Type 076 LHD/LHA discussion

Volpler11 said:

Any idea what the module circled in yellow could be and where would it fit? Although it could fit the area indicated by the blue line, it would be a very weird place to put it. But there is no other obvious place for it, and it doesn't look like it will go onto another ship.


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If that is a catapult module then it should be at location indicated by the orange arrow.

proelite said:

Elaborate lol.

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Please would be sufficient.
Anyway, the arrestor gear is at the aft of the flight deck, not on the angled out overhang. The landing strip can use not only an angled deck but could be positioned along the centreline of the ship as well. The drones are much lighter and with lower landing speed than airplanes and have shorter landing distances, allowing to save the weight of the angled deck for something else.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Another reasoning against the angled deck for the 076 LHD, apart from the fact where the 076 is actually still an LHD, instead of a fully-fledged CV:

View attachment 130456

Rough illustration made by @horobeyo on Twitter.

Having a ~100 meter EMCAT means that operations of heavier carrier-based aircraft onboard are expected/anticipated.

Subsequently, given the much shorter length of the LHD's flight deck compared to proper CVs - Having an angled deck literally makes no difference to a straight deck in terms on how an aircraft that is landing on the LHD which missed the arresting wires is going to avoid another aircraft that is in the launch position - Simply because, they both cannot.

The launch position of the EMCAT is going to eat into the landing deck in both straight and angled deck configurations either way. So why bother with an angled deck on the 076, when you could just uss a straight deck that can actually save more material and money for having basically similar results (i.e. impossible to have simultaneous landing and launching operations)?

And if you want to widen and/or lengthen the flight deck further just so that your angled landing deck can avoid the EMCAT launch position - Sooner or later, you will just end up with a proper CV instead. See how that "面多了加水，水多了加面" snowballing effect is going?

Furthermore, notice how the angled landing deck actually eats up much of the starboard side spaces at the stern section of the flight deck as well. Coupled with the EMCAT + EMCAT launch position, observe how small the spaces for parking, loading, refueling and servicing aircrafts and helicopters are left on the flight deck.

With a straight deck as seen on the 076, the LHD actually has the spaces along much of the entire length of the flight deck on the starboard side (bar the island superstructures) that can be used for parking, loading, refueling and servicing aircrafts and helicopters. That means at least several more aircrafts and helicopters that can be carried onboard.

So there's that.

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While that is a great analysis, it is missing the mark somewhat by only focusing on simultaneous launch and recovery.

In reality, that kind of operation is rarely done even by full sized super carriers because the amount of deck space and number of aircraft available just doesn’t really justify the risks and costs. That will only become more prominent with the 076 with its significantly smaller air wing and flight deck.

The benefits on an angled deck are primarily safety, speed and flexibility.

The safety aspects are simple enough to grasp I hope, especially with a stern elevator.

Thus I will focus on the speed and flexibility parts.

While you are right that a through-deck landing pattern would give you more real estate to park aircraft in totality, however about half of that space is essentially wasted for recovery ops because it’s to the rear of the island.

When the goal is to recover aircraft asap, you don’t want to be dragging them across the entire length of the flight deck to park them.

With an angled deck, you can dump aircraft at the front of the carrier and sort them out later while you are steaming away at max speed.

The angled flight deck would also allow you to recover more types of aircraft than you would be able to safely do with a straight deck. Things such as AWACS jumps out. And while obviously you would not routinely recover and launch AWACS with the 076, having the ability to do so will add significantly more options and operational flexibility as well as added safety margins.

A more operationally relevant type might be a fixed wing transport plane based on the same airframe as the KJ600. That would be directly relevant to the core mission of the 076, as it would allow the PLA to rapidly deploy its new Tier 1 SpecOps team to forward deployed 076s and then rapidly get them back again once the mission is done. This would be a more important capability for the PLA than the US military since the PLA does not have anywhere close to the number of Tier 1 teams as the Americans, so would be loathed to have a team tied down for weeks or even months deploying to and from a mission.

I think the main answer on whether or not the 076 will have an angled deck will be determined by basic maths and physics more than operational desire or preference.

Something I think the modellers have missed in rendering the 076 with an angled deck is the minimum required length of the angled deck to allow aircraft to do a touch and go in the event of a missed wire. This length may be increased when dealing with UAVs with potentially lower TWR than manned fighters. All of the renderings with an angled deck seems to take a proportional approach as super carriers and just scale the angled deck on the 076 to the same proportions. But I feel that the angled deck with need to be more pronounced on the 076 compared to a super carrier because the angled deck itself needs to be of a minimum length to safely recover aircraft.

