CN Technical Problems, Slowing Economy Cut China’s Carrier Ambitions - Plans to build more than four aircraft carriers apparently put on hold.

Technical Problems, Slowing Economy Cut China’s Carrier Ambitions

Plans to build more than four aircraft carriers apparently put on hold.

thediplomat.com

China’s rapidly developed aircraft carrier program – once expected to grow to a fleet of six or more ships in the next decade – may now be limited to four hulls by budgetary and technical constraints.
The PLA Navy has two aircraft carriers afloat, the Liaoning, a re-fitted ex-Soviet carrier, and an indigenously built evolution of the Liaoning design, the Type 001A that launched in 2018 and currently undergoing sea trials. A third larger, more advanced design, the Type 002, has been under construction since 2017 and a second of that type is planned. The South China Morning Post reports that those two Type 002 carriers will be completed, but that a planned fifth carrier and a future nuclear-powered carrier design have been put on hold.

This is a significant contraction of China’s carrier ambitions. Earlier this year, Chinese naval experts claimed that the PLA Navy would have at least six carrier groups by 2035 and that four of them would be led by nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Chinese President Xi Jinping tasked the PLA to complete modernization by 2035.

But internal military sources told the SCMP that engineers were struggling to overcome technical challenges with the Type 002 and also lacked the expertise to translate its experience with nuclear-powered submarines to propel a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier design. “There is no plan to build more aircraft carriers,” the source said.

If this is true, it appears to have been a rapid change in the PLA Navy’s strategic direction. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank, procured commercial satellite images earlier this year that show China has added massive new shipbuilding infrastructure to the facilities currently building the Type 002 carrier. A CSIS expert told Reuters that “It is hard to imagine all this is being done for just one ship. This looks more like a specialized space for carriers and or other larger vessels.”

China’s carrier ambitions, and the new shipbuilding infrastructure that appears to have been built to support that ambition, may have been products of a more hopeful strategic environment and more generous economic situation. Over the summer, military sources told the South China Morning Post that the PLA Navy was reconsidering its shipbuilding plans in light of China’s slowing economy and the massive costs associated with not only building a large modern fleet, but operating and maintaining it. These decisions would not just affect aircraft carriers, but China’s advanced new destroyers and amphibious assault ships as well.

The spiraling costs of China’s new fleet highlights the uncertain strategic return on its investment. Aircraft carriers are only as effective as the aircraft that can take off from it, and China faces even greater technical barriers to building advanced, next-generation carrier aircraft than it does making the carriers work for them to take off from. “China may need 10 to 20 years to develop a new generation of carrier-based warplanes, meaning the J-15 is likely to be the main warhorse for some time, despite it still having engine and flight control problems,” once source told the SCMP. Without new aircraft, the combat capability of China’s carrier fleet will remain at a significant disadvantage to the United States’.

Further, with the Liaoning and first Type 002, half of China’s carrier fleet will also be beset by so-called “first-in-class problems,” technical and engineering issues that aren’t apparent in new designs until the ships begin to be operated. Some of these problems can never be completely corrected, leading to the first ships of new designs having more limited capability than subsequent ships of the same design. For these reasons, the PLA Navy originally envisioned Liaoning filling only training and testing roles, not an operational combat one.

But If China’s carrier fleet is ultimately limited to only four hulls, having one relegated exclusively to training significantly reduces its capacity to conduct operations. As a result, the PLA Navy says that it is upgrading the Liaoning to be able to serve some combat role. In April, senior officers on the Liaoning told Chinese state media that “The Liaoning is shifting from a training and test ship to a combat ship. I believe this process is going faster and faster, and we will achieve our goal very soon.”

China may also be coming to terms with the challenges that its carrier fleet would face operating within the so-called first island chain. Southeast Asian navies have been rapidly expanding and modernizing their submarine fleets. Singapore is procuring four advanced submarines from Germany, Indonesia is buying and indigenously assembling a new submarine fleet from South Korea, and Vietnam has been procuring a fleet of advanced Russian submarines.

