Posted on 12/22/2013 1:21:17 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
China has declared it is building a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
The size of the carrier will be huge enough to rival the biggest in United States naval service in the first move of a major new arms race.
According to China Daily, Chinese website qianzhan.com said 'top People's Liberation Army' sources as saying the 110,000-ton aircraft carrier should be launched by 2020.
The news follows rising tensions in the South and East China Seas.
The design of the carrier is reportedly based on drawings from the former Soviet Union of a nuclear-powered, 80,000 ton vessel capable of carrying 60 aircraft, the report added.
Bigger Battleships, that’s the answer.../s
We can pull China’s income stream any time we decide to pull our heads out and check what’s going on.
I know a good way for us to never have to pay China about $2 trillion in debt we owe it.
China just has to keep doing what it has been doing...
Huh? That’s smaller than a lot of commercial vessels. 110,000 tons? Good luck Chicoms. A nation doesn’t develop this sort of technology overnight.
So China is building an eleven-ten thousand ton aircraft carrier?
Nothing to worry about here. It will be made in China then it will break down the first time they take it out and no one will ever be able to get it running again. Just like all of the Chinese mopeds and four wheelers that have been sent to the US.
When the Russians tried this, with a considerably smaller carrier, the first one was barely out of the dock before it capsized. The second one didn’t make it out of the harbor.
This biggest problem is not in the engineering, but paradoxically, in having an experienced crew that can use the engineering. The US now has about 100 years of experience that was earned from the bottom up.
The next biggest problem is having a crew experienced in damage control. The lack of this cost the Japanese carriers, that could have been saved, in World War II.
The Russians never did figure out how to build a large carrier.
Ha...maybe they stole the plans of the French carrier....and just scaled it up......snicker
I thought aircraft carriers were too vulnerable?
Seems to be quite a waste of resources. 110,000 tons? How big is the air group. If it’s only 60 aircraft, then that’s too much ship for too few planes. And it’s going to need an escort of nuclear powered guided-missile cruisers to screen it. And what far-flung overseas commitments does China have to warrant such a behemoth?
“Bigger Battleships, that’s the answer.../s”
Bigger today does not mean more powerful. It means you’ve put too many eggs in one basket. We need many smaller carriers. Eventually, we need carriers that launch nothing but robotic planes.
When individual planes cost hundreds of millions or a billion dollars you can’t afford to lose even one. Ships that carry them will soon be too expensive for our crippled socialist economy. (That’s why the British have practically disposed of their military.)
To all of those people who believe that the Air Craft Carrier is obsolete,I guess the Chinese don’t believe that.
Weren’t our WWII carriers around 25-30,000 tons? That is the big ones.
The aircraft carrier probably will just orbit around Taiwan and an occasional trip around Japan.
I do not buy it at all.
They did announce last month that they would be building two conventionally powered STOBAR carriers similar to their existing carrier simultaneously at Dalian and Shanghai.
I put much more credence in that.
Duowei News:
China will construct two conventionally powered aircraft carriers in Dalian and Shanghai between 2014 and 2015, according to China's Central Military Commission as reported by Duowei News, an outlet run by overseas Chinese.
Under the Commission's Project 048, China aims to establish three carrier battle groups by 2020 so that all three major fleets of the PLA Navy will be able to carry out missions with the full support of an aircraft carrier. The two new Type 001A indigenous carriers will be updated versions of China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, which was originally a Soviet-era Admiral Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier purchased from Ukraine in 1998. They will also likely be designed with a ski-jump ramp, according to Duowei.
Sources said that the General Equipment Department of the PLA has already signed a contract with the Beijing-based China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation to build the two carriers. The price of the two vessels is estimated to be worth US$9 billion.
China has yet to decide whether its J-31 stealth fighter will replace the J-15 to become the country's next generation carrier-based fighter, according to sources. The J-31 fighter entered service before the J-15, and is able to land or take off from the flight deck of the Liaoning. Sources said that a decision will only be made after the construction of the nation's second and third aircraft carriers is completed. This will give the PLA more time to think about the type of carrier-based fighter it will need in the future, the sources added.
With all due respect, China is doing more than one thing at a time.
There is a (lot) of American manufacturing being done there.
They are getting stronger very quickly.
ping...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.