Chinese shipbuilding industry

Platform begins oil production in the South China Seas.






This thing is a massive floater, hence its called a semi-submersible.






See the cables. It has to be towed to its working place.




The platform has the same name as the mothership for the deep sea submersible, so surely there will be some confusion.

Tam said:

It means these shipyards can produce even more, even a lot more, if they scaled back their commercial ship production. The main bottlenecks would be the supply of machinery components (engines, gearboxes) and components for the sensor and weapons systems which are external and comes from somewhere else. The commercial ship production also indicates that these shipyards have much larger dock capacity than Bath or even Ingalls, as the docks needed for today's commercial shipping are as big or bigger than those used for aircraft carriers as many of these commercial ships are as big or bigger---300 meter to 400 meters, with containerships now increasingly at 400 meters. We have seen from pictures, these docks can easily accommodate building 4 destroyers in one sitting.

The most important part is the skilled labor. When you have a strong commercial base, you also sustain technical colleges that train labor into professional shipbuilders, such as welders, etc,. It develops this ecosystem that breeds and sustains this labor pool. You not only have capacity but you also have a sizable labor resource. On the other hand, a dwindling and disappearing commercial bujild base means this training infracture and ecosystem is eroded, and will continue to erode further, and as these colleges close, you get less and less of this labor pool.

The shipyards can produce destroyers eternally like hamburgers off a fast food if it were not for the PLAN's ability to digest the new ships, training crews, supply of officers, etc,.

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yes but we are not talking about what can be done and what cannot be done

Ingalls and Bath Ironn Works can do the same

but we are looking at warship production which has happened over the time period 2010-2020

asif iqbal said:

yes but we are not talking about what can be done and what cannot be done

Ingalls and Bath Ironn Works can do the same

but we are looking at warship production which has happened over the time period 2010-2020

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Not exactly, no. One key lesson that gets forgotten which needs reminding time and again is that production is not turnkey. Having expanded capacity means you can divert and ramp up production relatively smoothly. Ingalls and Bath Iron Works can *expand* capacity sure, but that takes much longer, is far more costly, and requires far more effort than simply converting over capacity that is already being allocated to other production.

asif iqbal said:

yes but we are not talking about what can be done and what cannot be done

Ingalls and Bath Ironn Works can do the same

but we are looking at warship production which has happened over the time period 2010-2020

Click to expand...

Both Bath and Ingalls are much smaller than CSSC complex. In fact, the entire US only has two large docks that can build a 300+ container ship and they are reserved for the construction and repair of US carriers. Which is why they don't build mega containerships, super tankers, ultra large LNG carriers and bulk carriers, which in contrast CSSC in Changxing can produce like hamburgers. It would take years for Bath and Ingalls to build these facilities. As Confucius says, All Men are made equal, but Practice makes Perfect. If you cannot build commercial ships, your basic shipbuilding skills will not improve and they will deteriorate, and the erosion of your foundation will also affect your military shipbuilding production. Essential skills like welding.

In fact since the Cold War, the US shipbuilding industry has virtually collapsed. I mean collapsed in all capitals. Last year, only a total of 10 commercial ships were built in the US. In contrast the entire Chinese shipbuilding industry built over 33 million tons in dead weight.

Its so bad that the US cannot even repair and maintain their ships in time because you need shipyards for that and the US shipyards have deteriorated badly. Rising sea levels may even take out a few. Technical colleges that teach shipbuilding essentials, such as welding, are getting fewer and fewer, as they close ship, and less and less people are encouraged to work.

Taiwan shipping line orders feeder ships from Fujian shipyard.

Tam said:

Both Bath and Ingalls are much smaller than CSSC complex. In fact, the entire US only has two large docks that can build a 300+ container ship and they are reserved for the construction and repair of US carriers. Which is why they don't build mega containerships, super tankers, ultra large LNG carriers and bulk carriers, which in contrast CSSC in Changxing can produce like hamburgers. It would take years for Bath and Ingalls to build these facilities. As Confucius says, All Men are made equal, but Practice makes Perfect. If you cannot build commercial ships, your basic shipbuilding skills will not improve and they will deteriorate, and the erosion of your foundation will also affect your military shipbuilding production. Essential skills like welding.

