chinese nuclear aircraft carrier?

[wp2000]

No offence, but does that picture show anything other than the carrier at dock? Seriously - are they taking it apart, or just pretending they're busy?

OK, let's look at it this way.

Varyag is in a dry dock. What are the possible explainations?

1. To be refurbished into a Casino in Macau, which is the old public and official result.

Evidence: all the news reports for all these years.

2. To be refitted into an A/C training ship.

Evidence:
A. Macau's shallow water can't even park a 10 KT ship, let alone the 60KT Varyag.

B. The no name company that bought Varyag at $20 Mil, vanished right after Varyag was towed back from Ukrane. And that's after China's prime minister and foreign affair minister's personal efforts, $50 Mil towing fee, $10B trade promise to Turkey. And, the guy who registered the company in HongKong has very close relationships with PLAN, that's all we know about him, because since then, he disappeared as well.

C. After Varyag is towed to China, it's been sitting in China's biggest ship yard (DaLian, which has built almost half of PLAN's large ships) for 2-3 years. (I heard the fee for using that berth is 1 Mil RMB per month.) Whereas, the 2 previous Russian A/Cs bought by some chinese companies were all refurbished immediately (by some small shipyards) and tunred into theme parks as soon as possible.

D. For the last 3 years, Some very reliable netters on chinese forums have been saying that Varyag will be refurbished for PLAN. And some said that it will be turned into a training ship and the works will start in 2005. These are rumors, I admit, but you can see the smoke from them. Especially, their old rumors all turned into truth.

E. Some chinese newspapers and magazines have reported more and more news directly or indirectly related to China's A/C. But, just on the day that Varyag was been towed into the dry dock, it's confirmed that quite a few newspapers received government warnings: not a single word is allowed to be mentioned about what's happening to Varyag.

3. Taking it apart.

Now, it's your turn to give us some analysis/evidence why it's been torn apart rather than been refitted.

4. Pretending to be busy.

Now, your turn to show us why and how they are pretending to be busy, rather than doing something in concrete.

So, I have presented the 4 possible explainations, which one do you choose to believe? If you are serious about your guesses, please study the pictures and all the recent news to give us some thoughts to support your opinion. If they are just for the sake of argueing, then that's fine, we stop here.

regards

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

wp, I was implying that they might be trying to take it apart to get a better understanding of the inner-workings of the carrier.

What is an A/C training ship? Do you mean they would bring it back up to scratch, so they could literally play around with it - so it would be like a testing ship?

I see a slight problem in making Varyag a "training ship", if you mean actually working, as it isn't complete and it's debatable as to whether China has the technology to complete it. For example it doesn't have any nuclear reactors, nor any electronics (removed or never fitted). Now China doesn't have any naval reactors large enough to power the thing, so it would need to use conventional power. Would it be possible to fit steam boilers into Varyag?

It would help if you could clarifiy exactly what you think it would be used for and what work needs to be done to it, in order to be able to meet those requirements.

By the way, I doubt the CMC could give a monkey's about 1 million RMB a month. That's like £1 million per annum. Hardly breaking the $35+ billion budget they have each year.

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

wp, about your longer post.

Well the Thais probably thought the carrier would be useful when they bought it. It has hardly been a good investment so far.

I think you've gone off on some bizzare tangents from my earlier post. The point I made about Britain is that we've had a navy that has consistently been utilised around the world, and it has a direct use today. Countries like Spain let their navies decline because they had little use for them - the same applies now. If France wants to have carriers but rarely use them, that's their decision - but it doesn't detract from the fact they're not a good investment.

China did once have a large navy, but that too declined because political decisions were made that this was unnecessary. The PRC could in future require carriers to project military force to places like the Gulf, but I do not see that need right now.

