Posted on 03/03/2007 6:36:47 AM PST by Jeff Head
Edited on 03/03/2007 8:34:45 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
FYI, my latest on the PLAN activities with the Varyag.
They sold it for $20 million?
Maybe the US should have bought it just to keep it out of Chinese hands.
But your point is well taken. Astute planners would have made a deal by offering 50% more just to tie it up.
As it is, the Chinese spent another $10 miiion towing it over to the shipyards and have spent tens millions since. But, if they do produce an operational carrier from it, they will have gotten a deal over producing one from scratch.
The costs will still mount as they will be spending hundreds of millions to billions on the aircraft and armamnet to outfit it.
Great post/pics. Thanks.
Amazing pictures, someone put themselves at risk.
Very useful for the Taiwan endgame. Carrier on carrier warfare for the first time in 70 years? It isn't nuclear powered though, if that would make any difference. In any event, it will probably cost more than $20 million to sink it.
You are weclome. The overasll work being done in the Chinese neval shipyards is phenominal and there is no shortage of pictures of that work. Many who are still alive that experienced it comment that it is reminiscent of the Japanese and German naval buildup of the late 1930s.
So has anyone actually seen it underway yet?
One picture I clearly remember -- not sure if it was from your site -- a scale aircraft carrier with planes on board, used inside one of their operations buildings, to figure how to position and move aircraft. It seems the ship was a fifty feet long or so, making each aircraft about a foot in size. That was the earliest picture I remember that showed their exact intentions.
The sheer amount of naval shipbuilding is phenomincal. It is inescapable and the Chinese officially publish many pictures. but, your point is well taken because many of the pictures coming out are clearly from chinese workers or military personnel themselves who are taking pictures right at dock side where the vessels are clearly under gaurd.
Either way, there is no hiding or talking away the extent of the chinese naval buildup.
It has not been underway yet. At the end of the article I post my own opinion that it will be launched in the 2008-2010 time frame. Clearly, until it is launched, it will not get underway.
IMHO, it is more likely that either our own carrier aircraft, or one of our subs, would be firing the warshots that struck this vessel if it ever came to a shooting war.
Great work as always. Is it just me or does that ship look unstable. I doubt that it is, I just wonder what it must look like below the water line to maintain its balance and stability.
Then again what does an old pilot know about boats:)
The Russians, the Indians, and now the Chineese are using SU-33s for their carrier operations. I understand that the aircraft, like the F-15 and F-16, has a greater than 1 to 1 thrust ratio, hence the ski ramp and lack of catapult gear.
Landings are arrested, I presume? If so, does that mean that due to the lack of an angled deck that bolters go along the length of the flight deck and back off the ski ramp again?
Does that also mean that fewer aircraft can be carried aboard because the entire length of the flight deck must be cleared of parked aircraft to accomodate bolters?
"Maybe the US should have bought it just to keep it out of Chinese hands."
Now why do you expect something that intelligent to come out of Washington, D.C.??? /sarc
If memory serves the Varyag was a hulk when it left the Ukraine, without engines, propellers, or electrical works. Has anyone seen the Chinese installing a main propulsion system?
There are fewer aircraft than the US Navy because the vessel is smaller, and because there were provisions for large anti-surface missile launchers forward on the deck which bit into available hangar space.
BTW, the Indians will not be using SU-33s. They have elected to go with a navalized version of the Mig-29 for both the rework on the former Russian carrier they are receiving and on the indigenous carrier that they are now building.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.