China need to learn a lot about using aircraft carriers and operations near the Middle East or Africa will not be attempted before years of exercises and perhaps operations nearer China. In that area they can be supported by land based aircraft like Divine Eagle and KJ-500H ( which I forgot to mention ) and the development of carrier based radar and command aircraft can be delayed and apparently is being delayed.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Not true. You need carriers to be able to challenge enemy dominance of the ocoens and push the outermost defensive layers away from your coast.
If you reply only on land based aircraft, the maximum range of those fighters effective limited the range at which your own fleet could hope to operate with any chance to challenge an opponent with carriers. Pushing your fleet further out would leave them having to face enemy air power without any air support of their own, and that has never ended well before for the side without air cover.
The problem is, if the enemy fleet is within range of your land based fighters, then your coast is also within range of enemy carrier based fighters (with standoff missiles at least).
In order to totally eliminate the threat of enemy air attacks against your coast, you need your own carriers so you can push the enemy out of range of their carrier strike aircraft.
"Power projection" and "defence of the homeland" are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor do they exist in any sort of well demarcated two categories.
Some recent news on the Type 002 from Big Cat, both good and bad.
The bad news is that work has yet to officially start on the Type 002. Despite what was said on whatever talk show about steel-cutting in 2015, that was likely false information.
The good news is that there is an ongoing competition between the steam and EM catapults. In other words, the EM catapult is a serious contender, and the potential capability of the EM cat is clearly important enough to the PLAN that construction is delayed by at least a year to begin in 2017!
Moreover, a general consensus has been reached that the 002 will probably have 3 catapults. However, there is a possibility that the delay in construction might not be related to the catapult debate. There is still too much we don't know about at the moment.
Finally, fzgfzy also mentioned that if he were to leak the anticipated launch date of the Type 001A, it would be a shocker (at least, that's how I interpreted his statement). Whether it would be shockingly soon or shockingly late, we don't know. I'd rather it be the former.
The bad news is that work has yet to officially start on the Type 002. Despite what was said on whatever talk show about steel-cutting in 2015, that was likely false information.
The good news is that there is an ongoing competition between the steam and EM catapults. In other words, the EM catapult is a serious contender, and the potential capability of the EM cat is clearly important enough to the PLAN that construction is delayed by at least a year to begin in 2017!
Moreover, a general consensus has been reached that the 002 will probably have 3 catapults. However, there is a possibility that the delay in construction might not be related to the catapult debate. There is still too much we don't know about at the moment.
Finally, fzgfzy also mentioned that if he were to leak the anticipated launch date of the Type 001A, it would be a shocker (at least, that's how I interpreted his statement). Whether it would be shockingly soon or shockingly late, we don't know. I'd rather it be the former.
so what the heck did they start to build in 2015? LHD?? This news sound like follow on in Dalian, after 001 A start swimming ....
Apparently the Chinese military leadership disagrees with you in a big way.
Given the carriers themselves, the J-15s, the shipyards and bases...they are spending hundreeds and hundreds of billion of equivalent US dollars on the carrier program.
Intrepid
Major
Yes, for power projection. They are building a blue water navy.