001A, 002, 002A, 003. LOL the further these purely fanboi-based designations go the more laughable they become.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Who exactly have been making forecast for 2050 on this board? I don't remember reading anyone doing that here. Can you point to the related postings?
I think people are making some educated guess about the evolutionary trajectory of China's carrier program, given what we've observed, heard or based on China's geopolitical and economic interest. I think it's a very reasonable thing to do. Carriers constitute the focal point of China's blue water naval development strategy, from which other ships both in types and quantity are built around. It is therefore important and meaningful to assess the eventual size and scale of its carrier program, at least for the short- to medium- term.
Now, from a lot of disclosed sources and authoritative public statements so far, most reasonable China defense observers would agree that China is targeting for eventual nuclear-powered carriers, but it will take some time to get there. It's therefore become broadly accepted to designate the classes of China's carriers likely to evolve and build as 001, 002 and 003, each represents a generation of carriers with significant progress in capabilities. They're generally considered to be conventional STOBAR, conventional CATOBAR, and nuclear CATOBAR. Granted, these are not sanctioned officially by PLAN, but they're a good framework for discussion; 001, 001A and 002 are now terms adopted broadly both on military forums and by Chinese state media (By the way, I believe it was pop3 who started to disclose and use these designations). People can discuss and disagree what exactly constitutes 002 and speculate how many carriers of each class PLAN will likely to build. For example, there's been an on-going discussion/debate of whether 002 should be equipped with steam catapults or EMALS. Others argue whether it makes sense to build one more 002 before starting 003. A few even thinks 002 will be a Ulyanovsk, which I found highly unlikely and a weird suggestion in 2016 given what we already know (it might be a reasonable conjecture five years ago).
So suggesting PLAN should build an additional 002, conveniently called 002A is different from actually seeing that ship is being built or officially confirmed by PLAN that it will be built. This is different from confirming which J-10B is serving which division/regiment or which 052D is home-ported at which base, an exercise that I know you're fond of and are good at.
Remember we're talking about projecting PLAN's most strategic program, based on facts and logic. There are rooms for discussion/debate, clearly, but even so, these unofficial/semi-official designations provide a good framework. I've seen some members (relatively new ones) arguing against these more or less established terms and came up with their own. While anyone is free to do that, I'm afraid that is not very helpful and contributing much to the discussion of substance. It's also unlikely to be accepted broadly, unless some significantly developments validate them in some way.
No one has made any meaningful forecasts up to 2050.
The most tentative forecasts that have been made only go to 2030, and the most concrete forecasts we have are for the 2020-2025 timespan at best.
Who are you referring to here, I wonder? Little ole me? While you are free to decide for yourself what is helpful to you, you certainly don't get to decide for others how helpful designations are for them. Also, I didn't come up with my own, as if I invented any new designations. This says to me that you don't understand the purpose of the discussion on which designations to use. As I have said before, I prefer to use to hull numbers, like CV-16, CV-17, CV-18, etc. It is a hull designation in active use by the PLAN itself; do you dispute this or the likelihood that future carriers will increase their hull numbers by one digit at a time? It is also completely class-neutral and avoids any personal bias on the perceived speed of evolution in Chinese carrier design.
On the other hand, class designations like 001, 001A, 001B, 002, 002A, 003 are not actually used by ANY official PLAN sources and represents the personal opinions of online netizens. So pop3 started using these designations several years ago. Well that's all fine and good, but did he actually and specifically say that he thinks these are the actual designators used by the PLAN internally to refer to their carriers? Please post a link to such a statement from him. Or is this a personal schema that he decided would be a good system for designating carriers, with the rest of the Chinese military watching internet community subsequently deciding to run with it for lack of any real substantive knowledge? Remember that just because it's on the internet and has been around doesn't mean it is the actual truth. You may say that it's been around for so long and is as good as any to use, but I have been pointing out that clearly it has limitations, with various people not understanding which carriers other people are referring to with their own personal sub-designations, like 001B and 002A, and getting into arguments about how various designations make China look slower or less advanced, or politically or financially constrained, or whatever other bias you want to insert. Such an arbitrary and essentially personalized system of class designations ruins the objectivity of Chinese carrier discussion. And now we are even talking about a "003". Did pop3 start using this number recently? Can you attribute the veracity of this designation to his august pronouncements? People seem to be making up all sorts of personal designations off the coattails of pop3's original schema which itself is not necessarily reflective of any inside knowledge.
