Type 003 Aircraft Carrier Reddit - I think someone who lives near the site took the picture. The oldest tweet i can find said that he got the picture from baidu, and I've seen people who lives near a dock taking and posting pictures of the new dokdo class when it was under construction in our country before.
Its development is part of a broader modernization of China’s military as it seeks to extend its influence in the region. China already has the largest navy in the world in terms of numbers of ships, but not near the capabilities of the U.S. Navy.
Type 003 Aircraft Carrier Reddit
As America struggles to transfer aircraft carrier technology to a single critical ally, China will market—and is likely already marketing – their carrier technology to clients like Pakistan, or aspiring regional players like Turkey, Indonesia, or Brazil. China’s technology may not be on par with America yet, but as Beijing’s Communist Dynasty captures greater market share and invests in keeping key technical suppliers healthy, they clearly have a strategy to get there.
The Indo-Pacific’s Hot Market For Aircraft Carriers Is An Opportunity For The Us
China currently has 1.5 carriers (The first is junk just like it’s Russian sister ship). This won’t be commissioned until 2023 at the earliest. The US currently has 11 super carriers (10 Nimitz 1 Ford class) and 7 Wasp class carriers. It would take China 20-30 years to have that many operational.
As the F-35 Lightning II fighter-jet arrives in the region, a variety of smaller flat-decks are demonstrating their potential. The United States is deploying F-35B-ready America and Wasp Class amphibious assault ships as fast as they can be built or converted. The Royal Navy’s triumphant deployment of a Queen-Elizabeth class carrier in the Pacific has also widened the aperture of western capability.
Once mainly a coastal force, China’s navy has in recent years expanded its presence into the Indian Ocean, the Western Pacific and beyond, setting up its first overseas base over the last decade in the African Horn nation of Djibouti, where the U.S., Japan and others also maintain a military presence.
Aircraft carrier technology is a market. China is entering it, and America—the current market leader —is moving too slowly to effectively compete. This failure to aggressively market U.S. carrier technology overseas and open wider access to EMALS—America’s advanced electromagnetic launch system, innovative power handling technologies, carrier-ready aircraft or other, less noticeable carrier-enabling technologies, is a mistake.
Emals Is A Natural Place To Start
Washington needs to enable and accelerate Navy-building among friends by sharing fundamental technology modern navies need. The F-35 and EMALS are great places to start, but they should by no means be the only considerations. If kept properly secured, plans for large aircraft-carrier ready power plants, logistical systems, carrier-based surveillance aircraft and other important products or big-carrier manufacturing-oriented intellectual property may find ready customers.
The Pacific Ocean will get a little more crowded next year as China debuts its new Type 003 aircraft carrier, launching the flat-top just before the USS Gerard R. Ford (CVN-78) finishes its pre-deployment refit. Beijing has timed the launch to blunt the geopolitical impact of the USS Ford, presenting China’s platform as an equal counterweight. But the launch of the Type 003 sends another, more subtle signal: China’s carrier sector is now open for business.
“In particular, the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China’s) aircraft carriers and planned follow-on carriers, once operational, will extend air defense coverage beyond the range of coastal and shipboard missile systems and will enable task group operations at increasingly longer ranges,” the Defense Department said, adding that the Chinese navy’s “emerging requirement for sea-based land-attack systems will also enhance the PRC’s ability to project power.”
Though the U.S. Department of Defense estimates that the carrier won’t be fully operational until 2024, first needing to undergo extensive sea trials, the carrier is China’s most advanced yet. As with its space program, China has proceeded extremely cautiously in the development of aircraft carriers, seeking to apply only technologies that have been tested and perfected.
China’s Type ’S Launch System Skips Two Generations
The expected launch of the new Chinese carrier comes as the U.S. has been increasing its focus on the region, including the South China Sea. The vast maritime region has been tense because six governments claim all or part of the strategically vital waterway, through which an estimated $5 trillion in global trade travels each year and which holds rich but fast declining fishing stocks and significant undersea oil and gas deposits.
Similarly, India has had lots of meetings, conducting “monthly discussions” with the U.S. Navy, which has provided a “pricing and availability training capsule on ship design aspects related to aviation.” The pace has been glacial: India began formal meetings with PEO Aircraft Carriers in June 2018 and two years passed before the next face-to-face meeting.
That statement is simply not true. In the US, a carrier is protected by a whole group of ships. Accompanied by anti-missile, anti-air, anti-ship, and anti-submarine ships. Not to mention the planes on the carrier allowing it to project the carrier group’s power across vast areas. No ship or submarine is getting anywhere near a carrier.
The newly developed Type 003 carrier has been under construction at the Jiangnan Shipyard northeast of Shanghai since 2018. Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC on May 31 suggest work on the vessel is close to done.
