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]
In 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the second full-size aircraft carrier for the Soviet Union, the Varyag-sister ship to the Kuznetsov, was under construction in the Ukraine. Withe the Soviet demise, the Ukraine inherited the incomplete vessel but did not have the finances to complete her. In 1992 a Chinese delegation visited the Ukraine in the hopes of coming to terms on a purchase price of the unfinished vessel. A suitable purchase price was not agreed upon. Later, in 1998, the Chong Lot Travel Agency, a supposed Maccu firm, bought the Varyag from the Ukraine for $20 million dollars with the stated intention of making the Varyag a casino for commercial profit. As it turned out, Chong Lot had no offices in Maccu and was simply a front company for a Hong Kong firm called Chinluck Holding Co. Ltd. As it also turned out, the managing directors of Chinluck, had strong ties to the Chinese navy. It took three years for the front firm, Chong Lot Travel, to get permission to tow the Varyag through the Istanbul Straits and on to China. That permission was finally granted in 2001 and the following pictures document what has occurred to the Varyag since. |
The Ukrainian Carrier Varyag in Ukraine Naval Yards, approximately 70% complete, prior to being towed away by Chong Lot Travel Agency.
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In October of 2006, the Kommersant online newspaper in Moscow announced a deal between Russia and China where the Russians sell up to 50 Su-33 fighters to China for $2.5 billion. Details seem to indicate that China will spend $100 million to buy two Su-33 fighters from Komsomolsk-on-Amur Production Association for evaluation, with delivery expected in 2007. There appears to also be a fairly firm option for 12 more Su-33 fighters, with the potential for the deal to add another 36 SU-33s. In that event, the deal would total the $2.5 billion. The SU-33 fighter is the navalized version of the SU-27 fighter that China has purchased in large numbers from the Russians and now license builds themselves. It is the same fighter that the Russians use on their carrier, the Kuznetsov, which is the older sister ship to the Varyag. In addition, over the last two years, the Chinese have been negotiating with the Russians regarding the KA-31 helicopter, which is the helicopter the Russians use on their carrier for AEW duties. The Chinese have also introduced designs for prop-driven AEW aircraft of their own similar to the United States E-2 Hawkeye aircraft. The continuing efforts by the PLAN to obtain navalized, carrier fighters and AEW aircraft from Russia (or design their own), coupled with the recent completion of a non-skid surface on the flight deck of the Varyag, and its painting in official PLAN colors, make it abudnantly clear that this vessel, at some future date, will be China's first aircraft carrier. |
In 2005 and 2006 the Chinese negotiated with the Russians to purchase SU-33 naval fighters for carrier operations, receiving special demonstations at Moscow and Chinese military airshows. |
WHile all of this has been occuring, the PLAN has embarked on a phenominal naval ship building and modernization program, simultaneously working on ten to twelve new classes of major combatants and building several of each at one time. This program has already developed and launched all of the necessary modern classes of guided missile destroyers, guided missile frigates, attack submarines, and supply ships to form the basis for a very powerful carrier strike group once a carrier is available...and to defend and supply it in the blue water, as the following pictures attest. |
Two new modern, AEGIS-like area air defense destroyers for the PLAN, equiped with VLS and PAR. These ships would be very capable as escorts for a carrier. |
It is this author's and researcher's opinion that the Chinese Navy (PLAN) will launch the Varyag in the 2008-2010 time frame and begin trials and training for her use as an operational aircraft carrier with a wing of SU-33 aircraft, perhaps modernized with vectored thrust and strike at sea and ground attack capabilities in addition to its already significant air superiority capabilites. Furthermore, this air wing will be supported by KA-31 AEW helos operating off the carrier in conjunction with other ASW and SAR helicopters. This training will be ongoing for several years as the PLAN gains experience in carrier operations, and will prepare them for the introduction of one or more of their own indigenous carrier later in the 2010 decade, which will include Chinese indigenous navalized aircraft and their own, more capable AEW and EW aircraft. |
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Copyright © 2007 by Jeff Head
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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.
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