00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread

[weig2000]

Right, so to clarify, what I wrote in post 7544 was about a "fourth carrier by 2025-2030" in general -- it could be either a second 003 in that period, or it could be the first CVN. We could treat it as either.

I do agree that having two combat effective CATOBAR carriers (let's say two 003 pattern carriers for the purposes of discussion) would provide significant combat capability.
The question is about opportunity/cost. That is to say, for the period in which the second 003 could become combat effective, is the money expended on procuring it and working it up to be combat effective, the best way in which military funds can be spent to result in the best combat capability for the medium term future's potential conflict environment?

Or, as I wrote in post 7547:
"What is the opportunity/cost for pursuing a fourth carrier that will enter service in the late 2020s, in context of the PLA's overall assessment of its strategic environment of the late 2020s -- and how does that compare to delaying its fourth carrier to enter service somewhere down the line a few years later (such as early 2030s) and to use money intended for the "fourth carrier in the late 2020s" for other capabilities and assets intended to enter service in the late 2020s instead?"

I see, sorry I missed the opportunity cost part.

IMO, I don't see a tradeoff here and it also doesn't appear the Chinese leadership is making decision with that assumption.

Let's say if the geopolitical environment during 2025-2030 facing severe challenges, what would be China's investment priorities? I think the strategic deterrence would have the highest priority, but they're doing it now. The second priorities would be conventional missiles and air force. The last one should be navy - not that navy is not important, but we're forcing prioritization here and the current navy orbat is already pretty impressive.

But we're not seeing any signs of slowing down in navy buildup. Frankly, if you're not building carriers, what's the point to expand your 052D fleet from 25 to 35, your 055 fleet from 8 to 16, or indeed your amphibious fleet, if all you plan to do is to stuck within the 1st island chain? And if you want to venture out beyond the 1st island chain during challenging time, you'd better to have carriers. What I'm seeing is that they're just proceeding according to plan, across the board, as they should.

And, to top it off, they're still spending frigging 1.3% GDP on defense spending! This is not a sign that the leadership is worrying about any trade-off or opportunity cost. They should really spend 2% - 2.5% of the GDP now.

 

[semiconprof]

They might have been mad at CV-17. But I think the state made the right call. The Soviets also had the same dilemma with the Tu-4 program. And Stalin rammed the design bureau to just copy the B-29 instead of designing their own aircraft. The technology was progressively refined and later led to the Tu-85 and later Tu-95 program. It would have been a bad idea to try to make a whole new design and new build at same time. This way they refined the construction technique while relying on a mostly known to work design. And now they got the construction technique well established, they can go into a new design. Had they gone for the steam catapult design first they would have also designed a dead end technology once EMALS came out. Might have decided to stick with steam catapults for longer than necessary. EMALS technology can be used in other smaller carrier projects. Like drone carriers. So it has more future potential.

This is very much like the tick-tock cadence Intel used to adhere to. Fabrication verification/refinement based on a verified design followed by the architecture/design verification/refinement based on a verified fabrication process . It's a good call.

 

[Blitzo]

I see, sorry I missed the opportunity cost part.

IMO, I don't see a tradeoff here and it also doesn't appear the Chinese leadership is making decision with that assumption.

Let's say if the geopolitical environment during 2025-2030 facing severe challenges, what would be China's investment priorities? I think the strategic deterrence would have the highest priority, but they're doing it now. The second priorities would be conventional missiles and air force. The last one should be navy - not that navy is not important, but we're forcing prioritization here and the current navy orbat is already pretty impressive.

But we're not seeing any signs of slowing down in navy buildup. Frankly, if you're not building carriers, what's the point to expand your 052D fleet from 25 to 35, your 055 fleet from 8 to 16, or indeed your amphibious fleet, if all you plan to do is to stuck within the 1st island chain? And if you want to venture out beyond the 1st island chain during challenging time, you'd better to have carriers. What I'm seeing is that they're just proceeding according to plan, across the board, as they should.

And, to top it off, they're still spending frigging 1.3% GDP on defense spending! This is not a sign that the leadership is worrying about any trade-off or opportunity cost. They should really spend 2% - 2.5% of the GDP now.

