proelite
Junior Member
Exactly. 50,000-60,000 medium carrier ~270'm long. Export friendly.
00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter AETHER
- Start date
Exactly. 50,000-60,000 medium carrier ~270'm long. Export friendly.
The obselecence of carriers have been talked about for quite a while now, much like similar talk about tanks. I think it's entirely possible that like tanks in the Ukraine war, while not obsolete its role and importance could be dramatically reduced or otherwise changed due to advances in technology when an actual war breaks out. Tech and tactics can evolve quite fast during a hot war between large powers. As such, it may not be prudent to look at lifecycles of 50-70 years, maybe more in the 20-30 years range like other naval assets of the PLAN.
An ideal carrier fleet should contain both CVs and CVNs for different roles, complimenting each other instead of the latter completely replacing the former.
It's 2025 and the Forrestal-class is a 50s design. The Type 003 was always meant to be a stopgap and time to leave it behind. A Kennedy/Nimitz-analogous with IPS-GTG is the way to go.
I don't think there's anything wrong with retaining standard steam turbine propulsion for a follow up CV to Fujian if it is a way of further mitigating risk with the CVN project, before the likely eventuality of all future carrier production being CVNs.
Trying to adapt a new conventional propulsion system for a one-off hull if they go for future carrier production as only CVNs, seems unnecessary.
And the Fujian hull and deckspace can still use some minor tweaks even if it is not able to be significantly enlarged.
OTOH if future carrier production actively becomes a mix of CVNs and CVs, then that is a different matter -- but I cannot see any particular benefit for building big deck CVs in future once they have mastered CVNs.
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Overall, I'm not sure what has changed that has caused there to be discussion about the "one CVN at DL and one CV at JN" consensus to shift to an idea that the CV at JN needs to offer some sort of meaningful improvement relative to CV-18 in terms of propulsion or other key subsystems.
I was under the impression that the whole point of building 1 CVN at DL and 1 CV at JN was to provide a risk reduction option (relative to building 1 CVN at DL and 1 CVN at JN), and said risk reduction would be achieved by the CV at JN being mostly a lower risk option -- aka a derivative of CV-18 in most important domains, including but not limited to propulsion.
Giving JN's new CV a different propulsion system (something more exotic like IFEP or having GTs in some form) seems like a way of adding more risk to what should be a low risk option.
I'm also not sure what's changed for people to entertain the idea of there to be further CVs to be built in the longer term beyond JN's accepted CV that should be starting work soon.
Wasn't it fairly accepted that the long term goal for PLAN carrier procurement was to standardize on CVN production once mastery of CVN technologies were attained? Putting more work into more advanced and refined conventional propulsion systems just seems bizarre to me.
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CVNs can't be built as fast due to extremely high upfront cost and nuclear safety issues/regulations. Large GT CVs could be cheap enough to be built 2 at a time while also utilizing preexisting supply/maintenace production lines as the rest of the fleet for faster construction time and lower costs. It's not unrealistic that once mass production started such a ship could be built from steel cutting to commission in 3.5-4 years' time while JN is also realistically capable of building two of these ships at once due to lower cost and part standardisation with the rest of the fleet(Powerplants, IEPS components, etc), it's also realistic that China could afford to build two of these ships(Likely less than half the cost of a CVN upfront while also having much cheaper lifetime costs even when compared to Type 003/002/001 with COSAS due to using the same propulsion/fuel as the rest of the fleet) at once while also building another CVN at DL.
As some people mentioned before if China wants to dominate the seas and/or have extensive expeditionary warfare capability capable of rivaling/beating US forces anywhere(except for CONUS obviously) by 2049 without a large network of overseas bases then a massive number of carriers with a few strategically placed nodes or bases to resupply the fleet around the world is the way to go.
Considering we have yet to know what the production speed of a PRC built CVN would be versus an equivalent CV, I would be far from confident to say that any difference in speed would be useful enough for their actual strategic goals to be worth the tactical and operational level disadvantages of a CV versus a CVN (not to mention the costs of sustaining a true proper logistics chain for a CV as well as a CVN class).
Furthermore, costs in upfront procurement are only one factor -- the operating costs and personnel costs and airwing and subsystem costs are going to be very similar between an equivalent sized CV and CVN in the non-nuclear specific domains.
Then there are the tactical and operational level benefits of a CVN versus a CV -- carrying more jet fuel and the ability to sustain high speeds indefinitely without requiring refueling for the carrier itself are both tactical and operational advantages including in high end conflicts.
I don't see how that would be require a CVN and CV combined fleet.
If they are able to master CVN technologies by the late 2020s and able to have both JN and DL build CVNs consistently from 2030 onwards, they would quite comfortably have two decades to build a rather large number of CVNs concurrently.
If we had some strong rumours that JN's CV is going to feature a significantly more advanced conventional propulsion arrangement than CV-18 (which could point to a desire to build a larger fleet of CVs in future alongside CVNs), or if we had some strong rumours that the PLAN had a desire to build a larger fleet of CVs in future to begin with, then I agree we could certainly make the case to think about the pros and cons of how a mixed CVN/CV production schedule in future may fare versus a wholly CVN production schedule.
But as it stands, shouldn't the most simple conclusion of DL building 1 CVN and JN building 1 CVN be that DL is building the first hull of the future CVN type that we expect (aka the higher risk option at present), while JN is building the last hull of the PLAN's final CV (aka the lower risk option at present)?
After all, it's very common for the PLAN and PLA overall to simultaneously build both a higher risk platform alongside a lower risk platform, for both to potentially enter service around the same time, to ensure that they aren't caught with their pants down if the higher risk option experienced delays.
What is the operations life of a warship?
It could be 50 years or maybe only 50 weeks........if you know what I'm getting at.
When WW3 breaks out the Last place I want to be is on an aircraft carrier because that's the first thing to get shot at. Furthermore, more so than any other type of ship, the enemy will spend more firepower trying to sink it. Therefore aircraft carriers arguably have the Lowest survivability of any ship. Keeping this in mind you're probably right, making a 50 year plan makes little sense when this can all blow up in the next 5 years.
I believe for ships, it's cubed. So a doubling of speed requires eight times the power.