PLAN 2nd & 3rd Aircraft Carrier wager & planning

Jeff Head said:

I expect that the PLAN will have worked the planning out according to their own time table.

I also expect, given the huge outpouring of support and national excitement that China had with its first carrier, that they will have no shortage of people signing up for that duty.

If they know the carrier is coming, it is simply a matter of doing the recruiting drives necessary at the right times to get and keep them manned. I expect the Chinese understand this and will make the appropriate arrangements for their own planning and scheduling.

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I think recruitment and choice of labour pool is least of the worry but rather the capability to build a carrier from ground zero would be the challenging task. I am lead to believe that carrier development and construction is an extremely complex undertaking. The path ahead for China is unproven both in size and complexity and likely will see delays in the process. If China stick close to a Liaoning design (which I suspect will be) for the first indigenous effort, some of the issues might be mitigated including cross training and streamlining operations. Nevertheless if I take the nearest example out there which is the INS Vikrant, the whole cycle is at least 10 years from inception particularly with delays in the build phase. I think the first indigenous construct is within the pipeline process by 2016 provided it is a Liaoning type design. The second indigenous build is likely to be phased out much further apart driven by two principal factors in my view. The first is essentially how much problem they encounter with the first indigenous build and secondly how much of a step up will be with the second i.e. CAT. In any case I don't believe we will see a second one at least well past 2020 because the whole development and build cycle is too long for any meaningful input to the second indigenous build until past 2020.

Brumby said:

I think recruitment and choice of labour pool is least of the worry but rather the capability to build a carrier from ground zero would be the challenging task. I am lead to believe that carrier development and construction is an extremely complex undertaking. The path ahead for China is unproven both in size and complexity and likely will see delays in the process. If China stick close to a Liaoning design (which I suspect will be) for the first indigenous effort, some of the issues might be mitigated including cross training and streamlining operations. Nevertheless if I take the nearest example out there which is the INS Vikrant, the whole cycle is at least 10 years from inception particularly with delays in the build phase. I think the first indigenous construct is within the pipeline process by 2016 provided it is a Liaoning type design. The second indigenous build is likely to be phased out much further apart driven by two principal factors in my view. The first is essentially how much problem they encounter with the first indigenous build and secondly how much of a step up will be with the second i.e. CAT. In any case I don't believe we will see a second one at least well past 2020 because the whole development and build cycle is too long for any meaningful input to the second indigenous build until past 2020.

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Well the position in the wager is only saying that we'll likely see evidence of the second indigenous carrier before 2020, not that it will enter service. It may well be until 2025 that it is actually fully operational or even commissioned.

Personally from what I see and what few reliable rumours we have, I think DL is building a "low risk" option (starting first) while JN is concurrently building the "higher risk" option (starting a bit later). Kind of like how DL built the lower risk 051C while JN built the higher risk 052C back in the early 2000s, only reversed in the sense that 052C was started earlier than 051C while DL's 001A is starting earlier than JN's 002.

In other words, the navy may not be waiting for feedback on the construction of the first indigenous carrier to inform design of the second indigenous carrier, which substantially reduces the "lag time" in your projection. The "risk" of course is that they might end up building less than optimal carriers in the first and second indigenous carriers, if they don't spend long enough to let feedback from crew and shipyard to inform future development. But on the flip side, waiting for comprehensive feedback may cause too much of a delay in arrival of eventual carrier capability compared to when the navy requires it.

So they'll have to rely on their experience and feedback in refitting Liaoning, the study of the Varyag hulk, Minsk and Kiev and HMAS melbourne, their own study and detailed requirements, and innovation, and as much logic as they can muster up, to inform the more detailed design aspects of their indigenous carriers.
Fortunately Chinese shipbuilding is quite good now, and they've demonstrated that they can build virtually all of the subsystems for STOBAR carrier, and have a variety of subsystems for modern CATOBAR carrier under relatively advanced development as well (IEPS, EMALS, namely). There's definitely a way to make it work.

Brumby said:

I think recruitment and choice of labour pool is least of the worry but rather the capability to build a carrier from ground zero would be the challenging task. I am lead to believe that carrier development and construction is an extremely complex undertaking. The path ahead for China is unproven both in size and complexity and likely will see delays in the process. If China stick close to a Liaoning design (which I suspect will be) for the first indigenous effort, some of the issues might be mitigated including cross training and streamlining operations. Nevertheless if I take the nearest example out there which is the INS Vikrant, the whole cycle is at least 10 years from inception particularly with delays in the build phase. I think the first indigenous construct is within the pipeline process by 2016 provided it is a Liaoning type design. The second indigenous build is likely to be phased out much further apart driven by two principal factors in my view. The first is essentially how much problem they encounter with the first indigenous build and secondly how much of a step up will be with the second i.e. CAT. In any case I don't believe we will see a second one at least well past 2020 because the whole development and build cycle is too long for any meaningful input to the second indigenous build until past 2020.

