PLAN Carrier Construction

Engineer said:

I believe carriers can certainly be built at a much faster pace than the rate that US has at the moment. The US simply chose not to go that fast since the country has a sizable fleet already. US's objectives are to maintain a constant number of carriers and to maintain qualified personals who can build those carriers. China has completely different needs to that of US, so US's carrier build rate is a not a good benchmark to apply on to PLAN.

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Hi Eng,
A Happy New Year to you.

I agree with your points above. That:
1. Carriers can be build at a much faster pace that what the US is doing right now. The truth is, almost every kind of vessels can be build faster if we assign more resources to the task.
2. The US chose not to build faster since the US Navy already has a sizable fleet, and to maintain qualified personals for building carriers. One just has to look at the Soviet/Russian carrier building capability to see what happen when the orders stopped coming.
3. Therefore, the US build rate is not a good benchmark for the Chinese.

Engineer said:

As to LHAs for China, my opinion is that it is nothing more than fan boy's dream. The dream got repeated so often that people now believe it to be true. It is made up by those who want to see China building a fleet of mini carriers, because those people are too impatient to wait for proper carriers and mistakenly believe that effectiveness scales linearly with carrier size.

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I however, don’t know enough about the application of LHAs, and especially for the PLAN’s requirement point-of-view to make a meaningful comment on whether or not this type of vessels is in the PLAN’s planning.

As for super carriers, or more to the point, “fan arts” of possible PLAN’s future super carrier design, have you seen the latest CG image of a design based on the ex-Soviet’s Ulyanovsk design? The artist most likely based that on rumors that the Chinese has acquired the “blue print” of the Ulyanovsk. That is some good CG indeed! Furthermore, I also recall a previous CG of a four catapults carrier, a twin-hulls design, and various others super carrier designs being circulated on the internet. However, the latest is the best yet (personal opinion). For smaller carrier design, I have only seen few basic (computer) drawings of a two catapults design with an island similar to the Liaoning’s (but shorten version, of her island). The authenticities of those drawings are still being debated today (I believe).

My point is that if there is any sense of impatient, it is our collective desires to see a PLAN’s equivalent of the US Navy’s super carrier; hey, I am pretty much one who share that sense of impatient often enough to understand. That sense of impatient has prompted many online “fan based artists” to produce excellent CG for our imaginations’ consumptions; and they do so free of charge too! So, if anything is true, it is this “dreams” that get repeated so often that, as you eloquently put it, people now believe it to be true, and more often then not dismisses any alternatives to it (even for the sake of discussion) as heinous heresies.

I don’t like to label others as “fan-boy”; although I wouldn’t mind doing so in jest and good humors, provided the other party understands so. However, I do believe if any of our self indulgent dream can be (for humorous purposes) label as “fan-boyish”, it is the one that we will see the PLAN build a fleet of big carriers to match the US Navy’s soon.

Engineer said:

LHAs need carrier battle groups to provide air coverage. So, talk about putting the horse behind a cart if LHA were to be built before any battle group is readied. Also, since PLAN's budget is finite, a LHA project will eat right into the budget of actual aircraft carriers. With carriers having a much higher priority, I just don't see building of LHAs as realistic.

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Personally I see the PLAN’s carrier program as follow:
1. for capability building (no further comments on my part here since I have never worked as a naval strategist before, neither in this lifetime or all my previous lifetimes … I think … OMG, I can’t remember! ).
2. for national pride building.

I agree that the PLAN’s budget is finite; everyone’s budget is finite, expect perhaps the CIA or NSA (Joke! Joke! ). So I believe they don’t necessary have a very high priority for this carrier project of theirs. After all is said, the PRC’s primary means of national defence is still diplomacy; and that is a good thing.

I also believe that recent years’ naval build-up has something to do with an event in 2008; that being the worldwide financial crisis. They likely already have plans for new ships before that, but the needs to keep their shipyards’ capability might very well have fast tracked many of those projects. This is just like how you have reasoned that the US builds their carrier slowly to maintain qualified personnel who can build those carriers: similar case for similar reasoning, but make no mistake, both are very different issues.

With regard to LHA (helo carrier?) and carriers, I don’t know which can be consider the horse or which the cart. I don’t see any relation or relevant of building one type before the other. I am of the opinion that each navy build or acquire vessels to fill their requirements. Otherwise we might see a repeat of the Battleships race before the second World War; that eventually shows nations were racing each other to build capability they do not need the most.

