CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

[davidau]

Shandong will be the most logical of answers, since the carrier aviation's training facilities are up in the north, and despite how much of a duck pond the Bohai Sea actually is, it should be adequate as far as the first few years of the CATOBAR training goes, not to mention its proximity to major shipyard compare with Hainan (unless shipyards in Guangzhou also rated for aircraft carrier maintenance, don't know what grade of work the newly completed drydock in Hainan rated for).

Please don't quote me, but from memory new dry dock in Hainan is geared for carriers.

 

[DexterM]

Well that is a good point. But it depends on the design really. I remember reading about a pebble bed reactor which used liquid hydrogen as the coolant which was a lot more dense than this reactor should be for example. Problem is hydrogen likes to erode the carbon typically used to cover the fuel pellets leading to radiation leaks. Oops. I suppose they could use liquid helium but that is even harder to keep at temperature.

This is why I say something kind of like the ACP100/S design with integrated components inside the same casing would make a lot more sense. Only thing that design does not have is high fuel lifetime but they can handle that by changing it to use higher grade fuel or more of it.

PBRs use gaseous helium. Hydrogen would never be used due to hydrogen embrittlement of the metal in the reactor.

 

[Rachmaninov]

More graphics via louischeung on Twitter

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1483829934653018112

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1483830301512155137

 

[Lethe]

So it sounds like you agree carriers are nice and important, but it's just that China cannot afford it. In that case, we have a huge disagreement. I'll make it simple to explain.

A few years back, when discussing future PLAN orbat at SDF, I made the argument that PLAN should benchmark USN because it's the world's most advanced navy and also PLAN's main potential adversary, and therefore target to achieve between 1/2 - 2/3 of the force of USN by the middle of 2030's. Given the "deteriorating strategic environment" in the last few years, let's say the target is 2/3 of the USN.

Chinese defense spending is about 1/3 of that of the US at nominal term, and should be roughly 1/2 in real term when taking into account the purchasing power and low cost. Chinese economy will likely surpass the US economy between 2025 and 2030, and will be anywhere between 1.5 - 2 times of the US economy by 2035, in nominal term

China today has two conventional STOBAR carriers. In the most aggressive scenario, China will have built by 2035 four more conventional CATOBAR carriers (Type 003) and two nuclear-powered carriers, which will only start to construct in the 2030's. Effectively, that's less than 2/3 of the USN's nuclear-powered supercarrier fleet at 11-12.

In other words, from spending at half of the US's today to about the same as the US's in 2035 in real terms, are you saying China can not afford 2/3 of the USN by 2035? Keep in mind, China would still spend substantially less in percentage of GDP in this scenario than the US.

I think this is very optimistic. Latest projections have China's GDP surpassing USA only in late 2020s and the delta thereafter will not be impressive as growth continues to slow. I suspect that by 2035 China's GDP could be as 'low' as 1.2x USA's GDP.

Looking at USN's capabilities vs. its budget is misleading. Capabilities are built up over twenty, thirty, forty years. In the real world, the number of USN carriers, number of aircraft, number of combatants, number of submarines has been in continuous decline over the last generation as per-unit costs continue to increase and contemporary budgets are inadequate to maintain force structures built up in previous eras. The trajectory is gradual but real. USN continues to put out plans to reverse this decline, but all of those plans rely on significantly increased spending (which is indeed likely to be forthcoming as Washington increasingly shifts to a war footing). The point is, China may deliver a military budget "comparable" to USA's in e.g. 2034, but that in no way suggests comparable capabilities between the two nations. You have to compare the sum of at least the past 25 years of budgets for that, and that equation is going to remain weighted in USA's favour for the forseeable future.

In your statement above, you almost make it sound like China doesn't know what it's getting itself into by jumping into the carrier building program, with all the escort fleet, combat and support aircraft, various personnel etc. etc. It's like they will have a sticker shock or something like it. I have to say this feels a bit condescending.

It is more that I think posters here underestimate the budgetary challenges ahead. Nobody knows what the CCP leadership is thinking, but they are not infallible and there is no reason to think that they are immune to the many varieties of "imaginary thinking" that we see in other bureaucracies. If all the trends that folks here seem to take for granted (carriers+++, naval aviation+++, nuclear submarines+++, surface combatants++, etc.) are indeed pursued to fruition, costs are going to escalate significantly above the growth rate of the Chinese economy. Even without the gradual slowing of the economy, most of the 'low hanging fruit' in terms of reducing the size of the Army, just moving personnel around from old shitboxes to shiny new ships, etc. has already been picked. Further growth is going to be considerably more challenging. Military spending will thus have to increase as a share of the broader economy, which in turn requires reprioritization of everything else, e.g. more taxation, less spending on education, or whatever. If that is indeed anticipated, great.