Armed with modern torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, these submarines could severely limit the ability of China’s aircraft carriers to operate freely in the South China Sea in a conflict. Elsewhere in the western Pacific, South Korea and Japan both produce advanced indigenous submarines, and Taiwan is developing its own domestic submarine program. And outside the first island chain, China’s carriers would have to face the United States’ premier nuclear-powered and modernizing submarine fleet.

Faced with greater technical challenges and lower operational effectiveness than expected, an increasingly threatening operating environment, spiraling costs, and a slowing economy, China’s possible decision to truncate it aircraft carrier fleet looks less surprising and more like strategic prudence.

-End of Article-​

While China's Navy is advancing rapidly, we should not believe for one second that they are infallible. The US and regional allies are in the process of countering the Chinese buildup, and it is starting to appear that we may have a little bit more time than anticipated.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Just imagine what if China's troubles with its carrier nuclear program goes the way of Fukushima?...

And have zero deaths related to the reactor itself? Doesn't seem bad to me.

 

[Manwithn0n0men]

China'a pollution output would increase by 1%.

And their super mutant population would go up by 2

 

[TowinKarz]

You can get things done rapidly when all it takes is a dictator's word to put something into action. However, some things are better done carefully, by people who have long earned their positions by way of merit rather than favor.

There's a reason why the opening of Barbarossa was so disastrous to the Soviets, selecting Generals based on who claps longest and hardest at Party meetings and shooting those who can't turn back a panzer division with eight loose rifle rounds and a rusty field kitchen for "defeatism" is actually a pretty dumb idea, who knew?

This is the real reason they're pissed the US is hardlining them on trade, the cost of building all this shit was probably projected to be there 8 - 10 years ago when, had things continued, it would have been, and another dopey "be nice to the world" President would be cutting ever-more favorable deals. But every deal in the works dropping dead at the stroke of midnight on Election Night 2016 has proved more crippling than every bomb in the USN's arsenal.

 

[Goofy Logic]

To be fair, Britian and the US had World War 2 to learn about operating aircraft carriers. Sometimes hands-on mistakes in active combat make for some good teaching.

Yeah, this has been obvious to Naval historians and observers for awhile now. When it comes to Carriers, the US, Brits and French make it look easy. (Of the modern carrier equipped navies). Largely because their navies developed Carriers organically from the days of the converted coal barges, learned the basic baby steps through the piston engine propeller craft, eventually evolving to jets and modern super carriers. Learning, 1000’s of lessons and developing tightly interwoven operational doctrine and technology as they went. Modern Carriers are simply the small visible point of a vast web of skills, technology, resources, doctrine, and most importantly expenses. It’s very very hard to jump right into the advanced carrier jet operations when you have no history of getting there.

 

[Trig.Point]

China's problem is that their biggest source of technical aid Russia, never really solved all of the issues involved in operating High Performance Jets from Aircraft carriers before the Soviet Union fell. They have a single carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov, but it uses a ramp rather than catapults, which places a lot of restrictions on how the planes operate.

Without Russian or French answers, they have to develop everything themselves, which can be a slow process.

 

[Freddy Freaker]

You can get things done rapidly when all it takes is a dictator's word to put something into action. However, some things are better done carefully, by people who have long earned their positions by way of merit rather than favor.

What are you talking about comrade? It's only 3.6 roentgens. Not great, not terrible!

 

[Syaoran Li]

@MrTickles officially on suicide watch

Personally, I'm ecstatic over this bit of news. Fuck the People's Republic of China.

USA All The Way!

 

[thx1138]

Like @Syaoran Li I too am tickled pink about the chicom hordes not knowing how to build and operate aircraft carriers.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

I guess their inability to leverage American traitors had a severe impact on the Chinese aircraft carrier industry. Oh no that sucks

 

[RodgerDodger]

US and (to a lesser extent) Britain, yes.

Charles de Gaulle is kind of a piece of shit. It's a prime example of how it's actually not easy.

