Intrepid
Major
So he could be an actor on a Chinese sesame street?
075 LHD thread
- Thread starter nosh
- Start date
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
realistically China needs more LHD and originally like most China watchers we all thought it was 3 x Type 075 + 3 x Type 075A with 30 and 40 helicopters respectively
however now we have only 2 x Type 075 with no sign of a 3rd unit even although a 3rd launch would have been possible in 2020
Chinas sea lift is based around the Chinese marines, which traditionally has been the 1st Marine Brigade and 164th Marine Brigade with 6,000 Maines a piece however now they are expanding
if each LPD can carry 800 marines and LHD say 1,000 marines a Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) would be carrying around half a marine brigade or around 3,000-4,000 men that would required 1 x LHD + 3 x LPD
now lets say we want to lift all 12,000 marines thats around 3-4 x LHD + 9-12 x LPD
which to be honest is a realistic capability, if they re-start the LPD programme with 4 x Type 071A + more LHD they are already there
I would expect full strength Chinese naval power to be 6 x CARRIER STRIKE GROUPS + 3-6 x ARG MAX
broken down as
Carriers:
2 x CVN (48)
2 x CATOBAR (36)
2 X STOBAR (24)
Total aircraft- 216
and Amphibious assault ships:
3 x Type 075 with 30 helicopters
3 x Type 075A with 40 helicopters
8 x Type 071 LPD
4 x Type 071A LPD
Total rotary wing- 258
note I said full strength Chinese naval power after 2030
however now we have only 2 x Type 075 with no sign of a 3rd unit even although a 3rd launch would have been possible in 2020
Chinas sea lift is based around the Chinese marines, which traditionally has been the 1st Marine Brigade and 164th Marine Brigade with 6,000 Maines a piece however now they are expanding
if each LPD can carry 800 marines and LHD say 1,000 marines a Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) would be carrying around half a marine brigade or around 3,000-4,000 men that would required 1 x LHD + 3 x LPD
now lets say we want to lift all 12,000 marines thats around 3-4 x LHD + 9-12 x LPD
which to be honest is a realistic capability, if they re-start the LPD programme with 4 x Type 071A + more LHD they are already there
I would expect full strength Chinese naval power to be 6 x CARRIER STRIKE GROUPS + 3-6 x ARG MAX
broken down as
Carriers:
2 x CVN (48)
2 x CATOBAR (36)
2 X STOBAR (24)
Total aircraft- 216
and Amphibious assault ships:
3 x Type 075 with 30 helicopters
3 x Type 075A with 40 helicopters
8 x Type 071 LPD
4 x Type 071A LPD
Total rotary wing- 258
note I said full strength Chinese naval power after 2030
We thought they would be cranking out up to 16 type 075 ships and their variant. But now they have slowed down for no reason, even in this economic downturn. Maybe they are cranking out other stuff in secret.
I don't think anyone that knows who he is would say he's a fan boy XD
I wouldn't say he's an entertainer.
He's more focused on educating teenagers and make more of them interested about military and national defense, instead of leaking informations to the hardcore military fans. He knows a lot, but those aren't his job.
He worked for PLAN's weapon development for decades, and he's actually one of the pioneers on China's carrier programs. He also worked for PLAN's amphibious operations during late 90s and early 2000s.
He started to go on TV shows after he became a professor at the national defense university, and as a rear admiral, he's the highest ranked military guest for almost all of the TV shows XD. He knows what can and what cannot be told to the public very well, and he's very professional on that.
The most well known story about him is about China's fourth-gen (now refered as fifth-gen) fighters. PLAAF's commander 何为荣 leaked the information that "China's fourth-gen fight will have its first flight in 2 years and will be in service in 7-8 years" on 2009 (we all know how true that is by now) on a TV show. CCTV invited him (by him I mean Zhang Zhaozhong, not the PLAAF commandor) to talk about this topic immediately after that, and he said the new jet is not an actual fourth-gen fighter, but a modification of J10 (I still remembered how heart broken I was after watching that XD). And at the end of that year US completely removed the production line for F22, what a coincidence XD. Now we all know he was on a mission to say that on TV, and that's why he earned the nickname 局座(director of the Strategic Fool-you Agency).
After he retired, he began to make videos about PLA (and this is one of them). These series aren't going very deep abd they are designed for teenagers and those that just begin to learn about military. Usually when he talk about numbers or stories that happened in the past you can trust him on those, but when he talk about what's going to happen in the future, take them with a grain of salt, and always remember leaking information to the public is not his job...
Hardcore military fans in China now have many different ways to gather the information they wanted, but most of them grew up watching the TV shows he made. He's part of the reason why many of them became military fans (myself included), and that's why he earns so much respect.
And back to this story, although I won't count on "PLAN will make 20 075s" to be true, you can still trust him about the price of 075 and stuff.
Like I already said so often: Calm down your unrealistic expectations ... they did not slow down for no reason! Only all your hyper-bombastic expectations are wrong.
No. In fact, some of the information he gave is truth, although much of them are jokes. His program is kind of entertainment. A lot of people following him just because he is humorous. However, if wise enough, one can still tell which information he gave is truth (about PLA). Most of the information about foreign military——they are just jokes. He once was in PLAN.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
A bit late, but I do not see China developing VTOL manned fighters for their LHDs. There is just no need or justification for the enormous cost and long time it would take to develop such a jet even if China had the critical engine tech for it (which we have see no credible evidence for).