In fact since the Cold War, the US shipbuilding industry has virtually collapsed. I mean collapsed in all capitals. Last year, only a total of 10 commercial ships were built in the US. In contrast the entire Chinese shipbuilding industry built over 33 million tons in dead weight.

Its so bad that the US cannot even repair and maintain their ships in time because you need shipyards for that and the US shipyards have deteriorated badly. Rising sea levels may even take out a few. Technical colleges that teach shipbuilding essentials, such as welding, are getting fewer and fewer, as they close ship, and less and less people are encouraged to work.

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no military grade ship warship construction is Totally different no relevance to commercial

Take Scotland for example they tried to build three commercial ships and it’s taken in 15 years And in the end they will not be delivered, just read about the Highlands in islands transport ships

However Scotland Has the worlds most advanced warship construction industry in the world Even England doesn’t have

Building most of Royal’s navies advance warships from the Queen Elizabeth carrier to the Type 26

Yes Commercial shipbuilding is a great asset to have But just because you can build container ships does that mean you can build aircraft carriers

South Korea is a good example

asif iqbal said:

no military grade ship warship construction is Totally different no relevance to commercial

Take Scotland for example they tried to build three commercial ships and it’s taken in 15 years And in the end they will not be delivered, just read about the Highlands in islands transport ships

However Scotland Has the worlds most advanced warship construction industry in the world Even England doesn’t have

Building most of Royal’s navies advance warships from the Queen Elizabeth carrier to the Type 26

Yes Commercial shipbuilding is a great asset to have But just because you can build container ships does that mean you can build aircraft carriers

South Korea is a good example

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Thats more down to the incompetence, pigheadedness and wonton greed of British workers and unions rather than some universal truth.

I have had first hand experience working with British workers in the marine construction industry and they are utterly shit.

There are some great workers with good craftsmanship and work ethics, but they are very much the minority, and tend to get bullied and pushed out unless they have a super supporting foreman since the overwhelmingly majority are lazy, entitle, selfish and surprisingly petty.

The reason they can do warships but fail at commercial is because the RN has no choice but to accept whatever ‘the best’ these workers can manage in terms of delays and reworks. Nothing like as fat margins for commercial shipbuilding, where you are facing direct competition with super efficient and modern Asian yards and where the client actually knows what kind of efficiency and quality is not only possible, but delivered as standard over there.

Warship design is nothing like commercial ship design, but when it comes to construction, there is no meaningful distinction other than maybe the qualifications needed. If you are trained and rated for a specific level of welding, it doesn’t matter at all if said weld is going on a warship or a LNG tanker.

The primary bottleneck to China massively ramping up warship construction in short timeframes is going to be in terms of armaments and systems production

A warship hull without radar, missiles or guns is just an empty shell.

We can see that China may have reached the limit of its existing weapons and systems production from the delays in outfitting that sometimes occurs from time to time. Also, the fact that a lot of the shots we get of the VLS open shows many empty is also another potentially worrying sigh. But I am sure those are shortcomings Chinese naval planners are far more aware of than any of us, and knowing the Chinese, significant resources would have already been allocated to resolving any such bottlenecks.

asif iqbal said:

no military grade ship warship construction is Totally different no relevance to commercial

Take Scotland for example they tried to build three commercial ships and it’s taken in 15 years And in the end they will not be delivered, just read about the Highlands in islands transport ships

However Scotland Has the worlds most advanced warship construction industry in the world Even England doesn’t have

Building most of Royal’s navies advance warships from the Queen Elizabeth carrier to the Type 26

Yes Commercial shipbuilding is a great asset to have But just because you can build container ships does that mean you can build aircraft carriers

South Korea is a good example

Click to expand...

