Yes, and by now I have read enough Minnie Chan and Stephen Chen articles to know when to avoid SCMP entirely. And those "unnamed HK source" as well.Just for your info: As per some Tweets from the usual suspects a yet unnamed source from Hong Kong - and I think it quite clear which one and who- claimed, they have confirmation that currently two 004 carriers are under construction and modules have been spotted!
00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter AETHER
- Start date
is it really two type 004 currently under construction or as usual rumors from SCMP.
Would find it strange that Type 003 would have only single ship in the class.
It belongs to the "rumors from some kind of 'unknown sources in Hong Kong'" category.
In fact, this so-called "rumor" has been circulating since at least last year. Even our Chinese Jai Hind has hoped onto this "rumor".
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Why? Personally I see no point in building conventional supercarriers unless it is to work out the design. If France doesn't see the benefit of a cheaper conventional design despite their CVN being less than half of displacement of an USN CVN then why would PLAN do it?
I am not saying that there will not be a second Type 003. I am saying that there is no need for it.
If the design is already adaptable to nuclear propulsion then a single ship is enough for all the necessary testing of other elements before construction of Type 004 commences. Nuclear propulsion configuration can be easily tested on land before being implemented.
The time of construction for a CVN is not longer compared to that of CV as can be easily seen from this table:
| ship | ordered | laid down | commissioned |
| CV-59 Forrestal | 7/1951 | 7/1952 | 10/1955 |
| CV-60 Saratoga | 7/1952 | 12/1952 | 4/1956 |
| CV-61 Ranger | 2/1954 | 8/1954 | 8/1957 |
| CV-62 Independence | 7/1954 | 7/1955 | 1/1959 |
| CV-63 Kitty Hawk | 10/1955 | 12/1956 | 4/1961 |
| CV-64 Constellation | 7/1956 | 9/1957 | 10/1961 |
| CVN-65 Enterprise | 1955 (SCB plan) | 2/1958 | 11/1961 |
| CV-66 America | 11/1960 | 1/1961 | 1/1965 |
| CV-67 Kennedy | 4/1964 | 10/1964 | 8/1968 |
| CVN-68 Nimitz | 3/1967 | 6/1968 | 5/1975 |
CVN-65 was built in 3 years. CVN-74 (John C Stennis) was built in ~4,5 years (3/91 to 12/95). Other CVNs take 5-6 years as deliberate measure to lower the annual outlays on construction.
China doesn't have a problem with designing or building a nuclear powered carrier. It has a problem in building a supercarrier design that will perform to expectation and that is impossible without practically testing of at least one ship but also only one ship is necessary for that purpose.
If Fujian is commissioned next year it will likely need one year of practical testing of all the relevant systems before a CVN successor can be built. And since the relevant elements are not the basic systems architecture of the ship but likely a number of details that can easily be corrected while the ship is already under construction there may simply be no need to delay Type 004 any further.
The notion that not just one but two Type 004 CVNs could be built simultaneously is not entirely out of question because that is largely an issue of managing workloads and manhours. For example all three Danish frigates of Iver Huitfeld class were buit simultaneously as a cost-saving measure.
| ship | laid down | launched | commissioned |
| Iver Huitfeldt | 6/2008 | 3/2010 | 1/2011 |
| Peter Willemoes | 3/2009 | 12/2010 | 6/2011 |
| Niels Juel | 12/2009 | 12/2010 | 11/2011 |
We can't know what is an optimal approach for a large shipbuilding project in the world's largest shipbuilding industry because we are not privy to the relevant data. The only thing that we know is that in all likelihood China is capable of building two CVNs simultaneously because the US was capable of doing it, including building two CVNs at the same shipyard in San Diego with one CVN in dry dock and another out of it.
See list of ships for build timeline:
Carriers require thousands of people to crew them fully. Last Nimitz had 3,5 thousand of complement and 2,5 thousand of air crew. Ford has 4,3 thousand of complement and 2,6 thousand of air crew. This is the equivalent of an US Army brigade being deployed with supporting elements. They're not destroyers with ~300 crew where the crews can be rotated as battalion equivalents - in full. So there is no need for the carriers to be built in pairs because they will always be treated individually for each deployment.
Deploying a carrier is such a tremendous organisational challenge that any differences between ships are completely negligible.
What PLAN fleet composition is going to be depends exclusively on the requirements of the CMC. The job of the CMC is to facilitate PRC's strategy most efficiently and not pander to expectations of naval enthusiasts. If the CMC requires 10 carriers by 2035 then it can also be done (see table 1). But if the CMC requires only 5 carriers by 2035 then PLAN will have only 5 carriers by 2035.
None of us knows what the CMC requires.
Some time ago I wrote a post on why the USN has as many CVNs as it does. It is exclusively the consequence of geography and US requirement to project power across two oceans simultaneously, first to secure Europe and Japan and later with a point of convergence in the Middle East emerging in the 1970s. In other words the US has to reach around the globe from two sides at once at all times, with specific number of air assets and very limited number of land bases outside of Europe. That's why it needs 11 CVNs. As usual strategy always comes down to logistics.
China does not need to do that because it doesn't need to reach North America from two sides at once. It needs to do exactly the same thing that USN does, but without projecting power into the Atlantic. Therefore the fleet composition may be very different because the fleet will perform different tasks.
It is very likely that PLAN will not need to reach the Americas before the 2040s and that is two decades. Again refer to the first table to see how many CV/CVN were built in the US at same period.
Minnie Chan does as Minnie Chan does but a broken clock is right twice a day.
could also be that the bidding for 703 is related to mid life upgrads of 16, 17 and 18 only.
It's so ridiculous it can be immediately dismissed. Why would you ever build two of a brand new, untested, unproven design?
Two 054Bs makes sense if they are running lots of tests for large batch production. Who is ever going to build five carriers at a time?
I think this rumour is not necessarily from Minnie Chan herself but most likely her position within the SCMP's redaction has been filled with someone with a similar "thinking"!
I disagree.
There is a need for more Type 003's
In a possible future confrontation, China will most likely be playing defense, Not offense.
In a defensive position, a diesel powered carrier is just as good if not a superior option compared to a nuclear one for the undeniable reasons it can be built faster, cheaper, and more plentiful.
Nobody builds a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with the intention of playing defense, we all know what it's for.......offense.
I'm not saying China should not build CVN's......I think China should build both diesel and nuclear carriers for now. If there's a possibility of a Pacific War 2.0 the PLA-Navy is going to need all the ships it can get.