Give France props. They know how to properly operate a Nuclear Powered Catapult Launch Carrier with a full diverse air wing. No small accomplishment. But being French, they simply choose to let it fall apart around their ears while they argue over funding. Prior to the F-35B achieving operational status the Charles DeGaule was the only Non US Carrier that had extended range/time on station capabilities, could conduct simultaneous launch and landing operations and carried not simply it's strike/fighter aircraft, but it's own AWACS, Airborne Tankers, and Fixed Wing ASW aircraft. Just because they do this in their uniquely "french" way (ie the hard way, always the hard way) does not diminish that level of operational know how.

 

[BONE_Buddy]

Give France props. They know how to properly operate a Nuclear Powered Catapult Launch Carrier with a full diverse air wing. No small accomplishment. But being French, they simply choose to let it fall apart around their ears while they argue over funding. Prior to the F-35B achieving operational status the Charles DeGaule was the only Non US Carrier that had extended range/time on station capabilities, could conduct simultaneous launch and landing operations and carried not simply it's strike/fighter aircraft, but it's own AWACS, Airborne Tankers, and Fixed Wing ASW aircraft. Just because they do this in their uniquely "french" way (ie the hard way, always the hard way) does not diminish that level of operational know how.

Their operation knowhow is definitely not something to be denigrated. I would however, question their capability of building and maintaining more than one flattop at a time.

The capability to maintain a single system as an artisanal pseudo-prototype, as a Fleet in Being, is far different than being able to have a constant, significant, strategic presence around the world.

This is no knock against the French, or the British, or anyone else for that matter. For the time being, the only people who are able to even come close to that sort of capability is the United States. We pay dearly for this ability, and we are only just able to achieve it. The British lost their ability to maintain that sort of force, as it was too expensive to be worth it to them.

I say all of this because China is now finding out that this sort of project will cost them dearly, and it is up to them on whether they want to pay it.

 

[kcbbq]

Their operation knowhow is definitely not something to be denigrated. I would however, question their capability of building and maintaining more than one flattop at a time.

The capability to maintain a single system as an artisanal pseudo-prototype, as a Fleet in Being, is far different than being able to have a constant, significant, strategic presence around the world.

This is no knock against the French, or the British, or anyone else for that matter. For the time being, the only people who are able to even come close to that sort of capability is the United States. We pay dearly for this ability, and we are only just able to achieve it. The British lost their ability to maintain that sort of force, as it was too expensive to be worth it to them.

I say all of this because China is now finding out that this sort of project will cost them dearly, and it is up to them on whether they want to pay it.

It has always looked like they don't care. There's a picture of it cruising next to the Enterprise before it was retired. The 40 year old beast's flight deck looked pristine, while the fairly new de Gaulle looked like someone had parked their collection of old Chevy Novas on the deck leaking oil everywhere. It's a shame.



And don't forget the US has the Wasp class, which are essentially a fleet of carriers the size of everyone else's just with a load of LCACs in the belly. There's a lot more to becoming a match to the US's carriers than just the Nimitz and Ford classes.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Their operation knowhow is definitely not something to be denigrated. I would however, question their capability of building and maintaining more than one flattop at a time.

The capability to maintain a single system as an artisanal pseudo-prototype, as a Fleet in Being, is far different than being able to have a constant, significant, strategic presence around the world.

This is no knock against the French, or the British, or anyone else for that matter. For the time being, the only people who are able to even come close to that sort of capability is the United States. We pay dearly for this ability, and we are only just able to achieve it. The British lost their ability to maintain that sort of force, as it was too expensive to be worth it to them.

I say all of this because China is now finding out that this sort of project will cost them dearly, and it is up to them on whether they want to pay it.

I can't think of anything more French than "Artisanal Aircraft Carrier". If they had the will or the reason France probably could comfortably operate 2-3 Carrier Groups. At least in terms of resources. But it's France so priorities can easily be sidetracked. At least they aren't sacrificing their operational know how the way the Brits did. The Brits are having to relearn a lot with the QE and POW.