Any country can build whatever it wants, as you said, whether it is a good decision or a bad one. My judgement was that the CMC would not desire to build carriers at the moment, because such a decision would be based on theoretical scenarios for the future. When there is so much to be done now, involving replacement of ageing technology, I hoped that they would be more cautious in spending money on other systems and equipment. At this time, I feel that carriers would be nothing more than a prestige purchase, and ratchet up tensions in the region. If the CMC desides to go for carriers, it will have to live with the repercussions.

 

[wp2000]

Hi Musashi,

I still find it very hard to understand your logic about why UK should have carriers whereas France or China should not. Whether a navy declined before has nothing to do with their future. Are you thinking UK's navy will always be the strongest and never decline? and if UK declines, are you going to be a good boy forever and never come back with large warships?

Look, if China needs a CG group in real operational status after 2025, she needs to act NOW. It takes a long time to build a navy.

Anyway, I think we not disucssing the same thing. All of your points are not directly related to whether China is building/starting to build an A/C or not. Because all you are saying is that, from your analysis, China should not build an A/C now. But, you are not the decision maker of PLAN. What I am trying to say is that there are quite a few evidence showing that PLAN is doing something about building an A/C. I am not trying to judge for them whether it's a good or bad move. I am merely saying they are moving. And, if you look at the issue from the positive side, there are good reasons for them to build A/C now as well.

That's why I said several times, tactically, there's no reason for them to build an A/C. But, they may think differently at strategic level. One chinese leader said something like this about 20 years ago: "China has missed the great sea voyage age in the last few hundred years. We can't miss the next one: the outer space." (not exact words) Then, we see China "wasted" 20 years of time and resources just to send one man into space last year. Good or Bad? At least I think it's too early to make the judgement.

Cheers

 

[ReDgUaRd008]

No sending a man to space was not a waste cause when China sent a man into space it much have a very powerful rocket. that mean a ICBM that can hit almost any country in the world

 

[doggychow14]

that mean a ICBM that can hit almost any country in the world

China had ICBM's long before that maned space. It's about national pride and the long climb through the technological tree. Manned space flight is very usefull. Especially if you plan to have space stations such as the ISS where the without them, it could not be construced, or even exist. China will eventually need carrier's as it progresses from a green water navy to a blue water navy. However, as if now China's seems to focus on addressing it's current problems in air defence and ASW, and updating her aging fleet.

 

[wp2000]

Varyag is back in dry dock again. It's progress was slower than I speculated 4 years ago, but it's moving steadily.

Hopefully, a lot more external changes and activities will meet our eyes this year.

 

[StevoJH]

Varyag is back in dry dock again. It's progress was slower than I speculated 4 years ago, but it's moving steadily.

Hopefully, a lot more external changes and activities will meet our eyes this year.

Then again, they could always scrap her.

 

[Feanor]

Or it could just be a refit for training purposes. I hope some sort of official announcement will be made. If it is indeed being refitted, and no Su-33 contract is signed, then that would be a good indicator of how far the Chinese navalized Flanker program has come.

 

[wp2000]

Then again, they could always scrap her.

Let's see,
China's no1 military and civilian (arguablely) ship builder uses her newly built dry dock to scrap a ship.

That dry dock has civilian ship building orders queued up to end of 2012, yet the ship builder decides to change business direction from ship building to ship scrapping which does not even need a dry dock.

At the same time there are many small ship scrapping companies struggling due to the recent dramatically falling metal price.


Not a very likely scenario to me.

 

[wp2000]

Or it could just be a refit for training purposes. I hope some sort of official announcement will be made. If it is indeed being refitted, and no Su-33 contract is signed, then that would be a good indicator of how far the Chinese navalized Flanker program has come.

I always believe that getting the Su33 first while working on J11BJ or J15 is the best approach.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. China seems to be focusing on her own carrier fighter at the moment, although she has not rejected Su33.

Varyag won't need a fixed wing plane in the initial trialing days, so there are still some time for china to see the result of her own carrier borne fighter. Rumors say it's scheduled to fly in around 12 months.

but let's see when Varyag will sail on her own power.