Russia helps China build new aircraft carrier

[Type59]

China seems to be in no urgency to deploy a carrier. Specifically using the limited resources China has wisely decided to modernise existing areas where they have extensive experience in.

They know potential conflicts are gonna be fought regional, (Tiawan, Japan, India, etc). Chinese airforce, army, navy and importantly nuclear forces can sufficently deter its neighbours from any mis adventure.

 

[Blitzo]

Ok, we have to settle this. India does have more experience currently in dealing with aircraft carriers. The Varyag will probably be used as a training vessel, with perhaps an independent carrier built by china, based on the varyag, though without anti ship missiles, less SAM's, bigger aircraft load etc. After that, perhaps we'll see a nuke powered CATOBAR carrier. But will probably not be seen before 2030.
As for China's requirement for a carrier, well numerous articles and reports can be found on the net justifying the need.
When China does get her first carrier, with escorts and all, say after a decade of operating it, only then should you compare Indian and Chinese carrier operations.
Comparing current operations (or lack of) between the two countries currently, is like saying a dog is more alive than a chair (that example is saying India's carrier experience vs. China's carrier experience, is greater, which is obvious, as china does not have an operational carrier).

 

[funtz]

Or they can build both, which is what they will do. Richard Fisher mentioned a year ago while 071 was still ongoing that they were also going to build helo carrier.

let's see now, they bought 4 set of arresting hook from the Russians. They ordered switch boards for carrier. The steel has apparently being delivered by Baosteel (we will see about that). The new JiangNan shipyard at Changxin Location has the necessary docks for carrier construction. And one of the model pictures we saw from that yard showed a carrier.
http://www.sinodefence.com/research/new-facility-carrier-building/default.asp
Most of us expect to see pictures coming out from here soon.

They started a school for naval aviation recently and looking forward to the Ukrainians to help them train. They are looking to buy su-33 from the Russians right now to begin training. They also got T-10K from Ukraine. You can see Ukraine's help here.
http://www.upiasia.com/Security/2008/12/05/ukraine_to_help_train_chinas_navy_pilots/4214/

They have a domestic naval flanker program going that looks to be ready by 2015. They had a deal for ka-31 from Russians a while ago that later got delayed. They have a Y-7 AEW program going at about the same time. That's how we know they are definitely going for a full scale CATOBAR carrier. There was an article a few months ago that they were working on EMAL catapult.

This official statement seems to suggest that a concept study is to be launched, unless something has been lost in translation.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/23/content_7332411.htm

A AEW program with Y-7, EMAL catapult, SU-33, T-10K trainer and i am sure a land based training facility, all under construction for a medium CATOBAR carrier and you still go with 2 carriers by 2020, a little too optimistic.

These are technologies that will take time to develop, especially when there is no existing ship of the class and all of them are going to be 1st generation and they wont come in cheap.

Could you share any articles or pictures of the Y-7 AEW program?

As I said, China may not have any operational experience and India does. However, when it comes to operating a full blown CVBG as some here have argued, neither have any experience doing it.

Except IN has experience in operating a limited CVBG with a STOVL carrier providing the CV element which is to be replaced by a STOBAR carrier for which the pilots have/are received/receiving training, and which is not such a huge jump from STOVL operations.

Other elements will be added and replaced to the two CVBGs as they enter service.

 

[Blitzo]

This official statement seems to suggest that a concept study is to be launched, unless something has been lost in translation.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/23/content_7332411.htm

A AEW program with Y-7, EMAL catapult, SU-33, T-10K trainer and i am sure a land based training facility, all under construction for a medium CATOBAR carrier and you still go with 2 carriers by 2020, a little too optimistic.

These are technologies that will take time to develop, especially when there is no existing ship of the class and all of them are going to be 1st generation and they wont come in cheap.

Could you share any articles or pictures of the Y-7 AEW program?

Except IN has experience in operating a limited CVBG with a STOVL carrier providing the CV element which is to be replaced by a STOBAR carrier for which the pilots have/are received/receiving training, and which is not such a huge jump from STOVL operations.

