Author Topic: China 'building second aircraft carrier'  (Read 910 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

SPQR

  • Guest
China 'building second aircraft carrier'
« on: January 21, 2014, 02:18:16 am »
By  Tom Phillips, Shanghai


China has started building its second aircraft carrier as part of a growing push to develop a what would be the world’s second biggest navy, according to reports in both China and Hong Kong.
Wang Min, the party chief of Liaoning province in northeast China where the vessel is reportedly being built, said the carrier’s construction would take six years and added that China’s navy eventually planned to build four such carriers.
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post estimated that the new carrier, which is being built in the northeastern port of Dalian, would be completed by 2018.
Chinese language reports about the carrier’s development were reportedly deleted over the weekend, prompting claims that Beijing had hoped to keep the project “low profile”.

However, military strategists and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, have made no secret of their desire to see China build a powerful “blue water navy” that will boost the country’s international status and its controls over the seas. Since coming to power in late 2012, Xi Jinping, the president, has thrown his weight behind plans for a major revamp of the People’s Liberation Army Navy or PLAN


Last August, Mr Xi vowed that China would “enhance its maritime law enforcement capacity to match its overall national strength”. “We love peace and will remain on a path of peaceful development, but that doesn’t mean giving up our rights, especially involving the nation’s core interests,” he said, according to state media.

Speaking to state media last week, Ma Gang, a professor at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, said: “China should have a military that can match its power status.”

China faced “serious challenges to its sovereignty and several territorial disputes,” Prof. Ma added.

Li Jie, a professor from the Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said: “The Chinese military has expanded its sphere of activity, aiming to extend its naval and air forces farther from the coast and into international waters.”

Last April China announced that the People’s Liberation Army now boasted 850,000 officers while the navy and air force had 235,000 and 398,000 officers respectively.

Reports about the construction of a second aircraft carrier follow an extended period of turbulence between China and regional rivals including Japan and the Philippines over disputed territories in the East and South China seas.

In July last year China and Russia launched what Chinese state media described as the country’s “largest ever joint naval exercise” in the Sea of Japan.

The exercise was widely interpreted as a challenge to the United States’ “pivot” to Asia as well as a signal to neighbours including Japan and the Philippines that China was now a force to be reckoned with.

China’s first aircraft carrier, a 990ft former Soviet vessel called the Liaoning that was refitted in Dalian, was formally brought into service in 2012.

In a show of strength, the Liaoning recently completed a 37-day “sea trial” in the South China Sea, state media reported in early January.
Shortly after the mission had been completed Chinese fishing regulations were introduced requiring foreign ships to request permission to fish in large swathes of the South China Sea.

The US labelled the restrictions imposed by China “provocative and potentially dangerous”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10582535/China-building-second-aircraft-carrier.html

Offline Chieftain

  • AMF, YOYO
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,621
  • Gender: Male
  • Your what hurts??
Re: China 'building second aircraft carrier'
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2014, 02:31:05 am »
If it ain't got a catapult, it ain't shiite.


SPQR

  • Guest
Re: China 'building second aircraft carrier'
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2014, 02:32:43 am »
« Last Edit: January 21, 2014, 02:39:02 am by SPQR »

Offline Chieftain

  • AMF, YOYO
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,621
  • Gender: Male
  • Your what hurts??
Re: China 'building second aircraft carrier'
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2014, 02:37:55 am »
This one will have a catapult according to reports

Really?  Whose design did they steal for it??  They have no experience with that either....


SPQR

  • Guest
Re: China 'building second aircraft carrier'
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2014, 02:40:13 am »
Really?  Whose design did they steal for it??  They have no experience with that either....

The Second Chinese Carrier Reveals Itself

Recent photos from a Chinese shipyard appear to show a section of a new Chinese aircraft carrier under construction. This appears to be a carrier similar to the American Nimitz class ships (100,000 ton vessels using a catapult rather than a ski jump flight deck for launching aircraft). Large ships, including warships, are often built in sections, then the sections are welded and bolted together. The section of what appears to be a carrier does not indicate the exact size of the new carrier, other than that it appears larger than the new carrier China commissioned at the end of 2012.

