These differences of opinion are why I am and have been calling China's third carrier "CV-18", because pretty much nobody will disagree with this nomenclature. In the end it doesn't matter what any of us think of the significance of a catapult addition to an otherwise Liaoning carrier. It only matters what the PLAN thinks of it. It is also unknown whether or not they will build upon their knowledge of the Liaoning class in a more gradual, stepwise fashion, or strike out into entirely new carrier construction designs with what little operational knowledge they have gleaned from the Liaoning so far. With so many unknowns, there is no reason for me to call this carrier anything other than CV-18 until more information is publically available.
Those of us who have been nvolved here for the last 10+ yeaars have heard a lot of talk out of China, some of it directly from their military, which has basically indicated that the would:
1. Rework the Varyag into an operational carrier, which we were saying here when a lot of western analysts were still scoffing at it and buying the Casino cover.
2. Build a 2nd STOBAR arrier that is a Chinese version of the LIaoning/Kuznetsov class.
3. Proceed from their to build a CATOBAR class carrier approaching 90,000 tons and probably conventional power but with cats. Some differ here on whether those would be steam or electromagnetic cats...I believe they will be steam becasue they are not ready to make that leap. Some also wonder whether there will be one or two of these. I say two because t matches their here to fore careful plan of getting two vessels and maximizing their logistics and training even if they are not going to build a bunch serially.
4. Proceed after the conventional CATOBAR to a karger nuclear powered COATOBAR.
Most of us here have viewed 1 and 2 of the same class, 001, with Lioaning being 001, and the second being 001A.
Most of us believe that the first CATOBAR conventional carriers would be a separate class, hence the 002.
Finally, when they go nuclear, most of us believe that will be another class 003, which is probably the one they will build several of, using that design to replace the 001 and 001A as they go out of service.
Anyhow, that's a brief legacy of SD's long history with looking at the Chinese carriers, listening to the chatter, listening to what CHinese offiials have said, and then watching what happens.
I believe those four steps are going to be pretty close to this day.
But we shall see...time always tells.