Ideal chinese carrier thread

[bd popeye]

I do not belive this article is crediable. It appears like someone has been reading our forum and other Chinese military fourms and written this article as it's sumazation of Chinese military forums.

1) While probally capable the PLAN has never built ship over 22,000 tons dis.

2) The PLAN has never built a nuclear surface ship.

3) Where is any evidence of a nuclear power plant in R & D or in construction for a ship this size by the PLAN

4) Eariler today I closed a thread on this subject because when I did some reshearch I kept getting a banner that said. "Warning: Proceed with caution. This web page could be a scam(fake)".

When the nuclear-powered carrier is finished, China will own an aircraft carrier which is on par with the U.S.’s newest of such vessels, the 97,000-ton atomic-powered USS Ronald Reagan, which recently docked at Busan Port to participate in a joint exercise between the South Korean and U.S. militaries.

This is possibly the most ludricous statement in the whole article. "On par" with CVN-76?? How so? In size only. It will take years for the PLAN to feild a CVN with a crew as well trained as a USN CVN crew with it's air wing. The USN has been operating CV's since 1922. China is still at "ground zero" as far as operating a CV. Let alone a CVN.

No offense to anyone but this article is nothing more than "Fanboy" speculation/rumor.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

Well this report was based on dossier from south Korean sources presumably Korean navy inteligence It has nothing to do with PLAN fanboy But seriously if you think about it, They have mucked around with Varyag for years now.And they have domestic design of nuclear power plant the size of 300 Megawatt. The only problem I can see is shielding. Where in civilian nuclear power plant you have no constraint on weight and dimension In ship space and weight is prime consideration .But once again they seem to solve the shielding problem in their nuclear submarine.

Once you solved the power source the rest are just conventional steam turbine no big deal!

As far as ship building I don't think they have problem with building large ship The only constraint is the size of shipyard Now that the new Changxin shipyard is in operation I would say it quite probable

The other thing coming from South Korea sources it lends more credibility because South Korea has a close working relationship with chinese shipyard. All the major Korean shipbuilder like Hyundai has subsidiary in China and The Chinese shipyard regularly recruit technical personnel in Korea

 

[Gollevainen]

Well this report was based on dossier from south Korean sources presumably Korean navy inteligence It has nothing to do with PLAN fanboy But seriously if you think about it, They have mucked around with Varyag for years now.

Once again we start enter into rather sad territory of what It comes to overal logic and reasoning.
If it is what someone wants to believe, you just decide that it must be from "korean military inteligence" becouse the page that post the rumour is Korean...And as those someones wants this to be so true, they wont spend a minute to doupt the source but on contrary spend two minutes to glorify and silver-sparnkle the dupious source so they have something to repeat as mantra if someone dares to guestion the ultimate truth

after all, Internet is the most highable source of them all

And to compare the claims to the reality, china hardly can design viable destroyers and frigate size ships. After years of snifing around Varyag, Ofcourse they will come experts of carrier engineerings, why not Variag clearly presents the ultimate supermacy in all sea-borne aviation solutions....come on guys, dot make fools out of yourselfs.

Aircraft carriers presents the most sophisticated and difficoult ship classes to desing and build, as did Battle ships in the past. No small nation managed to produce succsfull capital ships, even such pioneering naval nation as Russia was forced to seek foreing help to produce succsefull Battle-ship and cruiser desings.
Aircraft carriers are same. Only nations that have produced them are those of centuries heritage of capital unit building and desings. Spain, thougth great martime power couldnt do it themselves and was forced to go for US for blueprints of its carrier, and only building duplicate of it later on to Thailand.
Italy as sligthly experienced managed to do the smallest and simplest one largerly by their own, but when the ships rise to conventional aircraft operations, even the French were in trouple. Their super-carrier projects died as they werent able to desing feasible modern solution for it....Not to mention Soviets proplem and ill-fated results...

And I wonder why everyone seems to forget, that chinese modern shipbuilding heritage is roughly 17 years old, you dont start building carriers before you have gain enough experience to build succesfull frigates, destroyers and perhaps a cruiser or two...

 

[AmiGanguli]

And I wonder why everyone seems to forget, that chinese modern shipbuilding heritage is roughly 17 years old, you dont start building carriers before you have gain enough experience to build succesfull frigates, destroyers and perhaps a cruiser or two...

