Ok, now you've at least said something concrete rather than just claiming it's too "complicated". Let's start from the challenge at the end of your post...
So before you choose to answer back, answer to this question first: If you think it is possible, why are chinese ship building still in the level, that it cannot produce even a proplem free destroyer class for mass production that would be essential to any navy that is going to commision 93,000 ton nuclear carrier only in 12 years???
I actually think they've been doing really well with their new ships. The pattern of building a couple of ships, testing them, and then building a couple of more seems pretty sensible. If they're not mass-producing the 52x yet then maybe they want to take another iteration or two, but that's not an indication of failure. They're just working their way up the chain.
While they're working their way up the chain, they don't necessarily need to wait for one type to be "done" before moving on to the next. The 54A and 52C have had overlapping development.
Probably a cruiser will be coming in the next little while.
The 071 also fits in to the "moving up the ladder" pattern.
With the carrier they're naturally being cautious. First, it's not that useful without its fleet, second, it's much more expensive. So they'll get the Varyag launched and try it out a little before building anything on their own.
They are complicated, And Im not shipbuilding engineer (did I ever claimed to be one?)
No, but you implied that studying an existing design doesn't help with creating your own. I disagree. If you're trying to build a new ship then it's
much easier to have a model to follow - even if you don't have all the technical details - than if you have to imagine the whole thing from scratch. You can compare your own design (where you put the elevators and so on) to the existing ship and ask yourself if they thought of something you didn't.
But as you brougth Moonlandings and space travel into focus, you can clearly recall how difficoult path that has been. Did Germans, who first fielded Ballistic rocket land on the moon? No. It all takes time to devolp and only taking that path will end up in succes.
But this contradicts your argument. The Germans had the lead, but the Americans were able to leapfrog them. Here the Chinese don't even need to surpass the U.S., just reach a level of sophistication the U.S. had over 30 years ago.
(I've corrected some typos in your post below to make it more legible.)
Aircraft carrier building and developing combines two difficult engineering issues, to build airfield on board a warship. By separate they include lot of problems and possible alternatives, but combined you are at the starting point of one of the most difficult aspect of warship design.
So you start with the Varyag and improve from there. It may not be the most modern design, but it obviously worked.
How to build a hull that support enormous landing deck area atop huge empty space that cannot be interfered by typical support structure. All this demand triple the beam that you can have on the hull length that would still justify meaningful size compared to the output that your engines can develop....
This is civil engineering. I'm not saying it's easy, but the same guys who build huge bridges, tunnels, and skyscrapers will deal with this for you. China has no lack of these guys. In any case, it's not a specifically military technology.
And I almost hate to bring it up again, but container ships have similar issues.
And all this in military ship building standards...Not to need to refress you, but only 17 years ago Chinese warship builders build warship that engine department could be only reached from outside mainhull hatches?
That's not an issue of building standards, but poor design. Presumably they know better now. Anyway, that's why they've got the Varyag to help them avoid making basic mistakes.
If you would have studied the histories and aspects of carriers in general, you would find out that even changing simple elevator position can bring headacing strom to the engineers involved and how single one of so called "novel" vessels or first such vessels operated by any service has ever been succesfull....Nor has ever mented to be one.
I'm having trouble reading this part - I think you must have typed it very quickly.
Anyway, it's not necessary that the first vessel is "successful" (although obviously a complete flop would be bad). We're talking whether or not they can get it done before 2020. Enough time to launch the Varyag and an intermediate domestic design.
Varyag and other Soviet project 1144 class ships can only give chinese a detailed view of how such ships are to be produced, but the orginal issue in this thread is that By looking them doesent bring China (nor does anything else) a capacity to build 93,000 tonner in 12 years. If you would have bothered to study carriers other than their political penis-extension purpose, you would know how poorly desinged oddieties they are compared to even small Unicorn class basic level jet carriers.
This paragraph doesn't add anything to your argument that I could figure out. The issue isn't whether or not the Varyag grants magical shipbuilding superpowers. The issue is whether or not the design is so horribly primitive that even 13 years of development can't bring it up to 1975 U.S. standards.
You also seem to be focusing on size, whereas I thought you'd given that up in your last post. So is the argument that aircraft carriers in general are too difficult to design, or that there's something about a 94k aircraft carrier that makes it impossible to move from a 55k carrier to a 94k carrier within 13 years?
If you would even bother to take insigth look of any navy that has had domestic carrier program, you wouldnt wave your red flag and expect without any logic that all that chinese do has to be marvelous, defy all the laws of reason and succee in 110% precission.
I don't own a red flag.
Civil field and military field have their common aspects and devolpment in one field certainly helps the other...in longer term and in general level, but is foolish, stubid, childish and more importantly, cheast-beatingly nationalist wishfull thinking to see it overcoming the fact that each ship type requires individual planning as they poses individual proplems and aspects and carriers are almost the most sophisticated end of the ship building require sophistication that doesent come from store shelf but needs to be aquired by the hard way, by building those ships and China has not yet reached the capacity that it can begun to build its first attempt in the long path.
Ok, so you admit that civilian technology does play a role. I think you've also acknowledged that the basic technology - meaning shipbuilding, structural engineering, and metalwork and the like - aren't really anything new. So this project isn't held up by basic materials research or engine design (unlike the fighter project, for example).
So I guess you're saying that the actual blueprints are hard to develop. Where to put the various components, how many speakers to have in the PA system, how to lay out the fuel system, how much Koskenkorva you need for the crew, getting steam to the catapult, and the like. Yes, this is a massive undertaking, and there will be certain things that the designers won't realize ahead of time and will fix in the next version. But again, we're talking 13 years, and nobody said the ship had to be perfect.
Maybe this is where the disagreement is: I still say that, if they really wanted to, the Chinese could strap an airstrip onto a 93k cargo ship and call it an aircraft carrier. Or maybe an aircraft carrier testbed. It wouldn't be a great ship, but it would get planes from point A to point B and allow them to take off and land. And they could do this within a year, and even if they'd never seen the Varyag. (The first American aircraft carrier was something similar, just they didn't have such large cargo ships at the time.)
If you accept that this sort of primitive carrier is possible, then this whole debate isn't about whether or not it's possible to build a 93k aircraft carrier within 13 years, but rather, what limitations that carrier will have. I can certainly accept that the Americans have discovered some subtle design ideas that will take the Chinese some time to figure out. If that's what you're really saying then there's not much disagreement.
... Ami.
