Thread: Chinese Aircraft Carrier?

I've always been fascinated by China's rapid development and nose-bleed rate of change, and how the country expresses its new wealth, technology and power.

Anyway, I've been following the changes to their navy particularly closely, especially in regard to what they're doing to the Varyag (you know, that old half complete Soviet aircraft carrier they purchased some years ago).

They appear to have finished work on the hull and deck and are starting on the island.

They've also built a full sized mock up of Varyag's deck and hanger, presumably for training purposes, or to work out how they're going to use the limited space effectively.

THE RISING SEA DRAGON IN ASIA - 2010 UPDATE

Along with their new LPD, it's jolly interesting!

Interesting stuff, Muffins.

I never realized how "non-engineer" my brain is until I looked at those pictures. It would never, ever have occured to me to build a mockup of the deck of a ship on dry land like that, where it could later be used for other purposes.

Soooo... did they install one of these?

Aircraft carriers would seem to be a waste of time in a era when the chinese have supersonic missiles that can kill one. We have no defence against these.



source

The U.S. Navy can’t stop China’s most sophisticated anti-ship missile — and won’t even start testing a defense until 2014.
"Most anti-ship cruise missiles fly below the speed of sound and on a straight path, making them easier to track and target," notes Bloomberg News‘ Tony Capaccio. Not China’s so-called "Sizzler" missile, already aboard eight Kilo-class submarines.

The Sizzler starts at subsonic speeds. Within 10 nautical miles of its target, a rocket-propelled warhead separates and accelerates to three times the speed of sound, flying no more than 10 meters (33 feet) above sea level. On final approach, the missile ‘has the potential to perform very high defensive maneuvers,’ including sharp-angled dodges, the Office of Naval Intelligence said in a manual on worldwide maritime threats.

The Navy doesn’t have a test target that can mimic how the Sizzler flies. They haven’t even "picked a contractor to develop the test target," Capaccio notes. Industry proposals for building the target missile were received in February and a contract valued at about
$107 million will be awarded by Oct. 1 for a 54-month development phase and first fielding by 2014."

Admiral Timothy Keating, who heads the U.S. Pacific Command, told the House Armed Services Committee last month that “we are currently not as capable of defending against that missile as I would like.”.....

Originally Posted by Dutch

Aircraft carriers would seem to be a waste of time in a era when the chinese have supersonic missiles that can kill one. We have no defence against these.



source

If they can kill our carriers, surely we can kill theirs as well. Are carriers obsolete, then, or only if there were a shooting war between the US and China?

Of course, if that happened, then we'd both pretty much be toast anyway, wouldn't we?

I've always viewed carriers as something you use against much weaker opponents, at least here in the modern age.

Originally Posted by Dittohead not

If they can kill our carriers, surely we can kill theirs as well. Are carriers obsolete, then, or only if there were a shooting war between the US and China?

Of course, if that happened, then we'd both pretty much be toast anyway, wouldn't we?

I'm guessing no one really knows. By that I mean we went into war after pearl harbor absolutely convinced we needed battleships, which were so necessary duing ww 1. As it turned out carriers were indespensible.

When I shipped out into the med back in the 70's on my aircraft carrier they told us that in the event of a war with the soviet union our ship had a life expectancy of some 15 minutes because of their cruisers were armed with really good ship to ship missles. We had no defence against those at the time. Since it took us at least 30 to deploy one f4 phantom I thought I knew we were there to "show the flag" and die if necessary.

However, duing the yom kippur war we served as a floating platform to arm and fuel replacement aircraft flown in from airbases into israel to replace those shot down by the soviet supplied anti-aircraft missles supplied to egypt.

So, there you have it. Carriers may or may not be the right tool for the job depending on what that job is. Then again, ya never know when they might come in real handy in ways you never intended. They were very useful during the indonesian earthquake.

Originally Posted by muffins

I've always viewed carriers as something you use against much weaker opponents, at least here in the modern age.

You might just be right. I honestly don't know. I thought an investment in stealth technology ships would be a good investment but the navy seems to disagree.