While I agree with the overall message of your post - of course it will take a long time to develop a modern carrier - I think you and Popeye are also going a little overboard. You make it sound like China needs to go through the same 80 year learning curve the U.S. did.

Centuries of warship building history aren't worth that much. Technologies change and experienced people can be hired away. Today China's shipbuilding industry is bigger than the U.S. and Russia's combined.

That doesn't mean they know anything about carriers, but they've got the resources to learn quickly. They guys studying the Varyag aren't just copying stuff they don't understand, they've previously built tankers, container ships, subs, frigates and destroyers.

Whatever China finally comes out with when they launch their first carrier, you can bet it will be better than the original Varyag (started construction 1985?). It'll have (at least) comparable layout, better engines, better weapons, better radar, and better command and control, and better planes.

The crew will, of course, need a lot of training.

... Ami.

 

[Gollevainen]

No its not that simple. Shipdesigning is not an easy task, exspecially when designing warships. Warships with huge enough to field an airstirp ontop...

China has been in the warshipbuilding industry since the 1950's but had it's first three decades of showing basicly no progress at all. They were tied to redesing already obcolent soviet warship models and had huge proplems in the very basics of technology not to mention about the workmanship and quality issues. This was ofcourse becouse of the illfavorably conditions. Non existing industrial base and shipbuilding traditions, Breakup with the "big-brother", genious marvels of "great leap forwards" and "cultural revolution"...they were the biggest overall reaosn for the backwardness of the chinese development in almoust all areas. Only in late 80's and early 90's was there any progress. This progress emerged as it would do with in reasonable limits. It was a huge leap to developt the first indegenious destroyer design and it was done so basicly with blind-folden. These babysteps were shaky and unbalanced but still they headed forwards.

Now after 17 years china is still taking those steps (unlike many of you may think). The first indegenious destroyer, Luhu class had it's illfated and ill-logical follower from the Luhai class (which history I explained in the 167 mod thread) and now there's the seccond generation luhu's (which was actually more viable design than its intial follower) are being fielded but all sighs points that China is not so happy with the results.

The babysteps continue, the PLAN has emerged to the "toddler-age" and is now eagerly trying everything new. Also it now seems that its having succes with the 054A and is finally having relatively modern major surface combatant into serial production.

...But to design and build a 93,000 ton aircraft carrier? Its as realistic given to the current state of chinese cababilites as it is to see a Polish Sthealt fighter emerging to challenge the f-22...

China has no experience of building warships of over 10,000 tons. To design a small VSTOL carrier of just above that tonnage would be enourmous and almoust impossiple task to the chinese builders. Aircraft carriers aren't container ships. They are not oil tankers, or any other civilian sector "big ships". Aircraft carriers are the biggest and most complicated warships existing today and to have one that is actually workable ship, you need to know exactly what you are doing. How on earht do you expect chinese to know what it takes to build 93,000 ton supercarrier? Yeas they have studied Varyag...The last offsping of another noob country's effort to do exactly the same as Chinese are doing now. And suprise, suprise they didn't do that well. Soviets carriers were from the shipdesign point of wiev completely unsuccesfull. Moskvas and Kievs had poor seakeeping and handeling proplems and with the politicans screwing the decision making, the air-capabilities were as horrible. Varyag (which followed the hulldesign from the Kiev class) is 60,000 ton carrier with practical aviation cababilites of that of 27,000 ton Centaurio class. Only difference is that at least Centaurios had Catabults before the VSTOL hype...
Studying Varyag is only good if you wish to point out what you shouldn't do. But thats all what China has now and they should make all the efforts of it. But it's not going to help them to make this supercarrier that this "article" promises...

China doesen't need 80 years, but it still needs years....First to get balanced and viable shipdevelopment line with the normal warshisp, then get the Varyag finished and only after then will they be ready for the next challenge which is to developt an indegenious carriers but those will be far more realistic than this mentioned above. It takes decades at least. My obinion and guess is that we see one emerging to the building phase around 2020...


But untill then, lets just wait and get Varyag lauched first, then start dreaming with supercarriers exiding all current designs.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

No its not that simple. Shipdesigning is not an easy task, exspecially when designing warships. Warships with huge enough to field an airstirp ontop...

