PLAN Catapult Development Thread, News, etc.

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Even in PPP dollars, China is not projected to become twice the size of the United States before mid-century (PWC 2017 projects 2050 PPPs in 2016 USD for USA and China at 34 and 58 trillion dollars respectively). And while there are certainly elements of the military apparatus that are sensitive to local price conditions (in the way that PPP tries to capture), most significantly personnel costs, I believe that market exchange rates provide a superior basis for comparison, for two main reasons: fuel costs (a major input into operational costs) are more or less the same between nations, and the further one ascends up the technological chain, the greater the degree of convergence in both wages and material costs.

A strict PPP comparison will overestimate China's military-economic resources for the reasons noted above, while a strict MER comparison will underestimate those resources by failing to account for lower personnel costs. A hybrid or approximation of the two measures, therefore, is likely to be more accurate than either alone, although that still leaves open the question of the appropriate ratio.

Applying a crude 50/50 approximation of MER and PPP measures, using PWC 2017 projections for future economic growth, and assuming that defence allocations as proportion of GDP remain equivalent to the 5yr average of 2011-2016 (as estimated by SIPRI 2017) , generates the following "comparable" figures of defence expenditure in 2030:

USA (3.8%): $892bn
China (1.9%): $613bn
India (2.5%): $342bn
Russia (4.4%): $151bn

In summary, I disagree with the PWC methodology as it is not very good.

The key thing is the actual volume of goods and services that an economy produces, which is best measured by PPP.

And as of 2017, the IMF have the Chinese PPP economy at almost 20% larger than the USA, and the Chinese economy is still growing much faster as it is still less developed overall.

So by 2035, it is not a stretch to say that China's economy (as measured by PPP) will be twice that of the USA. Even by that projection, the average Chinese person will only be half as wealthy as their US equivalent, and China should still have lower costs overall.

And in the long run, the actual exchange rate should converge to the PPP exchange rate in a liberal trade and investment environment.

China is already the world's largest market for most categories of goods and services. And that market is one of the most ruthlessly competitive in the world, which is well on the way to forcing companies to become world-class in terms of cost, quality, technology etc

In terms of military spending, China is self-sufficient except in a few key technologies. So the exchange rate doesn't matter, and China benefits from procurement costs which look like half that of the equivalents in the US/Europe.

With reference to fuel costs, they don't actually have much of an impact of military spending. I recall a US Navy study where fuel accounts for 10%-20% of the total lifecycle cost for the Burke.

And remember that China moving rapidly to a future where electric vehicles and energy production means petrocarbons have a very small role,
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
I now entertained myself with numbers:

based on what I saw Jul 20, 2017
(predictions for 2030 and 2050), I now "interpolated" the US 2035 GPD to be 26t; solving for zero of

11.2*x^19-52.0

gives (of course rounded) x=1.084 (11.2t is the Chinese 2016 GDP according to google);

meaning: Chinese economy would have to grow by 8.4% in each of the years since now until 2035 to reach 52t

Add in revision of 10% for the SNA 2008 GDP update to China's GDP figures.

Then consider that China is now running at 11% (7% growth + 5% inflation) in RMB terms.

Over the next 20 years, I would expect the Chinese exchange rate to appreciate by at least 50% (just 2% per year). Even then, China's exchange rate would still be somewhat undervalued.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
The Chinese Army Journal confirms the successful test of a J-15 on catapult EMALS in autumn 2016. Pilot decorated medal class 1.

DLi9PodVYAA1LBP.jpg
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
I now entertained myself with numbers:

based on what I saw Jul 20, 2017
(predictions for 2030 and 2050), I now "interpolated" the US 2035 GPD to be 26t; solving for zero of

11.2*x^19-52.0

gives (of course rounded) x=1.084 (11.2t is the Chinese 2016 GDP according to google);

meaning: Chinese economy would have to grow by 8.4% in each of the years since now until 2035 to reach 52t

you forgot to include Yuan appreciation/depreciation factor against USD
 

delft

Brigadier
The Russian appreciation of that factor is shown by the fact that in the two previous years its central bank bought 200 tons of gold while this year it is on its way to buy 400 tons.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Here Henri K elaboration on the official new of the first catapult launch. I don't necessarily agree with him who characterize the EMAL as experimental
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If the success of the first ground catapult of a J-15 Chinese airplane fighter aircraft , which
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, was still based only on rumors, the article published yesterday on the Official Journal of the Chinese Army leaves no doubt now about this first full-scale test of the Chinese electromagnetic catapult, similar to the US Navy's EMALS system.

Titled "The Courage to Be a Founder of Flight Testing for the Navy", the article briefly tells the story of a pilot leader during a major test of the embedded air forces. Although the text remains deliberately unclear it has clearly indicated none of the equipment involved

We are talking about a "fighter jet of a certain developing model", under the CHENG Hai Lin (程海林), which took off at "very short distance" thanks to some "equipment". The test took place in mid-autumn, at a certain air base located in the west of Liaoning Province.

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The man, a naval pilot with 2,100 hours of flying time and former deputy chief of the air force, was named pilot of a "key technology" program for aircraft carriers. at the end of 2015 and had participated since 2008 in several development projects related to Chinese aircraft carriers as a new generation of aircraft.

"A newly designed experimental apparatus", "an entirely new and most advanced equipment in the world", "engines that have not yet passed the final design validation ¹", and "visibility well below the standard "It is under all these uncertainties and looks at it from the senior officials of the military and the industrialists involved in the program that CHENG gave the green light to the personnel on the ground, from the cockpit of his aircraft, for takeoff.

The article does not fail to emphasize that the success of the test shows that "China has made a major breakthrough in a field of difficulty equipment for an aircraft carrier". The same expressions are also used to describe the development of EMALS in China.

It is not difficult now to replace all these words in quotation marks to make a last legible sentence: A J-15,
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, realized at the end of 2016 its first catapulting on an experimental EMALS track, installed in the center Xincheng Carrier Pilots Training Course, which is well west of Liaoning Province.

It was learned that
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end of July, signed by Chinese President XI Jin Ping himself.

Knowing that the Chinese electromagnetic catapult project was approved at the end of 2011, with a launch budget of 700 million yuan (nearly 90 million €), this institutional communication of the Chinese army has also shown us that development of EMALS in China is progressing relatively fast, as the testing unit CHENG Hai Lin was founded in late 2015, four years the project launch, for a full-scale trial in late September or early October 2016 .

It is still a little difficult to predict the timing of the Chinese navy to come. The article mentions, for example some 20 returns from CHENG after the test, to continue the development and prepare for the following tests, indicating that the Chinese EMALS catapult is still in the experimental stage today.

But one thing is certain, after its first two aircraft carriers on a springboard, says STOABAR, the Chinese navy will finally end up with aircraft carriers with catapult, steam or EMALS, as it has always asked for 30 years. Moreover, many rumors circulate about the cutting of the first sheet of the 3rd Chinese aircraft carrier in Shanghai this year.

Finally, these new elements as well as the unique photo broadcast on this first test of Chinese EMALS allow us to identify which of the two experimental catapults installed in Xincheng is electromagnetic.

Indeed, the analysis of this snapshot and the satellite images seems to confirm what we have suggested since last year, namely that it is more likely that the catapult located to the west is the EMALS, while that to the east would be steam.

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The two experimental catepults in Xincheng (Image: DigitalGlobal)

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A J-15 in front of the catapult EMALS, October 17, 2016 (Image: DigitalGlobal)

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2017-10-08-Catapultage-r%C3%A9ussi-dun-J-15-sur-EMALS-04.jpg
 
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