This isnt really new news, but according to bloomberg, China wants to invest in up to six carriers.
Chinese Carriers
Among other things , someone is gonna have to train the chinese on how to land airplanes on moving boats , in the only realistic final schooling that you cant get by landing on painted lines on land.
Like the Russians , they are going to have to come to the school of carriers and thats in the States, of course they could go to Russia but I doubt it.
I think it would be so ironic , if one of these flattops gets sunk by a silkworm missile sold by China to whomever its gonna intimidate with these flattops.
Declan
Why do you doubt it? And if the Russians aren’t available, why not Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, the UK or even Thailand? And why not train themselves, for that matter? I remember another group of funny Oriental people (known for producing crappy rubber toys) doing that quite handily 60-70 years ago, so I suppose anything’s possible.
Singapore has a decent, modern airforce, and I have heard feats of them being able to take off vertically from a narrow runway (heh, this is to prevent the aircraft from infringing Malaysian airspace the moment the aircraft takes off). I’m not sure if the airforce had overseas training on carriers (it was involved in quite a few multiple-countries execrise).
The thing is, why China can’t train themselves? I am not sure; did they send their astronauts to NASA for training?
The Japanese weren’t known for their crappy toys 60-70 years ago. It wasn’t too long before that the Japanese had defeated the Russians, they were tearing through China, and many in the U.S. saw them as a serious threat in the region. Of course I happen to think the Chinese can figure out how to train their own pilots. It’ll probably cost some money and lives but they can do it.
Aw, come on. Even when I was a kid growing up in the 70s, “Made in Japan” was a punchline implying lousy quality, for toys, autos, or anything else. Fair or unfair, that was the perception in some quarters. (And as in the case of China now, probably a defensive reaction to disparage and belittle something that’s feared as a potential threat.)
The 70s weren’t the 20s or 30s. The Japanese were better known for their militaristic nature than anything crappy they manufactured. The “made in Japan” being the same as crap came from post war Japan, when, in fact, they did produce a lot of crap.
While the article notes that the carriers the Chinese have planned are about 3/4 the size of US carriers, their capacity and ability to project power globally would be even less than that. The Russian carriers they’d be emulating have more tonnage devoted to missile and self-defense systems, meaning the Chinese wouldn’t have to include as many escorts in a carrier battlegroup as we do, but would be operating far fewer aircraft with less ordnance and refueling capacity.
These carriers also don’t use catapults, instead having a “ski-jump” flight deck to operate short takeoff-optimized aircraft that have smaller payloads than US carrier planes. They’d also require less specialized training than US style carriers, especially if the Chinese primarily operated under calmer sea conditions.
While these ships could possibly operate globally, they wouldn’t give China anything close to the global presence of the US. What they would do is vastly improve China’s ability to intimidate neighbors and support potential amphibious operations in the Far East, and certainly allow China to enforce its claims over the whole South China Sea.
Right now for heavy fighters, its USA, France,Russia. The UK is supposed to be getting CV’s but thats in doubt due to budgetary reasons, at least in the early part of the next decade. Italy, Spain, Thailand all operate harrier carriers, which if thats what the Plan is going for, then fine, thats doable inhouse without sending their people over seas.
Your point about the Japanese might be taken if the Chinese were operating biplanes off their new shiney boats for the next decade or two, but operating heavy jets off carrier decks is another order of magnitude. That China can do it inhouse, I would leave that to the experts to qualify if it can be done with a degree of safety.
I’m amazed that people think that carrier technology is somehow beyond Chinese capability. China is not some technological backwater. They’ve built nuclear weapons and launched men into space. Why wouldn’t they be able to master the sixty year old technology of launching a jet plane from a ship?
And they need us to buy all their stuff! And if they make the wrong move economically, we’ll implode our dollar and leave them holding piles of worthless paper. We’ve got them right where we want them, bwah ha ha ha!
You know, America’s/Americans’ idea of coexisting with China at times reminds me of the new sherriff in Blazing Saddles pointing a gun at his own head and growling “Put your guns down or I’m gonna blow this n*****'s head off!” / “Put 'em down, men, he’s just crazy enough to do it!”
It’s not exactly like that. If they genuinely want a carrier force they are going to learn some very hard lessons that the United States has spent the last 100 years learning. The US loses numerous people every year during basic carrier operations, and this happens in spite of our acknowledged expertise.
Even if they build the things they’ll be well behind, and for a long time. So in that respect it would behoove them to get some assistance from us if they can. That said, I don’t know that the United States will help them in any substantive way, so the point is somewhat moot.
A lot also depends upon what kinds of carriers they intend to field. Will they be V/STOL carriers like the British, angled deck carriers like ours, or assisted takeoff like the Russians? Will they buy a used one like Brazil did? They can’t buy any of ours. It’s US policy not to sell any carriers to foreign governments, so they can’t buy the Kitty Hawk, Saratoga, Forrestal or Kennedy.
I don’t think they’d need outside consulting to learn naval aviation, but it would help.
But all the concepts are worked out. The basic procedures and techniques are common knowledge. There are flight simulators that repliace the experience pretty well. They’ll lose some pilots early on since it’s a very tricky thing to do, but it won’t take them long to learn to do it well enough.
I’m not really concerned with this - there’s not much new they’ll be able to do with this. It’s no threat to a US carrier group, Taiwan is already within land aircraft range - this seems like a prestige move. I’m much more concerned with the sunburns they acquired when they bought the Russian destroyers a few years back and the Kilo 2 diesel boats.
I think the Chinese will discover the immense cost of a carrier force-and decide aginst it. China will need at least 20-30 years, to develop indingenous aircraft, train plots, and build the carriers.
By that time, the US Navy will be flying advanced drones-no more human pilots.
China reportedly has Su-33 carrier based aircraft (cite) and has bought several decommissioned aircraft carriers. If they want to build an aircraft carrier, it’s going to take 5-10 years. That 20-30 year estimate is just nonsense.
I totally disagree. You think the Chinese don’t have the money? They have ALL of the money. They absolutely have the funds to build a few aircraft carriers.
I’ve read estimates that it will take about another 40 years for China to catch up with the US military, but they are dead serious about building a strong defensive force. It’s late and I just had a glass of wine, but if you really care, I’d be happy to provide some numbers tomorrow. (I’m taking a class on international security this semester, and we just had a section on East Asia, so I have lots of papers readily available.)