CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

by78 said:

As far as I know, 指挥长 is not a big shrimp. He's an enthusiast who lives in Dalian and used to take photos of the shipyard from his apartment, until he was told by authorities to stop doing that.

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As a source of information he is questionable.
I remember some people blaming him for stealing the photos taken by others.

dawn_strike said:

1)Looks like the CV18 in this CG only has 3 catapults and 2 lifters. 2 lifters! It will definitely limit the efficiency of launching. To make things worse, J15s is larger in scale than F18s. One lifter can carry 2 F18s together but for J15 it can hold only 1.
2)One of the launch spot on the front deck encroaches the runway for landing. This also happened on Forrestal class, and then it was fixed on Kitty Hawk class.

You may find these flaws on Ulyanovsk but never on Kitty Hawk or Nimitz.

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Well to clarify...
My mistake. Ulyanovsk has 3 lifters. Kuznetsov-class has only 2.

dawn_strike said:

Even so, I still doubt the accuracy of this CG, because of the flight deck...It merely looks like a Kuznetsov class with flat deck and catapults. I don't think PLAN is so satisfied with such kind of deck arrangement, since they should have gained some reasonable understanding about scheduling carrier-based aircrafts on CV-16 Liaoning and should have known the inevitable design limitations of her. It is understandable that CV17 generally follows Kuznetsov class, but they won't have to stick to it on CV18.

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It looks fine to me. We do not know how big the elevators are, nor do we know how many elevators there are from the angle of the CGI.
Heck, we don't even know how big the island itself actually is from the CGI either.

dawn_strike said:

1)Looks like the CV18 in this CG only has 3 catapults and 2 lifters. 2 lifters! It will definitely limit the efficiency of launching. To make things worse, J15s is larger in scale than F18s. One lifter can carry 2 F18s together but for J15 it can hold only 1.
2)One of the launch spot on the front deck encroaches the runway for landing. This also happened on Forrestal class, and then it was fixed on Kitty Hawk class.

You may find these flaws on Ulyanovsk but never on Kitty Hawk or Nimitz.

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Again, see above WRT elevator size and no. of elevators. We don't know how big the elevators are or how many there are in the CGI.
I mean, even if we go by the CGI itself, we can tell that there are actually some differences in the flight deck -- the aft/port part of the flight deck next to the landing strip for example, is far larger in surface area compared to CV-16 or CV-17.


As for the launch spot encroaching on the runway -- well even in similar sized US carriers of years past, the bow/port launch catapult has often intruded on the landing strip as well when launching certain types of larger aircraft. Considering the size of J-15 as well, it means to have two bow catapults means one of them will partly intrude on the landing strip, to allow for a safe amount of horizontal clearance.
To keep the bow/port launch position from intruding on the landing strip would need a larger flight deck meaning likely a larger carrier overall.

PanAsian said:

This is believable given how China chose to churn out the 055. Sure there are more untested technologies with a CATOBAR carrier but the balance of their technological strengths and weaknesses does lean towards nuclear.

I firmly believe this is driven by what they are perceiving as a perfect storm of strategic threats that may lead to all out war and these carriers would be a critical part of the minimum deterrence to prevent that, or in the worst case scenario still prevail in preserving territorial integrity including securing Taiwan.

This will mean they need to churn out more escorts in the 052 and 055 series though, so let's see if they do and how quickly.

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Considering what we've seen of Chinese surface combatant shipbuilding in the recent past, what we know is definitely coming up in the next year or so, and considering some of the numbers that have been thrown around for 055, 052D and 054B construction numbers that may take us into the mid 2020s, I think there probably won't be a shortfall of surface combatant escorts for that many carriers... and probably with enough left over for some ESGs and for some good sized SAGs too.

dawn_strike said:

1)Looks like the CV18 in this CG only has 3 catapults and 2 lifters. 2 lifters! It will definitely limit the efficiency of launching. To make things worse, J15s is larger in scale than F18s. One lifter can carry 2 F18s together but for J15 it can hold only 1.
2)One of the launch spot on the front deck encroaches the runway for landing. This also happened on Forrestal class, and then it was fixed on Kitty Hawk class.

You may find these flaws on Ulyanovsk but never on Kitty Hawk or Nimitz.

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We have no idea what will be the final configuration for the type 002, or what the size of the lifts will be. In any case, looking at it from the from, we cannot say for certain how many lifts or catapults the 002 will have. Certainly not with that kind of image quality.
As for the encroachment of the landing, that too would depend on the final configuration of the carrier, nor would such a issue be a fault of the flight deck design but rather that of size. Earlier US carriers too have runways that encroach upon one another, which is fixed by having a larger flight deck which indirectly means a larger carrier.

watdahek said:

I find it questionable to say 6 catobars are over achieving, considering the ultimate end goal of "rejuvenation of chinese nation". I believe the naval expansion of China first and foremost depends on its economy. If for example China can someday support a navy that can decimate the USN at any time at any place using 2% of its GDP, i have no doubt China will do it. After all there is no rejuvenation if one can still be bullied by violence.

So if China maintains its economic growth, only God knows the number of ships China will build. If economic growth halts, even 4 catobar might be over achieving

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My respond was to the original post about that so call comment/post made by the big but maybe not so big shrimp. 6 full flat deck carriers is certainly likely and expected. That's not the gist of my argument. My was in terms of timeline and the retention of CV16, CV17 even AFTER they have these 6 carriers already.

I do not believe or agree with the training carrier concept either. I think it's actually insulting to PLAN for the need for a 'training' carrier' after over 2 DECADES and 6 CV/CVNs.

Let's just say that if PLAN of 2040 with 6 CVNs still needs Liaoning to train people on carrier operations they are doing something really wrong and seriously unproductive!

kwaigonegin said:

'Next' could mean cv19 not cv18 since design work is completed and good chance the first steel has even been cut.

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Gustaf's "Next" was referring to the original word "三" which means No. 3.
Considering CV16 is No.1 and CV17 is No.2 (002), No. 3 is certainly CV18, No.4 will be CV19. This is all based on the current Chinese convention.

Gustaf Adolf said:

Thank you. I had forgotten the Russian ship.



Why would they decommission ships that works and be used in Chinese waters leaving the other carriers free to do other work further out.



I agree with you but I found this:

I cant read Chinese but from the source it said that the next carrier is rumoured to be nuclear powered. I have no idea how trustworthy the source is though.

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His words were:
The 3rd ship is very likely being nuclear powered.
The 4th ship is certainly nuclear powered.

taxiya said:

His words were:
The 3rd ship is very likely being nuclear powered.
The 4th ship is certainly nuclear powered.

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It would be a HUGE leap forward, but at the same time, construction time would be longer to ensure safety around nuclear reactors.

Twix101 said:

It would be a HUGE leap forward, but at the same time, construction time would be longer to ensure safety around nuclear reactors.

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First of all and most important of all, I was only trying to clarify a few things by translation, I did not believe or disbelieve what the source said.

My opinion is that it is always a serious challenge for anybody to do something for the first time, but everyone has to have a first time. Even the mighty USN had to do it with Enterprise. Because of this, I won't be surprised if the 3rd CV turned out to be nuclear powered at all.