CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Come now, I think PLAN and even hobbyist like us all understand that having a lift on the port side is for redundancy reasons. The point of Shilao demonstrating many CVV proposals was to show that nearly all of them insists on a lift on the port side, even for designs that call for two lifts. In the book he was showing there was only one proposal that had two lifts, both on the starboard side:
View attachment 91066
Two lifts and two catapults.

The other proposals all had various number of lifts and catapults in different combinations, all of them had a port side lift:
View attachment 91067
View attachment 91068
It's clear that USN thinks this redundancy is very important, even for small carriers with two lifts. But just because USN weighs this requirement very highly does not mean PLAN do so too, and in the case of Fujian here were the decision was made to stick with two lifts we can then infer that PLAN believes more deck space is actually more important for them.

As others have said, an elevator on the port side does not take away from flight deck space, certainly not during a ship's normal cyclical flight operations because the elevator will be up at flight deck level.


I would be surprised if the future CVN 004/00X of 100,000t did not have an additional port side lift (among other major flight deck changes), and the most simple answer for 003 not having one is due to a tradeoff of additional capability versus additional risk.
For a ship of 003's size, two elevators on the starboard side would always have been a given.
The question was whether an additional third elevator (that by extension would have to be on the port side) would be worth the additional work or not.


The 003's flight deck configuration and associated equipment is not perfect and has room to improve with future carrier designs especially for a larger nuclear carrier -- and that includes a longer flight deck, smaller and repositioned island, repositioned starboard elevators, perhaps a slightly geometrically outwards flared elevator design... and most importantly the addition of a fourth catapult (on the waist) and a third elevator on the port side.

That doesn't take away from the fact that 003 is a very competent first go at the world's only large CATOBAR carrier that's existed outside of the US in all of history, especially from a nation whose first foray in operating a carrier was only 10 years ago, and yet still able to implement a bunch of advanced technologies on 003 at that.
For a first go, it is truly quite impressive at how much they managed to get right and correctly position and miniaturize.


But that doesn't mean the 003 isn't still a result of certain compromises and limitations that have resulted in certain design choices that the PLAN would likely prefer to see rectified in a future, larger clean sheet carrier design.
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
Submarine reactor for nuclear carrier? Poverty symptom much? You talk as if American have all IEPS on their destroyer because they run full nuclear carrier line up.
Well, you have to start somewhere, poverty or not.

Remember that the USS Enterprise CVN-65, the first ever nuclear-powered aircraft carrier/supercarrier of the US Navy (or in fact, the world's first), has 8 nuclear reactors. It was only from Nimitz onwards that the number went down to 4, and then from Ford onwards that the number went down to 2.

In essence, Enterprise CVN-65 is a sort-of prototype carrier that tests marine nuclear propulsion technology for carrier usage. After Enterprise CVN-65 was comissioned in 1961, it wasn't until 1968 when the Nimitz was laid down.

Although I hope that China would fast-track build an improved version of conventionally-powered 003 following the Fujian in light of the present deteriorating geopolitical situation in the Western Pacific, I believe a mixed conventional-nuclear propulsion system for the 004 is also a good way to advance the mastering of carrier-based nuclear propulsion operations by the PLAN.

But if the PLAN has mastered nuclear propulsion technology for carrier usage and are confident of their capabilities, then a full-on nuclear propulsion system for the 004 is also a good way to go.

(Although we all hope that China could just pump out those (005) nuclear-powered supercarriers to scare the shit outta everyone else, lol)
 

henrik

Senior Member
Registered Member
Well, you have to start somewhere, poverty or not.

Remember that the USS Enterprise CVN-65, the first ever nuclear-powered aircraft carrier/supercarrier of the US Navy (or in fact, the world's first), has 8 nuclear reactors. It was only from Nimitz onwards that the number went down to 4, and then from Ford onwards that the number went down to 2.

In essence, Enterprise CVN-65 is a sort-of prototype carrier that tests marine nuclear propulsion technology for carrier usage. After Enterprise CVN-65 was comissioned in 1961, it wasn't until 1968 when the Nimitz was laid down.

Although I hope that China would fast-track build an improved version of conventionally-powered 003 following the Fujian in light of the present deteriorating geopolitical situation in the Western Pacific, I believe a mixed conventional-nuclear propulsion system for the 004 is also a good way to advance the mastering of carrier-based nuclear propulsion operations by the PLAN.