Other elements will be added and replaced to the two CVBGs as they enter service.

I doubt that China is only at the "concept study" stage. China has thought of an aircraft carrier for a long time, even if officials have not said so. I wouldn't be too suprised if China already has most of the schematics down for a future aircraft carrier (though the schematics for this would probably be similar to the Varyag).

oh and I think tphuang meant both as in a carrier and a helicopter carrier, not as in two fully fledged aircraft carriers..

 

[funtz]

I doubt that China is only at the "concept study" stage. China has thought of an aircraft carrier for a long time, even if officials have not said so. I wouldn't be too suprised if China already has most of the schematics down for a future aircraft carrier (though the schematics for this would probably be similar to the Varyag).

oh and I think tphuang meant both as in a carrier and a helicopter carrier, not as in two fully fledged aircraft carriers..

Hey i am just asking questions, tphuang should know more, he has been following the PRC military scene for a long time.

Once they start building them with all the necessary facilities and equipment complete the build rate and follow up generations would be very fast if the current pace of shipbuilding for PLA-N is anything to go by.

 

[Iam]

my blog is very heavily read.
.

How about using Defencetalk

As for 2 052C/2 054A/2 093/887, just go see some of the pictures on CDF. Check for any of the threads, you will see these ships next to each other in Sanya base.
Everyone knows its there. It's common knowledge who bothers to follow PLAN.
The crown jewel of PLAN is all stationed there with 2 052B, 2 052C, 2 054A, 093s/094s, 887, 071. In fact, they are sending 1 052B, 1 052C and 887 from this sea base to Somalia right now..

If your crown jewels are escorting/protecting your carriers, what happens to the rest of the Plan fleet?
I presume there will be more of them, if so how many ?
A 2 carrier fleet will simply eat into all the current assets.

As I said, China may not have any operational experience and India does. However, when it comes to operating a full blown CVBG as some here have argued, neither have any experience doing it.

And your point is ? china will have it's first carrier as a full fleged CVBG ?

 

[wp2000]

3 and half years ago we had some discussions on the same topic on this very forum

March 10th 2005

And actually, Vayag is not the focus of the rumor. The real news is that China will start to build a carrier while repairing Vayag. But we will only see something before the Olympics. Whereas Vayag will be back into dock in August...

The go-ahead decision has been made years ago already.

 

[Sampanviking]

There has been a lot of speculation of the what, but very little talk about the why.

So, what will be the core mission tasks of both future Chinese and Indian Carrier groups? It seems unlikely to be concerned with immediate disputes with countries next door as land based air power will be far more effective in dealing with this.

Carriers, with their emphasis on projecting power, also by extension mean projecting power a long distance from the home country. With China we get an inkling from the Somali deployment and long established concerns around the Striats of Malacca etc. Not too sure about India though.

 

[crobato]

How about using Defencetalk

If your crown jewels are escorting/protecting your carriers, what happens to the rest of the Plan fleet?
I presume there will be more of them, if so how many ?
A 2 carrier fleet will simply eat into all the current assets.


And your point is ? china will have it's first carrier as a full fleged CVBG ?

The first CVBG might be focused on the SSF. That will give you two 052C, two 054A, two 052B and 1 051B for your main surface combatants supported by a number of smaller Jiangweis.

That still leaves the NSF and the ESF. The NSF still has two 051C air defense ships, two 052 destroyers, a bunch of older ships. Not to mention there are more 054A under production that might be destined to go there. The ESF has four Sovremannies, two 054 and 054A, plus a bunch of old ships including Jiangweis. That's still pretty substantial.

A second carrier can be used to occupy the NSF, for the same reasons why nuclear subs in the PLAN are only hosted in the South and North Seas---it ain't deep enough along the East China Sea coast. It should be noted that it is in the South and North Seas Fleet that both have the longer ranged air defense ships, which is the 052C and 051C destroyers respectively, but not in the East Seas Fleet. While some littoral surface and sub assets are in the NSF and SSF, the bulk of the smaller ships and SSKs are in the East Sea Fleet.

