Type 076 LHD/LHA discussion

胡诌施佬 has posted an article today on wechat basically offering his thoughts regarding the 076 specifically about the question of whether it's primarily an LHD first or a carrier first and the potential for 076 operating as manned fixed wing fighters.


His thoughts are basically similar to mine which I articulated on the last few pages, that 076 at the best of our current knowledge is still primarily an LHD first.
That the EM cat and arresting gear combo will allow 076 to have increased strike and ISR capability compared to 075.
In regards to 076's ability to launch manned fighters, he also mentions that it's likely for 076 to have downgraded catapults and arresting gear, and that if 076 does field manned fighters it will very much be in a reduced weight/auxiliary format. He also mentions the differences in flight deck arrangement as well and the technical feasibility of operating a complement of manned CATOBAR fighters.
He directly says that he expects 076's manned fixed wing "capability" (in A2A particularly) to be inferior to US LHDs equipped with F-35Bs and that's just a reflection of technology and industry.

He basically says that we should all temper our expectations a little bit and don't expect 076 to suddenly be much more capable than US LHDs equipped with F-35Bs in every domain simply because 076 is CATOBAR.
Instead, he says the 076 is a solution to the PLAN for providing fixed wing support for the amphibious assault mission of the ship.

Bltizo said:

Maintenance is one factor in determining the overall sustainability of your carrier's airwing, however flight ops tempo is effected by the size of your flight deck and the geometry of it.

If you look at the flight deck of the CdG and the flight deck of the similar displacement 075 or Wasp class you can see the difference in flight deck size and geometry is significant. The CdG's flight deck size and geometry allows it to conduct higher tempo flight ops than either 075 or Wasp would do.


So no, an 076 UCAV carrier will not be more efficient than a proper full sized carrier in fixed wing operations.

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I agree flight ops tempo is affected by flight deck size and its geometry.

But why then do we see a large difference in terms of surge and sustained sorties?

Examples below

a) Ford 140 sustained / 220 surge
b) Nimitz 120 sustained / 240 surge

That implies that the flight deck is not the limiting factor on sortie generation.

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Then look at the maintenance man-hour requirements for manned carrier aircraft.

It looks like *22* maintenance man-hours per flight hour for an F-35.
If you have a team of 5 working on a plane, then a 2 hour sortie generates 8 hours of maintenance downtime.

So for manned fighter jets which are fully maintained on a carrier, you need to enough all that flightdeck and hanger space so they can be worked on continuously.

This is the reasoning behind my statement that sortie generation limits are linked to aircraft maintenance requirements rather than the size of the flightdeck/carrier itself.

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But if a carrier focuses on refueling and rearming aircraft which are based on land, the demand for aircraft space is drastically reduced.
Which is the basis for my statement that a smaller carrier can be more efficient if it operates in the Western Pacific, and heavily utilises using land-based aircraft.

Bltizo said:

No offense but that doesn't really answer the question which I raised, which is how do we know what the PLA considers to be sufficient near term capabilities measured against investing for longer term capabilities?

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Yes, I should go into more detail.

That is a tough question because within the PLA, there are likely a variety of viewpoints on short-term versus longer-term capabilities
And those views have likely shifted drastically in the past few years, with the deterioration in US-China relations.

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The figures are to show that it isn't realistic for China to decisively outspend the US in military terms in the next 10 years.
And it also takes time for military spending to translate into capability.

Over the past 30 years, the US has accumulated a large stockpile of advanced weapons, whereas Chinese military spending only became significant in the past 10 years or so.

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Plus it's not just a difference in terms of short-term versus long-term benefit.

It's also about prioritising near seas contingencies where China's core interests lie.

If China has primacy over the First Island Chain (whether military/economic/political), it really doesn't matter what happens anywhere else.
Because China will have achieved its objectives, and there's no reason for a military conflict to continue or even start, if you look at the possible scenarios.

Amphibious assaults beyond the First Island Chain add very little benefit in a high-end conflict.

In comparison, operating more carriers in the Western Pacific will help to seal off the First Island Chain from outside interference, and also to conduct air control missions against the Second Island Chain.

Anyway, we've only seen a RFP for the Type-076 at this point.
So let's see what proposals actually come back from the shipbuilders, and what is selected.

Basically a LHA with UCAV will add 8-12 x UCAVS to the a Carrier Strike Package

a good combination

AndrewS said:

Yes, there's a lot of room for China to expand military spending.
Imagine China matched the USA in terms of spending 3.4% of GDP on the military, up from 2% today.

Given the difference in GDP growth rates, Chinese military spending would double in roughly 5 years.

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I'm wondering how USA can sustain an arm race with China. Chinese purchasing power parity GDP is much larger than USA, and is still increasing fast. This can be seen from that in single year 2019, China launched 10 advanced destroyers(8 052d + 2 055), at a speed faster than what Soviet and USA was able to achieve in a single year during last cold war. Meanwhile China is only using 1/4 of US military budget and military expenditure is only 1.5% of GDP. Imagine it raises to same level of USA.

We will probably witness China can easily build 4 nuclear powered aircraft carriers at the same time given another 10 years of economic development.

Bhurki said:

(OT)
Which isnt all that big of a problem since lenders are mostly domestic and further deficit is covered by the Fed, which prints the largest reserve currency of the world.


Maintaining nuclear material production facilities and internal defense structure apart from the military is the norm.
This isnt different for almost any other nation.

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I don't think you fully realised the implication of deficits. And no it's not mostly internalized. And printing more... well you are not serious?

