OT: China's new carrier

[dragoon500ly]

Well if any one has missed this...

The PRC has moved their former Russian Kiev-class carrier from the status of floating casino to major naval combatant (like nobody saw that one coming).

The news site that I saw this report on talked about the balance of power shifting from the US to the PRC and how the PRC would be able to contest control of the Pacific.

I was left sitting going WTF

Now I am a cav trooper and any intrest I have in the Navy is strictly from a war-gaming stand point (Harpoon Rules!!!). But the Chinese are not going to be able to dispute control of the Pacific anytime soon, at least not with their latest toy.

The Kiev's were not considered to be very effective aircraft carriers, their major claim was the very heavy SSM, SAM armament that they carried. This heavy missile armament meant that they couldn't carry a large air group, they could not carry the fuel for extensive operations by the air group and they did not have the magazine space to support the air group. Even if the Chinese scrap the missile armament, it is believed that the carrier could not support more than 30-40 aircraft at the most (a typical US carrier can field about 85 aircraft).

There is one other point that the media has missed. China didn't build the carrier. They have no sisters under construction in any shipyard. It appears that this will be the only carrier that they will have for quite some time.

The USN, at the peak of the Cold War fielded 15 carriers, of which at least 5 were in port for minor repairs or undergoing major maintenance. A naval officer in my office laughs about this, stating that the Chinese carrier would most likely spend as much as 6-7 months of each year, in port. And since it is already an older ship, they may get as much as a dozen years of service out of her.

The only nations that are really threatned by the new Chinese ship are the Phillipines, Vietnam and Indonesia, all of whom are disupting fishing rights and oil drilling with the PRC. This will most likely result in the USN deploying 1-2 SSNs into the area whenever the carrier sails, and may see a more frequent deployment of a US carrier task group into the region.

The greatest threat that the US is facing from the Chinese (at least in a naval sort of way) is the deployment of new anti-ship missiles.

Still, reporters are proclaiming that the launching of this carrier means the end of US control of the Pacific......

[ShadoWarrior]

Still, reporters are proclaiming that the launching of this carrier means the end of US control of the Pacific

Of course they are. Because if the corporate-lackey media doesn't raise enough of a fuss then when the calls start coming in (soon) for the US to spend several hundred billion more on a new arms race and naval build-up no one will take it seriously enough to get the bills passed through Congress, despite however much lobbying the US military-industrial-politico axis does.

[Tegyrius]

The country that needs to be taking China's ongoing naval buildup very seriously is India.

- C.

[Panther Al]

I've kept a close eye on the ChiCom CV: This one really doesn't worry people in itself: Everyone seems to agree that its purpose in life is as a training platform more than a combat ship. Which doesn't mean that they won't use it for showing the flag exercises. Now, as far as more of them being made: There is no doubt that they are going blue water in a big way: but that's 15 years in the future.

And yes. India sees this, and they are going ape as you might expect. I can't recall off hand details, but they are also looking at seriously beefing up the blue water aspects of the Indian Fleet.

[95th Rifleman]

I've kept a close eye on the ChiCom CV: This one really doesn't worry people in itself: Everyone seems to agree that its purpose in life is as a training platform more than a combat ship. Which doesn't mean that they won't use it for showing the flag exercises. Now, as far as more of them being made: There is no doubt that they are going blue water in a big way: but that's 15 years in the future.

And yes. India sees this, and they are going ape as you might expect. I can't recall off hand details, but they are also looking at seriously beefing up the blue water aspects of the Indian Fleet.

India are going through their own modernisation with some pretty sexy toys. Thier Pars are using the new Israeli TAR-21 assault rifle and their airforce is in a joint program with Russia to build the SU-50 which will be a direct rival to the American YF-22 and JSF aircraft.

Personaly I'm more interested in keeping an eye on India. It won't be the forst time a country pulls a fast one while eyes are focused on an apparently greater threat elsewhere in the region.

[RN7]

China has been planning to put carriers into their fleet for a long time, probably since the mid-1980's, and have brought four carriers in various states of operationality and under various guises; The Australian Melbourne, two ex-Soviet Kiev's and the incomplete Soviet Varyag, a sister ship to the Russian Kuznetsov. The Varyag (Shi Lang) would represent the best that China could hope to put out into the Pacific, and it would be little more than a flag shower as it or the Chinese navy would be seriously outclassed by a US navy carrier battle group, and the US navy currently has 11 carriers in service, excluding new builds, carriers in the reserve and the amphibous assault carriers.

The reporters on the website you read probably don't have a clue about the capability of Chinese owned aircraft carriers in comparison to US carriers.

However China does have plans to build its own carriers. Two carriers of similar dimensions to the Varyag are supposedly being planned or even building at the moment, and there is even a report that China plans to build two Type 089 nuclear powered carriers. The reliability and believability of all this is questionable, although it is likely that China does plan to eventually build its own carriers in the future.

[dragoon500ly]

I've been talking with a couple of the naval officers in my office and I know that a lot of what is going on can't be talked about due to security, but this is the opinion of two naval aviators and a sub-driver....

China wants to build a blue water navy. The on-going disputes over the Spratley Islands (and yes my spell kecker ain't working this early!) as well as a desire to be in a position to apply more pressure on Taiwan seem to be their major objectives. The aviators believe that they want to build a fleet with 3-5 medium-sized carriers sometime within the next decade or two. The smaller carriers will give them a decent capability in their area of intrest while not costing as much as a US carrier. They were most intrested in the composition of the Chinese air groups since this will hint as to the carriers role; air-defense of the fleet, anti-submarine or strike.

