Such matters are not only known to "high up". At this time it must be known to at least a few people lower down and soon with some people actually building the ship. If it should have remained a secret he should have refused to answer. He wouldn't be doing his carrier any good if he lied or if he guessed the answer wrongly.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Hah! I wish.
I think the only definitive confirmation of the catapult type for some people will be the first time we see 002 launch an aircraft from its catapult and whether steam comes out after it launches to determine whether it's steam or not... and for some people they will probably want to see all the catapults on the ship launch to determine if they are all steam or not steam, because some people will probably also speculate that maybe only one of the catapults are EM and the others are steam or something.
If this was done at a marine engineering institute I suspect the officer talked about a bit more than just naval uniforms.
These guys doing national defense presentation at schools are like cab drivers in beijing. You would be surprised of all the interesting stories they "produce". I even remember once a guy like this one in a similar situation talking about how J-10 will definitely end up on carrier which also make some fuzz on internet back then.
It might have close relationship with navy and probably has a role in naval industry but it is still a civilian institute and those students are civilians. I doubt most if not all of them have absolute zero security clearance.
Also if the topic have anything to do with basic things like uniform, take a heavy grain of salt for any information except those you can get from a giveaway handbook.
vesicles
Colonel
Yes, at this point, a few people in the PLAN should have some idea. Heck, they might have already made their decision. However, this group won't include someone who is in charge of uniforms, let alone someone sent on an errant run to talk about uniforms at a civilian institute. Just think about who you would send to take out the trash. that's what this guy is doing.
This guy most likely is an errant boy who is trying to pretend to be someone important...
Yes, that's why this would be considered a leak.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Two reasons, imo:
1: we don't know what the rest of the lecture was about. It may well have included basic things like uniform, but also more generally talks about the navy as an institute and its organizational aspects, or whatever.
2: the actual content of the lecture itself doesn't really matter as it shouldn't have any adverse bearing on the credibility of the naval officer himself. Sure, we would take this even more seriously if the lecture was about something more explicit like "configuration of future Chinese naval vessels," but the reason we are taking this somewhat seriously to begin with is because the question was asked to a naval officer who answered it in turn. The context of what kind of lecture the question occurred is not as important.
This isn't to say that we should assume the officer's words are fully accurate -- he may well just be repeating what he heard in the grapevine and he may not have an accurate read on the situation, which would be a fair reason for us to continue holding some natural skepticism.
But being skeptical due to what the lecture may have been about imo is not a very sound reason.
Or putting it another way -- there are circumstances in which the answer of the naval officer about the catapult could be considered much more credible, however the current circumstances of the naval officer's answer does not make it un-credible in and of itself.
I'm not telling anyone to treat these "leaks" as gospel. As with everything to do with PLA-watching, news should generally be taken with a grain of salt.
However, some things are fact. The presenter is a navy officer, and as such has official status, that is fact. He was speaking at a marine engineering institution, that is fact. This suggests that the contents of his speech would be in some way related to ship construction, which the catapults are a part of for the 002.
Finally, consider the fact that he gave an answer at all. If he does not know what catapults the 002 will use, then he would likely have not given an answer. If he knows but was not officially not allowed to say, then he would likely have not given an answer. If he did not know, it would have been easier to say "no comment" rather than put his job in jeopardy for leaking information. Hence, since he gave an answer straight to the point, it is not unreasonable to believe he is telling the truth.
That's why I stated very clearly in my other post that I'm not sure how trustworthy the news is, and that I will leave it to your own interpretation. I firmly believe that posting some evidence is better than not posting evidence at all!
However, some things are fact. The presenter is a navy officer, and as such has official status, that is fact. He was speaking at a marine engineering institution, that is fact. This suggests that the contents of his speech would be in some way related to ship construction, which the catapults are a part of for the 002.
Finally, consider the fact that he gave an answer at all. If he does not know what catapults the 002 will use, then he would likely have not given an answer. If he knows but was not officially not allowed to say, then he would likely have not given an answer. If he did not know, it would have been easier to say "no comment" rather than put his job in jeopardy for leaking information. Hence, since he gave an answer straight to the point, it is not unreasonable to believe he is telling the truth.
That's why I stated very clearly in my other post that I'm not sure how trustworthy the news is, and that I will leave it to your own interpretation. I firmly believe that posting some evidence is better than not posting evidence at all!
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I don't understand all this errand boy talk...I mean can't someone tell his rank from his uniform? If he an equilvalent to like a seaman or are we talking at least Lt Cmdr or above? He looks like an officer to me.
If you are talking at a marine engineering institute, hard to imagine that you are not an officer.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
My thoughts are similar. The talk about Navy uniforms is inconsequential to his answer about EMALS.
Imagined if I'm giving a lecture to a bunch of 10 yr olds about riding bicycles and some kid chimed up and asked me about F18s holding or landing envelope during high sea states. I go into detail about deck pitching, landing patterns, landing checklist, cross winds, 3 down and locked, hook down, flaps all full, antiskid off, 780 AGL, 380 knts approach on speed, high AoA etc doesn't make me less of an expert
.