China has been in the warshipbuilding industry since the 1950's but had it's first three decades of showing basicly no progress at all. They were tied to redesing already obcolent soviet warship models and had huge proplems in the very basics of technology not to mention about the workmanship and quality issues. This was ofcourse becouse of the illfavorably conditions. Non existing industrial base and shipbuilding traditions, Breakup with the "big-brother", genious marvels of "great leap forwards" and "cultural revolution"...they were the biggest overall reaosn for the backwardness of the chinese development in almoust all areas. Only in late 80's and early 90's was there any progress. This progress emerged as it would do with in reasonable limits. It was a huge leap to developt the first indegenious destroyer design and it was done so basicly with blind-folden. These babysteps were shaky and unbalanced but still they headed forwards.

I don't see what cultural revolution got to do with building a carrier Yes China lost years in technical development during the cultural revolution But the lack of progress in military progress has more to do with funding Don't forget that military funding hardly increase at all during the 70's and 80's In fact it was decreases for most of those years To compare the technical level of China in 70's and now Doesn't do justice at all As the previous poster mention China is the 3rd largest ship building country after Korea and Japan And it built sophisticated ship like LNG carrier and Supertanker

.

China has no experience of building warships of over 10,000 tons. To design a small VSTOL carrier of just above that tonnage would be enourmous and almoust impossiple task to the chinese builders. Aircraft carriers aren't container ships. They are not oil tankers, or any other civilian sector "big ships". Aircraft carriers are the biggest and most complicated warships existing today and to have one that is actually workable ship, you need to know exactly what you are doing. How on earht do you expect chinese to know what it takes to build 93,000 ton supercarrier? Yeas they have studied Varyag...The last offsping of another noob country's effort to do exactly the same as Chinese are doing now. And suprise, suprise they didn't do that well. Soviets carriers were from the shipdesign point of wiev completely unsuccesfull. Moskvas and Kievs had poor seakeeping and handeling proplems and with the politicans screwing the decision making, the air-capabilities were as horrible. Varyag (which followed the hulldesign from the Kiev class) is 60,000 ton carrier with practical aviation cababilites of that of 27,000 ton Centaurio class. Only difference is that at least Centaurios had Catabults before the VSTOL hype...
Studying Varyag is only good if you wish to point out what you shouldn't do. But thats all what China has now and they should make all the efforts of it. But it's not going to help them to make this supercarrier that this "article" promises...

I believe your prejudice got the better of yourself because russia failed doesn't mean China has to fail too It has no correlation at all. Anyway China has better Industrial base except weapon development It is way better than Russia at it's height Shipping company doesn't buy shoddy product

China doesen't need 80 years, but it still needs years....First to get balanced and viable shipdevelopment line with the normal warshisp, then get the Varyag finished and only after then will they be ready for the next challenge which is to developt an indegenious carriers but those will be far more realistic than this mentioned above. It takes decades at least. My obinion and guess is that we see one emerging to the building phase around 2020...

Well let see who is right

 

[Gollevainen]

I don't see what cultural revolution got to do with building a carrier Yes China lost years in technical development during the cultural revolution But the lack of progress in military progress has more to do with funding Don't forget that military funding hardly increase at all during the 70's and 80's In fact it was decreases for most of those years To compare the technical level of China in 70's and now Doesn't do justice at all As the previous poster mention China is the 3rd largest ship building country after Korea and Japan And it built sophisticated ship like LNG carrier and Supertanker

And didnt I just say that oil tankers arent aircraftcarriers Cultural revolution as well as other elements of inflexibility in chinese military hierarchy are the most important single factors that counts. China is emerging and by industrial and economical level capaple of building big naval units, why not carriers as well, but that just wont be enough. If you would given ten million dollars, would you be able to build ten million dollar ship?? (presuming that you arent shipengineer)

I believe your prejudice got the better of yourself because russia failed doesn't mean China has to fail too It has no correlation at all. Anyway China has better Industrial base except weapon development It is way better than Russia at it's height Shipping company doesn't buy shoddy product

In economical level China of today migth be in better hands than Soviets at their higth, but trust me, China isent even bar with Soviets at their peak as what comes to naval devolpment/heritage/tradition and capacity to produce balanced fleet.
And still Russia failed... And Im not saying that China will fail, quite contrary, as soon as china gets carrier, the better, no matter how lousy desing it pics. The years of neglegt needs to be taken up, and no time is to be wasted anymore, but the crude fact is that Chinese military shipbuilding isent on that level that It can produce those things that the dupious article promises