Last September China commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. At the time China was believed to be building the first of several locally designed aircraft carriers but the Chinese officially denied this. The only official announcements have alluded to the need for two or three aircraft carriers, in addition to the Liaoning. Construction of such large ships had not yet been seen in any shipyard. That has changed with the appearance of these new shipyard pictures. 

The Liaoning is a 65,000 ton, 305 meter (999 feet) long ship that spent over a year on sea trials. During that time Liaoning was at sea for about four months. This was all in preparation for flight operations that began in November 2012 and were a success, although the Chinese built J15 (a Su-27 variant) jet fighter is still being tweaked as it participates in these carrier operations. Last year China confirmed that the Liaoning will primarily be a training carrier. The Chinese apparently plan to station up to 24 jet fighters and 26 helicopters on the Liaoning and use the ship to train pilots and other specialists for additional carriers. Meanwhile, the Liaoning will also be staffed and equipped as a combat ship as well.

The new Chinese “larger carrier” apparently means something like the recently decommissioned American USS Enterprise (CVN 65). This was the first nuclear powered carrier and it served as the prototype for the subsequent Nimitz class. It’s unclear if the new Chinese carrier will be nuclear powered. The Enterprise was an expensive design, and only one was built (instead of a class of six). While a bit longer than the later Nimitz class, it was lighter (92,000 tons displacement, versus 100,000 tons). The Enterprise was commissioned in 1961, almost 40 years after the first U.S. carrier (the Langley) entered service in 1923. In the two decades after the Langley there were tremendous changes in carrier aviation. While the innovation slowed after World War II, major changes continued into the 1950s (jet aircraft, nuclear propelled carriers, SAMs). But in the ensuing half century there has been no major innovation in basic carrier design. This has not been a problem because the carriers have proven useful, at least for the U.S. Navy (the only fleet to use such large carriers) and no one else has maintained a force of these large carriers. Only the U.S. has felt a constant need to get air power to any corner of the planet in a hurry. More importantly, no navy has been able to give battle to the U.S. carrier force since 1945. The Soviets built new anti-carrier weapons and made plans to use them but that war never occurred. China is building carriers but is not committed to having a lot of them to confront the U.S. but to intimidate its neighbors.

Liaoning is one of the two Kuznetsov class carriers that Russia began building in the 1980s. Originally the Kuznetsovs were to be 90,000 ton nuclear powered ships (the Ulanovsk class), similar to American Nimitz class carriers (complete with steam catapults). Instead, because of the high cost and the complexity of modern (American style) carriers, the Russians were forced to scale back their plans and ended up with 65,000 ton (full load) ships that lacked steam catapults and used a ski jump type flight deck instead. Nuclear power was dropped but the Kuznetsovs were still a formidable design. China may have bought or stolen details of the Ulanovsk class plans, or are simply using the concept. Then again, the new carrier may simply be a scaled up Kuznetsov/ Liaoning. 

The Kuznetsovs normally carry a dozen navalized Su-27s (called Su-33s), 14 Ka-27PL anti-submarine helicopters, two electronic warfare helicopters, and two search and rescue helicopters. But the ship was built to carry as many as 36 Su-33s and sixteen helicopters. The Kuznetsovs carry 2,500 tons of aviation fuel, allowing it to generate 500-1,000 aircraft and helicopter sorties. Crew size is 2,500 (or 3,000 with a full aircraft load). While the original Kuznetsov is in Russian service, the second ship, the Varyag, was launched but not completed and work stopped in 1992. The Chinese bought the unfinished carrier in 1998, towed it to China, and spent over a decade completing it as the Liaoning.

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/The-Second-Chinese-Carrier-Reveals-Itself-8-16-2013.asp
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2013/08/those-chinese-aircraft-carrier-pics-what-we-know-what-we-can-guess-and-what-we-cant/68114/
« Last Edit: January 21, 2014, 02:41:57 am by SPQR »