not emerged which we would've predicted back then.
Past assumptions IMO do not necessarily hold going forwards.

 

[latenlazy]

Everyone does things for a reason.

China military is expanding, that does not mean China will spend resources irrationally. Nuclear carriers can only serve in two possible scenarios in which their cost is justified by extra benefits, when China invades either US or a European country. It's my opinion that should not be China's plan.

The military expansion so far is mainly for defense purposes, including for the Taiwan strait war. Outside of the above two scenarios, nuclear carriers are no longer cost-effective solutions. Becoming another US, then intervene other countries, was never China's intention. Even if the gov somehow pursues that, it is a hard sell to the population

The primary benefit of a nuclear carrier actually isn’t range to invade another country but operational persistence. You can leverage greater operational persistence to invade another far away country but there are a lot of other benefits you can exploit from greater operational persistence not related to invading far away countries.

 

[kurutoga]

The primary benefit of a nuclear carrier actually isn’t range to invade another country but operational persistence. You can leverage greater operational persistence to invade another far away country but there are a lot of other benefits you can exploit from greater operational persistence not related to invading far away countries.

It's not as straightforward as people think. The planes need fuel/munitions/parts that is the main consumption. Once the carrier reaches the theater, it does not need to move much.

 

[latenlazy]

It's not as straightforward as people think. The planes need fuel/munitions/parts that is the main consumption. Once the carrier reaches the theater, it does not need to move much.

Nuclear carriers can stock way more fuel and munitions and parts than conventional carriers because all its stores can be saved for its airwing rather than for its own operation. These are advantages that are completely agnostic of whether you want to attack a far away country.

 

[Andy1974]

I think the PLAN is waiting for the sea trials of Fujian to complete first to work out any kinks and improvements to the next CV before proceeding as they are still in the rapid iteration phase, so no real construction until at least a few months after the sea trials are completed. The decision to build a conventional or nuclear aircraft carrier next for the PLAN will depend on their view on the maturity of the technology of a nuclear carrier. (Which I think is ready)

We could take the Type 055 as example, they didn’t start a new build until they were sure they were sure they fully tested all parts and had built experience with different crews over quite a few deployments.

That would mean no new carriers until J35 and J15B fully deployed on a few missions from 003 before the improved design is finalized.

Then they could build quite a batch.