Based on very credible sources in China, the 001A itself was "forced onto" PLAN, because PLAN would have very much preferred to go to the CATOBAR directly after Lioaning. 001A was added by top leadership to reduce risk.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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Based on very credible sources in China, the 001A itself was "forced onto" PLAN, because PLAN would have very much preferred to go to the CATOBAR directly after Lioaning. 001A was added by top leadership to reduce risk.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Yup which makes China's 3rd carrier another 'liaoning' more unlikely like i said.
[...and not an unwise decision either.
They gt their yards into building carriers. They strengthen the logisitic chain for the Liaoning. They can train an entire cadre of personnel on these two carrier first and get a lot of experience and sea legs under themselves with carriers.
They appear less threatening right now...and later, they can be used for exercises and even operations that more uniquely suite them.
All of that while getting ready to and preparing for going the CATOBAR route as well.
There's no rish right now, so taking this path with less risk, but also with some worthy positive traits makes good sense.
Yes, of course these 00X designations are not ones which we've seen officially used.
Big shrimps are never as definitive as we would like, but some including fzgfzy and pop3 have maintained fairly consistent post histories and the use of designations of 001A and 002, respectively, and the generally accepted core characteristics for those two designations are basically what Jeff has described.
Unfortunately there is no way of tracking down every single post made by each big shrimp to follow their comments (and I don't think anyone has that much time to bother doing it) -- so the best we have is for people who've been following these things for years and years to recount the credible rumours and consensuses, while appreciating that new information, pictures or new credible rumours could modify the consensus as well.
It's not a perfect system for PLA watching, but I think it's the best we got, considering the circumstances.
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Though I will note that I haven't seen the 003 designation consistently used yet in reference to the expected CVN project, and the use of 003 is more or less a stand-in at this point.
Do you have any links to their posts? Also, how do you know they mean what you mean when they say "001A" and "002", if that is in fact what they are saying? For example, how do you know "001A" and "002" aren't simply their "stand-ins" for China's second and third carriers? Also, how do you know they aren't simply speculating like the rest of us are in this case, and that they actually have real knowledge of China's future carrier specifics? I would like to know their specific statements, not just personal interpretations of what they are saying.
Like I said, I don't have easy to access links to their posts, but you can try doing a search of their usernames and certain designations to see if anything pops up, or even make an account for the relevant forums that they sometimes inhabit. Unfortunately, sometimes their posts are deliberately cryptic, so personal interpretations of what they mean are kind of important.
However, I can confirm that those designations (001A and 002) have been used by the likes of fzgfzy and pop3 directly, I do have memory of that. (for example, here's one post among many by fzgfzy where he directly uses the 002 designation: )
As for 001A and 002 possibly being their "stand-ins" -- well yes, that's kind of what I've been trying to say.
No one here is saying that 001A and 002 are necessarily official PLA designations of the carrier projects (we don't have proof of that, after all), however those designations (through whatever reason) over the years, have ended up becoming the generally accepted designations for the carriers and certain consistent characteristics have been assigned to those designations over the many years of continuous rumour and big shrimp cycles.
And for better or worse that's just what everyone in the community calls them now, and we take after the Chinese language PLA watching forums. You could try challenging their reasoning over there directly, because doing so here, the best answer we can give is a shrug and to basically restate what I've already said.
As for their "big shrimp status"... that's derived from their own prediction history and their general regarded status among the boards, and I think fzgfzy is also a contributer to a semi-official naval magazine. Some of them just know things that other people don't and predict things with disturbing accuracy.
That doesn't mean everyone takes each of their words as gospel, but it does mean whenever they say something people do take notice, and people can make draw their own conclusions based off patterns and other evidence, and that's a good enough methodology for me.
If you agree that these designations are being used by some big shrimps as just stand-ins, then less importance should be attached to these names than we are attaching to them currently, namely their use in differentiating class from subclass. I'm not saying that CV-18 can't or won't actually be a brand new class, rather that we just don't know right now, and as far as I can gleam from what you just said, the shrimps also don't know or at least aren't saying specifically.
Okay, I think I understand why you're asking these questions.
You're essentially wondering/challenging whether the 001A, 002 designations are reflective of the carriers being different "classes" right?
Well first of all, in that case I should clarify that in my previous post when I used the term "stand in," I meant it in terms of the 00X designations possibly being "stand ins" for the actual designations of the ships which we may not know of, therefore 00X is being used in lieu as a term of conveninece. That is to say, the 00X designations are not merely as a sequential stand in reference for the chronological carrier built.
As to whether 002 will be an actual, different "class," well first, that opens up some bigger questions about how to separate actual ship classes from one another -- is it hull, is it the variation of significant subsystems or ship structures, or difference in various capabilities etc? (rhetorical question)
In regards to 002 itself, some of the core rumours that have been circulating include catapults, include a significantly greater displacement than Liaoning relative to 001A, and it has been described as being a "major change" -- again, relative to 001A.
So for those reasons, many have perceived and judged 002 to be a "different class" of ship than 001/001A. That is why the third domestic carrier isn't simply referred to as "CV-18," because the 002 designation is meant to encompass the key consistent rumours that have been espoused over the last few years.
As to whether 002 will actually "deserve" to be called a different "class" from 001/001A, we will probably only know once its construction enters the mid to final stages, however many years down the line that ends up being, to determine its changes vis-a-vis 001/001A.
But for now, yes the 002 designation is used with the assumption that the carrier is a different "class" from 001/001A.
This is what I have been saying all this time. The 002 designation is far more specific and declarative than CV-18 which I prefer to use, mainly because the CV-18 designator is both very general and in addition is almost certainly going to be used by the PLAN, while we have no idea if 001/001A/002 is even a classification system with any attachment to reality. The latter is far more fanboyish (while the former is strongly grounded in reality) and makes predictions which IMO are premature whether or not any of them eventually turn out to be true.
I'm sure you can tell by now that I'm not very fond of the more outlandish elements of the Chinese military watching community; in this very thread you have people commenting on "001B" implying stagnation and "002" implying progress, as if these designations should reflect hope rather than reality. These terms have clearly become emotionally charged at this point, imbued with a life of their own and morphing into whatever bias or personal desire one wishes to impart into them when spoken. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to call it CV-18, while anyone else can call it whatever they like; I think my terminology is essentially foolproof, but with 002 you are just rolling the dice. If it comes with bow catapults, is 15-20,000 tons bigger, and has a radically different island, this carrier will STILL be "CV-18", but it certainly won't automatically mean the PLAN has any desire to think of this carrier as a "002" even if it classifies this carrier as a brand new class. And TBH it may not; just look at the huge difference between the Type 051 and the 051B, or the Type 052 and the 05D, or the Type 039 and the 039A. For all intents and purposes these vessels are altogether entirely different classes connected by only a tenuous wisp of common design lineage, yet they are grouped into the same classes by the PLAN.
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Yes, I can understand what you mean, and using CV-18 as a designation is definitely more "foolproof".
However I also consider it a less accurate reflection of the credible rumour landscape and the characteristics that 002 as a designation is meant to represent.
For me this has nothing to do with emotions, but rather it has everything to do with using a systemic method of critically reviewing and integrating rumours (as much of an oxymoron as that may sound), to reach an as accurate consensuses as we can with the limited information we have with us.
I do concede that the designation of 002 vs "001B" does present some degree of confusion as to what an individual may visualize "001B" as or "002" as, but in that case it is a simple matter of deferring to what the current rumours consensus says. That is why when Intrepid originally mentioned 001B, I pointed out that no such designation is currently in play.