The Chinese Navy (PLAN) is Transforming the VARYAG into an operational aircraft carrier

The Rising Sea Dragin in Asia Web Site ^ | March 3, 2007 | Jeff Head

[Alter Kaker]

In 1988, when the Soviet Union dissolved,

It's hard to take the rest of your post on your authority, when the first clause is just flatly wrong. Check your dates.

[WLR]

CONCLUSIONS

What it really means is the Chinese want an Aircraft Carrier on the cheap and to keep the US Comitted to maintaining ours.

Aircraft Carriers in subnational conflicts are great..

Soon they will be exposed as being totally vulnerable to Nation State Attack. They are expensive and outdated by modern Anti Ship Missiles which even non nuclear can saturate any anti missile defense system.

Large Capital Ships soon will be out of date. Dinosaurs waiting to die en masse.


W

[Jeff Head]

It's been at the shipyards for three years, spending months in dry dock. Very large storage and logisitics facilities have been built housing some large, indeterminate equipment.

There are no pictures of engines going in...but the amount of work, the dry dock time, the non-skid preparation all indicate that operational use is planned...ergo...engines will have to be included.

Time will tell.

[blam]

Ah so.

[Jeff Head]

Sorry, we disagree. Massive missile attacks will be charging into the teeth of the CSG defenses. Few nations have the capability to locate a carrier on the high seas that does not want to be found, to then launch enough aircraft to go after her, and then get close enough to her to fire enough missiles to saturate the capabilities of the 2-3 AEGIS escorts accompanying the carrier, and particularly in the EW environemnt that the US is VERY good at...meaning a whole lot of missiles are going to fail to locate the carrier even if they are close...or just fail altogether.

It is not as straight forward as you make it sound. it is much more likely, IMHO, that a sub surface attack will get to a carrier, but there as well the defenses are strong.

[swatbuznik]

This is sooo unsettling. Chinese ramping up, Russians selling off military property, Iran doing exercises, Pakistan launching missiles... and all the dems want to do is cut spending to the military? How oblivious can they be? This is more unsettling than the old cold war! I think the dems have made us look weak and now the wolves are circling to have a piece...

[Non-Sequitur]

There are no pictures of engines going in...but the amount of work, the dry dock time, the non-skid preparation all indicate that operational use is planned...ergo...engines will have to be included.

I admit that I haven't spent much time keeping track of it, but you don't just sneak them onboard. If they aren't in now then they'll have to cut holes in that newly non-skidded flight deck to install them. Just seems backwards to me. And if the Chinese do want a carrier then they've chosen a gold-plated way to go about it. For all the time, effort, and money they're sinking into this thing they could have bought two new ones from a Russian shipyard.

[chainsaw]

What did the Chinese rename the Varyag?

[Oztrich Boy]

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?

Yes arrested, but there is an angled deck

Russian Kuznetsov

[Carry_Okie]

Although the Chinese are apparently developing the ability to project power, I can't imagine how a navy that can be tracked by satellite and sunk with GPS guided weapons can survive against the United States Navy.

My guess is that, lacking anti-missile defense capability, the flotilla with the longest range missiles would win. I have serious doubts that the Chinese are so equipped, yet. Having been in the radar electronics business and witnessed the transfer of production to Asia, it won't be long before they can make the components, but putting whole systems together is another matter.

[SauronOfMordor]

For an aggressor, it is most advantageous to concentrate on building up their economy and industrial base first (which they have been busily doing ever since getting permanent Most Favored Nation status)

If you are the one who chooses the time and place to strike, you can defer military spending until it's almost showtime

[Strategerist]

I'm personally thrilled they're wasting money on the whole project.

[Strategerist]

If you are the one who chooses the time and place to strike, you can defer military spending until it's almost showtime

This is so amazingly beyond false it's laughable - particularly in the specific case of modern naval combat.

We're spending a lot of money and tens of thousands of man-hours analyzing and designing the ships that will start coming into service in 2035. Everything Naval has incredibly long lead-times now.

[Jeff Head]

The do have significant anti-air capability and are building more. In the last couple of years they have launched four area air defense destroyers and two multi-purpose destroyers with decent medium air defenses. At the same time they have purchased four strong Russian destroyers with good medium air coverage and built four of their own frigates with decent air defenses as well.

Their new class of Lanzhou AEGIS-like desroyers will be at the heart of these defenses, just like our true Ticonderoga and Burke AEGIS vessels are at the heart of ours.

THEIR AREA AIR DEFENSE DESTROYERS

OUR AREA AIR DEFENSE DESTROYERS

[Jeff Head]

No official name yet...but many believe that the name will be the Shi Lang.

[Jeff Head]

Reminds many people of the late 1930s buildup that preceded World War II.

[Jeff Head]

I personally believe that they are already in there. There have been several periods where absolutely no pictures have been available for many months...corresponding to tighter security measures. My personal belief it that eiother during the dry dock time or sometime just before that, engines could well have been installed.

[steveegg]

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.

I'd put my money on the ex-Varyag soaking up a couple of Mk48s on its belated journey to Davey Jones' locker.

[brothers4thID]

Just FYI, the USSR did not dissolve in 1988. Otherwise interesting reading.

[brityank]

Anyone else want to keep an eye on the Varyag? [Google Maps] ^

Also found an interesting site: Varyagworld.com ^

In November 1998, Cheng Zhen Shu, chairman of Chong Lot Travel Agency, has said that Varyag would become a multi-functional entertainment centre, with 600 room hotel, casino, discotheque, restaurants and night-clubs, and has called it Ocean Entertainment Centre.

In May 2005, the Varyag was placed in dry dock and, in early August, it emerged painted in People's Liberation Army Navy gray.

At that time Macau's casino magnate Stanley Ho announced the construction of  Oceanus,  an $800 million entertainment complex in Macau, with 600 room hotel, casino, cinema, retail and apartments, scheduled to open in 2009. It seems Stanley Ho lost the Varyag in transoceanic subterfuge and decided to have a new one.
Nowadays, presence and mystery of the Varyag is a cost-effective way that cause maximum intimidation against unsinkable aircraft carrier Taiwan.