CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Blitzo

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Stolen from teiba. From Qingdao naval museum.
View attachment 73984

This is a good example of a picture/model whose veracity and seriousness can be quickly dismissed just by a brief glance.
Specifically -- the models of aircraft on the flight deck are clearly J-10s. Obviously given this carrier is depicting a carrier "19" (i.e.: a carrier to be built in the future, after CV-18), we know that there is no possibility of navalized J-10s being pursued in the future given what we know about J-15 and J-XY being the carrier based fighters of the near future.

Other things that should lend itself against anything serious, is that the ship has what looks like three VLS modules in the port/aft sponson alongside its CIWS complement, which is a bit doubtful of a layout to begin with. VLS onboard power projection ships like carriers or LHDs is not unprecedented -- there are some ships with that layout -- but ships that feature VLS tend to lack the extent of CIWS that Chinese carriers have (or how heavy the CIWS of this model is).

The island/bridge and position of the mast basically rules out a smoke stack, meaning it implies that "19" is meant to be a nuclear carrier... which is also somewhat doubtful. Assuming 003 is designated CV-18, the idea that their next carrier will be a CVN is very very unlikely.
The island/mast/primary radar configuration is also odd.

Finally, the miniature KJ-2000 -- yes, that's just a KJ-2000 on the landing strip -- that is completely out of scale with everything else depicted in the model.



Of course, this is just a brief review of the model and why it's rubbish and why posting it here should be accompanied by a big caveat of "this model doesn't mean anything".


The only reason to post this picture should be to point out that it is not representative of anything and that it's nothing worthy of our interest.
 

GTI

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The island/bridge and position of the mast basically rules out a smoke stack, meaning it implies that "19" is meant to be a nuclear carrier... which is also somewhat doubtful. Assuming 003 is designated CV-18, the idea that their next carrier will be a CVN is very very unlikely.
The island/mast/primary radar configuration is also odd.
Are you sure they didn’t just move the JL-3s to those VLS in the port sponson?!





(To be safe, this is a joke everyone)
 

SpicySichuan

Senior Member
Registered Member
Interesting, it’s probably not accurate since it has J-20s and J-10s on it. I see some VLS on it, plus a Gerald Ford-style island.
Some Chinese military museums are known to hire incompetent staffs with regards to making models or photoshops. I remember traveling to Whampoa Military Academy site back in 2014, and the adjacent naval base had a propaganda billboard showing USS Nimitz and claimed that it was a hypothetical future PLAN carrier.
 
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