kwaigonegin
Colonel
Correct. I would say it would be quite an impossible feat to do 610 sorties in 2 days on Liaoning!!..
Even on a CVN with 4 cats going non-stop fir 48 hrs would be highly improbable
CV-16, CV-17 STOBAR carrier thread (001/Liaoning, 002/Shandong)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Even on a CVN with 4 cats going non-stop fir 48 hrs would be highly improbable
As test1979 subsequently wrote, what he meant to say was that the CV-17 excursion this time despite being only two days longer than the CV-16 excursion last year, had a significantly higher overall sortie generation, which is true.
So it was just strange phrasing on his part.
Well, not that he needed defending or anything, in his original post the attachments did reference the two separate exercises as published by the JP MoD, but most importantly, the highlighted sortie rates attributing to the December and April dates respectively, which he also prefaced with CV-17's drill as compared against CV-16's as context for that '2-day increase'.
While the wording of it could be read as "going from 320 sorties to 610 in the span of 2 days" and misconstrued as such, I don't think he was being unclear about it to begin with, and the information provided therein certainly wasn't unclear about it either.
Yes, the attachments (if one used a translation software or could read Japanese) is pretty clear, but the way he phrased it left room for clarification.
I assumed in my reply 577 that he meant "in December they did 320 sorties in 14 days, and in April they did 610 sorties in 16 days, which represents a 14% increase in time monitored, but a 90% increase in sorties generated" -- which is what I essentially wrote in my reply to make it explicit for anyone reading who might interpret it too excitably.
For these kind of things that people care about a lot (like sortie generation rate from a carrier, engine thrust, etc), I find it is always better to be as explicitly clear as possible to minimize wriggle room for misinterpretation or inadvertent exaggeration.
This isn't a criticism of him, because the information is of course useful and valuable.
Yeah that's fair.
Now that you mentioned it, looking back at your #577 reply it also made reference to "320 sorties were done between April 17th to 23rd..." which I assume must be a typo, as the only reference to '320 sorties' made by the JP MoD is from their December report on CV-16.
Just for an extra bit of clarity for the sake of it, the JP MoD in fact observed 280 sorties during those dates, out of the total 610 sorties beginning Apr 7th (actually 17 days total observed, instead of 16 days) -
Probably also worth pointing out that the 280 sorties between Apr 17th and 23rd were notable in that they already represented a marked surge in generation of sorties during those 7 days with a mean sortie rate of 40 sorties/day vs just 10 days prior which had a mean sortie rate of 33/day.
PLA Navy's aircraft carrier Shandong returns from West Pacific exercise, breaks aircraft sortie record
By Published: Apr 25, 2023 10:10 PM
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's aircraft carrier Shandong conducts realistic combat-oriented exercises in the South China Sea in the early autumn of 2022. Photo: Screenshot from the WeChat account of the PLA South Sea Fleet
The aircraft carrier Shandong of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has reportedly returned to the South China Sea from its latest far sea exercises in the West Pacific, where it hosted about 620 aircraft sorties, far surpassing the previous record set by the aircraft carrier Liaoning.
Experts said on Tuesday that the Shandong carrier group displayed its high capabilities in deterring "Taiwan independence" secessionist and foreign interference forces.
Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force spotted a PLA Navy flotilla consisting of the aircraft carrier Shandong, a Type 055 large destroyer, two Type 052D destroyers, two Type 054A frigates and a Type 901 comprehensive replenishment ship as they sailed from the West Pacific to the South China Sea via the Bashi Channel on Monday, according to a press release from Japan's Ministry of Defense Joint Staff published on its website on Tuesday.
This was also confirmed by the defense authority on the island of Taiwan in a press release on Monday, as it spotted the Shandong carrier group as it was sailing through waters to the southeast of the island.
Japan has been reporting the Shandong aircraft carrier group's movements since April 7 after it first entered the West Pacific from the Bashi Channel on April 5. In the 18 days' drills, the PLA Navy carrier hosted about 620 aircraft sorties, the Japanese Defense Ministry said.
This means that the Shandong has broken the record when the latter held a far sea exercise in about the same region from late December last year to early January this year. According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, the Liaoning hosted about 320 aircraft sorties in 15 days.
This is the Shandong's first far sea exercise beyond the first island chain since its commissioning in December 2019, and it displayed the carrier's high level of combat readiness, even surpassing that of the country's first carrier, the Liaoning, a Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Intensive drills like this would also further enhance the carrier group's capabilities, the expert said.
A map depicting the Shandong's positions since April 7 attached to the Japanese press release showed that the Chinese carrier first participated in the combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises encircling the island of Taiwan in waters to the east of the island from April 7 to April 12, then headed further east.
On April 15 and 16, it reached waters about 600 to 700 kilometers to the west of Guam, a militarized island used by the US as a key node in the second island chain, before returning through the Bashi Channel to the east of the island of Taiwan on Monday.
In addition, on Friday and Saturday, the PLA sent a total of four H-6K/J bombers - which are capable of carrying land attack, anti-ship and hypersonic missiles - from the East China Sea through the Miyako Strait deep into the West Pacific, Japan's Ministry of Defense Joint Staff said in two separate press releases on the two days.
The bombers likely conducted a joint exercise with the Shandong carrier group against potential external military forces interfering in the Taiwan question, analysts said.
Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times that the Shandong is now fully operational, and its drills in the West Pacific can serve as a powerful deterrence against not only the "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces on the island of Taiwan, but also external military interference forces like the US.
The Liaoning has a trick up its sleeve...
40 a day is not bad for a deck of 24 j15s (I assume they have that many even if it doesn't show them all on that deck) andaybe 4 helicopters. Would be over 1 sortie per day. Some assets (all the helicopters) probably did 2 sorties.
Also, this indicates they have probably achieved combat capabilities on cv17 now, 6 years after launching
For cv18 that would mean 2028 achieving combat capabilities and able to do longish deployment.
They almost certainly didn't have 24 J-15s on the ship when they went to sea, it was probably more like 14-16 J-15s with an additional 6-8 helicopters of different types, based on the various imagery we've had.
For that 3 day period, I believe the division between fixed wing and rotary sorties was 2:1, that is to say over 3 days they did 80 fixed wing and 40 rotary sorties.
Overall it isn't a bad sortie rate for the amount of aircraft they likely had on board, but there should still be room for significant growth.
I believe it was pb who multiple years ago wrote that the top surge sortie rate they could achieve was slightly over 100 per day, but that realistically would be "multiple dozens" which I interpret to be in the 50-60 range.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
On a good day, about 10%-20% of an embarked CVW units are on maintenance, testing etc. and not fully combat ready. Of course this depends on the mission profile etc.
In the case of CV 18, since the mission was to aggressively train and conduct drills, the % might be lower.
Still 40/day is quite decent. I'll be curious to know how many J15s were in board and their actual sortie rate. I seriously doubt 24 but even at 24, it is highly doubtful all 24 were at 100% the entire couple weeks.
In the case of CV 18, since the mission was to aggressively train and conduct drills, the % might be lower.
Still 40/day is quite decent. I'll be curious to know how many J15s were in board and their actual sortie rate. I seriously doubt 24 but even at 24, it is highly doubtful all 24 were at 100% the entire couple weeks.