Keeping nuclear separate and internal defence structure separate? You do know CIA and NSA, NED are all external, right? You also realised that nuclear bombs is a weapon, and as weapons it should be counted as defence spending, right?

When I was student of economics all those years ago, the USA always count Soviets nuclear spending as defence to make them look bad. But leave out their owns to make themselves look good.

visitor123 said:

lol I was saying that if you brought a knife and I brought a gun I would destroy and your reply was "it depends on a lot of factors."
ok

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You haven't brought a gun.
You brought a single, two-handed chinese lantern on a thin bamboo pole, which will completely interrupt all flight operations on small straight deck every once in a while. And your opponent has only small light, but otherwise is fully equipped.

And even that analogy is questionable, because basically i don't see any practical capability to operate full size manned awacs from LHD, EMALS or not. Too many possible "againsts" until we see final thing.
And the main against among them is common sense.

visitor123 said:

By that token, GL to the QE surviving the 039B.

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Well, non-nuclear sub against one of worlds' best ASW screens a/l, operating at carrier speeds on one hand.
Up-to-date nuke, operating against a screen tied down by LHD on the other.
(I. e. formation which it can easily outspeed at silent speeds.)
That's a recipe for a slaughter.

visitor123 said:

it will be decent until the 076 hits the water and launches some jets.
And then those nations will start questioning the meaning of their existence.

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No, they won't. At least not because of its incredible capabilities to make war at sea.

Gloire_bb said:

You haven't brought a gun.
You brought a single, two-handed chinese lantern on a thin bamboo pole, which will completely interrupt all flight operations on small straight deck every once in a while. And your opponent has only small light, but otherwise is fully equipped.

And even that analogy is questionable, because basically i don't see any practical capability to operate full size manned awacs from LHD, EMALS or not. Too many possible "againsts" until we see final thing.
And the main against among them is common sense.

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I don't really care what use the LHD would do. If it has nothing but 1 AWAC that's enough for the accompanied 052D to sink the entire CGB.

The analogy is pretty on point. What you are saying is your knife was folded 9000 times and your man was trained by a navy seal with 9000 confirmed kills, and that you have many knives.

Well, non-nuclear sub against one of worlds' best ASW screens a/l, operating at carrier speeds on one hand.
Up-to-date nuke, operating against a screen tied down by LHD on the other.
(I. e. formation which it can easily outspeed at silent speeds.)
That's a recipe for a slaughter.

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the best in practice? and against what? they have 2 destroyers at best to escort the QE. And nuke sub are noisier and yet somehow the 039B loses because of supreme western technology.
sub chasing carrier group instead of ambushing?
what scenario are you talking about here?
The UK submarine teleport 500 nm ahead of the CBG to attack the LHD after the CBG was spotted by the AWAC?

and nuke? to do what? fishing? here does it even know where the LHD is?

No, they won't. At least not because of its incredible capabilities to make war at sea.

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they will because they bought a gimped jet for absolutely nothing.

AndrewS said:

I agree flight ops tempo is affected by flight deck size and its geometry.

But why then do we see a large difference in terms of surge and sustained sorties?

Examples below

a) Ford 140 sustained / 220 surge
b) Nimitz 120 sustained / 240 surge

That implies that the flight deck is not the limiting factor on sortie generation.

---

Then look at the maintenance man-hour requirements for manned carrier aircraft.

It looks like *22* maintenance man-hours per flight hour for an F-35.
If you have a team of 5 working on a plane, then a 2 hour sortie generates 8 hours of maintenance downtime.

So for manned fighter jets which are fully maintained on a carrier, you need to enough all that flightdeck and hanger space so they can be worked on continuously.

This is the reasoning behind my statement that sortie generation limits are linked to aircraft maintenance requirements rather than the size of the flightdeck/carrier itself.

---

But if a carrier focuses on refueling and rearming aircraft which are based on land, the demand for aircraft space is drastically reduced.
Which is the basis for my statement that a smaller carrier can be more efficient if it operates in the Western Pacific, and heavily utilises using land-based aircraft.

Click to expand...

There are obviously many limiting factors to sortie generation.

No one is saying that a ship's flight deck is the only limiting factor, rather that the flight deck of a ship like an LHD will limit its sortie generation rate compared to a carrier of equivalent displacement.

For 076, regardless of what kind of maintenance concept you're describing -- and frankly I don't even know why you are so insistent on this idea of offloading maintenance to the mainland during a HIC, you'd think forcing your aircraft to transit to and from the mainland and your deployed ship poses a whole heap of risks and costs of its own -- the point is that the 076's flight deck would still make it a poor carrier for conducting high tempo flight operations.

AndrewS said:

On Point 2, any amphibious assault would require air superiority as a prerequisite.
And if you have air superiority, why would you need manned aircraft, when unmanned aircraft would be far better in a close-support or anti-helicopter role?

And on your last unnumbered point, I think UAV operations (particularly for carrier-based airborne tankers) can be adequately supported by a lower specification and lower cost Type-076 ship. So it would end up more cost-efficient.

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There are lots of scenarios where having a few fixed wing manned crafts are advantageous. If you are going to land on a site, presumably the bulk of the enemy air wings are knocked out, but will have a few aircrafts scattered here and there. Even if all the fixed wing of the enemy are knocked out, you now have helicopter against helicopter. Having a few fixed wing aircraft at this stage will allow the landing party to demolish the helicopter resistance before you send your troops abroad.