“The staircases that workers use to access the carrier — as well as the support structures and other equipment that skirt the ship — will need to be removed,” CSIS said. “The caisson, which segments the dry dock and allows work to proceed simultaneously on multiple vessels, will also be opened to allow water to fill the entire dry dock.”
Regional demand for carriers capable of fielding a modern air wing is growing, and the U.S. needs a plan to seize on the momentum already underway, strengthening distributed deterrence among its friends and partners. Tech-sharing should top the list.
The U.S. Navy has sailed warships past Chinese-held humanmade islands in the sea, which are equipped with airstrips and other military facilities. China insists its territory extends to those islands, while the Navy says it conducts the missions there to ensure the free flow of international trade.
EMALS, the new electromagnetic “launch-and-recovery” system aboard the USS Ford is a natural place to start that acceleration. India and France, both embarking on “large” aircraft carrier projects, have been eying EMALS for years. France, with a formal recapitalization project underway, is leading the process, but it has taken a lot of time; formal discussions with France on EMALS technology transfers began three years ago. The new carrier won’t be in service until 2038 at the earliest.
In the satellite images, the carrier’s deck can be clearly seen. In an image taken Tuesday through wispy clouds, equipment behind the carrier appears to have been removed, a step toward flooding the entire drydock and floating the vessel. Pictures earlier this month showed work ongoing.
CSIS noted in a report that China often pairs military milestones with existing holidays and anniversaries. It suggested that the vessel could be launched as soon as Friday to coincide with the national Dragon Boat Festival, as well as the 157th anniversary of the founding of the Jiangnan Shipyard.
In addition to being the largest of its three carriers, the new Type 003 class is fitted with a catapult launch system that will “enable it to support additional fighter aircraft, fixed-wing early-warning aircraft, and more rapid flight operations and thus extend the reach and effectiveness of its carrier-based strike aircraft,” the U.S. Defense Department said in its annual report to Congress on China’s military in November.
Mimicking the most visible aspects of carrier technology, the Type 003’s rapid progression from shipyard to service is extremely impressive, but the true game-changer has been China’s new electromagnetic launch system. In the Type 003, China will have skipped two generations of carrier launch technology, bypassing hydraulic and steam catapults for an electromagnetic competitor to America’s EMALS launch system.
While few in the Indo-Pacific have publicly discussed how to operate in a region full of free-wheeling Chinese carrier battle groups, the above examples clearly show many believe the best counter to a rival’s large aircraft carrier is with one, two, or even three of their own.
Comparisons to the USS Ford will be hard to miss, especially as China will do all it can to highlight their similarities in size, launch technologies, and airwing composition. And when the Type 003 starts steaming around the Indo-Pacific, US allies may well draw further comparisons between the once-familiar sight of U.S. flattops to the increasingly visible silhouette of Chinese flagships today.
By catapulting beyond the old-school Russian ski-jump, the Type 003 will field a modern-looking air wing. China’s first-generation logistics, refueling, and early-warning aircraft may still need a lot of refinement, but they will, to untrained observers, look the part.
Among other assets, the U.S. Navy remains the world’s leader in aircraft carriers, with its forces able to muster 11 nuclear-powered vessels. The Navy also has nine amphibious assault ships, which can carry helicopters and vertical-takeoff fighter jets as well.
The carrier is China’s second domestically developed carrier, following a Type 002 ship that is currently undergoing sea trials. Its other carrier is a modified former Soviet ship bought as a hulk from Ukraine and refurbished over several years as an experimental platform that nevertheless packs considerable combat capability with an airwing of Chinese-built fighters developed from the Russian Su-33.
Japan’s two Izumo class flat-decks are being updated to handle F-35Bs. South Korea’s slow-moving, on-again-off-again CVX class carrier program will, once the plans are finalized, be positioned to quickly stamp out multiple copies. Other countries are mulling small carriers as well, with Singapore and Australia well-positioned to rapidly advance their modest, light aircraft carrier capability.
Experts from the Washington-based CSIS, which has been monitoring the construction for years, said in an analysis Thursday of different satellite images by Maxar Technologies, also taken Tuesday, that a smaller vessel had been moved out of the carrier’s way, and that water now partially fills some of the dry dock.
American should recognize this opportunity and support these interested partners through efficient proliferation of large-carrier technology. Overseas transfer of sensitive technology is always a challenge for Washington, but the current pace for specialized aircraft carrier-relevant technology is far too leisurely. It is time to put a strategy in place and move out.
The launch has been long anticipated, and constitutes what the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank called a “seminal moment in China’s ongoing modernization efforts and a symbol of the country’s growing military might.”
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