All the escort ships (055/052D/054A/054B) are in place and will continue to be built regardless how many carriers will be built given the "deteriorating strategic environment." All the aircraft are needed and will be built regardless how many carriers will be built: the difference being whether they're going to be parked on land (J-20/J-16/J-16D/KJ-500) without aircraft carriers or on aircraft carriers (J-35/J-15B/J-15D/KJ-600) to be forward deployed in the Western Pacific to give China more strategic defense space. And, for all the supposedly prioritized SSN/SSGN's, they are better off to go with CBG's in many cases.

Your suggestion really amounts to building some more SSN/SSGNs at the expense of a few large carriers. That's a false trade-off. A worse one.

To summarize, China can absolutely afford up to six large CATOBAR carriers and their associated escort fleet, support aircraft and personnels with defense spending as a percentage of GDP less than the US by 2035. And, a balanced force structure that include large carriers, SSN/SSGN/SSBN's and strategic stealth bombers are so much more effective and powerful than some narrowly-focused navy.

If you look back to WW2, it is easy to identify the errors that nations made in their resource allocations to military projects in the 1930s, most obviously over-investment in battleships and under-investment in carriers. In its most pointed form, the risk is that the dream 004 nuclear-powered supercarrier becomes the equivalent of IJN's Yamato and Musashi.

In any case, the point is that the priorities in a heightened threat environment can and should differ significantly from those in a more benign environment. I suspect that nuclear carriers are a popular idea for China because they are seen as an "achievement" matching the best that USA (and therefore the world) has to offer. And when times are good, such "status seeking" behavior can be indulged. But when the skies darken as they are doing now, the point is not to build the biggest and shiniest warship, the point is to secure victory.

If I look at China's situation today, China can credibly hold air and maritime superiority to a distance of 500km offshore.
And as China's Air Force and Navy continues modernising in the next 5years, this superiority will become even more pronounced.

But China's land-based aircraft will be limited in operating in large numbers past 1000km from the Chinese mainland, so longer-ranged capabilities like nuclear submarines, carriers, bombers and long-range missiles are the logical next step.

I agree that these are all useful capabilities. The threat is the prospect of blockade imposed at considerable distances from China's coast, across several chokepoints in places like the Malacca Straits, probably in the form of a "whitelist" and specific channels for US/allied ships to travel in, while everything found outside those channels will be seized or sunk. To avoid defeat requires robust anti-submarine warfare and anti-air warfare capabilities. To secure victory requires the ability to threaten adversary carrier battle groups that will anchor those chokepoints. The capabilities that can do this are, in order of efficacy: SSGNs, SSNs, strategic airpower, and lastly carriers and strategic rocket forces. Carriers are behind nuclear submarines and strategic airpower because they are much more expensive means of addressing the threat, while strategic rocket forces are ultimately defensive in character, in practice their function, like tactical land-based airpower, is to push the carriers further offshore.

 

[sinophilia]

I think this is very optimistic. Latest projections have China's GDP surpassing USA only in late 2020s and the delta thereafter will not be impressive as growth continues to slow. I suspect that by 2035 China's GDP could be as 'low' as 1.2x USA's GDP.

Looking at USN's capabilities vs. its budget is misleading. Capabilities are built up over twenty, thirty, forty years. In the real world, the number of USN carriers, number of aircraft, number of combatants, number of submarines has been in continuous decline over the last generation as per-unit costs continue to increase and contemporary budgets are inadequate to maintain force structures built up in previous eras. The trajectory is gradual but real. USN continues to put out plans to reverse this decline, but all of those plans rely on significantly increased spending (which is indeed likely to be forthcoming as Washington increasingly shifts to a war footing). The point is, China may deliver a military budget "comparable" to USA's in e.g. 2034, but that in no way suggests comparable capabilities between the two nations. You have to compare the sum of at least the past 25 years of budgets for that, and that equation is going to remain weighted in USA's favour for the forseeable future.



It is more that I think posters here underestimate the budgetary challenges ahead. Nobody knows what the CCP leadership is thinking, but they are not infallible and there is no reason to think that they are immune to the many varieties of "imaginary thinking" that we see in other bureaucracies. If all the trends that folks here seem to take for granted (carriers+++, naval aviation+++, nuclear submarines+++, surface combatants++, etc.) are indeed pursued to fruition, costs are going to escalate significantly above the growth rate of the Chinese economy. Even without the gradual slowing of the economy, most of the 'low hanging fruit' in terms of reducing the size of the Army, just moving personnel around from old shitboxes to shiny new ships, etc. has already been picked. Further growth is going to be considerably more challenging. Military spending will thus have to increase as a share of the broader economy, which in turn requires reprioritization of everything else, e.g. more taxation, less spending on education, or whatever. If that is indeed anticipated, great.



