PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

Franklin said:

China at this point should be able to build a 60 to 70000 ton aircraft carrier. There will be technical challenges for sure but those can be overcome. I think that China at this point is still putting off in starting to build its first indigenous carrier. They want to hit the ground running with their first indigenous carrier. They want one with as few flaws in the design as they can. So they need to absorb more experience and lessons in carrier ops from the Liaoning. That in turn can help them to further improve the design of the future carrier. And that takes time.

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Then they need to just 'copy' US carriers. The Nimitz and Ford class carriers are base on millions of manhours operating carriers for three quarters of a century... and the design of these classes are based on those experiences. It's about as 'perfect' as one can get for launching manned aircraft and just the right size to make it practical.
Can you make a 200K or 300K ton carrier? of course but at some point you would see a diminishing returns not to mention eating up your entire defense budget. USN carriers are also design to transit the Suez as well as provide optimum return in carrier operations.
It's not like someone just woke up one day and decided to design a 100K ship with 90 planes embark. Those numbers became what they are for good reasons.
At the end of the day it all depends on what PLAN's ambitions are for the foreseeable future. At the moment their concentration is only on the Pacific so they may not need a dozen carriers or even ships that need to transit any canals but at the same time they also need to carefully design a carrier that is both practical to operate and launch Flanker variants with a predetermine sortie rates and to have enough of them to best maximize the firepower of each ship.

kwaigonegin said:

Then they need to just 'copy' US carriers. The Nimitz and Ford class carriers are base on millions of manhours operating carriers for three quarters of a century... and the design of these classes are based on those experiences. It's about as 'perfect' as one can get for launching manned aircraft and just the right size to make it practical.
Can you make a 200K or 300K ton carrier? of course but at some point you would see a diminishing returns not to mention eating up your entire defense budget. USN carriers are also design to transit the Suez as well as provide optimum return in carrier operations.
It's not like someone just woke up one day and decided to design a 100K ship with 90 planes embark. Those numbers became what they are for good reasons.
At the end of the day it all depends on what PLAN's ambitions are for the foreseeable future. At the moment their concentration is only on the Pacific so they may not need a dozen carriers or even ships that need to transit any canals but at the same time they also need to carefully design a carrier that is both practical to operate and launch Flanker variants with a predetermine sortie rates and to have enough of them to best maximize the firepower of each ship.

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I'm sure they would love to have clones of the Nimitz class carriers. But I think that at this point that might be beyond their technical capabilities. But a (improved) Kuznetsov clone should be possible at this point.

Now something about the air wing. I found this photo to help to illustrate the size differnce between the Fulcrum's and the Flankers. And the Fulcrums are about the same size as the F/A-18's. Flankers may have the advantage of longer distance and more powerful electronics and radar. But that would come at the expense of a smaller airwing and slower deck handling. Those Flankers are beasts!

Franklin said:

I'm sure they would love to have clones of the Nimitz class carriers. But I think that at this point that might be beyond their technical capabilities. But a (improved) Kuznetsov clone should be possible at this point.

Now something about the air wing. I found this photo to help to illustrate the size differnce between the Fulcrum's and the Flankers. And the Fulcrums are about the same size as the F/A-18's. Flankers may have the advantage of longer distance and more powerful electronics and radar. But that would come at the expense of a smaller airwing and slower deck handling. Those Flankers are beasts!

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At the end of the day it's a fine balancing act. With J-Flankers as big as they are you either have to build a bigger platform or you decrease the unit size of the CVW. Either way it's going to be very taxing on the crew. PLAN needs to thoroughly study their operational needs and future threat assessment and plan accordingly.

A carrier has one primary goal and one only. That is to launch as many aircraft in as short a time as possible and to maximize the collective firepower of the CSG. Everything else is a very distant second or can be done with other types of assets that may be more practical and definitely more cost effective.

You don't build carriers to launch one or two aircraft nor do you build them to do 'humanitarian' type missions although they can certainly do that but it defeats the entire purpose.

kwaigonegin said:

Then they need to just 'copy' US carriers. The Nimitz and Ford class carriers are base on millions of manhours operating carriers for three quarters of a century... and the design of these classes are based on those experiences.

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Amen!

kwaigonegin said:

It's about as 'perfect' as one can get for launching manned aircraft and just the right size to make it practical.

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Amen and amen!

kwaigonegin said:

It's not like someone just woke up one day and decided to design a 100K ship with 90 planes embark. Those numbers became what they are for good reasons.

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Absolutely spot on.

kwaigonegin said:

At the end of the day it all depends on what PLAN's ambitions are for the foreseeable future.

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And this is the key. They need a very thorough and thoughtout underlying short, medium, and long term strategy and goals. They then build their carriers to meet those strategies and goals.

Differing strategies will produce different hardware.

With the Soviets/Russians...their carriers were built predominantly to serve as defenseive assets to p[rotect the Soviet sumbarine bastions. Their SLOCs are not as important to them because of their vast landsize, spanning Europe and Asia. So their carriers were not nbuilt to predominantly project power in an effort to ensure the safety and protections of SLOCs.

Now, the Chinese have refit and modernized a carrier that was designed to be a defensive instrument. Do they have US style power projection and SLOC goals?

IMHO, China is much more akin to the US with its need for heavy emphasis on SLOCs than Russia, so they may well have that strategy.

If they do, then they need to build their assets to match.

You do not build carrier as a National Pride thing or to simply show that you can do what someone else does. If a nation does that...they are wasting a lot of money, manpower, and resource and they will never really know how to operate them effecively anyway.

I believe China is thinking this thing out. They got their carrier and are gaining experience using it...and they are taking their time in determining how to do so in a way that will meet their goals and strategies.

I beleive a STOBAR carrier like the Liaoning can be armed and emabrked in such a way to meet power projection based on securing and mainting her SLOCs if that is what she wants to do. If so, it would make sense to have two of the Liaoning type for ecomimies of scale, logistics, training, etc.

But the optimum instrument for those needs are being built and used by the US Navy and based on all of the things you enumerated above, Kwaig.

If that is the path China wants to take, I expect at some point they will produce carriers more closely akin to what the US has.

Can they jump immediately to a nuclear powered, electric power generation vessel like the Ford class? Very doubtful.

But the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes served very well in those power projection/SLOC roles and a modernized lay-out like that is something I think they are very capable of.

We shall see. Time will tell.

I too believe PLAN will model their carrier program more closely align to the USN rather than the Russian Navy (although the hardware is obviously Russian at this time with the Liaoning and the J series birds) but that is probably due more to the politics of the day rather than any other contraints.

As their naval shipbuilding experience and indigenous technologies become more mature we should see 3 or 4 full deck carriers in the foresseble future as we've always thought they would be. Designs would be very similar to the USN supercarriers like the Kitty Hawk etc but obviously with modern sensors, weapon systems, datacomms etc.

Those designs worked allright for the F-14s and those birds are almost the same size as the Flanker. I'm sure that point has not been lost to the PLAN planners as well. The F4 Phantoms were huge birds also back in the day not to mention the A5 Vigilantes. That one is even bigger than the Flanker !! However these types do take up a LOT of room, difficult to manage and PLAN will just have to manage them accordingly. Perhaps with some modern automation, reduction in ship's complement and some minor layout changes in the hanger etc they can build a carrier similar to the Kitty Hawk but with much bigger internal volume.

kwaigonegin said:

Then they need to just 'copy' US carriers. The Nimitz and Ford class carriers are base on millions of manhours operating carriers for three quarters of a century... and the design of these classes are based on those experiences. It's about as 'perfect' as one can get for launching manned aircraft and just the right size to make it practical.

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I disagree.

1. Unlike US, covering Pacific and India Oceans suffices for most of what China needs to do. So size of Suez channel, for example, is not too important. So the size of carrier is much less restricted.

2. Is there any advantage is larger carrier? The only thing US proved is that there is a limit to the number of aircraft that can operate on a carrier. What if you optimize to a different aircraft size -- minimize number of sorties needed by maximizing what each aircraft can do. For example, China is the only one operating heavy carrier fighter -- what if you maximize of that and large support carrier-borne aircraft like tankers, patrol(anti-sub) and AWACS? If fighters can stay in the air twice as long, you pretty much halved the sortie requirement for CAP, increase strike range and/or increase strike load, etc.

3. Larger carrier that optimizes on larger aircraft than US currently operates draw upon late comer's advantage. For US to match that, US will lose a lot of the investment already put into current carrier aviation-- new aircraft, ships needed, and maintaining the old obsolescent ones.

nemo said:

I disagree.

1. Unlike US, covering Pacific and India Oceans suffices for most of what China needs to do. So size of Suez channel, for example, is not too important. So the size of carrier is much less restricted.

2. Is there any advantage is larger carrier? The only thing US proved is that there is a limit to the number of aircraft that can operate on a carrier. What if you optimize to a different aircraft size -- minimize number of sorties needed by maximizing what each aircraft can do. For example, China is the only one operating heavy carrier fighter -- what if you maximize of that and large support carrier-borne aircraft like tankers, patrol(anti-sub) and AWACS? If fighters can stay in the air twice as long, you pretty much halved the sortie requirement for CAP, increase strike range and/or increase strike load, etc.

3. Larger carrier that optimizes on larger aircraft than US currently operates draw upon late comer's advantage. For US to match that, US will lose a lot of the investment already put into current carrier aviation-- new aircraft, ships needed, and maintaining the old obsolescent ones.

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You cannot nitpick certain points and rebuff. You have to read my whole post in it's entirety. I did address the Suez as well as limitations of the larger flanker airframe. I also did mention PLAN's area of concentration centered mainly around the pacrim unlike the USN which are all 5 oceans.

The PLA is nothing if not practical.

If copy and pasting existing US carrier designs gives them what they want, they won't hesitate to do so. However, the PLA isn't stupid either, and will not blindly copy the USN just because that's the way the USN does things.

America might have significantly more experience in carrier ops and combat experience with carriers, but is defense and procurement decisions are not perfect and the people making those decisions are certainly not above playing petty political games or riding the gravy train.

America's overwhelming military superiority has probably allowed them to get away with such inefficiencies or baffling decisions, but China cannot afford to be so profligate or eccentric.

The Liaoning is a training carrier, and its training more than the officers and crews who man her. China's naval designers and engineers would have already learnt all they can of her design and construction from their study and restoration work on her. But they still have much to learn from the feedback and experiences of her crew and pilots which could only be learnt from operational experience.

If China is building carriers now, odds are they will be very similar to the Liaoning and/or they would be copying the British QE class design.

I do not think the PLAN is comfortable about moving up in weight class from medium to super carriers any time soon. In the short to medium term, I think they will be happy enough with Liaoning sized carriers or maybe slightly larger to better accommodate the size of the J15 and possibly a naval J20.

It will probably be mid to late 2020s before the PLAN will think about moving up in class to supercarriers, which would also necessitate moving to nuclear propulsion. At that time, they may well take a very close look at the Ford Class and could potentially come up with something quite similar.

Military Equipment Evolves. It evolves like an biological life form. The Mutations and Adaptations that make a unique new type of equipment are the innovations placed into it. Sometimes it's a evolutionary dead end like the Battle ship, when a new shift occurred that to aviation.
The Shape and form of PLAN future carriers is based on there perceived needs.
Ford, Nimitz, Foristal and Enterprise class CVN's were designed based on the needs of the US, A nation who via geo political, Geo Economic and Geographic positioning needs to operate across six oceans ( North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian Ocean, Gulf of Mexico from there Alliances and Interests Expanded. these Features demanded a Carrier formation that operates away form home for extended periods, needs the ability to sortie and operate over the horizon in a rapid fire fast blitz the may be any mission from humanitarian air to Opening actions of a War. The needs of the US Demanded the super carrier design.
The Russian Navy had different mission and operational needs. there Ports being far north often frozen over, with only a few small open warm water ports located in choke points. They Flirted with a Super carrier but reality and practicality told them that there main power was Submarines.
For the PRC they have to decide What they need and what shape this will take. Geography says they have to have a presence in the ECS and SCS at a absolute minimum as those the the coasts. beyond that is Ambition.

plawolf said:

It will probably be mid to late 2020s before the PLAN will think about moving up in class to supercarriers, which would also necessitate moving to nuclear propulsion. At that time, they may well take a very close look at the Ford Class and could potentially come up with something quite similar.

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My own time line, which calls for a couple of more Liaoning sized carriers...perhaps the second being a STOBAR-CATOBAR hybrid, would bring the PRC ito the mid 2020s before they would start a larger carrier.

I project they will and that their first one will be a conventionally powered, 80,000 ton or so carrier similar to the Kitty Hawk class...but definitely with their own flare.

So I think out time lines pretty much agree.

Boy oh boy will we see a Chinese celebration when the PRC launches its first indegenous carrier...whatever it may be.