Those are all reasonable points, and I personally do think that four carriers (including two 003s) by the late 2020s could still very much have a useful role even though it would likely be well below the ideal minimum number of carriers and even if it may suffer from a questionable degree of subsurface escort capability.
But redirection of the available military funding to other measures with less risk of being a potential liability or being more cost effective for the 2025-2030 period is also something to consider -- SSKs, aircraft, land based missiles, or even procuring capabilities so that the PLA can conduct a Taiwan contingency more effectively (like SAR pods, PGMs, medium amphib ships).


If we do indeed take pop3's information seriously and interpret it to mean that the fourth carrier will be the CVN, I think we should consider the variety of scenarios and possible rationales that could underlie the scenarios, and one of those scenarios is that it is a possibility that it is only slated to enter service after 2030 (meaning China will remain at three carriers throughout the mid to late 2020s), and it isn't a miniscule possibility either.

Now, IMO it is too early to make a concrete call, but I think we should definitely keep our minds open.
The biggest question for the fourth carrier (i.e.: first CVN) now for us, is when it is expected. It's basically a ticking clock now. Because if fabrication work on it doesn't begin before 2025, then there is absolutely zero chance of it even being ready to "enter service" before 2030, let alone achieving anything resembling combat effectiveness.

 

[weig2000]

Those are all reasonable points, and I personally do think that four carriers (including two 003s) by the late 2020s could still very much have a useful role even though it would likely be well below the ideal minimum number of carriers and even if it may suffer from a questionable degree of subsurface escort capability.
But redirection of the available military funding to other measures with less risk of being a potential liability or being more cost effective for the 2025-2030 period is also something to consider -- SSKs, aircraft, land based missiles, or even procuring capabilities so that the PLA can conduct a Taiwan contingency more effectively (like SAR pods, PGMs, medium amphib ships).


If we do indeed take pop3's information seriously and interpret it to mean that the fourth carrier will be the CVN, I think we should consider the variety of scenarios and possible rationales that could underlie the scenarios, and one of those scenarios is that it is a possibility that it is only slated to enter service after 2030 (meaning China will remain at three carriers throughout the mid to late 2020s), and it isn't a miniscule possibility either.

Now, IMO it is too early to make a concrete call, but I think we should definitely keep our minds open.
The biggest question for the fourth carrier (i.e.: first CVN) now for us, is when it is expected. It's basically a ticking clock now. Because if fabrication work on it doesn't begin before 2025, then there is absolutely zero chance of it even being ready to "enter service" before 2030, let alone achieving anything resembling combat effectiveness.

We've covered a lot of grounds, and it seems to me the more we discuss the more questions we have. There are just a lot of uncertainties.

That's the reality we're facing now. Zhongnanhai is currently occupied with many things internally: covid, economy, and the 20th Party Congress in the fall, within a rapidly changing global geopolitical environment starting from Russia-Ukraine War and everything else. I get the feeling that, after the Party Congress in the fall, Chinese leadership will review their prior assumptions and plans, many changes are likely, including the defense spending in general and carrier program in particularly.

We'll have to wait and see.

 

[gelgoog]

To a large degree the difficulties we have with guesstimating when the naval nuclear reactor for the carrier program will be ready are derived from lack of knowledge about how good the Chinese naval submarine reactors are. I would estimate their naval submarine reactors are probably at least in their 3rd generation by now and the Type 093G is probably equipped with latest generation reactor they have.
China is also building the ACP100 land based compact nuclear reactor aka Linglong One. This has a lot of the same technologies you would need for a modern naval reactor in terms of compactness. If you look at the performance parameters this is a 125MWe reactor. Roughly same power level and probably technology level as Russian RITM-400. Which the Russians only started building reactor parts for this year.
For reference that is about the same power level in one reactor as the two strategic submarine nuclear reactors the French use in the Charles de Gaulle carrier with 42,500 tonnes displacement. That ACP100 will have similar power level to the A1B reactors used in the Ford class. I have previously assumed the naval version of a similar reactor would be ready after the civilian project is done. But other people here have told me the military naval reactor design is probably further ahead. Right now the ACP100 is expected to take 5 years to build and construction started like one year ago. That is basically about as long as a much larger civilian nuclear reactor of 1GW power. Really long period. Which can only be explained by being the first reactor in the series. Anyway this is a long discussion to say that I expect the Chinese to have the military naval reactor technology for the carrier ready by that time. In 4 years.

