Posted on 04/12/2011 8:06:05 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Ming Dynasty admiral spooks Taiwan
By Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - A proud China is set to launch its first aircraft carrier. For Taiwan, the carrier's most frightening aspect could be its name.
For years, military enthusiasts flying over the seaport city of Dalian in northeast China knew well when to press their noses against the cabin windows. On the approach to Dalian's Zhoushuizi airport, the construction of China's first aircraft carrier could be spotted, with workers busy along the length of the 302-meter long, 70.5-meter wide ship.
They installed engines and other heavy equipment, completed the radar mast, installed the shipborne multi-function Active Phased Array Radar (APAR) and Sea Eagle radar as sensors, hauled up Type 730 close-in weapon system (CIWS) seven-barreled 30mm machine guns to destroy incoming anti-ship missiles and enemy aircraft at short range, and tinkered with the fully automatic fire-and-forget Flying Leopard 3000 Naval (FL-3000N) air defense missile system.
Once the steely giant blew out steam and exhaust, and workers begun painting its hull the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLA Navy's) standard light gray-blue, it became clear that the 67,000 tonne-carrier was never meant to become a Macau casino float as the Chinese had initially claimed.
The story of how the Varyag - once destined to become a Soviet navy multi-role aircraft carrier - ended up in Chinese hands may inspire novelists or screenplay writers for decades. Her keel was laid down in 1985 in what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, only to have construction stopped - while the ship was structurally complete but without
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
Taiwan makes cruise missles and torpedos, don’t they?
Taiwan needs to make some nukes or “acquire” some and then loudly deny they have them.
Well when you consider the US has had aircraft carriers since the 20’s and there is no country on the planet more adept and experienced at carrier ops than we are and we STILL have aviation mishaps at sea, I can hardly wait to see the Chicom’s learning curve on their first cruise. Bet they lose at least 1/3 of their airwing.
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The Taiwanese need to develop some classes of weapon named, say, Temujin, Mongke, Qublai...
Speaking of which, did the Mongols invade Taiwan back in the day?
Quite a saga so far. Twenty-five years old and it has yet to put to sea as an operational vessel.
What aircraft are they going to use on this thing anyway?
I don’t know about Taiwan, but the Mongols did try to invade Japan. Their fleet was destroyed by a storm — the Japanese called it a “Divine Wind” or “Kamikaze”.
Nope. Chinese dynasties paid little attention to the island before the Manchu.
They almost certainly could have, but it was still very primitive and not much point to doing so. Nothing to steal.
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My thoughts, exactly! Also, as I understand it, the track record of every STOL aircraft such as the Harrier and the like, pales in comparison with more traditionally launched aircraft.
I’d buy that.
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Most of those 25 years were in Soviet/Ukranian hands, so that doesn’t count.
It’s most likely to carry the Chinese copy of the SU-33 and probably even a navalised J-10.
The first PLA carrier is going to be used for training more carrier staff and pilots and develop their own carrier operations experience. That will take time, but as the staff and pilot pool increases and experience is accumulated, China will build a US style carrier because it represents the state of art. If China wants to symbolically emulate power why imitate secondary powers like France and Britain who have medium size carriers that are insufficient to maintain a no fly zone over Libya when a US style carrier can? If the PLA has ambition to build a stealth fighter it is ambitious enough to build a US type carrier. The Russian carrier Varyag is only the first stepping stone to something much larger and complicated.
In the past, I would consider Chinese not a major threat unless it builds US style aircraft carrier navy. The last carrier navy we ignored was Imperial Japan, and we know how that story ended.
The Japanese experience in training up a "third wave" of naval aviators after their terrific losses of "second wave" pilots and aircrew during the mid-1943 Philippine Sea campaign (the "Marianas Turkey Shoot") was appalling. They lost many pilots even before the Turkey Shoot to carrier-landing accidents, while trying to land on moored carriers. They lost hundreds more aircraft and pilots in accelerated training in the weeks and months before the Formosa raid and Battle of Leyte.
Their losses in the second and third years of the war soared into the thousands -- and they had started the war with about 1000 first-rate pilots, the great majority of whom they lost in 1942.
Its displacement is about the same as USS Midway after her last enlargement and modification; she was about 75,000 tons in the 70's and 80's.
China is supposedly building another carrier. I agree that the first carrier will mostly be used for cadre training, much like USS Langley and Ranger were in the interwar years. She won't be used, JMHO, to form up an operational battle group for some time. Even her first complement of a/c are make-do; I think they're J-17's, standing in for more capable a/c still in development.
Obama's budget cutters might view this as a WIN-WIN change.
“What aircraft are they going to use on this thing anyway?”
Don’t know, but I believe the wings will flap and the fuselage will grow feathers.
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