If you refer to future Chinese carriers by their hull numbers, you can be free to talk about whatever capability you think a given future hull will have without boxing yourself or someone else in by a purely hypothetical designator like "001B" or "002" or "002A". This incoherent potpourri of theoretical class designations is what is not helpful to the discussion of Chinese carriers. If I refer to a future Chinese carrier by the hull number "CV-18", do you somehow not know which carrier I am referring to? How about if I start talking about a "001C"? Do you know which carrier I am talking about now?
Intrepid
Major
You refer to the third ship with the same purpose as CV-16 Liaoning (CV-16, CV-17, CV-18, ...). May be the third training & development aircraft carrier.
The fourth version of a type 001 Liaoning-class ship (type 001, type 001A, type 001B, type 001C, ...).
Who are you referring to here, I wonder? Little ole me? While you are free to decide for yourself what is helpful to you, you certainly don't get to decide for others how helpful designations are for them. Also, I didn't come up with my own, as if I invented any new designations. This says to me that you don't understand the purpose of the discussion on which designations to use. As I have said before, I prefer to use to hull numbers, like CV-16, CV-17, CV-18, etc. It is a hull designation in active use by the PLAN itself; do you dispute this or the likelihood that future carriers will increase their hull numbers by one digit at a time? It is also completely class-neutral and avoids any personal bias on the perceived speed of evolution in Chinese carrier design.
On the other hand, class designations like 001, 001A, 001B, 002, 002A, 003 are not actually used by ANY official PLAN sources and represents the personal opinions of online netizens. So pop3 started using these designations several years ago. Well that's all fine and good, but did he actually and specifically say that he thinks these are the actual designators used by the PLAN internally to refer to their carriers? Please post a link to such a statement from him. Or is this a personal schema that he decided would be a good system for designating carriers, with the rest of the Chinese military watching internet community subsequently deciding to run with it for lack of any real substantive knowledge? Remember that just because it's on the internet and has been around doesn't mean it is the actual truth. You may say that it's been around for so long and is as good as any to use, but I have been pointing out that clearly it has limitations, with various people not understanding which carriers other people are referring to with their own personal sub-designations, like 001B and 002A, and getting into arguments about how various designations make China look slower or less advanced, or politically or financially constrained, or whatever other bias you want to insert. Such an arbitrary and essentially personalized system of class designations ruins the objectivity of Chinese carrier discussion. And now we are even talking about a "003". Did pop3 start using this number recently? Can you attribute the veracity of this designation to his august pronouncements? People seem to be making up all sorts of personal designations off the coattails of pop3's original schema which itself is not necessarily reflective of any inside knowledge.
If you refer to future Chinese carriers by their hull numbers, you can be free to talk about whatever capability you think a given future hull will have without boxing yourself or someone else in by a purely hypothetical designator like "001B" or "002" or "002A". This incoherent potpourri of theoretical class designations is what is not helpful to the discussion of Chinese carriers. If I refer to a future Chinese carrier by the hull number "CV-18", do you somehow not know which carrier I am referring to? How about if I start talking about a "001C"? Do you know which carrier I am talking about now?
While I understand that hull numbers are a clearer way of distinguishing successive carriers without the issue of potential characteristics between any "classes," it also means we lose out on a lot of the widely circulated and rumoured characteristics that have been associated with the 001A, 002 class designations.
The benefit of these 001A, 002 designations that I see, is they are meant to encapsulate certain characteristics, so whether or not they are an official designation by the Navy itself is not really that relevant for us watchers. Instead, those designations still allows us to understand broadly what the kind of ship they are talking about when someone mentions 002 instead of say, 001A.
I for one think that it would be very detrimental to the conversation if the discussion about carriers loses the information about characteristics which have been assigned to the respective "classes".
I agree that having hypothetical designations (such as 001B, 002A, or 003) that have yet to be used by any big shrimps is not very useful because it could cause the potential for confusion of whether such designations are actually "legitimate," but I believe so long as they are explicitly described as hypothetical then there is nothing wrong with using it.
If they are seen as "fanboyism" then simply pointing out that those designations are not used in circulation yet, I think should be enough for people to make up their own minds about the veracity of those designations.
As for being clear about "which" carrier one is talking about, I think that can simply be resolved by saying "x domestic carrier".
For instance, if I believe that the third Chinese domestic carrier will be a hypothetical modification of 002, then I might say "third Chinese domestic carrier, 002A". Obviously I'd have no evidence or rumours to support such a belief (we know little to nothing about what's happening after the second domestic carrier/002), but that would be a viable example.
Now, I don't think you're coming up with your own designations out of the blue (CV-18, CV-19 etc only), and obviously you have no obligation to use 00X designations. But I do think that by not using 00X designations, it would leave out a substantial chunk of likely relevant information for the discussion. Using only CV-XX designations means we have no clue what those carriers may look like, and that is arguably as important for the discussion as knowing when those carriers may arrive.