My point here is that there is no urgency on the PLAN's requirement; carriers included. So what is realistic for the PLAN (to build) depended solely on what the PLAN think they need in the long term. All existing "crisis" will be resolve by diplomacy, and all build-up activities were for capability maintenances. Honestly speaking, do any of us here (long enough) expect any "confrontation" between China and her neighbours? If so, then all talk of building up naval capability to meet those crisis' need are already too late. However, let's not discuss further on this point here as it bears little relevant to the purpose of this thread.

As a final point, Eng, I don’t quite understand your reasoning behind your attempt to label “those who wanted to see China building a fleet of mini carriers” as “fan boy”. If you did so as a New Year joke, allow me to join you in a dose good and healthy laughing ! If otherwise, I hope my rebuff above is sufficiently clear (and typo free) to conclude this kind of pointless exercise, and allow everyone to enjoy a brand new year for PLAN carrier watching; I personally see no point is furthering a discussion in such a scope limited subject in this thread, which should be on news related to PLAN carrier construction.

I certainly have had a good start to this year, and this is only day three! The first two days of this New Year have certainly provided plenty of eye candies, and thank you for sharing those excellent photos of the Liaoning’s interiors! My apology for this lengthy reply, for I don’t often get to access a notebook these days; fortunately I can still read and post short messages from my Smartphone from time to time (phew!)

Jovian ;D

i hope this isn't off topic.

the way i see it, one of the biggest issues with liaoning design is its lack of parking space on deck, which to my knowledge is a crucial part of carrier ops, especially when it comes to landing a large number of planes in a short period of time and yet keeping the carrier fairly clean for any possible emergency launches. number of free launch positions isn't even the most important issue there, as USN practice seems satisfied with two of its four cats being free after receiving/landing a large package.



image above shows how they do it.

so what liaoning seems to lack is that large forward parking space.

here's one idea that somewhat rectifies that:



of course, its a radically changed design. whole deck needs to be a few meters wider, so the port elevator has room, next to the landing cables. whole island would need to be redesigned and relocated, alongside its support structure beneath it. moving it aft as much as possible gives best parking space. also, moving the aft elevator to the port side enables such a move of the island.

what also seems USN practice is to freely use the elevators in their raised position as natural part of the deck for parking purposes. while they can afford it with 3/4 elevator, liaoning with just two elevators couldn't afford it. which is why i added the third elevator. the image i made doesnt even show using the elevator nearest the bow as a proper parking space. if one used it as such, one could quickly park 8 j15s there.

possibly two more could be parked in front of the group, while still not blocking the runway nor greatly obstructing the deck ops.

for maximum parking space, starboard side launching position would have to be closed, however. which of course lowers the launch pace in case of emergencies. but with the third launch position also free, it may be plausible to arrange a staggered launch of two j15 in a fairly short sequence, thus somewhat aleviating the issue.

closing the starboard launch position and that part of the deck would allow for a pretty comfy parking space for 6 more j15, for a total of 14-16. that's a pretty decent strike package in itself.

additional required changes would be moving the starboard launch position a bit closer to the middle, planning for tiedown positions all across the deck and relocating the weapon elevators. that last change is something i havent solved yet, as putting the elevator in best position for launching the planes interferes with the position best for parking the planes. solution might be to make them larger than on liaoning, but make fewer of them. even nimitz has elevators placed in such a way that they somewhat interfere with parking ops.

of course, all this isnt terribly effective use of space, still due to ski ramp. best course would be to go with cats and get rid of the ski ramp altogether but this is just an exercise as how one might go around rebuilding liaoning sized carrier for strike purposes. kuznetsov was designed around air defense and thus didnt envison landing a large package of planes in a short time frame, while still making the deck clear for launch ops. but if one HAD to stick with the ski ramp, these changes may not be the bad way to go.

Totoro said:

of course, its a radically changed design. whole deck needs to be a few meters wider, so the port elevator has room, next to the landing cables. whole island would need to be redesigned and relocated, alongside its support structure beneath it. moving it aft as much as possible gives best parking space. also, moving the aft elevator to the port side enables such a move of the island.

