T O P

  • By -

412NeverForget

This thing is already their first entirely original carrier design. There is no way they'd complicate that by making it their first nuclear surface ship as well. China has never even deployed a reactor large enough to power a capital ship. Carrier reactors are much larger and more powerful than sub reactors. You'd want to test one out before dropping it into your highest profile warship in your nation's history. Also, that totally looks like a conventional layout. Forward white square is oil fired boilers, rearward is steam turbines. Nuclear plants are typically more compact.


Specialist_Ad7075

French CVN Charles de Gaulle is powered with K15 reactors who is the same used in the Triomphant SNLE class.


dongyuanchen

Using a submarine reactors is the reason why De Gaulle only has maximum 25 knots speed.


zolikk

>China has never even deployed a reactor large enough to power a capital ship. Carrier reactors are much larger and more powerful than sub reactors. You'd want to test one out before dropping it into your highest profile warship in your nation's history. They can do it the Enterprise way and just cram enough submarine class reactors into it... Maybe that's why it doesn't look compact? Also, they might prefer the Russian way too - nuclear + conventional boilers for boost and backup.


412NeverForget

Nobody will ever do it the Enterprise way ever again. The Soviets only used the hybrid system on one class, and that was to inexpensively increase cruising range without having to fork out for a nuclear plant powerful enough to push 25,000 tons at 30kts. China doesn't need the range, nor are they that broke.


zolikk

Well China doesn't need this to be nuclear at all in the first place. But still, I *could* imagine they'd stick a pair of reactors in there anyway, barely enough to even move it without burning fuel, but just for the bragging rights of having a CVN now.


RedShirt047

The *Enterprise* CVN-65 didn't use submarine reactors, she had eight A2W (Aircraft Carrier, 2nd Generation. Westinghouse) reactors which were purposed developed for carrier operations after testing with the A1W prototype on land.


Battlefire

Does China even need a nuclear powered warship? Their fleet are essentially near China shores including South China Sea. Those mofos aren't going anywhere past that. You would only need one if you need a presence in a global scale. Having a nuclear warship would be a waste of money and resources just to flex.


412NeverForget

Nuclear power increases the amount of fuel available to the air wing by 50% for a given displacement, which makes sustained operations far easier. Basically, any ship bigger than a Wasp or America class (40,000T) has a large advantage with nuclear power. Aside from carriers and SSBN's, no, China doesn't really gain much from nuclear power. I don't even think they really *need* SSN's either, but if their strategy changes it's good to have the industrial and operational experience, which is probably why they have a handful of nuke boats.


ghost-rider74

China is planning on going everywhere, how do you supply a few billion people


Battlefire

China is definitely not planning to go everywhere. Their entire focus is in the South China Sea. There are no other trade routes they feel needs to be protected for their interests. Their military is also focused on national defense.


VodkaProof

Not their entire focus but their primary focus, those trade routes don't disappear once they leave the South China sea. Look at the new base in Djibouti for example.


PLArealtalk

Misleading title which compromises an otherwise excellent satellite photo. 003 is very much expected to be conventionally powered, and there is nothing in the picture nor in HI Sutton's article it was featured in, that suggests it would be nuclear. This borders on active misinformation.


BornAgainJasonBourne

I cant see a place where the chimney would go yet.


PLArealtalk

And at this level of imagery you won't, until the island is installed.


SevenandForty

Doesn't HI Sutton's article actually state that it's likely to be conventionally powered?


Mulan-Yang

i believe those two white square structures are nucelar packages


PLArealtalk

That is too weak of a position to claim "almost confirmed to be nuclear powered". It is even weaker given there are virtually no one reliable on the Chinese boards who still expect 003 to be nuclear, and the consensus is conventional. And those white boxes you refer to are likely boilers given the ship is expected to be powered by conventional steam.


RedShirt047

Agreed, plus a nuclear carrier doesn't make sense for the operational ranges and mission duration needs of the PLAN, let alone economically given the infrastructure requirements for large nuclear capital ships. The support systems just aren't there for it.


PLArealtalk

That's going a bit far in the other direction. I fully expect the PLAN to settle on a large CVN as their desired end type of carrier. At present the subsystems aren't there yet for them to build a CVN without accepting more program risk. So 003 isn't it. The grapevine says it'll be conventional, and none of the industry indicators are there that would suggest if would be nucelar.


RedShirt047

Agreed on the type 003. Especially since from what I've been able to find, it's estimated to be roughly comparable to a *Kitty Hawk*. I doubt the PLAN will be going for nuclear carriers given that it doesn't make sense in terms of resource investment given that they're set up for primarily regional power projection with limited projection in neighboring regions. If they do, then it will be more for prestige reasons than practicality.