So, using the French CdG as a reference, that has a 195m angled deck, so it would be interesting to see what a 200m angled deck would look like on the 076. That will give us a much better bearing of how feasible having an angled deck would be.

snake65 said:

Please would be sufficient.
Anyway, the arrestor gear is at the aft of the flight deck, not on the angled out overhang. The landing strip can use not only an angled deck but could be positioned along the centreline of the ship as well. The drones are much lighter and with lower landing speed than airplanes and have shorter landing distances, allowing to save the weight of the angled deck for something else.

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No offense but you are erroneous in your explanation. First you said there are no traps in an angle deck which I'm confused about.
Perhaps you might want to send a memo to the US or French or even PLAN because they do it hundreds of times a day.
Secondly you compared recovery to the Brits who do not currently use arrestor wires as the F35 Bravos are all vertically certified and landed on the QE class.
Regardless of how long or short the drones may need, it would not be prudent to do launch and recovery at the same time.

Maybe there will be a reversed angle deck, which allows for a stern elevator and less overhangs since we're using the whole length of the ship.

kwaigonegin said:

No offense but you are erroneous in your explanation. First you said there are no traps in an angle deck which I'm confused about.
Perhaps you might want to send a memo to the US or French or even PLAN because they do it hundreds of times a day.
Secondly you compared recovery to the Brits who do not currently use arrestor wires as the F35 Bravos are all vertically certified and landed on the QE class.
Regardless of how long or short the drones may need, it would not be prudent to do launch and recovery at the same time.

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You are obviously confusing angled deck and angled landing strip. Landing strip for drones doesn't have to be angled. Until the advent of jet fighters angled deck wasn't a necessity.

there is just so much excitement round this warship and rightly so

I can see CATS on this but need for angled deck

You keep mincing your words and statements.
Of course an angle deck is not necessary. Nobody said it was. Heck you can even land in a long barge if you want to.
Just pick a point and stick to it. You are going all over the place.
Until the advent of jets, catapults weren't needed either but I think its quite clear 076 will have at least 1 cat if not more.

snake65 said:

You are obviously confusing angled deck and angled landing strip. Landing strip for drones doesn't have to be angled. Until the advent of jet fighters angled deck wasn't a necessity.

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Hopeless. I rest my case.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Another reasoning against the angled deck for the 076 LHD, apart from the fact where the 076 is actually still an LHD, instead of a fully-fledged CV:

View attachment 130456

Rough illustration made by @horobeyo on Twitter.

Having a ~100 meter EMCAT means that operations of heavier carrier-based aircraft onboard are expected/anticipated.

Subsequently, given the much shorter length of the LHD's flight deck compared to proper CVs - Having an angled deck literally makes no difference to a straight deck in terms on how an aircraft that is landing on the LHD which missed the arresting wires is going to avoid another aircraft that is in the launch position - Simply because, they both cannot.

The launch position of the EMCAT is going to eat into the landing deck in both straight and angled deck configurations either way. So why bother with an angled deck on the 076, when you could just uss a straight deck that can actually save more material and money for having basically similar results (i.e. impossible to have simultaneous landing and launching operations)?

And if you want to widen and/or lengthen the flight deck further just so that your angled landing deck can avoid the EMCAT launch position - Sooner or later, you will just end up with a proper CV instead. See how that "面多了加水，水多了加面" snowballing effect is going?

Furthermore, notice how the angled landing deck actually eats up much of the starboard side spaces at the stern section of the flight deck as well. Coupled with the EMCAT + EMCAT launch position, observe how small the spaces for parking, loading, refueling and servicing aircrafts and helicopters are left on the flight deck.

With a straight deck as seen on the 076, the LHD actually has the spaces along much of the entire length of the flight deck on the starboard side (bar the island superstructures) that can be used for parking, loading, refueling and servicing aircrafts and helicopters. That means at least several more aircrafts and helicopters that can be carried onboard.

So there's that.

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That is a very good thing to mention. An angled deck would be nice but it is hard to argue that the ship is deficient without it. If they will have a limited number of fixed wings on board and are going to have those aircraft as long-endurance aircraft, then the benefits would be minor.

I hope I won't offend people but I find this discussion superfluous. This kind of major and system-level decisions are made very early in the design process and they are strongly tied to the goal of a project. There are no ways they didn't evaluate this, rigorously. And it isn't like angled decks are exotic or foreign to PLAN. They, apparently decided that it wasn't needed for the ship to perform its mission and/or the extra cost wasn't worth it, if an angled deck was beneficial at all. (Note: No angled deck is assumed)