If you look back to WW2, it is easy to identify the errors that nations made in their resource allocations to military projects in the 1930s, most obviously over-investment in battleships and under-investment in carriers. In its most pointed form, the risk is that the dream 004 nuclear-powered supercarrier becomes the equivalent of IJN's Yamato and Musashi.

In any case, the point is that the priorities in a heightened threat environment can and should differ significantly from those in a more benign environment. I suspect that nuclear carriers are a popular idea for China because they are seen as an "achievement" matching the best that USA (and therefore the world) has to offer. And when times are good, such "status seeking" behavior can be indulged. But when the skies darken as they are doing now, the point is not to build the biggest and shiniest warship, the point is to secure victory.



I agree that these are all useful capabilities. The threat is the prospect of blockade imposed at considerable distances from China's coast, across several chokepoints in places like the Malacca Straits, probably in the form of a "whitelist" and specific channels for US/allied ships to travel in, while everything found outside those channels will be seized or sunk. To avoid defeat requires robust anti-submarine warfare and anti-air warfare capabilities. To secure victory requires the ability to threaten adversary carrier battle groups that will anchor those chokepoints. The capabilities that can do this are, in order of efficacy: SSGNs, SSNs, strategic airpower, and lastly carriers and strategic rocket forces. Carriers are behind nuclear submarines and strategic airpower because they are much more expensive means of addressing the threat, while strategic rocket forces are ultimately defensive in character, in practice their function, like tactical land-based airpower, is to push the carriers further offshore.

Your entire response is predicated on the belief that China will slow down massively to the point where the growth differential is negligible between the US and China.

I find this to be highly unlikely. Sure China will slowdown as it recalibrates its economy, but then it will speed up again as the recalibration is complete. I don't think you're going to see a negligible growth differential until China reaches 33%-50% of US GDP per capita.

In the last two years alone China grew 5.58x as fast as the US, despite China's massive slowdown. Why? The US is clearly slowing down too. Any recover for them will be short term and not long lasting. While China has a hell of a lot of simple catch-up growth left. Easy pickings.

Chinese Economics Thread

Why would you use two different calculations for the US and China? if Chinese average growth rate is 5.2% (by simply adding both years 2.3+8.1 then dividing by two) then US average growth rate is 1.05% (-3.5+5.6 then divide by two). Chinese = 5.2% average annual growth rate US = 1.05% average...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

 

[AndrewS]

I agree that these are all useful capabilities. The threat is the prospect of blockade imposed at considerable distances from China's coast, across several chokepoints in places like the Malacca Straits, probably in the form of a "whitelist" and specific channels for US/allied ships to travel in, while everything found outside those channels will be seized or sunk. To avoid defeat requires robust anti-submarine warfare and anti-air warfare capabilities. To secure victory requires the ability to threaten adversary carrier battle groups that will anchor those chokepoints. The capabilities that can do this are, in order of efficacy: SSGNs, SSNs, strategic airpower, and lastly carriers and strategic rocket forces. Carriers are behind nuclear submarines and strategic airpower because they are much more expensive means of addressing the threat, while strategic rocket forces are ultimately defensive in character, in practice their function, like tactical land-based airpower, is to push the carriers further offshore.

There is a difference between sea control and sea denial.

Submarines are fine for sea denial.

But if you are talking about breaking a distant blockade, you need forces which have presence to control the seas and allow cargo ships to run. That means surface ships and locally based airpower.

 

[AndrewS]

Looking at USN's capabilities vs. its budget is misleading. Capabilities are built up over twenty, thirty, forty years. In the real world, the number of USN carriers, number of aircraft, number of combatants, number of submarines has been in continuous decline over the last generation as per-unit costs continue to increase and contemporary budgets are inadequate to maintain force structures built up in previous eras. The trajectory is gradual but real. USN continues to put out plans to reverse this decline, but all of those plans rely on significantly increased spending (which is indeed likely to be forthcoming as Washington increasingly shifts to a war footing). The point is, China may deliver a military budget "comparable" to USA's in e.g. 2034, but that in no way suggests comparable capabilities between the two nations. You have to compare the sum of at least the past 25 years of budgets for that, and that equation is going to remain weighted in USA's favour for the forseeable future.

Realistically, China will only have a mature nuclear design by 2028 at the earliest.
So I don't see China decisively shifting to carriers until after 2030.
But at that point, it would be possible for China to build up to additional 6 carriers in the decade from 2030-2040.
I expect the Chinese economy to be at least twice the size of the USA by 2040.