But if the PLAN has mastered nuclear propulsion technology for carrier usage and are confident of their capabilities, then a full-on nuclear propulsion system for the 004 is also a good way to go.

(Although we all hope that China could just pump out those (005) nuclear-powered supercarriers to scare the shit outta everyone else, lol)
Even pumping out more type 003 would scare those haters enough.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Therefore, I really do hope that the PLAN could operate at least 4 carriers before 2030. This is because IMO, the 2027-2030 range would be the best time for the final act of reunification of a certain southeastern island into China proper, should all avenues for a peaceful reunification have been exhausted. Plus, cunducting said reunification at that period while the USN is at their weakest, before their warships could ever bounce back in numbers when going into the 2030, would give a bigger edge for the PLAN in the Western Pacific.

(Side note: IMHO, now, China just should go with a second 003 that would rectify and mend any mistakes found on the Fujian, further improving the Fujian design, while buying enough time for China's marine nuclear propulsion technology to mature for carrier usage)

Whilst the US naval fleet may bounce back after 2030, it doesn't change how China should end up with more carriers than the US by 2050.

That would simply be the result of China having a significantly larger economy and military spending than the US. So why would China have to act when it only has 4 carriers, when it could have more than 11 in 2050 and then outnumber the US carrier fleet?

A similar calculation applies to every other military system.

And if China has a commanding economic and military presence in the Western Pacific, the Taiwan issue likely wouldn't require an actual war.
 

Mirabo

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well, you have to start somewhere, poverty or not.

Remember that the USS Enterprise CVN-65, the first ever nuclear-powered aircraft carrier/supercarrier of the US Navy (or in fact, the world's first), has 8 nuclear reactors. It was only from Nimitz onwards that the number went down to 4, and then from Ford onwards that the number went down to 2.

In essence, Enterprise CVN-65 is a sort-of prototype carrier that tests marine nuclear propulsion technology for carrier usage. After Enterprise CVN-65 was comissioned in 1961, it wasn't until 1968 when the Nimitz was laid down.

Although I hope that China would fast-track build an improved version of conventionally-powered 003 following the Fujian in light of the present deteriorating geopolitical situation in the Western Pacific, I believe a mixed conventional-nuclear propulsion system for the 004 is also a good way to advance the mastering of carrier-based nuclear propulsion operations by the PLAN.

But if the PLAN has mastered nuclear propulsion technology for carrier usage and are confident of their capabilities, then a full-on nuclear propulsion system for the 004 is also a good way to go.

(Although we all hope that China could just pump out those (005) nuclear-powered supercarriers to scare the shit outta everyone else, lol)

For the record, Nimitz has 2 reactors, not 4.

Some people have this misconception where USS Enterprise was somehow gimped or inferior because it had submarine reactors. This couldn't be further from the truth. There's a reason why it was one of the fastest carriers (if not the fastest ever) in the USN - because 8 reactors turned out to be complete overkill.

Part of the design required the steam from each of the 8 reactors to be interchangable to each of the 4 turbines, leading to an extremely complicated system of piping. And to its credit, this setup provided impressive results. But this complexity also caused massive cost overruns, which led to the cancellation of 5 of the 6 planned units.

The bottom line was that Enteprise was anything but a "poverty" ship. It's the opposite of poverty. It was a prototype that was so overengineered they cancelled all of her sisters and forced the next class of carriers to have no more than 2 reactors, and very understandably so.
 

Intrepid

Major
... i still cannot believe how China has mastered the EMALS when the USN is having so much trouble ...
Maybe because they have a well-functioning secret service, were aware of American problems early on and didn't have to make the same mistakes.

The best decision was probably not to feed four catapults from three energy storage systems via a complex distribution mechanism, but to feed the associated catapult three times directly from one energy storage system (just as it worked smoothly in the American test facility on land).

It should be noted, however, that the Chinese use a different energy storage system than the Americans. To my knowledge, a Chinese energy storage system does not consist of four flywheels. I don't know what it's made of though.
 

Intrepid

Major
Additional elevator does not necessarily take away deck space. It merely means there Is the same deck space which can, when needed, also be utilised as an elevator.
In fact, in the past, with additional deck edge elevators, available deck space has increased.

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