kwaigonegin
Colonel
Someone call Google and have the lil google camera car do a drive by so we can see the street view.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Intrepid
Major
001/001A/001.. ist for any Kuznetsov-type carrier variant
In the past a lot of carriers got their steam catapults many years after commisioning, so even 001/001A/001.. can get a conversion to a CATOBAR-carrier.
002/002.. is for a new hull not yet defined, may be a modernized Uljanowsk-type carrier or a new Chinese development.
When we see the first satellite images of CV-18 anatomy (engine room layout for example), we can decide whether it will be a variant of 001/001A/001.. or a new 002-design. Same with CV-17: when we saw , we knew that it became a second Liaoning.
Well that's still pretty vague, because what if the "Kuznetsov type" hull is significantly enlarged, say, lengthened, and with the flight deck completely redesigned with a much smaller island, catapults instead of ski jump, so on and so forth?
So I would rather use 001A and 002 designations to reflect the characteristics ascribed to them by the the previous succession of rumours rather than putting our own assumptions about what the designations may signify and what we personally believe "class designations" should separate them by.
Therefore I see:
001A: is a Liaoning mod, with modified island, likely modified internal arrangement, but virtually identical hull and overall size and displacement to Liaoning
002: its description is dependent exclusively on rumours, where the consensus is that it is a conventionally powered carrier, said to displace around 80,000 tons or less, with catapults. Whether the latter is a broad enough description to encompass it being a "Kuznetsov type" ship as you described is quite an open question, but at this stage I think that is a moot point. It is more accurate just to describe 002 (or the third domestic carrier, CV-18) with the traits that have been ascribed to it rather than projecting whether it may be an "001B" or whatever because that conveys different information to what we have had access to.
And I also sincerely doubt 001 or 001A will ever get steam catapults in their lifetimes.
I agree with this.
It is true that the US Navy upgraded a bunch of Essex carriers and put "different" and "newer" catapults on them. They also completely rearranged their decks to an angled deck, and they completely redid their elevators and the island.
Really, IMHO, they created a new class of carries and to this day people talk about it like the three major refits turned them into something completely different than what they were launched as.
The three were:
SCB-27A
SCB-125
SCB-144
Some of them got one, some two, and of the 24 built, eight of them got all three.
This basically upgraded them into the modern age, allowing them to do full jet age operations, with their angled decks, new catapults, new elevators, new landing systems, new arresting gear etc.
Some of those old girls served many, many years, clear past the time that the Nimitz class were building. The last of them, the USS , was finally decommissioned in 1991, almost 50 years after she was put in service.
The Lexington, for example, served from Feb 1943 until 1991 November of 1991, almost 49 years.
Now, the USS Enterprise, the US first nuclear carrier was commissioned in November of 1961and decommissioned in December of 2012...after 51 years of continuous service (outside of normal maintenance and reactor overhauls).
Well, that took me off topic, but the point is, that even with those major overhauls and changes, the Essex class remained the Essex class...but they were not new builds. They were modified.
I believe as you do.
The Liaoning and her sister (001A) will be, tpo the Chinese, the Liaoning lass. Some may understandable call them a part of the Kuznetsov class...but I believe they are best set apart as a class of their own.
I believe 002 will end up with two carriers and be a conventionally powered, CATOBAR carrier that looks differently than the Liaoning, and displaces somewhat more. I believe they will be a separate class.
Finally, I believe the third run at it for the Chine4se will be when they go nuclear powered. This will be yet larger and will also be a different class. I believe it is likely that that class my have as many as four or six carriers in it depending on how long they keep the first four in service.
They may keep that basic class in operation (with understandable improvements) long enough for the Liaoning and 001A to be decommissioned.
At that point they may come out with another new nuclear design (like the US is doing now with the Ford) and use that class to replace the first two conventional CATOBARs and some the intial nuclear powered carriers.
Who knows?
By that time, I expect I will have been pushing up daisies for a long time! LOL!
Last edited:
Just out of curiosity I double checked on Google Maps and found that the Wulan/Mulan Lakeview Hotel's actual location is on a different peninsula than the mystery carrier mockup due to the shifted Google Map overlay in China. So unless someone verified locally in real life that this thing is not military, there is still a chance that it is. Here is a map I marked up with the actual vs shifted locations:
Interesting.Just out of curiosity I double checked on Google Maps and found that the Wulan/Mulan Lakeview Hotel's actual location is on a different peninsula than the mystery carrier mockup due to the shifted Google Map overlay in China. So unless someone verified locally in real life that this thing is not military, there is still a chance that it is. Here is a map I marked up with the actual vs shifted locations:
Thanks!
Comparison of both Wuhan mock ups, taken at 627m eye altitude...
Doesn't seem to be any significant difference in length. Of course, this is assuming the second/newly discovered mock up is a meaningful important facility
edit: added Liaoning, at same altitude
Doesn't seem to be any significant difference in length. Of course, this is assuming the second/newly discovered mock up is a meaningful important facility
edit: added Liaoning, at same altitude
Last edited:
I think the difference in length is about 20m, a difference of about 6% in length that is pretty hard to gauge visually.
Comparison below; again both taken at same eye altitude, 823m this time.
I also measured 292m, which BTW can actually be gauged visually in your latest photo comparison. Also, the widest flight deck beam is only 67m. In any case, the point isn't that they appear approximately similar visually but that we can measure that the "mockup" is definitively smaller than the Liaoning, which IMO would tend to invalidate this structure as a legitimate military mockup. Unless you believe that future Chinese carriers are going to be smaller than the current ones.
Last edited: