The maintenance costs made it hard to justify.
PLAN Carrier Construction
- Thread starter escobar
- Start date
The maintenance costs made it hard to justify.
The main issue, Equation, was not so much their maintenance. They US Navy understood these costs and had factored them into the life cycle when the vessels were built.
The main issue was as I stated...they would have been too costly, and this was an extra major cost...to upgrade to make them as effective as the AEGIS vessels the US Navy began building in the 1980s.
First the Ticonderoga Cruisers and then the Burke AEGIS Destroyers. The AEGIS system and then the VLS capabilitie made those AEGIS vessels much more capable and effective in defense of the Carrier Group than these nuclear powered cruisers. In order to get these nuclear vessels up to that standard, when they had not been designed for those types of provisions, it would have virtually cost as mcuh to change these vessels as it did to build a new vessel.
So, they were retired early due to their defense systems (in the twin armed launchers and the missiles they could carry) and sensors being made obsolete from the US perspective by the AEGIS VLS.
I created a seperate thread for this:
HERE
...so members can continue to discuss the nuclear powered surface combatant issue without going off topic on threads like this.
Cheers!
I incorporated refit and upgrade into maintenance costs. Probably should be more specific though.
No problem and understood.
But that type of refit, from a dual armed launcher to a VLS, and particularly to the PARS was a huge rebuild. They did upgrade most of the Spruance destroyers to the VLS, but then they were designed with that in mind and were on the same hull as the Ticos. But they could not refit the Spruiance with the PARS and with AEGIS...to do so would have meant rebuilding them to be an AEGIS cruiser.
Anyhow, we should probably take any more of this OT discussion to that other thread.
Depending on what blue water strategy China chooses to pursue, nuclear powered surface ships might present more incremental benefit for Chinese strategy better than it did for American naval strategy because China lacked first class oversea bases and underway replenishment resources.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I don't know about that. PLAN at this point in time has no intentions of playing in the Atlantic. They are concentrating mainly on the Pacific rim and maybe Indian ocean because of SLOCs between China and Africa. Conventional powered vessels are more than enough for that.
China doesn't need to go to the Atlantic. If she wants to establish persistent and credible carrier presence west of Guam during period of international tension, she would have problems doing so without nuclear power or a large and vulnerable fleet underway replenishment capability.
China can deploy throughout Indian Ocean to east coast of Africa in peace, yes. But she would also have a great deal of trouble keeping up conventional logistic and fueling support for any forces there during international tension.
So if her strategy calls for her to sustain credible naval carrier presence more than, say 2000 NM from Chinese shores without first acquiring offshore bases, she would likely need something akin to an all nuclear task force.
China can deploy throughout Indian Ocean to east coast of Africa in peace, yes. But she would also have a great deal of trouble keeping up conventional logistic and fueling support for any forces there during international tension.
So if her strategy calls for her to sustain credible naval carrier presence more than, say 2000 NM from Chinese shores without first acquiring offshore bases, she would likely need something akin to an all nuclear task force.
I don't find that scenario likely, at least not in the Pacific, seeing as China really has no interests there outside of Southeast Asia. Far more likely that China will need to consider persistence in the Indian Ocean, all the way to Africa, where they will have friendly countries and access to naval bases.
Her ability to excerpt naval power in Indian Ocean during time of crisis would also be vastly more credible if she sent an all nuclear task force. Without a major and secure base in Indian Ocean, any Chinese non-nuclear naval presence in Indian Ocean could never be more than a peace time show the flag exercise.
Equation
Lieutenant General
Yeah but the reactor up keeps and spaces and maintenance requires like Jeff describe before were just too costly for those surface combatant ships to be as effective defensively as the curret Aegis types destroyers. Now keep in mind it works for many SSN because they're deep underwater therefore avoiding the watchful eyes of radars, satellites, and CVN reconnaissance planes.
ON the Indian Ocean the PLAN can always stop by at the port at Gwadar in Pakistan if they need any kind of replenishment.