It is more that I think posters here underestimate the budgetary challenges ahead. Nobody knows what the CCP leadership is thinking, but they are not infallible and there is no reason to think that they are immune to the many varieties of "imaginary thinking" that we see in other bureaucracies. If all the trends that folks here seem to take for granted (carriers+++, naval aviation+++, nuclear submarines+++, surface combatants++, etc.) are indeed pursued to fruition, costs are going to escalate significantly above the growth rate of the Chinese economy. Even without the gradual slowing of the economy, most of the 'low hanging fruit' in terms of reducing the size of the Army, just moving personnel around from old shitboxes to shiny new ships, etc. has already been picked. Further growth is going to be considerably more challenging. Military spending will thus have to increase as a share of the broader economy, which in turn requires reprioritization of everything else, e.g. more taxation, less spending on education, or whatever. If that is indeed anticipated, great.

Remember it is the military that decides on spending priorities - with comparatively little input from civilian authorities compared to most other major militaries. And the Chinese military has literally spent the entirety of its existence under a condition of material inferiority, since it began as a guerrilla force a hundred years ago to the present day.

Frugality has been baked in, and that as the challenger military, the military bureaucracy has learned to be realistic. Imaginary thinking is more likely to come from the civilian side, rather than the military bureaucracy which is in charge of procurement.

If you look back to WW2, it is easy to identify the errors that nations made in their resource allocations to military projects in the 1930s, most obviously over-investment in battleships and under-investment in carriers. In its most pointed form, the risk is that the dream 004 nuclear-powered supercarrier becomes the equivalent of IJN's Yamato and Musashi.

In any case, the point is that the priorities in a heightened threat environment can and should differ significantly from those in a more benign environment. I suspect that nuclear carriers are a popular idea for China because they are seen as an "achievement" matching the best that USA (and therefore the world) has to offer. And when times are good, such "status seeking" behavior can be indulged. But when the skies darken as they are doing now, the point is not to build the biggest and shiniest warship, the point is to secure victory.

It is the US bureaucracy which has indulged in "status seeking" behaviour.
And if anything, it would be the USA that has overinvested in nuclear supercarriers.

 

[Maikeru]

PLAN gets a lot more ships than USN for its $$$ not just in PPP terms but also because China builds 50% of the world's merchant shipping, so the costs of running and equipping the shipyard and training the workers is spread over many ships. The US barely builds any merchant ships these days to basically the entire shipyard costs are borne by the USN.

 

[Lethe]

Your entire response is predicated on the belief that China will slow down massively to the point where the growth differential is negligible between the US and China.

No it isn't. Really, economic growth rate is a distraction beyond the simple point that a large-scale buildup across all the domains that folks here seem to take for granted means that military budgets are going to have to escalate at a rate significantly exceeding the broader rate of economic growth, which in turn means that either military spending as a proportion of the economy will have to go up, or hard choices are going to have to be made amongst competing priorities, in which case I believe nuclear carriers should be deprioritized as offering relatively poor return on investment. The long-term doesn't matter; in the long-term China will be fine whether she has eight nuclear-powered supercarriers or none, because if war hasn't broken out by 2040 then it isn't going to. What matters is resource allocation across the short- and medium-term in which China remains both resource constrained and confronted by broadly superior threat actors.

And if anything, it would be the USA that has overinvested in nuclear supercarriers.

Absolutely. If USN were to go back to the late 1990s, knowing what they do now about the costs of Ford and the challenge of China, I have no doubt that they would make a lot of decisions differently, very possibly including a return to relatively modest conventionally-powered carriers on the scale of 003.

 

[AndrewS]

No it isn't. Really, economic growth rate is a distraction beyond the simple point that a large-scale buildup across all the domains that folks here seem to take for granted means that military budgets are going to have to escalate at a rate significantly exceeding the broader rate of economic growth, which in turn means that either military spending as a proportion of the economy will have to go up, or hard choices are going to have to be made amongst competing priorities, in which case I believe nuclear carriers should be deprioritized as offering relatively poor return on investment. The long-term doesn't matter; in the long-term China will be fine whether she has eight nuclear-powered supercarriers or none, because if war hasn't broken out by 2040 then it isn't going to. What matters is resource allocation across the short- and medium-term in which China remains both resource constrained and confronted by broadly superior threat actors.

As per Bloomberg, China ran a balanced budget last year. A deficit of 3% per year is more typical for China and most other developed countries.

This is certainly not indicative of budget constraints.

As per SIPRI, China is only spending 1.7% of GDP on the military. The US and Russia are routinely at twice this level.

So I don't see a 5-10 year period with somewhat heightened military spending being a big issue. Call it a 50% increase from 1.7% to 2.5% of GDP, which is still far lower than the US or Russia.

But after those 5-10 years, military spending can remain steady until it drops back down to 2% or so.

Absolutely. If USN were to go back to the late 1990s, knowing what they do now about the costs of Ford and the challenge of China, I have no doubt that they would make a lot of decisions differently, very possibly including a return to relatively modest conventionally-powered carriers on the scale of 003.

For the US, conventionally powered carriers in place of nuclear carriers makes even less sense. US ships have to cross vast distances to get to their theatres of operations and then stay resupplied there.