The Nimitz and Ford's deck layouts are publicly available information. Anyone can look up pictures of them online. Why can’t the PLAN just copy the same design?This is Fujian, with only two elevators and a very suboptimal deck design.
This design will fall short of even Nimitz-level of deck capability, let alone the claimed sortie rates that Ford is supposedly (but plausibly) capable of.
00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter AETHER
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This is a very good question. I can't give you a definite answer but I think I can give you a very plausible one. In my opinion the most important cause is the manner of operation of institutions which are simultaneously both bureaucratic and political. Bureaucratic means that decisions are made through a type of game called "administrative process" while political means that the rules of the game can be gamed themselves. Something that is both bureaucratic and political is self-contradictory because bureaucracy and politics can both cooperate and compete for resources and there is no strong preference for either. It's a chaotic process of three factors: "follow the rules", "exploit the rules", "predict whether following or exploiting is more advantageous".
Or you could also ask: why didn't the Soviet Union steal the plans for the Kitty Hawk which was designed in late 1950s and instead built the very poorly conceived Kuznetsov if they could gain so much information on US submarine technologies which had highest secrecy in the USN?
I think that when PLAN acquired Liaoning in 2012 it developed an idea of a carrier that it understood in practical terms through the use of Liaoning. This means two elevators, a ski-jump, and poorly performing J-15s because you simply can't perform without a catapult. Performance in this context means payload. Using Liaoning and J-15s meant that the institutional knowledge was very limited in practical terms, but at the same time it was a huge leap forward in terms of naval capabilities for a navy that so far has only operated larger frigates (which PLAN called "destroyers") under land-based air cover.
Note that China made a greater leap in capabilities in 2012 than India, which historically has already operated an aircraft carrier.
Liaoning is commissioned in 2012 and Fujian must be designed before its keel is laid down which is exactly three years. There's no way that Liaoning can provide all the necessary information in three years to do anything else than improve the base Kuznetsov design with the most obvious elements - most importantly: introduce catapults to improve aircraft performance so that they can carry useful payload.
And that's what Fujian is. It's a slightly larger Liaoning with catapults. Because that's all that PLAN as an institution understands. It doesn't matter that the engineers can design a Ford, or that some of the officers can plan operations. PLAN as a whole is not on the same page and if you have a military unit out of step with itself then you're tripping, not marching forward. In military planning it's better to slowly walk forward as one unit than have some people run ahead while others fail to catch up with them.
Look at these and note how much time passes between each iteration. This is the speed at which USN is learning carrier operations. Granted they are not under a lot of pressure from 1991 onward but it's not a particularly rapid process between 1945 and 1968 (Nimitz laid down) either. It's twenty years after twenty years of initial carrier experience. China is making a leap into deep waters within a decade.
And here are the CATOBAR and STOBAR carriers of other navies. Only the USN has a high-performing design and let's not forget that China doesn't think only about the US, but also India for example - which is a far less challenging opponent.
Don't blame them for being careful. Militaries are extremely conservative institutions by nature which makes PLAN a revolutionary vanguard indeed. A little revolution is good. Too much... not so much. Militaries are people and people have natural distribution of all traits - intelligence, dedication, honesty etc.
So now back to bureaucracy and politics. When PLAN as an institution tries to learn Kuznetsov/Liaoning it expends resources. All these resources are shared between several services - PLAN submarine force, PLAAF, PLARF etc. All of them fight for what effectively is a very limited budget - less than 2% of GDP which is not that big at the time. All of them compete for as much as they can get because PLA modernises rapidly at all fronts.
So when someone comes to the CMC with an offer to build a Ford, because they understand the design and think it will be a huge improvement regardless of what aircraft or know-how is available at the moment all the other parties counter that with bureaucracy and politics to ensure that a Ford is not built because it is more important to build more AShBMs, HGVs, supersonic AShMs, H-6, J-20s, J-16 and will anyone finall start mass construction of SSNs? They do it by political maneuvering but also by bureaucratic process, making complaints about procedural miniutae like extending testing of Liaoning and its air wing, demanding more on-shore R&D and even promoting excessively ambitious projects like EMALS in the hopes that at worst they fail to deliver on time and at best they get a better catapult in a worse carrier which will consume less money than a worse steam catapult in a better carrier which will consume more money.
Every military is always its own worst enemy.
That's my take on this problem and let's just say that it's not purely theoretical. Don't ask because I won't tell. Hope this was helpful.
I would actually say that it's safer to first say we don't know what the configuration, deck layout, or size of "004" or the eventual CVN will even be yet (fan made CGIs aside), so there's no need to speculate or think through the rationale on the outcome of a design which we do not even know yet.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Yes, I have to agree the Fujian's deck layout and elevators are suboptimal. I will assume sortie rates will be a much less than the Nimitz class nevermind the Ford.
However 003 is the very first flat deck carrier so any subsequent designs will most definitely optimize deck handling and increase in sorties.
compare to QE class which is a conventional 2 elevator STOVL carrier with 2 elevators to the starboard side, the same configuration as Fujian. The difference is, Fujian is bigger, has 3 catapults, more space to park at the front, and a smaller total island area. Thus you'd expect it to, very conservatively, have no worse of a sortie rate per plane than the QE class, given all these other advantages.
QE class is claimed to be able to generate a surge output of up to 110 sorties per day with a maximum air wing of 36 fighters, 14 helicopters, 50 aircraft total, for ~5 sorties per hour in a 24 hour period or 2 sorties per aircraft per day.
If Fujian carries 40 fighters as claimed, and with a 2:1 ratio of fighters to support, we'd expect to see 60 planes on the Fujian. At a surge rate of 2 sorties per plane per day, that'd be 120 sorties per day total.
During Desert Storm the average for CVN-71 was 1.3 sorties per plane per day with a surge of 2 sorties per plane per day.
If Fujian can match Desert Storm per plane sortie rates with a much more modern system with computerized controls and EM catapults, it'll already generate ~80 sorties per day.
In fact, not only the reactor, but also the secondary circuit equipment is being produced in advance. This reminds me of the previous bidding for catapults and arresting gears, which were also being produced in advance. They were produced too early. This is an interesting situation.
Additionally, CVN-20 will not appear immediately after CVN-19.
Additionally, CVN-20 will not appear immediately after CVN-19.
Do you mean 2nd loop of the nuclear power plant by "the secondary circuit equipment"? If so, it is an integral part of the nuclear reactor that has to be built at the same time as the core (first loop). In fact, when referring reactor it is every equipments in all loops. Even the turbine should be included since the demand of dimension, assembly and pressure/pluming demands are specific to the reactor.
No such announcement has been made. The admiral just said there was no technological bottleneck for the 4th carrier. But we don't even know what they plan for the 4th carrier.
"Reactor" can refer to the reactor body.
Reactor + RCP+ SG + Pressurizer + ... = NSSS (Nuclear Steam Supply System)
NSSS + Steam and Power Conversion System + ... = Nuclear Power Plant
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