 

[Obi Wan Russell]

And still Russia failed...
Let's be clear here. Russia did not fail to deploy a CV fleet for technical reasons, but for financial reasons. They went bankrupt in 1990/91 and money for military R&D dried up. The two Kuznetzovs were built with ski jumps instead of catapults because the cats were still under development (and considering all the soviet spies in the US and Britain over the course of the cold war I'd be surprised if they didn't have a full set of plans for a steam catapult somewhere). The third CV, the Ulyanovsk was to be the sea going test bed for catapults (two in the waist position with a ski jump at the bow) which would allow a wider range of aircraft to be deployed, ie AEW and COD for example. Cats would then most likely be retrofitted to the two earlier ships to allow the same types to be operated by all (economies of scale here). Ski jumps allow QRA fighters to launch at short notice, but without AEW aircraft their value is much diminished, hence the need for cats. The technology involved in steam catapults is not particularly advanced, certainly for a nation (China) with a manned space program, and the expertise necessary could be acquired from several nations around the world (Argentina, Brazil, Australia,-who provided a whole catapult in 1985! Holland, India, UK, USA) although some would be less likely than others to provide their engineering services, money talks.

Could China build a CV as big as a Nimitz? Yes. Would it be of any military value? No, it would be a death trap at their current level of shipbuilding knowledge, but might be useable enough to provide a training CV for a while. Varyag is at leased based on a proven design (albeit one proven inferior to western practice, it works at least) so sensibly she will be the PLANs first step. The Chinese aren't stupid, and they are fast learners, and Varyag will be like going to university for Chinese engineers and seamen alike, as much for what it will show them not to do as for what they will learn positively. Roll on 2008...

 

[adeptitus]

The nation also has a plan to build a 48,000-ton non-nuclear-powered carrier under the so-called "089 Project," added the source.

According to the dossier, China plans to construct a non-atomic-powered carrier as a transition stage to building the larger nuclear-powered one. The non-atomic-powered carrier, due to be completed in 2010, will be a mid-sized carrier with a standard displacement of 48,000 tons and a full-load displacement of 64,000 tons and will be able to carry 30-40 Chinese-built J-10 fighters, which China fielded in December last year. The Chinese authorities are reportedly overhauling J-10 fighters to be loaded onto the new aircraft carriers. Until the work is complete, the new carriers are going to handle 10-20 Russian-made Su-33 fighters.

Well this report was based on dossier from south Korean sources presumably Korean navy inteligence It has nothing to do with PLAN fanboy But seriously if you think about it, They have mucked around with Varyag for years now.And they have domestic design of nuclear power plant the size of 300 Megawatt.

Let's see, we're in... March 2007? So this "Korean Naval Intelligence" claims China would build a brand new conventionally powered 48,000-64,000 ton carrier in 3 years? From the wording, I'm assuming they're not referring to the Varyag, but a brand new ship?

I'm hearing the twilight zone music going off in the background atm...

 

[bd popeye]

I think you and Popeye are also going a little overboard. You make it sound like China needs to go through the same 80 year learning curve the U.S. did.

I never said that. In point of fact the USN was safely operating CV's in the 1930's.

That doesn't mean they know anything about carriers, but they've got the resources to learn quickly.

No they do not know "anything" about CV's. Well certainly they don't know how to operate them. Quickly learn? If quickly is 5 years or so. Point in fact . When the USN commissioned CVN-76 in 2003 it took 3 years to train up the crew so they could deploy for the first time in 2006. This is with experienced NCO and officers doing the training. Last I check the PLAN has zero CV trained personell.

They guys studying the Varyag aren't just copying stuff they don't understand, they've previously built tankers, container ships, subs, frigates and destroyers.

I agree.

However an aircraft carrier is different. It really is. It cannot be compared to any other ship. Of course all ships have similarites. The size and the compartmentalization is staggering. There are systems on a USN CV that are not present on other ships. Aircraft elevators. Different firefighting equipment. All sorts of hoist, conveyors, other elevators, pumps, axillary motors and power stations, huge ammo magazines, aviation fuel storage, separate public address systems.....and so much more.

The crew will, of course, need a lot of training.

You better believe it. They may have to use Russian sailors to train the PLAN sailors on CV operations. Or perhaps they have another plan...It will take 3-5 years to make the first PLAN CV operational.