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I also think your mocking of the 00X designations also is not helpful; if you choose not to use them, then at least spare those of us who do use them.
Uh, no. CV-16 is not merely a "training and development aircraft carrier" any more than CV-17 will be. Or CV-18 for that matter.
Which may actually be "003" to someone else because they personally believe that the fourth carrier will not be in the Liaoning family, or the 002 family. Note that "believe" is the operative word here. OR, you could just call it the "fourth carrier", aka CV-19.
Intrepid
Major
Let us wait until 001A gets its number.
If it is a version of Liaoning, it is 001x. If not, it is 00x. Do you understand the system of classes (001, 002, 003, ...) and versions (00x, 00xA, 00xB, ...)? Same hull with same propulsion = same class.
What you see as a benefit I see as unnecessary biased opinion. I also see these designations being used to push certain personally favored characteristics as a form of stolen authority. "Well clearly pop3/xyz/whatever shrimp used the term '002', so clearly this means that this carrier will have [fill in the blank]". There is also absolutely nothing constraining you from expounding on what you think CV-18 will look like, while "002" means you are claiming without evidence that CV-18 will be an entirely different class from CV-16/17. Also, note that "002" doesn't actually capture ANY characteristic apart from it being a different class from 001/A. Does "002" mean nuclear? Does it mean CATOBAR? Does it mean 80,000+ tons? That you feel these designations capture information in addition to class distinctions simply means that you have inserted your own biases into these designations,.
Adding the word "domestic" is already confusing enough. Is the ex-Varyag not domestic enough even though essentially just the hull and propulsion are foreign? People may disagree with you on that. Adding that on top of a class designation that people may also not agree with just adds to the entirely muddled conversation that recent Chinese carrier discussion has turned into. It sounds like "third Chinese domestic carrier, 002A" is a spectacularly convoluted attempt to refer to a carrier by anything other than "CV-19", which is what that carrier would be.
I'm not sure which individuals you've seen using designations like 001A or 002 to describe characteristics as a form of "stolen authority" -- some people have used hypothetical designations like 001B or 002A or 003, but in most cases I believe they were spoken in full knowledge that those designations have yet to be used by credible individuals in any meaningful capacity.
But the characteristics for 001A and 002 at this stage have mostly been consistent by people who have used them, and if they are used in a way which broaches the characteristics circulated by the rumours then more often than not that is pointed out to the individual in question, no harm done.
Like it or not, rumours are central to PLA watching, and they help to limit our area of uncertainty as to what a certain product or system could look like or is meant to be, to provide a consensus until new information comes to light. Obviously the interpretation of those rumours will be up to one's own biases, but then again any indicators or evidence can always be modified based on one's own biases.
That's why we have discussions to debate what various rumours can mean, and to use those discussions to reach a likely consensus, while fully understanding that new information or rumours could turn previous consensuses up on its head.
But that depends on everyone agreeing on some fundamentals first, like the role of rumours and big shrimps in PLA watching. I suppose you could call this a bias that differentiates the various sides if you really want to.
And FYI, at this point the current consensus based on existing rumours is that 002 will be a conventionally powered CATOBAR carrier whose full displacement has been described to be between below 80k tons and slightly above 80k tons.The exact type of conventional propulsion, the number of catapults, etc, are unknown or at least lacking in solid support.
That is information gleaned over years of occasional posts by various big shrimps. I'm not sure how long you've been PLA watching but I think if you go onto most PLA related forums and ask what 002 will look like, most of the people who have been part of the community for longer periods would likely give a description very similar to what I provided.
Now, I can understand your skepticism towards rumours and even see interpretations of rumours as biases, but that's just how the game is played. Back when J-20 was still J-XX in the mid to late 2000s a consensus had already been reached on what the aircraft would likely look like. In the early 2010s, a consensus had already been reached about what kind of carrier the Navy would want after ex-Varyag (then unnamed) was commissioned, years before 001A began construction.
The record is not time-perfect on every single instance, and everyone knows that new rumours can change the equation. But to reject all that, and reduce the discussion to only the simplest and most basic of aspects, and then to call people's differing interpretations of rumours and discussion as fanboyism is frankly a little bit offensive to the methodology and the very respectable history of predictions that have been made through the interpretation and critical analysis of rumours.
Well you could call it CV-19, 002A if you want.
For me, it is important to distinguish what that carrier is actually meant to look like and that's where the 00X designation comes in.