PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

Last year one of the two large shipbuilding concerns needed from May to August to agree contracts with the government to invest in plant to build large naval vessels. This was presumably about building aircraft carriers. Possibly also about LHD's. That alone suggest something more than a 300 meter dry dock is necessary.

OT
Building ships of the line and frigates around 1800 took many years. The production per year could be considerable only because a vast number of slipways were used at the same time.

Jeff Head said:

Lezt, as regards these particular statements.

1. Building a large vessel IS NOT like building a large building. The stresses and environment they have to exist in are far, far different. Though there are similarities (of course), there are also wholly separate expertise, methodologies, and concerns that do not lend themselves to the other.

2. Building a large commercial vessel IS NOT like building a large warship. The complexities and requirements go up by an order of magnitude.

While it is good that China has seven facilities that have yards and perhaps dry docks that are large enough to accommodate carriers, as I indicated earlier, this does not mean they can build carriers. The equipment, the expertise, and the logisitics all must be in place at each facility to make that a reality. It is not easy at all to put that in place in all of those facilities concurrently or simultaneously.

Possible? Of course...but far too taxing in the current environment, and with the current state of technology necessary to make a combat ready vessel built to military combat standards. So...also very highly unlikely.

As I also said, it will be tremendous if China builds two at once as has been rumored.

We shall have to wait and see..

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Jeff, here is were we disagree.

An order of complexity is what you sell parliament or congress for more money; it is what industrialist tells the public how great their production methods are and it is what tenderer tell the government that their competition lacks the capability which only they have.

Let me ask this way, what piece of specialist equipment do carrier need that a large shipyard do not normally have? How much more complex is carrier parts that existing 5 or 7 axis CAM milling machines cannot cut and finish? What single section of the ship can a typical 600-1000 tonne crane at an existing dockyard not lift and move? What is logistically required for a carrier that existing merchant ships cannot bring to the ship yard?

You are correct in the sense that yes, I doubt they would be efficient at assembling the ship; crew efficiency due to working with the design and tuning the design based on site experience is a separate thing to if a shipyard can build a certain warship or not.

Logistically, the US built all her carriers with rail/road/sea transport. all of these large yards have rail/road/sea access

Complexity, the milling of complex parts or the welding of more parts is a question of a question of CAD/CAM operations, i.e. it will take longer time to do. If the design is mature, and ship had been properly parametically developed into an information model like in CATIA or Solid Works; the only question is the CAM production rates. if you are concerned if the design comes together or not, that is a naval architecture question and not a ship yard capability question.

So yes, it might take them 5 years to build a CV and only 1 year to build a similar sized commercial ship. - a Scheduling and efficiency issue; not a technical issue. (which well, I would agree that they would run into unexpected issues when they build it as there is no mature design)

But anyways, I am not saying that China should build 5 at the same time. The contention is only the belief that carriers are technically so much harder to build that only a few yards can build it.

Lezt said:

But anyways, I am not saying that China should build 5 at the same time. The contention is only the belief that carriers are technically so much harder to build that only a few yards can build it.

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It is not an issue of whether a yard has either the room to build a carrier, or the access to the machinery.

Clearly, if they know what the need, they can assemble the space and tools.

But that is the rub. Knowing. Carriers are an order of magnitude more difficult to build because of the engineering that goes into them...which does not have to go into a merchant ship. You have to have the expertise to assemble and successfully build and then launch and then outfit, arm, work-up and finally deploy a carrier.

Very few countries have...or maintain...that capability. China has not done so yet, but is building up to it. I believe however that they will...and when they do, it will be a significant feat in and of itself if they build their first two indigenous carriers at the same time.

That is all.

Jeff Head said:

It is not an issue of whether a yard has either the room to build a carrier, or the access to the machinery.

Clearly, if they know what the need, they can assemble the space and tools.

But that is the rub. Knowing. Carriers are an order of magnitude more difficult to build because of the engineering that goes into them...which does not have to go into a merchant ship. You have to have the expertise to assemble and successfully build and then launch and then outfit, arm, work-up and finally deploy a carrier.

Very few countries have...or maintain...that capability. China has not done so yet, but is building up to it. I believe however that they will...and when they do, it will be a significant feat in and of itself if they build their first two indigenous carriers at the same time.

That is all.

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An aircraft carrier is a similar engineering feat to building a true fifth gen aircraft, it looks fairly straight forward, but there are lots and lots of intricacies that will make her or break her, I/We do appreciate your engineering credentials, and I get your point, but, there are LOTs of technical aspects that are proprietary, the real reason no one is going to inherit a USN carrier, "trade secrets" as it were...

If you build two carriers at the same time, you can make mistakes twice. But you can built alternatives and speed up development. The better of the two will let you to the next generation.

Intrepid said:

If you build two carriers at the same time, you can make mistakes twice. But you can built alternatives and speed up development. The better of the two will let you to the next generation.

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One of the reasons why I thought the constructing two carriers simultaneously rumours had some credence was that eventually China will probably want to have more than one yard that can conduct carrier maintenance and refit. Building two carriers at the same time also means investing the money to develop and maintain that ability and equipment, which isn't too much of a stretch for where China would have to go with their carrier construction program anyways. More than that might be too expensive, inefficient, and most importantly of all, unnecessary. Nevermind how you're going to make enough planes to operate off those carriers. There's also all the personnel, logistics, and other ships you'd have to procure simultaneously. It just makes no sense.