It has always looked like they don't care. There's a picture of it cruising next to the Enterprise before it was retired. The 40 year old beast's flight deck looked pristine, while the fairly new de Gaulle looked like someone had parked their collection of old Chevy Novas on the deck leaking oil everywhere. It's a shame.

View attachment 1038052

And don't forget the US has the Wasp class, which are essentially a fleet of carriers the size of everyone else's just with a load of LCACs in the belly. There's a lot more to becoming a match to the US's carriers than just the Nimitz and Ford classes.

The new evolution of the USS Wasp class is the USS America Class. The America, and Tripoli. They forego the Well deck in favor of more aircraft and Aircraft repair bays. F-35B's and MV-22B's. They carry about the same air compliment as the British QE's. In fact it was the workup and operations for the America that the US Marines used as the blueprint for helping the Brits get the QE ready for F-35B operations. And which the Japanese are now asking to be applied to their 2 Helicopter Assault ships, The Izumo and the Kaga (yeah no way that last one comes round to bite us in the ass...). The US Marines are also testing an aerial Tanker variant of the MV-22 Osprey so these ships can carry and conduct their own airborne refueling. (Because why not make an Osprey even more dangerous?). I suspect somebody is looking for a way to similarly bolt a long range airborne radar system onto one as that would start to give the "Harrier Carriers" the broader capabilities of the Fleet Carriers.

 

[pwnest injun]

China publicly rolling back their Carrier program might also be a sign of just how bad their economy is truthfully doing. Analysts will tell you to never believe what the Chinese say about their economy. Pay more attention to what they do. When you see visible signs of them scaling back massive national prestige projects. Things that would elevate them as a Super Power, that’s gonna be a much better idea of the economic situation.

They're running out of cash, and while they may export a lot of junk, the stuff they need to import is food and fuel and raw materials that they can only pay for in USD. So, every time they don't make a deal, they're just ticking down to the day that they run entirely out of cash and people end up starving in the streets. IMO, Trump needs to start asking for more and more favorable terms...

 

[Tour of Italy]

If China actually gets a blue-water navy on the scale of the US (they have a lonnnnnnnng way to go) then that's when global American hegemony will be truly threatened. No other nation besides Britain in the past has been able to project so much power from so far away compared to the other major powers from it's shores.

But they still have huge leaps to go if they want to equal the power of the 10 Nimitz carriers we have. Even if China did ascend to the same status as the US in terms of tonnage and firepower I would say the US has far more experience in maintaining, and efficiently using such a large navy than China so i'm honestly not that worried about it.

Yeah, this has been obvious to Naval historians and observers for awhile now. When it comes to Carriers, the US, Brits and French make it look easy. (Of the modern carrier equipped navies). Largely because their navies developed Carriers organically from the days of the converted coal barges, learned the basic baby steps through the piston engine propeller craft, eventually evolving to jets and modern super carriers. Learning, 1000’s of lessons and developing tightly interwoven operational doctrine and technology as they went. Modern Carriers are simply the small visible point of a vast web of skills, technology, resources, doctrine, and most importantly expenses. It’s very very hard to jump right into the advanced carrier jet operations when you have no history of getting there.

The Russian’s are 1000x better at Naval Operation than the Chinese. With enough technological capability to in theory make Carriers work. And it’s been a disaster for them each time they have tried. The Liaoning‘s sister ship the Admiral Kuznetzov is a complete disaster. It’s the only Carrier in the world that can only leave port with a dedicated Sea Tug as part of its Carrier Group. It’s been used in one Military Operation in it’s decades long service. Last Year in Syria. After about two weeks of escalating problems and disasters they sent the ships air wing to operate from a land base and sent the ship home. Rumors are the Chinese if anything have even more problems than the Russians. The second natively built Chinese Carrier is by all reports even worse. It rides so low in the water that it honestly risks being swamped and sunk should it ever encounter a Typhoon. No joke. And that’s before you get into any problems involving aircraft. Because they started building the fucker before they had learned any practical lessons from trying to operate the hand me down Russian Abomination. They basically copied a carrier design that doesn’t work, and made it worse because they didn’t know how and why it doesn’t work. There is several decades worth of operational learning to get from this point, to the point where Carriers are a Strategic Asset that can project massed air power anywhere in the world. What they have is a pair of clumsy ships that can each launch 6-12 lightly armed and half fueled strike fighters at a launch rate of about 10 minutes per plane. They’re not getting good value for money out of these things.

