Update, via Captain小潇
00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter AETHER
- Start date
It seems that the length of the two parts has almost doubled compared with the satellite map in July, and it seems that the construction has been accelerated.
Are we actually sure it's the 004 and not some other ship?
If this is a civilian ship, it will be quickly formed and launched within a few months according to the construction speed of China Shipyard, because the time limit of the contract will make the shipyard have urgent time limit, and as far as I know, these sections have occupied this giant dry dock for one year.
As has been repeatedly stated in this thread, no we are not "actually sure" yet.
What we do know however, is that the duration of construction it has spent is very inconsistent with a civilian ship, and that there have been rather strong rumours for a while that Dalian is supposedly building the CVN.
We will only get "actual confirmation" once we see definitive carrier features installed (like hangar modules, or flight deck modules if one wants to be more confident), or unless someone credible on the Chinese grapevine literally directly comes out and says "the ship we can all see being built in Dalian is the CVN".
We can't be absolutely sure, but there has been a decent amount of circumstantial evidence that it's 004. We don't have any hard evidence yet so it's possible it's something else, exactly how possible is up to you to judge based on the info in this thread.
This is pretty strong evidence that it's not a run of the mill civilian ship yes. But this evidence alone doesn't exclude other possibilities like some kind of experimental civilian ship of some new design or perhaps something else like nuclear icebreaker or some other non carrier special ship. We can't definitively rule those out.
