PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

kroko said:

It seems that once again i used the wrong term. Im actually talking about the hull bulkheads. They are too big and too "clean". I dont see those kind of bulkheads on any pictures of aircraft carriers under construction. Their inner hull is too divided for that, i assume.

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Can you show some of the pictures which depict what you are referencing? Because I don't know what you mean by hull bulkheads being too "clean" or "big". Are you saying they are too empty? Because of course the relative emptiness could just be because they're at an earlier stage of construction and have yet to fill in the "base" of the hull.

I just want to point out for everyone, that as we watch this ship at DL take shape, and debate whether or not it could be a carrier, I think we need to use some common sense. Obviously, there are many potential differences we can spot between the ship being constructed at DL and other carriers that have been under construction... but the question is whether any of the differences have the ability to inherently disprove that the ship at DL is not a carrier.
In other words, could slightly different construction methods, or different times of photos being taken (for both the DL ship and other carriers), account for any supposed "differences" we see... and even if there are other obvious differences, we need to ask whether they can be explained by reasonable answers (for instance the "empty" bulkheads could simply be a result of not being fully constructed as aforementioned), and we also need to ask whether any differences are meaningful (for instance, the colour of the metal at DL is all dark red, while construction for USS Ford was multi-coloured... is colour therefore a determinant of whether a ship could be a carrier? Obviously not... the same logic applies for similar other physical attributes as well)

I think, that when we consider all the factors above and relate it to the pictures we have, we absolutely cannot rule out that the ship is a carrier... at best we can say that we need to wait for further pictures of progress.

There are enough indications to highly suggest the ship at DL is military, however. The no photo signs, the fences around the drydock that weren't there for previous ship construction, are all indicative of a military project. Whether it's a carrier or not is something we'll need to wait for, but we have enough rumours from the last few years and continuing even now, to suggest that what we're seeing will be the first indigenous carrier.

Those large spaces in the deck also dont appear on any aircraft carrier under construction. These large spaces point for this ship being a cargo ship.

Of course, im not 100% sure that this is a civilian ship. But the photos point for that, IMO.

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As I said, the spaces in the hull could of course simply be a result of the inside of the ship not being "filled in" yet.... I suspect we're getting photos of a ship at an "inbetween stage" of construction.

I.e.: it took USS ford a while to go from this:



to this:

@kroko
I assume the "empty bulkhead" idea arises from this picture:


Compared to this picture, below, of USS Ford, it looks like the DL ship is very empty and hollow.



However I think that conclusion misses one crucial consideration -- what if DL is building its carrier in a slightly different way to the way USS Ford was built?
From the photos that we have of USS Ford, it seemed to have the side of its hull built up and raised after and/or during the inside of the base of the hull was "filled up". But is there a reason why DL cannot start building the sides of its own carrier's hull first and then fill up the inside of the base of its hull?

In other words, perhaps it is illogical to compare DL's present construction stage to the picture of USS Ford above, but rather compare it with USS Ford below, except the difference to the picture below is that DL has chosen to raise the sides of its carrier's hull up somewhat first, before "filling in" the insides.



Given the sheer variety of different ways of constructing a carrier, I think this is a very likely (and also a very simple) explanation for what we are seeing.
Let's recall that India constructed Vikrant and launched before what a typical shipyard would do, before re launching it a second time.
And the UK constructed it's QE class with almost fully complete modules all shipped to a drydock, without any of the "first steel laying in drydock" that occurred for recent USN carriers or for DL's suspected carrier.

That longitudinal bulkhead confuses me. These are for ships carrying liquids. Are we even looking at the same ship construction here?

What longitudinal bulkhead? Are you talking about the gray patch at the "front side" of the module? That is the original photo uploader doctoring the picture to remove details AKA self-censorship to avoid having the photo taken down by authorities.

No , I am referring to the upright rectangular box shape where the forced air pipe is going in. that rectangular thing will run down almost entire length of the ship right above the keel.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Well, if it is part of the ship, is there a reason to believe that it would run through the entirety of the ship? Obviously if it's part of the suspected carrier it isn't going to run through the entire ship as we can see in the other pictures that there is no such shape running through the rest of the ship above the keel.

This is a picture of CVN-77 under construction, at its bow. If this particular module is also at the bow of the suspected carrier as I suspect, then having that kind of bulkhead sectioned off at the bow, right above the keel, doesn't seem too strange.
I actually think that picture of the module may actually be very close to the bulbous bow. I'm not sure if bulbous bows have additional sectioning or not. But either way, I see no reason why the picture in question could not be part of the rest of the ship, and I see no reason why the particular section would transit through the entirety of the ship above the keel, after all it might just be a compartment and we're seeing its walls which stretch no more than a few meters longitudinally.

If you carefully look at the bottom, you will see CVN 77 has double bottom and double hull, with transverse bulkheads, which run from left to right or abreast of the ship, with their watertight doors, already there. So are the longitudinal bulkheads,which runs front to back, on each deck there already. You have to put them in first, it's much easier to work around and maneuver. And look at the thickness of the steel plates. Compare it to this ship in HSH picture, single bottom, single hull, it's confusing.

Yvrch said:

If you carefully look at the bottom, you will see CVN 77 has double bottom and double hull, with transverse bulkheads, which run from left to right or abreast of the ship, with their watertight doors, already there. So are the longitudinal bulkheads,which runs front to back, on each deck there already. You have to put them in first, it's much easier to work around and maneuver. And look at the thickness of the steel plates. Compare it to this ship in HSH picture, single bottom, single hull, it's confusing.

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I agree that it looks a bit strange, however at this stage I'm unwilling to rule out the possibility that it is part of the suspected carrier (namely part of the bow), mostly because of how small the module actually is, the fact that it is likely incomplete, and that the interior was censored out.

If the self censoring blur was removed, and/or if we could see the inside of the module rather than just the particular section that is available to us, it could turn out that it is double bottom, double hulled, or possibly fielding a more sensible arrangement at the least.

You will see how they built this up in the fourth and fifth decks, from bottom up and inside out. They would start working on forth deck inside first, box it up, move to the front, box it up, and go up next deck. Same sequence. That way is much easier to work and tight tolerance in building these structures possible.

Regarding these white dots ... I found this image somewhere on my harddrive from 9. July 2010 ...