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Your intention is good, but the island can only be reduced in size and not be moved. The location of the propellers determine the position and angle of the shafts. The shafts determine the position of the gearboxes and steam turbines. Location of steam turbines determine position of the boilers. Boilers determine the location of the funnel, and the funnel determines the position of the island.

Very true. Thats one benefit of nuke powered ship desigb i forgot about. Alternatives would be A: two island structures, one as small as possible, containibg the funnel and ship steering coomand room and other behind it containibg everything else.

B: go back to ww2 designs, where some carriers simply had short funnels that went not even to deck level but simply turned outwards to spit out the exhaust. Perhaps if that was good enough for them with their smokey exhaust then gas turbines of today may fare better exhaust wise.

C: similar to B, but the funnel does go up a few stories after it snakes it way to the side so most of the deck is clear. There woulndbt be any opportunity for planes to overhang that bit of deck but its a small cost to pay. Drawback would be more weight for extra support structure for such a funnel plus not a fully clear view fromthe island, since that funnel would getabit in the way. Thouh camers couldbe placed on it..

D: use a non efficient design and waste a ton of internal space to snake the internal part of exhaust to he back to match the island. I guess this is worst solution of all.

D: go all electric propulsion. Have direct transmission of el. Motors to each propeller, place the gas turbines and generators towards the stern and have the funnels go more or less straight up. While seemingly the best solution, iguess itd just be quite bewildering to be on one hand able to pull off direct el. Propulsion for such a ship while on the other hand having to stick with a ski ramp....

Totoro said:

Very true. Thats one benefit of nuke powered ship desigb i forgot about. Alternatives would be A: two island structures, one as small as possible, containibg the funnel and ship steering coomand room and other behind it containibg everything else.

B: go back to ww2 designs, where some carriers simply had short funnels that went not even to deck level but simply turned outwards to spit out the exhaust. Perhaps if that was good enough for them with their smokey exhaust then gas turbines of today may fare better exhaust wise.

C: similar to B, but the funnel does go up a few stories after it snakes it way to the side so most of the deck is clear. There woulndbt be any opportunity for planes to overhang that bit of deck but its a small cost to pay. Drawback would be more weight for extra support structure for such a funnel plus not a fully clear view fromthe island, since that funnel would getabit in the way. Thouh camers couldbe placed on it..

D: use a non efficient design and waste a ton of internal space to snake the internal part of exhaust to he back to match the island. I guess this is worst solution of all.

D: go all electric propulsion. Have direct transmission of el. Motors to each propeller, place the gas turbines and generators towards the stern and have the funnels go more or less straight up. While seemingly the best solution, iguess itd just be quite bewildering to be on one hand able to pull off direct el. Propulsion for such a ship while on the other hand having to stick with a ski ramp....

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I think your solutions are over complicating things. There are only so much you can do within the constrain of the design. Aside from reducing the size of the island, I think the most possible changes are:

• Move the crane behind the aft elevator, then extend the flight deck over the original space.
• Extend the flight deck to cover the space where there used to be SA-N-6 air defense launchers.
• Angle the landing zone a bit more to leave more space on the port side so an extra elevator can be fitted.
• Widen the elevators so that two aircraft can be lifted comfortably at one go.
• If the island can be reduced in size significantly, the saved weight may allow for an extension of the flight deck on the starboard side by 1~2 meters.

At the end of the day, a bigger ship is needed because the Liaoning is not big enough.

a more efficient design including catapult should be the next step

Stupid noob question here, but why do we need an island at all? The only reason I can think of is to get some height for the radars. But can't these be fitted by another method without sticking them on a big building that takes up valuable space? I don't think good observational vantage point is a good enough reason, just use a well placed network of HD cameras.

Engineer said:

I believe carriers can certainly be built at a much faster pace than the rate that US has at the moment. The US simply chose not to go that fast since the country has a sizable fleet already. US's objectives are to maintain a constant number of carriers and to maintain qualified personals who can build those carriers. China has completely different needs to that of US, so US's carrier build rate is a not a good benchmark to apply on to PLAN.

As to LHAs for China, my opinion is that it is nothing more than fan boy's dream. The dream got repeated so often that people now believe it to be true. It is made up by those who want to see China building a fleet of mini carriers, because those people are too impatient to wait for proper carriers and mistakenly believe that effectiveness scales linearly with carrier size.

