00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread

[HighGround]

Specualtive question,

If this design is the future of China's CVN ambitions, will they be laying down another hull before this one is finished? Or are they going to spend a year on sea trials before committing to a serial buildout?

 

[Blitzo]

Specualtive question,

If this design is the future of China's CVN ambitions, will they be laying down another hull before this one is finished? Or are they going to spend a year on sea trials before committing to a serial buildout?

We don't know. In fact, one could say that is one of the decisive questions that will need to be answered for us to get a gauge for what the in-service PLAN carrier ambitions may be like in the post-2035 era.

 

[Totoro]

This is just a guess but i think they will wait for 004 data before building another one. And that is why we will see 003a, to start construction soon, precisely because plan knows there is no time to waste and getting another tested design 003 is better than rushing with another untested 004.

 

[Owlfelino]

The 003’s design is way too old since it’s based on a modified 1143.7 (and we know how much it’s been tweaked over the last ten years).

They’ll probably ditch any '003A' plans and just use the 004 hull to build larger CVs. I believe that will be the final template for their future carrier mass production.

 

[GiantPanda]

The 003’s design is way too old since it’s based on a modified 1143.7 (and we know how much it’s been tweaked over the last ten years).

They’ll probably ditch any '003A' plans and just use the 004 hull to build larger CVs. I believe that will be the final template for their future carrier mass production.

BS. There is NO shred of evidence that the 003 was based on 1143.7 (Ulyanovsk.) This is even more ridiculous than it being based on the Kuznetsov.

Far easier to design new vessel than to alter a 50 year Soviet blueprint that included a ramp.

 

[Tomboy]

BS. There is NO shred of evidence that the 003 was based on 1143.7 (Ulyanovsk.) This is even more ridiculous than it being based on the Kuznetsov.

Far easier to design new vessel than to alter a 50 year Soviet blueprint that included a ramp.

It's well known all of the current Chinese carriers are based on the Kuznetsov hull...

Which was why when 004 was clear to be a departure from that design it was such a big deal.

 

[Owlfelino]

The 003’s design is way too old since it’s based on a modified 1143.7

My mistake on the Soviet carrier hull numbers—I meant 1143.6.

 

[ENTED64]

Specualtive question,

If this design is the future of China's CVN ambitions, will they be laying down another hull before this one is finished? Or are they going to spend a year on sea trials before committing to a serial buildout?

As Blitzo says we can't know for sure but I'd wager that PLAN will probably proceed in similar fashion to 003 where they will thoroughly test everything before laying down additional hulls. In general PLAN tends to be fairly conservative on design with a lot of designs iterating on previous designs. Further this will be the first clean sheet carrier and nuclear carrier designed by PLAN so this will involve a lot of new competencies that PLAN has never done before. Similar to how PLAN proceeded slowly with catapults that they never operated before, they will probably double check everything before any further hulls are considered.

Basically this is still early days and we probably shouldn't expect to reach the "dumpling making" phase until 2030s.

 

[TK3600]

And this is where the rumored 2nd conventional carrier comes into play. That one is mature enough for dumplings. There is a chance that ship gets built multiple times. Meanwhile the nuclear 004 will be very slow to build I think.

 

[vincent]

It's well known all of the current Chinese carriers are based on the Kuznetsov hull...

Which was why when 004 was clear to be a departure from that design it was such a big deal.

Well known by what evidence?