At best, with China's current naval assets and ports, two CVBGs can be contained. Anything more requires a significant building of new surface combatants plus the ports dredged deep enough to support them and a carrier.

 

[Blitzo]

A future Chinese CVBG, will probably include current vessels. But if we look at the pace of Chinese shipbuilding currently, it can be expected that China will have a large fleet of similar destroyers, with VLS for all missiles similar to the Arleigh Burke class. I say this because, all recent Chinese destroyers weren't built in quantity, and all displayed relatively new technologies, being technology demonstrators almost.
So this future continuous class of destroyer will probably be an intergral part of a future chinese CVBG. Besides, we don't know how many CVBG's China will attempt to make (right now it's 0 - how ever many is possible), but I think it will be expected to be around the US's current number, when it's in it's prime. That is of course, if China's prosperity continues, and that we don't all die from an apocalyptic event in 2012.

 

[riksavage]

Building shinny new ships is the easy part!

Operational doctrine, RAS abilities, professional competency and years of collective experience bring huge dividends to countries with over fifty years of carrier operations (US, UK & France). The PRC is hugely lacking in experience, they haven't sustained a blue water fleet at sea under duress for over 500 years - these skills don't arrive overnight. Simply building new ships and crewing them doesn't suddenly make them a Naval Superpower, you need years of operational experience to refine your doctrine and then test, test, test until it is right for you. Operating a CVBG is about as tough as it gets, I would hate to be the poor Chinese Admiral who goes from Destroyer BG Flag to Carrier Flag without first spending years attached to an overseas Navy with the appropriate experience. Even if they turn to the Russians for training / expertise, they still only have a limited exposure to operating relatively small carriers (by US comparison) and never in a shooting war.

History has shown us time and time again doctrine and training is more important than shinny kit, see below link to Tsushima.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima

 

[Feanor]

Riskavage is absolutely right. And while Russia may be able to provide experience of blue water operations, I seriously doubt that we will be able to contribute much to the goals of operating full-fledged aircraft carriers.

 

[wp2000]

Building shinny new ships is the easy part!

Operational doctrine, RAS abilities, professional competency and years of collective experience bring huge dividends to countries with over fifty years of carrier operations (US, UK & France). The PRC is hugely lacking in experience, they haven't sustained a blue water fleet at sea under duress for over 500 years - these skills don't arrive overnight. Simply building new ships and crewing them doesn't suddenly make them a Naval Superpower, you need years of operational experience to refine your doctrine and then test, test, test until it is right for you. Operating a CVBG is about as tough as it gets, I would hate to be the poor Chinese Admiral who goes from Destroyer BG Flag to Carrier Flag without first spending years attached to an overseas Navy with the appropriate experience. Even if they turn to the Russians for training / expertise, they still only have a limited exposure to operating relatively small carriers (by US comparison) and never in a shooting war.

History has shown us time and time again doctrine and training is more important than shinny kit, see below link to Tsushima.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima

As we have discussed many times, most people recongised what you have said. No one, except some real young fans, expects PLAN to become a frist rate blue navy over night by just building some ships.

BUT, BUILDING the ships is the very first step they must take, otherwise doctrines,training and experiences are all just wet dreams.

For last 2 decades, especially last 5 years, many concrete steps have been taken on all sorts of things, not just hard ware but also, doctines etc... The time is coming close for PLAN to trial what they have learnt, in both hardware and software(doctrines etc...) terms.

To me, there's no doubt PLAN is on their way to a carrier equiped navy; There will be hicupps, especially their first attempt aimed pretty high; but chinese are very patient and practical, if no major disaster happen to china, I can only see them growing on experiences.

 

[Sampanviking]

Building shinny new ships is the easy part!