LHAs need carrier battle groups to provide air coverage. So, talk about putting the horse behind a cart if LHA were to be built before any battle group is readied. Also, since PLAN's budget is finite, a LHA project will eat right into the budget of actual aircraft carriers. With carriers having a much higher priority, I just don't see building of LHAs as realistic.

Click to expand...

I think the main reason why China has not built any LHAs or LHDs yet is because their rotary wing aircraft industry is not yet capable of building products which fully meet the Chinese military's requirements, witness the Z-10 needing its equipment compromised to reduce its weight. Once all types of acceptably capable rotary assets are available, hopefully the Z-20 is a step towards that, then I am sure we will promptly see a Chinese LHA or LHD.

I think a LHD is a more capable and thereby a more cost-effective approach than a LHA, and I expect the PLAN to first build a single one to train or experiment with like the Liaoning. However I don't think there is a pressing military need for China for these types of assets and OOTW and humanitarian type missions are already being sufficiently covered by the 071s and hospital ships.

The only situation where a LHD with a well-rounded rotary airwing is truly needed is small-scale evacuations from hot zones, but this is a very niche need. To the point of what others have said China prefers diplomacy to avoid such situations and so far that has mostly worked.

PanAsian said:

I think the main reason why China has not built any LHAs or LHDs yet is because their rotary wing aircraft industry is not yet capable of building products which fully meet the Chinese military's requirements, witness the Z-10 needing its equipment compromised to reduce its weight. Once all types of acceptably capable rotary assets are available, hopefully the Z-20 is a step towards that, then I am sure we will promptly see a Chinese LHA or LHD.

I think a LHD is a more capable and thereby a more cost-effective approach than a LHA, and I expect the PLAN to first build a single one to train or experiment with like the Liaoning. However I don't think there is a pressing military need for China for these types of assets and OOTW and humanitarian type missions are already being sufficiently covered by the 071s and hospital ships.

The only situation where a LHD with a well-rounded rotary airwing is truly needed is small-scale evacuations from hot zones, but this is a very niche need. To the point of what others have said China prefers diplomacy to avoid such situations and so far that has mostly worked.

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I think a LHD/LHA is much more suited to disaster relieve than a CV, it is not that threatening, can bring a lot of relief workers on the soil, integral with hospital facilities and water purification facilities.

These are awsome diplomatic tools.

Pigsy said:

Stupid noob question here, but why do we need an island at all? The only reason I can think of is to get some height for the radars. But can't these be fitted by another method without sticking them on a big building that takes up valuable space? I don't think good observational vantage point is a good enough reason, just use a well placed network of HD cameras.

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I can answer this question with much authority. You've partly answered your own question actually. The island has four primary purposes. Location of sensors i.e radars, navigational sensors etc, you have the bridge, the pri-fly and in on nuclear power carriers the funnel and exhaust venting system to clear the smokes etc... and actually a good vantage point IS crucial!

What you suggest is thereotically possible however all the towers, antennas etc potruding out of the deck would make it very cluttered and doesn't really save much real estate so might as well go with an island where everything can be centralized and extended from.
Also I think you always need that human eye in the sky both in the bridge and the pri fly to direct traffic and assess deck handling and operations. A camera no matter how good can't replace a human eye and definitely can't be a substitute for situational awareness.
On non conventional carriers there is also the issue of smoke. If you have everything 'flat' that means the stack is flush with either the deck or of the side. This would cause major issues since the smoke would get in the way especially if the wind blows the wrong way not just in terms of visibility but it's hot!! and the area where the vent comes out from would be non use anyway so either way you're still losing real estate. If you vent them to the aft then what happens on landing? the last thing a pilot wants to see when landing on a flat top is a big cloud of smoke right in front of him!!!

Last but not least what if there are technical issues with the cameras? You're basically mission killed if you can drive the ship and launch aircrafts! It doesn't even have to be anything serious. Something as trivial as a couple of seagulls doing business on the camera lenses or housing would basically put the entire carrier at risk!
Driving a carrier with just cameras is like flying a drone. Can it be done?? sure.. can you fly and navigate a drone? obviously!
Can you knifefight in a drone against another fighter piloted by a human being inside the cockpit and win? NO WAY!