 

[Blitzo]

Given the expansion of Chinese carrier discussions in terms of the emerging maturity of CV-16 and CV-17, as well as the 003 CATOBAR carrier, and possible emergence of the nuclear carrier in the medium term future, I have locked the existing CV-16 and CV-17 threads, and also moved various posts about the nuclear carrier to here.

All further discussion about CV-16 Liaoning and CV-17 Shandong will be consolidated here in this thread:

CV-16, CV-17 STOBAR carrier thread (001/CV-16/Liaoning, 002/CV-17/Shandong)

Given the expansion of Chinese carrier discussions in terms of the emerging maturity of CV-16 and CV-17, as well as the 003 CATOBAR carrier, and possible emergence of the nuclear carrier in the medium term future, I have locked the existing CV-16 and CV-17 threads. All further discussion about...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

The 003 thread will continue to be for the 003 carrier currently under construction at JNCX, as well as if we get any rumours of additional 003 pattern carriers in the future:

CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

What are thoooooose~~~~~ in the lower-right of the picture??? Please let them not be CGI!!! Screenshot from the newest PLAN promo video. Just J-15…… shadow makes it seems dark……

www.sinodefenceforum.com

All further discussion about the 00X/004 nuclear CATOBAR carrier will occur here in this thread.

 

[Kalec]

I have some very vague guesses about nuclear reactors.

Here are some trademarks from Nuclear Power Institute of China (NPIC).

Servicemarks:

燃料和核慢化剂处理装置
核燃料和核减速剂处理装置
聚合反应设备
核反应堆
原子堆
气体引燃器

I don't know anything about nuclear reactors but it seems to be something about them tho.
Could anyone please provide any good reading?

 

[Kalec]

NPIC applied for some recent trademarks including:

核燃料和核减速剂处理装置
聚合反应设备
原子堆
核反应堆

Could be codename for next generation naval nuclear reactors.

 

[AndrewS]

Those are all reasonable points, and I personally do think that four carriers (including two 003s) by the late 2020s could still very much have a useful role even though it would likely be well below the ideal minimum number of carriers and even if it may suffer from a questionable degree of subsurface escort capability.
But redirection of the available military funding to other measures with less risk of being a potential liability or being more cost effective for the 2025-2030 period is also something to consider -- SSKs, aircraft, land based missiles, or even procuring capabilities so that the PLA can conduct a Taiwan contingency more effectively (like SAR pods, PGMs, medium amphib ships).


If we do indeed take pop3's information seriously and interpret it to mean that the fourth carrier will be the CVN, I think we should consider the variety of scenarios and possible rationales that could underlie the scenarios, and one of those scenarios is that it is a possibility that it is only slated to enter service after 2030 (meaning China will remain at three carriers throughout the mid to late 2020s), and it isn't a miniscule possibility either.

Now, IMO it is too early to make a concrete call, but I think we should definitely keep our minds open.
The biggest question for the fourth carrier (i.e.: first CVN) now for us, is when it is expected. It's basically a ticking clock now. Because if fabrication work on it doesn't begin before 2025, then there is absolutely zero chance of it even being ready to "enter service" before 2030, let alone achieving anything resembling combat effectiveness.

I don't see the opportunity cost of a 4th carrier in the 2025-2030 timeframe as being too significant.

My guess is that it would be roughly $4 Billion for a conventional Type-003 carrier and another $5 Billion for the airwing, spread out over 6+ years. Call it an average of $1.5 Billion per year.

SIPRI have a 2017 estimate that overall Chinese military procurement was $70-80 Billion per year.
But since then, their estimate of overall Chinese military spending in nominal terms has increased by 50%

So $1.5 Billion per year for a carrier doesn't seem like a huge deal, and I also see ample funding available for the other systems you've listed.

You get additional offshore capability with another carrier sooner, but more importantly, the overall carrier development programme continues.
So in 2030, they will be in a better position to start mass-producing a better carrier at lower cost.

 

[gelgoog]

The Chinese nuclear submarine buildup will be way more expensive than whatever the carrier program is expected to cost I think.
They did not build all those production facilities for nothing. If the objective is parity with US nuclear attack submarines in the Pacific you will see dozens of nuclear attack submarines hit the water. 2-3 of those will easily cost the price of a carrier. Especially a conventional one.