But Shandong and Liaoning have bigger deck and hangar than type 075, also they didn't have to modify them too much. They could reduce the J-15 airwing and increase the number of helicopters.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Well if J-31/J-35 etc can take off from 001/002 with full fuel load and all internal weapons then perhaps it makes sense for 001/002 to become CAP only carriers and forgo J-15, working in coordination with 076 and its force of UCAVs?
lcloo
Captain
They will not sell or convert CV16 Liaoning and CV17 Shandong evn if 004 is commissioned in future. To have an aircraft carrier out to the high sea at all time, minimum inventory of 3 ships would be normal. One ship is out on patrol, 2nd ship in port for R&R/standby etc, 3rd ship may be in shipyard receiving its scheduled maintenance.
And there are heavy maintenance that would put an aircraft carrier out of active aervice for more than a year. Also they should have an anticipation plan for contigency where the 4th carrier need to deploy urgently.
Lastly, a very likely scenario of having 2 active CV on patrol on all time in Pacific and Indian Oceans after 2030 (after China gaining the largest global economic power status).
I thinnk it is reasonable that 6 aircraft cariiers would be required from 2030 onwards, inclusive of Liaoning and Shandong.
And there are heavy maintenance that would put an aircraft carrier out of active aervice for more than a year. Also they should have an anticipation plan for contigency where the 4th carrier need to deploy urgently.
Lastly, a very likely scenario of having 2 active CV on patrol on all time in Pacific and Indian Oceans after 2030 (after China gaining the largest global economic power status).
I thinnk it is reasonable that 6 aircraft cariiers would be required from 2030 onwards, inclusive of Liaoning and Shandong.
you wouldn’t need to do much conversion to make a fixed wing carrier operate only rotorcraft.
But will a task force need so many helicopters as to require a 64000 ton ship to carry them all?
To capitalize on the availability of the 001/002 to a task force that include several full sized carriers, it seems to me the best thing to do would be to offload from large carriers onto the 001/002 any air operation that would be repetitive, so their occurrences would disrupt the tempo of flight deck operation to facilitate important, potentially battle winning strokes.
for example, the task of maintaining standing combat fighter patrol over the task force might require 1-2 fighters be launched every 10-15 minutes or so, The need to maintain an standing ASW patrol might require 1-2 helicopters be launched every 5-10 minutes.
If the carrier is in the process of assembling a 30-40 aircraft strike package to attack a target, having to launch unrelated CAP fighters and ASW helicopters might significantly disrupt the rhythm of the deck operation, the speed with which the strike package can be assembled, and if part of the strike has to be kept orbiting the carrier awaiting the CAP fighter launch so the rest of the strike can launch afterwards, it would materially reduce the range of the strike.
So it seems to me the best use of a smaller 001/002 type carrier to the task force would be to allow larger carriers to offload these routine tasks so they can focus more on launching and recovering powerful mission packages.
They would be very sorry fighters if they can’t. The two things any aircraft need to take off from ski ramp are:
1. high thrust to weight ratio
2. low wing loading
Any fighter has better have these two in abundance.
Not sure what you mean. You claim China is not close to American carrier output speed in the 90s but you admit China is capable of launching carriers of similar displacement in 1.5 years, while the Americans took 3 years according to you.
So China's speed from this carrier being laid down to being launched is actually double the speed of American output in the 90s. If it was laid down in July-August 2020 and is going to be launched in say January-Feb 2022 (a reasonable date imo) then that's roughly 1.5 years.
It's not necessarily that simple, because the construction of 003 and US carriers in the 90s and onwards use slightly different methods and also had slightly different confounding factors.
For 003, the super modules for most of its hull were fabricated at the eastern site on the island (first visible in mid/late 2018 from what I recall), before being moved to the drydock where it is now mid 2020.
On the other hand, for carriers built by the US, the construction of the ship either in terms of laying the initial keel, or fabricating the initial modules (much smaller in size than 003's super modules), were done directly in the drydock to begin with.
So comparing when the initial parts of the hull of 003 and various US carriers were first "laid down" in their respective drydocks is not a fair way to measure the actual amount of work and time spent on the respective carriers, because the method that 003 was constructed only involved the drydock once a substantial amount of the hull's super modules were basically complete, while the US carriers were put immediately into their drydock from the outset.
Given the variation of carrier construction techniques that exist for different carriers (003, vs 002, vs US carriers, vs UK QE class), the fairest way of measuring time is to measure the time taken from initial "steel cutting" (that is done when the first steel is cut for a ship, regardless of whether it is a traditional keel laying, or whether it is for fabrication of small modules, or for fabrication of super modules) -- to launch.
A Nimitz class built in the 1990s (say USS Truman), had its keel laid initially in November 1993 but I'm unable to find when the first steel was cut (or if it was part of the same ceremony).
In the case of 003, we saw the initial modules of it in mid/late 2018, so chances are the first steel was cut a year or so before it.
.... but at the same time, 003 would have been affected/delayed by factors outside of the shipyard's control -- namely the PLAN's deliberations about wanting the ship to be redesigned from steam catapults to EM catapults, which likely put a pause on things at some stages of 003's construction as well.
So there are basically two takeaway points:
1. If we want a "fair" measure of time of work taken from initial work to launch of a carrier (or indeed, any ship at all), starting from "initial steel cutting" to "launch" is probably the fairest way of doing so (assuming of course the launch of the ship is relatively completely like in Chinese, US, UK, European practice and not the Indian way in which the INS Vikrant was launched initially). This is because "keel laying" in the drydock these days doesn't account for substantial amounts of work done outside and before the initial modules are put in the drydock.
2. For 003 specifically, we cannot do a fair measurement of the true amount of time that the shipyard would've taken to complete its work, because this 003 carrier we see would've been affected by the PLAN's deliberations in catapult decision making from steam to EM catapults, and the likely inevitable pauses and delays it would've imposed as the ship would've been redesigned -- factors outside of the shipyard's control. Therefore, if we want to truly measure how fast a 003 pattern carrier can be built, we will likely have to wait for JNCX (and/or DL) to build another 003 pattern carrier sometime in the future when the construction of said future 003 pattern carrier won't be affected by PLAN deliberations and redesign delays.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Well, 001 would still be useful in the future as training carrier or for low intensity conflict or just patrolling within 1st island chain or SCS or as ambassador visiting SEA countries and pacific (NZ included
)
Interesting to note that when the first super carrier was built in the mid 1950s, a super carrier was the largest ship of any type in the world. Now look how small an aircraft carrier of at least the same size looks next to the container ship being built next to her.