Operational doctrine, RAS abilities, professional competency and years of collective experience bring huge dividends to countries with over fifty years of carrier operations (US, UK & France). The PRC is hugely lacking in experience, they haven't sustained a blue water fleet at sea under duress for over 500 years - these skills don't arrive overnight. Simply building new ships and crewing them doesn't suddenly make them a Naval Superpower, you need years of operational experience to refine your doctrine and then test, test, test until it is right for you. Operating a CVBG is about as tough as it gets, I would hate to be the poor Chinese Admiral who goes from Destroyer BG Flag to Carrier Flag without first spending years attached to an overseas Navy with the appropriate experience. Even if they turn to the Russians for training / expertise, they still only have a limited exposure to operating relatively small carriers (by US comparison) and never in a shooting war.

History has shown us time and time again doctrine and training is more important than shinny kit, see below link to Tsushima.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima

NO one can dispute that you need to gain experience in order to attain proficency but if it is wrong to overestimate, it is equally wrong to underestimate as well.

For the basics I can think of three immediate areas that the PLAN would need to achieve proficency.

1) Building and Operating Super Carriers.

China has very extensive experince of building and Operating very large Commercial Ships, many of which are of far greater tonnage than even the largest Carrier. While this is not a cure all, it is an important hurdle crossed and overcomes a number of very basic problems.

2) Flying off a Flat Top

A rather fundemantal requiremnt

So the question has to be, to what level can this be simulated for pilot and aircraft testing? The basics can be done quite simply with practice landing platforms on Land and at Sea. Before long you will have a core of aviators sufficently confident and drilled in using a Carrier.

3) Internal Management of a Carrier

Probably the biggest challange is gettign all the various parts of the Crew and Compliment able to work together within their allicated Space and implement their Drills, necessary for the smooth and efficient operation of such a ship. Again much of the basics can be learned in simulation both on Land and in Sea, which makes the eventual transfer to an Operational Carrier for smoother than may originally be anticipated.

Obviously all of the three this would only be for the basics, but even this would be a significant starting point. It means that a reasonably proficcent Operational Status could be achieved after a relatively short Sea Trial and Accustomisation period.

 

[SkolZkiy]

There is one important point in all this discussion - money. I found this info on Lenta.ru, may be someone has more cocreet info.

Estimated military expenditure in some countries, U.S. dollars
USA - 700 billion (2009)
United Kingdom - 60 billion (2008)
China - 60 billion (2008)
Russia - 50 billion (2009)
Germany - 45 billion (2008)
South Korea - 30 billion (2008)
India - 25 billion (2008-09)
Taiwan - 10 billion (2008)
New Zealand - 1,5 billion (2008)
Ethiopia - 400 million (2008-09)

Military spending in some countries, the percentage of GDP
Georgia - 7,2 (2007)
Colombia - 5.7 (2008)
USA - 4 (2007)
Great Britain - 2.7 (2007)
Russia - 2,6 (2009)
China - 1.7 (2007)

As you can China has a budget of 60 billions, if it is so then how much does china will need to produce it's own Carrier and all supporting things? If they are talking about 11-12 carrier like US then IT'S A VERY BIG SUM and a long perspective. if 4-6 - it's more real I think. But also may be they are spending much more money on thier army than they show.
Also they claimed that they will have 2 carriers up to 2015 and use Varyag as a training platform.

 

[Blitzo]

Building shinny new ships is the easy part!

Operational doctrine, RAS abilities, professional competency and years of collective experience bring huge dividends to countries with over fifty years of carrier operations (US, UK & France). The PRC is hugely lacking in experience, they haven't sustained a blue water fleet at sea under duress for over 500 years - these skills don't arrive overnight. Simply building new ships and crewing them doesn't suddenly make them a Naval Superpower, you need years of operational experience to refine your doctrine and then test, test, test until it is right for you. Operating a CVBG is about as tough as it gets, I would hate to be the poor Chinese Admiral who goes from Destroyer BG Flag to Carrier Flag without first spending years attached to an overseas Navy with the appropriate experience. Even if they turn to the Russians for training / expertise, they still only have a limited exposure to operating relatively small carriers (by US comparison) and never in a shooting war.

