CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Bridge？
not quite.
MwRYum
Major
Is the module already on the hull or still putting together into bigger block to be installed?
We don't definitively know what it is yet, and even if it is the island, those pictures don't tell us enough info to clearly know its final size.
And there's no answer that can be given just by guessing.
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To everyone, I want to say just chill a bit and enjoy the show.
We are going to get dribs and drabs of partial blurry pictures for a while until things become too clear to obscure, before the end of the year once the ship is expected to be structurally complete.
Certain things like overall ship length and width, flight deck configuration, catapult length, island size, etc, simply can't be definitively estimated down to the meter, without having adequate pictures, so for some things just waiting for the eventual pictures is the best thing to do.
I have to admit that all the measurement estimates and displacement implications over the last several months kind of surprised me. At the beginning, the images were all blurry so there could be large margin of errors in estimates. But the pictures are getting much clearer lately ...
003 was supposed to be China's Kitty Hawk equivalent: conventional CATOBAR, 80,000-ton -ish, maybe not quite as large, but it's at least the aspiration. But the measurements appear to have gradually bumped it up to past Kitty and towards Nimitz. That's a bit baffling and interesting.
Early rumors had it that the standard displacement of 003 would be somewhere like 68,000 tons, not quite Kitty size, but close. It's a realistic size, given the likely constraint of the power plant (improved version from Liaoning and Shandong).
Don't know how to make of it. Did China just make significant progress in the power plant? Is it because the EMALS system is much larger than the corresponding steamed catapult such that you have to enlarge the deck size and therefore the displacement? Yes, the speed may be sacrificed a bit.
Guess we'll see.
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To be fair, the Kitty Hawk is still some 17 meters shorter than the Nimitz class at waterline, and a 0.8m difference in beam at waterline as well, which, combined with the nuclear propulsion of the Nimitz class and associated shielding, would likely lend to the difference in displacement between the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz classes.
In the case of 003, while in some parameters it may approach the Nimitz class in dimensions (possibly flight deck width in some respects), by all accounts it will still be slightly shorter (Kitty Hawk length), likely a slightly narrower beam at waterline (0.5-0.8m?), and also remain conventionally powered.
Take all of that together, I could see 003 being maybe slightly heavier than your average Kitty Hawk class carrier but still credibly some 10,000-15,000 tons lighter than a Nimitz/Ford CVN.
.... but this isn't to say that 003 will be small or that a displacement of some 85,000+ tons would be a disappointment.
I remember years ago when there was the rumour that 003 might only displace 70,000 tons full, but looking at the ship now, that number seems quite unrealistically low.
I always wondered about that.
The Liaoning and Shandong were 60,000 tons because the Soviet started to build 60,000 ton ships and these were a shortcut for the Chinese to gain fixed wing capability and experience. Not because the Chinese thought the capabilities of a carrier of around 60,000 tons best met their needs.
If it is true that the Chinese intend to eventually build Nimitz sized carriers, then obvious they think the capabilities of a Nimintz sized ship is what they needed. If that were the case, does it really make sense for them to take yet another intermediate step and end up with yet another hull that is somewhat short of the capability they wanted? What do they gain by building something that is significantly smaller than a conventional equivalent of the Nimitz? Why not go directly to the size that would support the full capability they need?
So I kind of expected 003 to be near Nimitz in size. Somewhat smaller because conventional powerplants allow a somewhat smaller hull, but not much smaller.
Yet 3 catapults and 2 elevator does vaguely suggest the ship might be significantly smaller than the Nimitz.
I am interested in seeing if this hull will be confirmed to be near Nimitz size.
The Liaoning and Shandong were 60,000 tons because the Soviet started to build 60,000 ton ships and these were a shortcut for the Chinese to gain fixed wing capability and experience. Not because the Chinese thought the capabilities of a carrier of around 60,000 tons best met their needs.
If it is true that the Chinese intend to eventually build Nimitz sized carriers, then obvious they think the capabilities of a Nimintz sized ship is what they needed. If that were the case, does it really make sense for them to take yet another intermediate step and end up with yet another hull that is somewhat short of the capability they wanted? What do they gain by building something that is significantly smaller than a conventional equivalent of the Nimitz? Why not go directly to the size that would support the full capability they need?
So I kind of expected 003 to be near Nimitz in size. Somewhat smaller because conventional powerplants allow a somewhat smaller hull, but not much smaller.
Yet 3 catapults and 2 elevator does vaguely suggest the ship might be significantly smaller than the Nimitz.
I am interested in seeing if this hull will be confirmed to be near Nimitz size.