The reason why South Korea does not build aircraft carriers isn't because they "cannot" build aircraft carriers but rather it's because "they have no reason to" (yet).

Yes, naval ships are of course built to different standards than civilian ships -- but having a highly capable, competent and advanced civilian shipbuilding industry (and indeed, many civilian ships are immensely complex in their own right) is very much a significant benefit for naval shipbuilding as well, with significant transferable skills, processes and competencies that apply to naval shipbuilding.


There is a reason why naval ships built in the world's current leading civilian shipbuilding nations (China, South Korea, Japan) tend to be so affordable and get constructed, fitted out and enter service relatively briskly and without delay.

The thing is, of those big three shipbuilding nations -- only China has emerged out of them to actually have a navy that is starting to order the most "complex" and "biggest" of naval ships like aircraft carriers and large amphibious assault ships and large destroyers/cruisers in big numbers.

However, I suspect, if Japan or South Korea were asked by their respective navies to build aircraft carriers (or if a foreign nation ordered carriers to be built from them), that if they had access to the requisite key subsystems, they would very much be able to build aircraft carriers no worse than that of the UK or US, and likely ultimately cheaper and perhaps faster as well.


In short -- the only reason why the shipbuilding industries of Japan or South Korea haven't built aircraft carriers, is not because "they're unable" to build aircraft carriers, but rather because "no one has asked them to"/"they have no reason to".

asif iqbal said:

no military grade ship warship construction is Totally different no relevance to commercial

Take Scotland for example they tried to build three commercial ships and it’s taken in 15 years And in the end they will not be delivered, just read about the Highlands in islands transport ships

However Scotland Has the worlds most advanced warship construction industry in the world Even England doesn’t have

Building most of Royal’s navies advance warships from the Queen Elizabeth carrier to the Type 26

Yes Commercial shipbuilding is a great asset to have But just because you can build container ships does that mean you can build aircraft carriers

South Korea is a good example

Click to expand...

South Korea is looking to make their own aircraft carrier.



I don't know what you mean by Scotland having the world's most advanced warship construction industry. There has been thousands of defects in the RN.



All but one of the Daring class are unfit for deployment, and the one assigned to escort the HMS Queen Elizabeth suffered another defect, causing the destroyer to turn back home.

Constant, repetitive manufacturing is practice makes perfect. If you cannot do good commercial ships --- which are remarkably complex these days despite looking empty --- what makes you think you can build good military ships. The practice of one leads to the other, as Base One leads to Base Two.

Many high end commercial ships, even offshore platforms, use formulations of extremely high grade steel, and these special alloys are a challenge to bend and to weld. There is something about architecting, designing, pressing, forming and welding a moving structure that is stressed for, when full, weighs over 200,000 tons easy, and tankers have gone as far as 600,000 tons.

For all its worth, I see S. Korea and Japan as rising naval powers. Their will to be one is only managed and corked by politics.

The decay of Russian ship manufacturing in all commercial levels since the Cold War means they might have trouble making warships over 20,000 tons. That's why they ordered those Mistral LHDs from France. The largest of their most modern warships are frigates. Their large nuclear submarines are completing hulls that the Soviet Union has already started. They realize that problem well enough that the Russians are trying their earnest to resurrect their shipbuilding industry by manufacturing LNG carriers on their own. Their economy is heavily dependent on the export of fossil fuels such as LNG, but they have to order and buy these ships from China and South Korea. Without these LNG carriers, they cannot control their energy and economic security.

Its so ironical indeed that China was once buying submarines, ships and planes from Russia, and now Russia is buying ships from China.



In fact, it was thanks to the skills and tech sets from China's commercial shipbuilding industry that allowed it to overtake Russia's warship building abilities, in both quality and quantity, so fast.

Tam said:

South Korea is looking to make their own aircraft carrier.

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Offtop: as far as Koreans tell, the other one(by HHI) is the preferred option. The much larger one, actually(~QE-sized). Which only reinforces the point.