This surprises nobody. You can’t learn how to make carriers work through espionage. Your Navy has to learn how From the ground up. And that’s not easy to do when you insist on playing in “Hard Mode”. It’s like learning how to Vidya Game by starting with Dark Souls. While using a shitty unresponsive MadCatz controller.

China publicly rolling back their Carrier program might also be a sign of just how bad their economy is truthfully doing. Analysts will tell you to never believe what the Chinese say about their economy. Pay more attention to what they do. When you see visible signs of them scaling back massive national prestige projects. Things that would elevate them as a Super Power, that’s gonna be a much better idea of the economic situation.

@MrTickles officially on suicide watch

Personally, I'm ecstatic over this bit of news. Fuck the People's Republic of China.

USA All The Way!

Give France props. They know how to properly operate a Nuclear Powered Catapult Launch Carrier with a full diverse air wing. No small accomplishment. But being French, they simply choose to let it fall apart around their ears while they argue over funding. Prior to the F-35B achieving operational status the Charles DeGaule was the only Non US Carrier that had extended range/time on station capabilities, could conduct simultaneous launch and landing operations and carried not simply it's strike/fighter aircraft, but it's own AWACS, Airborne Tankers, and Fixed Wing ASW aircraft. Just because they do this in their uniquely "french" way (ie the hard way, always the hard way) does not diminish that level of operational know how.

I fucking love this thread and I love all of you. I have a complicated relationship with America’s power projection over past century, but there’s a red-blooded American part of me that’s stroking it to this conversation.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about it morally or politically, the United States will be seen historically as an era-defining air power. Britannia ruled the waves, the Roman legions swept Europe, the Mongol steppe archers cut an empire across Asia, and the United States of Fucking America dominated the skies for a hundred years or more.

 

[thx1138]

It doesn’t matter how you feel about it morally or politically, the United States will be seen historically as an era-defining air power. Britannia ruled the waves, the Roman legions swept Europe, the Mongol steppe archers cut an empire across Asia, and the United States of Fucking America dominated the skies for a hundred years or more.

If things hold for another generation, the US will be the greatest naval power that has ever existed, as well. Since 1942 when the Japanese lost big at Midway, the Pacific and Atlantic have been US owned swimming pools.

 

[2WokeB4BrainPills]

I fucking love this thread and I love all of you. I have a complicated relationship with America’s power projection over past century, but there’s a red-blooded American part of me that’s stroking it to this conversation.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about it morally or politically, the United States will be seen historically as an era-defining air power. Britannia ruled the waves, the Roman legions swept Europe, the Mongol steppe archers cut an empire across Asia, and the United States of Fucking America dominated the skies for a hundred years or more.

Carriers and jets are cool brah. I don't gotta like how they're used to know it.

Although the points raised in the this thread re: catapults, ramps, etc have 1 curveball headed their way at least as far as the US is concerned.

Not trying to get the jet nerds going re: the F35 being a flying lolcow, but... it's fucking cool as hell to watch. One can imagine a mini carrier could be loaded up with a bunch of these, or could even take on some multi-role functionality due to space and cost savings from VTOL.

 

[TowinKarz]

I dunno, not saying you're wrong, and tech has moved on a great deal since the likes of the horrible accident prone Yak-38 which tried to do the same thing, make even small carriers as effective in theory as the USN's larger ones by sacrificing flight deck for carrying a lot more VTOL aircraft, even if they were the rushed-into-service and very temperamental, I'm not sure it gave any advantage.