The sub-driver wasn't too worried about it. His opinion is that PACFLT will simply keep 1-2 SSNs in the area to monitor the situation. After all, surface targets are surface targets. The melee in the lunchroom was on!

None of the people I've talked with were very concerned about a Chinese-Indian naval build-up. Both countries simply don't have the auxiliaries to support major fleet operations in each other's area. Perhaps escalations over Tibet, maybe an accident with fighters, but the chance of a naval confrontation was consider to be remote.

Like the old saying goes, amatuers study tactics, professionals study logistics. The general opinion is that when the Chinese start building auxiliaries then they will become more of a threat.

[ShadoWarrior]

Auxiliaries don't take nearly as long to build as warships, and could be created out of merchant hulls if necessary. And the Chinese have plenty of merchant hulls they could quickly convert.

[dragoon500ly]

And that is true. The area of special concern are oilers. Naval oilers are equipped to refuel warships alongside. This does require special equipment and those ships with this equipment are tracked.

Oilers can also refuel astern, this doesn't require any special equipment, after all, you simply pass a hose along a rope line. But it is slow and is often prone to breakage. Again, a naval oiler has the additional equipment needed to refuel in all three positions (abeam and astern).

Its the amount of time needed to convert that seems to be most up in the air. If the hull of the merchantman was strengthed to support derricks, then the equipment can be mounted in as little as four days. If it doesn't have the support structure in place, then it can take longer, as much as two weeks, to complete the conversion.

Undersea replinishment is a bit more complex than simply pulling alongside and opening up the cargo hatches. A lot of modern merchantmen simply don't have the derricks to unload themselves any more, being little more than carriers of bulk material or container ships.

[ShadoWarrior]

Since strengthening the hull of a ship is not visible to satellite surveillance, and adding derricks probably wouldn't require drydocking the ship, we probably wouldn't know about it until the ship sailed, unless we got lucky and spotted the mod work during those few days. Which is doubtful, as the Chinese have a lot of docks for our satellites to observe (and the humans who have to study the pics). Basically, the Chinese can easily create the required logistics train whenever they get the warships needed to project a blue water threat.

I'd be more concerned about tracking Chinese ASW capabilities than tracking their logistics capabilities. I doubt that the Chicoms have ignored the lessons from WW2 and what the US did to Japan.

[dragoon500ly]

You wouldn't need to drydock a ship in order to convert it to an auxiliary role. It would require the services of a shipyard, however. As to if the US monitors their shipyards. I don't know for certain, but I'd be willing to place a small wager that the US does keep an eye on their shipyards.

China is not near as vulnerable to submarine warfare as Japan is (was). Taking the time to flip through a copy of Combat Fleets of the World, China is still a navy intended for coastal defense. Yes they are building up blue-water units, but it will be several years before China reaches a level where they can be a serious player in the Pacific.

Having said that, its the Chinese development of extended-range anti-ship missiles that worries the USN. The development of the so-called anti-carrier ballistic missile can only be seen as a direct threat against PACFLT. This is one of the reason's behind the USN's new intrest in anti-missile defense (at least until some idiot politicain decides to kill the program and build another eight-lane highway to nowhere in his district).

A lot of the intrest right now is concerning the possible air group mix of their new toy. Will it be a VTOL/STOL or pure rotor or fixed wing The composition of their air group will be a key indicator of just what mission is intended for their carrier.

Well, its time to fire up the ole BBQ and herd the heathens outside and let them expend energy in chasing each other around the yard. Enjoy your Sunday!

[atiff]

Wait, don't forget this one!

http://maps.google.com/ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Shanghai,+China&ll=31.10508,121.014479&spn=0.002398,0.005284&t=h&z=18

(set to 'Satellite' image)

http://www.bobhenneman.info/china.htm

I went there last year, although no time to go 'on board'. Kinda fun.

[ShadoWarrior]

Dragoon, I think you misunderstood my comment regarding Chicom ASW, because I didn't write it very clearly. Sorry. It has little to do with China being vulnerable economically as they Japanese were/are. It's about how the Chinese are vulnerable to our SSNs killing their blue water assets before they get to use them. In WW2 US subs ranged far ahead of the fleets taking shots at anything of value. In any shooting war, US SSNs wouldn't just be guarding CBGs, there would also be quite a few of them out by themselves hunting and killing the enemy. The US worries about protecting the CBGs from Chicom ship-killing missiles. The Chicoms in turn worry about protecting their ships from US subs. Hence when (not if) the Chicoms ramp up building ASW assets then we need to really worry. CBGs are a force-projection tool. But subs are primarily for sea-denial. And in a war it's at least as important (and arguably more important) to deny the enemy use of the sea than to project friendly force.

[RN7]

Here is the Varyag at Dalian.

[headquarters]

Chinese expansion

The Chinese are expanding in to Africa and Asia. They will eventually need capacity for force projection acroos the oceans. But I agree with those here who point out that the USN is just to far ahead of all others to be in any serious peril for the forseeable future. I guess we could try to guesstimate when a serious contender for the naval supremacy might come along - and who that might be.

China could have a shot in the future if their economy soars and the US keeps dragging on. I have little doubt that the expertise to build such vessel would be available to thr Chinese should they put effort into that field.

But I dont see how any other navy or even any other alliance of navies could actually best the USN. Inflict terrible losses - maybe. But win the war at sea I dont see it in a hundred years.