IMHO it's all down to the ambitions of the Chinese,

If they so choose and decide to build cookie cutter Liaonings then I am pretty sure they can churn them out at a good rate of knots (pardon the pun!) the whole engineering thing is a red herring, design and build are 2 different things building a hull is just welding and riveting so if they can amass enough of the right grade steel they can build the hull and superstructure.

Now the Liaoning arrived in china partially complete without powerplant, sensors, weapons wiring etc they seemed to have managed to put all the missing bits into it float it out and sail it down the Chinese seaboard without it capsizing and be stable enough for a few planes to take off and land. Now if they took notes of everything they did and put together some plans it should be reproducible en mass by other Chinese engineers who can read plans, engineering schematics etc, assuming those pesky Chinese steel mills can come up with enough steel!

So from my perspective whole carrier engineering voodoo is over played you are not going to build one in your shed but it's not magic, a Liaoning might not be US super carrier grade (cue pointless discussions about the merits of STOBAR vs CATOBAR, MTO, AEW blah blah blah) but most Navies are not going to want to tangle with a squadron or two of J-15s (cue how the USN flyboys will turn them into scrap aluminum etc etc) (for the ironically challenged)

Now I don't think the Chinese are going to settle for more cookie cutter Liaonings and personally I don't think they are in a mad rush litter the seas with PLAN aircraft carriers, that will all be block obsolescent in a few dozen years

So even if they could churn out half a dozen without batting an eyelid they won't because they are not morons. You'd build them steadily so you can maintain the skills base not en mass then stop and let everyone go off and do other things!

Now in a few year's time when they've got a design they are happy with and the global political situation merits it those Chinese ship yards with their 300+m slipways could do the really scary thing of mass producing carriers!

but I wouldn't hold my breath.

A new coat of paint for the AEW helicopter. The photo is unclear on this, but it appears the radar is semi-nestled in the fuselage when not deployed.





Previously, the radar hangs free of the fuselage:

hkbc said:

IMHO it's all down to the ambitions of the Chinese,

If they so choose and decide to build cookie cutter Liaonings then I am pretty sure they can churn them out at a good rate...the whole engineering thing is a red herring, design and build are 2 different things building a hull is just welding and riveting so if they can amass enough of the right grade steel they can build the hull and superstructure.

Now the Liaoning arrived in china partially complete without powerplant, sensors, weapons wiring etc they seemed to have managed to put all the missing bits into it float it out and sail it down the Chinese seaboard without it capsizing and be stable enough for a few planes to take off and land.

So from my perspective whole carrier engineering voodoo is over played.

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You can call it voodoo or whatever you wish, hkbc...but when speaking of aircraft carriers, statements like "building a hull is just welding and riveting," reveal that your understanding of naval vessel design is flawed.

Again, in order to build an aircraft carrier to military naval specifications, with the proper engineering for its survival, correct ballasting, correct movement and speed capabilities, it stability at sea, and entire capability to perform its mission is a far more difficult thing than you represent here, and it is not overplayed in the least It is not like a cookie cutter, and it is not like building merchant tankers,.

As I said, China is learning it. I have no doubt that they will also master it. But it will not happen either overnight or simply. If it were...they would have had no need of using the Varyag to get started. If it were, they would have already built their indegenous one. But they haven't and it is because their own designers and planners recognize and respect the difficulty and are approaching it in a very considered and measured way.

Good for them.

Once again...if they do build two at once, particularly at this stage of their development, it will be a pretty amazing thing to see. I am looking forward to witnessing it if it happens...heck, it will be exciting to just see them build one of their own large indegenous carriers. And I expect we will see it...one way or the other...soon.

Time will tell.

Jeff Head said:

You can call it voodoo or whatever you wish, hkbc...but when speaking of aircraft carriers, statements like "building a hull is just welding and riveting," reveal that your understanding of naval vessel design is flawed.

Again, in order to build an aircraft carrier to military naval specifications, with the proper engineering for its survival, correct ballasting, correct movement and speed capabilities, it stability at sea, and entire capability to perform its mission is a far more difficult thing than you represent here, and it is not overplayed in the least It is not like a cookie cutter, and it is not like building merchant tankers,.


Time will tell.

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To BUILD a vessel is just welding and riveting steel unless you are telling me they use superglue! What you are referring to is DESIGNING the vessel not building one the guy with the welding torch doesn't need to know about ballasting just that part A needs to be attached to part B. The guy with the headaches is the one who has to come up with the plans for the vessel, given the Chinese already have one that works it follows they have some plans for it so that guy has done his bit.

So all I am saying is the Chinese have an aircraft carrier, they know enough to have put it in the water in a working state and there is nothing to presuppose they can't repeat that feat with the SAME DESIGN hence cookie cutter! I did not say anything about merchant tankers etc just simply the fact that if the Chinese can build a replica hull to the Liaoning then they can build multiple copies of an aircraft carrier by virtue of having the design already, the hull being more or less what they ended up with from Ukraine and thus the bit they didn't do first hand themselves. The fact that they actually have multiple yards with large slipways also makes it realisable path to multiple production not just a fantasy.

I go on to say that I don't think they're settling for just repeats of the Liaoning, so no mass series production.

Perhaps you'd care to read what is written instead of telling me I know jack and regurgitating your rhetoric that it's really hard to BUILD an aircraft carrier. 24 Essex class built at 5 different yards in less than a decade using 1940s engineering and production technology says otherwise! However, DESIGNING an aircraft carrier from scratch that is still as hard as ever!