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There is no doubt the 2nd indigenous one won't sail until closer to late 2020s however the bet was on first steel cut by 2020 which is still plausible. CVNs on the other hand probably won't be commissioned by PLAN until I'm an old man.

Bltizo said:

Well the position in the wager is only saying that we'll likely see evidence of the second indigenous carrier before 2020, not that it will enter service. It may well be until 2025 that it is actually fully operational or even commissioned.

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kwaigonegin said:

There is no doubt the 2nd indigenous one won't sail until closer to late 2020s however the bet was on first steel cut by 2020 which is still plausible. CVNs on the other hand probably won't be commissioned by PLAN until I'm an old man.

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I am of the view that the first steel cut on the second indigenous carrier won't happen until past 2020 for the reasons I had given. Just to ensure that the there is no misunderstanding, the Liaoning in my view is not indigenous and is not considered the first.

Brumby said:

I am of the view that the first steel cut on the second indigenous carrier won't happen until past 2020 for the reasons I had given. Just to ensure that the there is no misunderstanding, the Liaoning in my view is not indigenous and is not considered the first.

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It would be interesting to have another wager in that case, just related to the second indigenous carrier.

Okay, Brumby. Sounds like you are kind of in between. But read this wager and the details.

There are two options. If you are not one or the other...you are somewhere in between and cannot be counted in either group.

Brumby said:

I am of the view that the first steel cut on the second indigenous carrier won't happen until past 2020 for the reasons I had given. Just to ensure that the there is no misunderstanding, the Liaoning in my view is not indigenous and is not considered the first.

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I guess it all depends on what CV 18 will be like. There is 50/50 it may be before or after 20/20 however if it's based on the Liaoning hull design than most likely it'll be before.

Jeff Head said:

Okay, Brumby. Sounds like you are kind of in between. But read this wager and the details.

There are two options. If you are not one or the other...you are somewhere in between and cannot be counted in either group.

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Sorry for the confusion. I am happy to go with group 2.

kwaigonegin said:

I guess it all depends on what CV 18 will be like. There is 50/50 it may be before or after 20/20 however if it's based on the Liaoning hull design than most likely it'll be before.

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I think there are too many variables in the equation. CV18 (Liaoning design based) makes sense from a conservative standpoint if the main objective is to have at least one deployable carrier group at any time by 2025. Commonality drives adoption rate, ease in operation and tactics. If CV17 turns out to be a lemon, then I guess building a carrier is not as easy as it looks requiring a rethink.

Brumby said:

I think there are too many variables in the equation. CV18 (Liaoning design based) makes sense from a conservative standpoint if the main objective is to have at least one deployable carrier group at any time by 2025. Commonality drives adoption rate, ease in operation and tactics. If CV17 turns out to be a lemon, then I guess building a carrier is not as easy as it looks requiring a rethink.

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?
CV-17 is meant to be 001A, aka based on the liaoning design and configuration
CV-18 would refer to 002, a new CATOBAR design

I think a lot of the variables comes down to whether one accepts the consensus that the first indigenous carrier/001A is going to be built by DL and whether the second indigenous carrier/002 is going to be built by JN.

JN is almost definitely the superior of the two and I think is widely considered by most PLA watchers to be superior as well, and may explain why the more ambitious and more original carrier is going to be built by JN rather than DL.

If 001A does turn out to have issues (remembering that it's based of 001 AKA CV16 Liaoning), one has to consider whether it is because of...

1. 001A's design (A: too similar to Liaoning, or B: too different?) or...
2. Is it because of DL being less competent (in other words, if 001A was built by JN would the result have been better?) or...
3. Is it because of a more systemic problem in the actual shipbuilding industry as a whole and/or a systemic issue with subcontractors?

If 001A did turn out to have an unacceptable number of issues, that would spell likely problems for 002 if the cause were 1B or 3.
For 1B: if there are too many modifications on 001A from 001 which turned out to be poorly designed, then that could possibly mean Chinese carrier design philosophy and competency needs work and could implicate 002 as well as it would be a more original design.
For 3: if the chinese shipbuilding industry were systemically unprepared for carrier construction which resulted in problems with 001A then that could mean 002 could also be similarly implicated, depending on whether the overall industry is able to quickly learn from DL's 001A experience and apply the lessons to JN's 002.

But OTOH, if 1A and 2 were reasons for 001A's issues, then 002 may not necessarily be affected.
1A would naturally suggest that the issues with 001A is because the original Kuznetsov design was poor in the first place and would require a more radical departure from it.
2 would naturally implicate DL incompetency and leaves open the wide possibility that JN may perform better with 002.