Type 076 LHD/LHA discussion
- Thread starter banjex
- Start date
IMO it's likely that the drones carried by the 076 will be directly under control of expedition forces. They may have their own drone operators remain onboard the ship to launch and recover drones with assistance of ship personnel, but more or less the mission operation part of the drone will be coordinated among the expedition force itself to allow more precise control and prompt assistance/support.
And so the drone on the 076 will be separate from the drones on carrier, both in mission profiles and control structure, with one focus or carrier related duties and the other focused only directly on supporting the landing forces' goals.
And so the drone on the 076 will be separate from the drones on carrier, both in mission profiles and control structure, with one focus or carrier related duties and the other focused only directly on supporting the landing forces' goals.
proelite
Junior Member
Latest copium for angled deck believers.
Of course, this was a hypothetical scenario thing is they probably had to go through hundreds of proposals before selecting this and sending it with explanation to CMC to get approval for funding we may not agree but as far as PLAN is concerned this is the optimal option for them.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
It doesn’t make sense as a light carrier because it’s not designed to be a light carrier.
I think that for carriers, there is a minimum displacement threshold that you need achieve to be able to do proper carrier missions, at least with conventional jets. You can get away with smaller with STVLO, but that comes at a significant cost in terms of performance of both the carriers and their jets.
I think this is an area where we will see a weird convergence between the PLAN and the USN, but for entirely different reasons. The USN operates LHAs cosplaying as light carriers because of the bureaucratic in-fighting between the USN and Marines where the USN will not allow the Marines to have proper light carriers as it doesn’t want to let go of that monopoly, and also sees light carriers as a major threat to its super carrier fleet in case penny pinching politicians tell them to make do with light carriers instead of getting funding for more supercarriers, so the marines had to make the best of what the USN would allow them to get away with.
The PLAN doesn’t want light carriers, as it will just pump out more supercarriers if it wants more carriers.
What China needs, which the PLAN has to provide, is a new global reach to protect growing Chinese international interests.
Rather than follow the American approach of having a vast sprawling network of global bases, I see the 076 as China’s solution - mobile all-in-one foreign bases. China’s actual foreign military bases will be mostly limited to logistical support of its fleets abroad. It’s the 076 that will do any actual military action.
If you think of the 076 as a mobile foreign military base, its design makes perfect sense as how many sortie rates do you need for drone ops? Being able to keep one recon drone on station 24/7 with a few more strike drones on standby would be more than enough for most missions. It will also have transport and attack helicopters for supporting SpecOps missions, and maybe 4 J35s for task force CAP and supplementary ground attack. It will also have a couple of LCACs, tanks and armour and a few hundred PLA Marines.
Such a force would be able to deal with 90-95% of realistically possible overseas combat operations, what’s left are missions you need a full blooded carrier strike group for anyways.
Having 076s instead of foreign military bases would not be remotely as resource intensive as American style global basing; it also means China will never be forced to use military force to prop up a failing regime like the Americans are habitually forced to do to keep their foreign bases and the Russians had to do in Syria. It also means China will not be at risk of loosing bases or getting into highly embarrassing situations like the Americans and French of having to evacuate its bases or risk having its foreign garrison turning into effective hostages following a change of government or even a change of mind by a foreign government. Which, let’s be frank, it’s a bigger risk for China since the 5 Eyes intelligence agencies specialise in fermenting unrest and regime change globally.
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
From a geopolitical stand point, I think even when China has a half dozen carriers including 3 supercarriers it will still be loathed to send any of them far from home so long as the Taiwan issue remains unresolved.
Something like an 076 will basically be the upper limit in terms of naval principle surface combatant asset the PLAN would be comfortable not needing to have available in case things kicked off around Taiwan.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I'm not sure what geopolitics or foreign policies has got anything to do with this.
Regardless of what role this ship will play, the fact is when you built a warship you design it to be the most efficient and deadly as you can base on the given parameters.
I think we all agree this ship has a catapult. So that tells me it was designed to launch fixed wing aircrafts. When you launch something, it has to be recovered. Unless it isn't in which case then sure this design makes perfect sense.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind on how PLAN intend to do recovery of fixed wing aircrafts on a straight deck ship.
As I've said in my previous posts it would be extremely inefficient because you have to clear the deck.
You would have zero launches during that time and then have to move the planes and helos to launch proceeding any recovery. If you have to recover 2,3,4 aircrafts that is a LOT of time and energy wasted not being able to launch anything.