Realistically speaking, any new clean sheet manned fighter design started now needs to be 5th gen or later. That immediately puts a huge price tag and long and risky development cycle on the project. So the question is, what would be the justification for this? For which there is no answers strong enough to justifying the investment.
For CAS, drones would be a far better choice; for air superiority, you would already have carrier support as it would be beyond credulity to suggest the PLAN would send it’s LHD into active conflict zones where the enemy still have operational air power without carrier support.
If for whatever reason they are determined to have the ability to launch and recover manned fighters for their LHDs, it would be far more cost effective and quicker to simply retrofit catapults and arresting wires on the LHDs rather than develop a whole new manned fighter. Such retrofits might not be all that far fetched, as having that infrastructure would be massively beneficial in terms of future drone operations as well.
Realistically speaking, any new clean sheet manned fighter design started now needs to be 5th gen or later. That immediately puts a huge price tag and long and risky development cycle on the project. So the question is, what would be the justification for this? For which there is no answers strong enough to justifying the investment.
For CAS, drones would be a far better choice; for air superiority, you would already have carrier support as it would be beyond credulity to suggest the PLAN would send it’s LHD into active conflict zones where the enemy still have operational air power without carrier support.
If for whatever reason they are determined to have the ability to launch and recover manned fighters for their LHDs, it would be far more cost effective and quicker to simply retrofit catapults and arresting wires on the LHDs rather than develop a whole new manned fighter. Such retrofits might not be all that far fetched, as having that infrastructure would be massively beneficial in terms of future drone operations as well.
Actually, I expect the catapult and arresting wire retrofit on those LHDs to be pretty cost-prohibitive. This might not be an apple to apple comparison, but the Brits had actually entertained the idea of having QE class refitted to be a CATOBAR instead of STOVL (the design accounted for it but the cats and traps were not fitted), they balked after the projected cost become twice the primary projection. Now I'm pretty sure LHDs are not originally designed with cats and traps in mind, so I think for all the design changes that need to be done to convert those LHDs, the Chinese would be better off designing and building a new class based on LHD/ probably Liaoning with cats and traps build in.
lcloo
Captain
Speculating on VTOL aircraft based on LHD is too far ahead in time by at least a decade or two. These ships, together with 071 LPD are being built for specific amphibious assault missions which are within combat radius of land based aircraft and CV based J15s and future JXX (J35?).
Western navies, specifically the US Navy's deployment of F-35 on LHD/LHA are for long distance sea to shore operations on the other side of globe, also as supplemental air assets for CV based jets. There is no such requirement on the PLAN. The regional mission doctrines of China is vastly different from the global policing of western navies.
Development of a VTOL aircraft would likely take China 20 years from initial conceptual design to deployment. This 20 years time frame would include development of engine as well. So, no operational VTOL jet for China as for now, next 10 years or 20 years, unless suddenly out of blue an authentic photo of a prototype appear but lack of rumour tend to discount this.
Western navies, specifically the US Navy's deployment of F-35 on LHD/LHA are for long distance sea to shore operations on the other side of globe, also as supplemental air assets for CV based jets. There is no such requirement on the PLAN. The regional mission doctrines of China is vastly different from the global policing of western navies.
Development of a VTOL aircraft would likely take China 20 years from initial conceptual design to deployment. This 20 years time frame would include development of engine as well. So, no operational VTOL jet for China as for now, next 10 years or 20 years, unless suddenly out of blue an authentic photo of a prototype appear but lack of rumour tend to discount this.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
British military procurement programmes are pretty standard issued as cost prohibitive owing to a horrendous combination of having a bunch of privileged upper class Neo-empire romanticists running the MoD and being obsessed with having the latest and greatest gear, which means either imported American (without any ‘Special Relationship’ discounts) or homebrew, which tend to be even more expensive.
For the QE retrofit, the cost overruns are a result of America’s problems with EMCATs.
The QE is conventional powered, so doesn’t have the steam generating capabilities baked in to handle traditional steam cats. They originally signed onto the US EMALS programme and planned to retrofit with EMCATs. As it became apparent that EMALS was running monumentally behind schedule and over budget, they re-costed based on steam cats, and came back with over £2bn cost as that involved also installing steam generation capabilities and significant structural reworks to accommodate that.
So those cost projections and overruns are pretty much a very case specific incident, so would not be very useful as a general benchmark for how retrofits might go or cost
Well that depends on how forward thinking the designers were. But even if provisions were not made (Which is more likely), retrofitting cats, especially EMCATs, would be far easier on an LHD than a carrier owing to the fact that LHDs inherently have huge amounts of open spaces built into the design to facilitate the carriage of equipment and vehicles for the amphibious assault forces. As such, they should have a lot more inherent flexibility and leeway to start with, when it comes to retrofit designs.
The main issue I can see if EMCAT retrofits would be the power generating capabilities of the ship. But LHDs would not be carrying huge fixed wing fighter contingents in any case, so having capacitors installed should be able to result that issue.
I agree it would be best to have a fresh design if they want cats and traps on LHDs, but the PLAN has showed itself to be remarkably frugal still when older ships, and have been retrofitting a lot of older classes a lot of us, myself included, originally thought it would have made more sense to scrap or sell off on the cheap.
If they are willing to refit 054s and Sovs when they have so many more brand new FFGs and DDGs coming online, it would make sense that they could also look to retrofit the 075 LHD to the latest standards eventually given no one expects the PLAN to build remotely as many LHDs as FFGs or DDGs, so each LHD becomes an asset more worthwhile to upgrade.