Posted on 06/17/2022 8:46:16 AM PDT by BenLurkin
n a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, officials unveiled the Type 003 warship. The Fujian — which, according to officials cited in state media, would not be battle-ready for five years — is an important milestone in Beijing’s ambitions to develop a “blue water” navy, capable of projecting power far beyond its shores.
The carrier has been the focus of intense interest among military observers and rival nations tracking the development of China’s navy. China’s first two carriers include a retrofit of an old Soviet model, the Liaoning, bought from Ukraine in 1998, and the Shandong, which was built in China but based on the Liaoning model and commissioned in 2019.
It is the first Chinese carrier to be equipped with an electromagnetic catapult for launching aircraft, including those with a heavier payload, faster and more efficiently. The technology leapfrogs the “ski jump” configuration for launching jets via a ramp at the end of a runway used on China’s other two carriers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
When they can do night flight ops they will be true treat. I don’t think they have a carrier capable aircraft yet. Capable = fuel + weapons.
Aircraft carriers are the new dinosaurs. If a moving foxhole attracts the eye, so does a ship, and they are slow targets. If the Russians had to move their Black Sea fleet some sixty miles from the Ukraine coast to avoid destruction, imagine what Taiwan could do to a Chinese fleet invading from the mainland.
Yes, I got that mixed up. I knew it was the Frank Evans, just transposed it when typing.
However, it's one thing to build an aircraft carrier and quite another to operate it effectively. Despite all the dysfunctional crap happening today, the U.S. Navy still has hundreds of years of tradition, experience and seamanship behind it. No military in the world can give a U.S. carrier group any serious trouble. At least not yet.
Building an Aircraft Carrier is a very difficult thing. Making that thing into an effective unit is a harder thing. Making that unit to function in a task force (required for survivability and use) is another step into difficulty. Operating that task force outside of home waters for the role of ‘force projection’?
FYI: The PRC’s military is all units of its army, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Thus the navy of the PRC is the PLAN.
You have a theory... what's your best guess?
Wow, according to the comments to my post there are few people here who are scared to death of the PLA Navy. The post was just a hypothetical with the premise of operational secrecy.
Remember, appeasement didn’t work with Hitler and it sure as hell won’t work with the PLA
They probably haven’t completed the installation of the catapults and the flight deck is ‘open’ to the elements.
How far depends on fuel/ordnance load-out, air-tanking and the launch/recovery rate (and how far inland that you'd like to strike). It's never been a good idea to push aircraft carriers to within range of land-based strike aircraft. Even a 2nd rate air force can ruin your whole day.
Some notes from an old sailor:
1. Wake me up when they can put up a CAP 7x24x365
2. Conventionally powered means VULNERABLE as they burn a sh!t pot full of oil to move 80,000 tons. Unrep is unmanageable during war time for a ship of this size, as is port call.
3. Their carrier aircraft as total crap. There’s really no other way to describe them. Russians make better airplanes.
4. The Type 055 DDGs which are to protect them are no better. Everything looks good on paper and on film, but very little of it actually works as advertised.
5. On its maiden cruise it will be overflown by no less than TWO F-35s. And will be hot pinged by no less than two Virginia SSNs. Probably simultaneously.
“LA class boat...”
One LA class is being retired for every Virginia class that is commissioned.
And China isn’t even to LA class level yet.
There’s a sonar tech in Pearl Harbor right now listening to Chinese PLAN nuke SSNs entering and leaving harbor on Hainan Island...4,000 miles away.
A Russian nuke sub is quieter than a PLAN DE sub.
They are sh!t across the board.
Never trust a navy that’s never fought a sea battle in the modern age
[If the Chinese truly used a junked old Soviet carrier as the model for how to build a carrier, then I wish that crew good luck because they’re going to need it. We’ve seen how well Soviet naval ships perform, and it shouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in anyone.
Building a modern super carrier properly takes an incredible level of shipbuilding expertise and experience, which the Chinese lack.
My opinion is there are going to be horror stories told about this ship for decades. It’ll be like one of those creaky French aircraft carriers, except worse.]
In the event they try to use it against us....I’ll give it ten minutes!!!
Very little. It’s like the difference between building/operating a school bus, and building/operating an M1A2 Abrams tank.
Well said.
It was the free traitors on our side who sent our technology and money to the communists. They were happy to build up the communists' military at the expense of ours, if it meant saving $.10 on communist made paint brushes. How are they any better?
When’s the last time a Chinese warship couldn’t avoid collision with a container ship?
I would laugh a little less.
+1
What is particularly worrisome to me is that they are going directly from ski ramp to electromagnetic launchers. We have generational experience with steam catapults. Our electromagnetics maintain this knowledge. Theirs started with a clean sheet of paper.
This is where major engineering gains are made. The don't know what they can't do...
The area that is protected from view seems to be where the workings of an electromagnetic launch system would be installed. My guess is that China thinks that they have a superior design and want to shield it from US satellite surveillance.
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