And the USN itself was pretty obsessed with VTOL in the 50's, believing the carrier of the future would have "tail sitters" on them, VTOL craft that would make the deck more of a parking lot than a flight deck, but none of the tested aircraft ever came close to being reliably able to VTOL off an airfield apron in perfect weather, much less a pitching ship deck in bad weather and the dark.... that was the whole point behind the X13 Vertijet, XFY Pogo and XFV Salmon, which was such a dud that even it's maker Lockheed urged the termination of the project, calling it a useless design that was unsafe to fly as even an "X" plane.

Again, tech has come a long way, but until I see it work, I'm not really convinced.

 

[The Unbecoming]

The issue with VTOL aircraft is that they're heavy and even more complex due to having to accommodate the variable thrust, and far less fuel efficient if they actually use their VTOL. A regularly launched aircraft has far more range and a much larger weapons payload. Not to mention the need to make sure the thrust coming out of the bottom of the aircraft doesn't melt a damn hole in the tarmac/carrier.
Not to say that a carrier loaded with F-35Bs wouldn't be a threat, but they really wouldn't hold a candle to a proper Nimitz class with Super Hornets and 35Cs.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Carriers and jets are cool brah. I don't gotta like how they're used to know it.

Although the points raised in the this thread re: catapults, ramps, etc have 1 curveball headed their way at least as far as the US is concerned.

Not trying to get the jet nerds going re: the F35 being a flying lolcow, but... it's fucking cool as hell to watch. One can imagine a mini carrier could be loaded up with a bunch of these, or could even take on some multi-role functionality due to space and cost savings from VTOL.

Well yes. That's exactly what the British Queen Elizabeth Class and the US America class ships are. (well technically the QE's are real full fleet Carriers while the America's are modified LHA's. But you get the idea). But here's the thing with the SVTOL's. They let you field a smaller cheaper Carrier. But it's a more limited one. The size of the big Super Carriers isn't about needing more room for takeoff. It's about needing space to fit more planes. To be able to carry a full multi role flight group. The smaller Harrier Carrier's as they were once known are really tasked more to the role that the old WW2 "Escort Carriers" pioneered. They carried about 20 planes designed to support and protect Marine Landing operations. They won't have the range or the punch of the full sized Carriers.

And those SVTOL aircraft while reducing Carrier size, cost and complexity, make up for it by increasing aircraft cost and complexity. They are a great tool to have, and certainly a huge game changer going forward. But they aren't quite the thing that a lot seem to think they are.

As for the F-35 being a flying Lolcow. I think that assesment may be premature. The press calls every military development program a failure and harps on perceived failings, problems and such, only for them to evolve into top notch long lasting key systems. (Granted with that said, try and avoid being the pilot or passenger on any US "A" model aircraft. By B or C they generally have all the bugs worked out, and have swapped out the horrible engines for ones that actually work!)

I dunno, not saying you're wrong, and tech has moved on a great deal since the likes of the horrible accident prone Yak-38 which tried to do the same thing, make even small carriers as effective in theory as the USN's larger ones by sacrificing flight deck for carrying a lot more VTOL aircraft, even if they were the rushed-into-service and very temperamental, I'm not sure it gave any advantage.

And the USN itself was pretty obsessed with VTOL in the 50's, believing the carrier of the future would have "tail sitters" on them, VTOL craft that would make the deck more of a parking lot than a flight deck, but none of the tested aircraft ever came close to being reliably able to VTOL off an airfield apron in perfect weather, much less a pitching ship deck in bad weather and the dark.... that was the whole point behind the X13 Vertijet, XFY Pogo and XFV Salmon, which was such a dud that even it's maker Lockheed urged the termination of the project, calling it a useless design that was unsafe to fly as even an "X" plane.

Again, tech has come a long way, but until I see it work, I'm not really convinced.

In the Yak-38's defense, it was intended and designed to be a proof of concept aircraft. It was meant to give them just enough operational Data in order to design an actual combat capable SVTOL aircraft. It was never intended to become the backbone of the Carrier air wing. That was supposed to be the next airplane, that the Yak-38 was to be the forerunner of. But of course that plane got cancelled and the Military demanded more bloody Yak-38's instead. (This is not a problem unique to the Russian or Soviet Military)