Type 076 LHD/LHA discussion
- Thread starter banjex
- Start date
So I am sure this question has been asked before, but what is the significance of having a catapult on a ship like this that looks destined to launch aircraft of mediocre capability? What I mean by that is that most renderings seem to show this ship carrying MQ-9 or X-47b/c like aircraft.
What are those aircraft going to achieve in any sort of contested environment? Wouldn't you be better off developing a manned STOVL aircraft, which would be much more capable and doesn't need a catapult?
Does the need for the ship come from a lack of airbases for Chinese drones outside of the first two island chains?
Just trying to understand the purpose of this ship.
What are those aircraft going to achieve in any sort of contested environment? Wouldn't you be better off developing a manned STOVL aircraft, which would be much more capable and doesn't need a catapult?
Does the need for the ship come from a lack of airbases for Chinese drones outside of the first two island chains?
Just trying to understand the purpose of this ship.
lcloo
Captain
Primary mission #1 - provide an intensive level of air strike supporting amphibious assaults, destroying enemy heavy defense positions (radar, anti-aircraft missile launchers, tanks, IFV, ATGM and heavy machine gun positions, command posts, communication centres, munition storage points/warehouses etc) before and after the marines reach the beach. Air strike assets - UCAV, recon UAV, Z10/Z21 Attack helicopters.
Primary Misssion #2 - provide air transports for beach assault and re-supply of war material. Air transport assets - Z8, Z20 and unmanned transport helicopters/drones.
Air covers by air superiority jets shall be assigned to real aircraft carrier. ( Example - last seen in South China Sea this week).
Secondary missions - anti-submarines, transport of heavy equipment, disaster relief, troop transport ship (after securing beach heads).
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These aircraft that are speculated to operate as part of these ships airwing cannot do that on their own. They are the type of aircraft that largely rely on a permissive environment.
They also cannot provide a, "intensive level of airstrike" because they lack the payload to do so. Furthermore, they lack the the ability to operate in any sort of contested environment. All of the aircraft speculated to operate from these vessels are aircraft that have been in operation around the world for a considerable amount of time. No one expects those aircarft to be part of a front line assault against radar or anti-aircraft missile launchers.
High end flying wing stealthy UCAVs absolutely are useful in a high intensity, congested environment. They are far from mediocre, and if anything they are likely to represent one major component in the future of naval aviation as well as military aviation in general.
More conventional long endurance UAVs are less useful in those environments but make up for it by expanding sensor horizon and having long endurance.
The PLA has no high end survivable STOVL aircraft that can be developed in a useful time frame, so there's no need to even think about such a platform for the PLA. If you want to entertain the idea of fixed wing aircraft operating from 076, it's either UCAVs/UAVs or nothing at all, because the resources and time to develop a proper capable STOVL aircraft is very great.
Also, the benefit of CATOBAR UCAVs/UAVs is that they can also cross deck with CV-18 and other future CATOBAR carriers.
Mayeb think of them not as air support from the naval aviation per se, but rather as the landing forces' own UAV assets.
PLA ground forces already operate closely and intensely with their own UAVs. What do they do when they send an expeditionary force overseas? Fly the UAVs all the way from China? Forgo them altogether? Or carry that capacity with them?
So ground forces can have their own organic tactical air component.
The choice of drones rather than STOVL is pretty clear. Observing the 2 last serious conflicts (Vietnam, Ukraine), we see that manned fighters operating in air defense environment will heavily suffer. Meanwhile, drones can be used to bait out enemy radar positions, and are valid for tactical air support. Manned fighters are instead relegated to stand off duty against both enemy air and ground assets.
In a low intensity conflict, the 076 can do everything that a counter insurgency land base can do, except it remains mobile while doing it. Which shouldn't be underestimated either.
lcloo
Captain
Intensive level of air strikes is achievable by hundreds of individual swarms of suicide drones where as many as 50 or even hundreds of drones are grouped into a single swarm. And these drones are all expendable.
Expended inventory of drones, large as in GJ11 or small as a sizes of DJI drones can be restock more quickly than pilots (of strike jets) that got shot down. As long as Chinese factories make them as fast as EV cars productions, losses of hundreds of thousand of drones is sustainable.
The idea of type 076 as a drone carrier means China does not want to lose too many combat pilots who are hard to be replaced in short time period. They can up as high intensity of drone air strike as possible with-out worrying running out of drones. The game changer is China's "over-production capacity" in drone making.
Adding EMCAT means that the LHD can actually launch more types of warplanes, both manned and unmanned. This grants greater operational flexibility (and also cross-deck compatibility with other CATOBAR flat-decks in the PLAN, as previously mentioned).
This, combined with recent observations that pointed towards the 076 LHD having a similar full-length (or near full-length) EMCATs as those on Fujian, does (at least partially), does lend credibility to such prospects.
Besides, just as others have explained in the previous posts - Developing and fielding a STOVL fighter is a mammoth task, especially for a country that basically has to start from scratch in STOVL field (China), compared to those who already has decades-worth of the technological expertise and operational experience in the same field (the US).
If China is indeed actually serious about developing a STOVL fighter (as alluded by pop3 before his unpleasant "retirement") - Then it'll most likely be sometime in the mid or late-2030s before we would ever see one in action, at the earliest. That's still too far away, judging the current geopolitical development in the WestPac (and till the end of this decade).
In the meantime, what can the PLAN do? Try ask yourself this question.
I call that sweeping statement of baseless assumptions untrue. Simply from the fact that the PLA is no longer operating with lone-wolf, all-by-my-own doctrines, for starters.
Again, no. They actually ARE going to be integral parts of front line assaults against enemy radar and SAM installations and sites - Just (likely) not in the way you think it is.
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