History has shown us time and time again doctrine and training is more important than shinny kit, see below link to Tsushima.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima

I think we have all agreed already that China will not be able to become a blue water navy *snaps fingers* just like that. But the important thing is that China WILL eventually get the experience needed to operate carriers efficiently, even if it is going to take a couple of decades. No one expects China to challenge the US overnight with their own carrier. -_-

 

[riksavage]

Realistically I can see China operating two CVBG's in the next 20-30 years, similar in size to what the UK and France will eventually field (assuming both end up with two carriers). One CVBG operational, the second in reserve, refit or on its scheduled training cycle .

For China to compete with the US they are going to need to increase military spending by ten fold minimum. This does not take into consideration all the other modernization programs planned for the PLA and airforce, plus the ongoing need to professionalize their military and dramatically reduce numbers. 50 - 60% of China's manpower is still made up of relatively poorly educated troops dispersed throughout the country in pretty grim conditions. They are still funding the transition from a self-defense based standing army focused on border protection and maintaining the old communist hierarchy / ideology to a modern expeditionary warfare organization.

The CVBG basing requirements, maintenance facilities, supply-chain management and domestic industry needed to support CVBG's to match that of the US is a gargantuan and hugely expensive challenge and will take far longer to establish than the actual building of the carriers themselves. A single CVBG requires extensive port facilities, at best you may be able to co-locate two - one deployed, one home based, this will still require major structural improvements to the PRC's existing Naval bases above and beyond what we are seeing in Hinan and eleswhere.

Also not forgetting the purpose of a CVBG is to project power anywhere in the world without the need to rely on a friendly host Government. So China also needs to compliment its planned carriers with a Marine expeditionary warfare group, which in turn needs LST's, LSD's Commando Carriers etc., modern enough to keep up with the Carrier and its escorts. All brings to the table additional costs.

Realistically each CVBG is going to need:

1 x Carrier
2 x Destroyer (AAW)
1 x SSN
2 x Frigates (AEW)
1 - 2 x RAS vessels
Plus if you intend projecting you influence ashore you will need the maritime lift to sustain typically 2200 plus Marines at sea for projected periods based on a single battalion battle group (US MEU).

China also has it's own demons to deal with, the growing disparity between rich and poor, mass migration from rural to urban areas and ever increasing demand for natural resources is going to require the politburo to focus funds on internal issues, including improving the abilities of the PSB and other domestic security agencies. So as the credit crunch continues to bite we could see funds being diverted to controlling internal unrest.

Don't get me wrong I believe the PRC will eventually operate a credible CVBG, but nothing like the ten the US will have by mid-century. Just take the time to look at the specifications of the planned 100, 000T Gerald R Ford Class, 10 of which are planned by 2058, not forgetting the planned MEU's and associated new vessels and hardware.

 

[Feanor]

Please adjust Chinese spending to purchasing power. And keep in mind that the official Chinese military budget is one thing, but what they are actually spending may turn out to be something very very different.

 

[SkolZkiy]

That's what I'm talking about - but still CVBG is very expensive. If we are talking about Ru carriers there is a little different situation because they are not carrier in US meaning so they don't need such a big escort, actually in RuArmy carrier is Air-defence system for the sea group (it is their main goal, at least in SU), so we must take into consideration what for Chineese are building their carrier and will it be a carrier in US-meaning or in Ru-meaning? And for what goals would they use it? But I think a very small circle of Chineese officials knows that =)

 

[Blitzo]

Well I'm not too sure about the 50-60 % of China's troops are uneducated and in grim conditions part, but the rest of your statement seems logical. CVBG's however may only be two, but how about aircraft carriers by themselves? If China is able to create a good, continuous class, then may China be able to build carriers at a speed similar (probably a bit slower) like the US does with Nimitz classes?