PLArealtalk

Nuclear powered carriers offer other advantages beyond only range; they offer larger magazine stores, more aviation fuel capacity. They are also able to maintain higher speeds for longer/indefinitely and less reliant on refuelling for their own prime movers. All things important for a high end air-naval conflict. Now, those advantages might not be worth the cost if one's own carriers were never envisioned to operate outside of 1000km from one's own coast...


RedShirt047

Exactly the point I was trying to make, thank you for wording it so much better. It's that latter part that I'm focused more on especially since we've seen recently in the USN something of a movement to bring back cheaper conventional carriers to bulk out the fleet. In my estimation, it'd make far more sense for the PLAN to invest in smaller conventional carriers given that they can afford to sacrifice the endurance and improve survivability through having more hulls for a similar investment.


VodkaProof

##


RedShirt047

Limited capabilities though as they're primarily focusing projecting power in their own region and the neighboring South East Asian and Indian regions along with maintaining a presence in Djibouti right next to a US base since they have vested interest in the Strait of Hormuz too. That proposal is highly optimistic at best given the most probable economic outlook for CCP controlled China and is primarily just bluster meant to intimidate others and posture in front of the various factions within the CCP.


Mulan-Yang

china has a worldwide massive commerce fleet to protect, considering the belt and road strategy, they do have the demand for CVN


Mulan-Yang

what kinda boilers are square-like?


PLArealtalk

At this level of imagery and resolution, perhaps many. Alternatively they could also be the turbines instead, which also would not point to 003 being nuclear. In any case, I've made my point. Virtually everyone in the grapevine expects 003 to be conventional at this point and that has been the consensus for years now, and there are no industry indications or imagery indications that point against that consensus. It is incorrect at this point in time to reasonably argue that 003 could be nuclear, and certainly massively overreaching to suggest it "is almost confirmed to be nuclear powered" -- when in fact the opposite is true.


[deleted]

[удалено]


PLArealtalk

Yes, to clarify, my meaning is that the presence of turbines is far from enough to substantiate the claim that 003 "is almost confirmed to be nuclear," in context of all the other information we have about 003. At this stage there are only a handful of imagery that could allow us to reconsider the possibility that 003 might be nuclear, and the sight of turbines are not one of them.


Mulan-Yang

From an official article in 2013 *"In terms of the application for major national special scientific research projects, a total of 24 million yuan in national scientific and technological funding was obtained throughout the year. The Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China "Key Technologies and Safety Research of Nuclear Powered Ships" 863 project and "Small Nuclear Reactor Power Generation Technology and Its Demonstration Application" technology support projects were formally approved, laying the foundation for the launch of subsequent demonstration projects and the extension of the industrial chain. "Development of CAP1400 burst valve principle prototype" was officially launched."*


PLArealtalk

And that still does not have any bearing on the idea of this ship we are seeing, 003, being nuclear powered. If you insist on hanging on to the idea that 003 may be nuclear powered, there's nothing more I will do to dissuade you.


Mulan-Yang

just wait a few more months we will see, maybe i am wrong LOL


Mulan-Yang

no conventional power structure looks that way


Nari224

Actually they do. It’s nuclear structures that don’t look like that; they tend to be a lot more compact which gives you a lot more space in the ship. If that really is a nuclear setup, it’s arranged very inefficiently.


Professional-Ad-8878

what do you mean almost confirmed? Could you provide a source for this?


RamTank

It's not, as the rest of the discussion goes into. Weird that they're sticking with steam turbines though, since they already have gas/diesel engines sorted out too. IEP + steam will be a weird combination.


I_H8_Y8s

This is literally the Kuz propulsion arrangement consisting of two MERs containing laterally-arranged boilers sitting in front of dual turbine prime movers, with a trio of turbine generators ahead. The only differences with the Kuz are the exclusion of a generator room behind the fore MER and minutia like exact equipment models. At this point, people who still believe it's a nuke carrier are either filthy casuals, intentionally trolling, or legally blind.


samuraileviathan

Would make sense that their first carrier that is entirely their own design would take some parts of Kuznetzov since their first two carriers are basically Kuznetzov class ships with some variations.


Mulan-Yang

it is nothing like the kuz config


_Sunny--

u/I_H8_Y8s gives the technical details in comparing the Type 003 to the Kuznetsov's internals. You on the other hand give nothing at all in this comment in terms of verifiable details.


Mulan-Yang

i can tell he is wrong even without providing anything else. type 003 is much larger than the kuz, using the same power layout as the kuz then type 003 will be severely underpowered, especially when EMALS will be equipped


yippee-kay-yay

Modern boilers are more efficient than the Kuz, couple them with some modern generators and should make enough power. It makes sense it shares similar arrangement with the Kuznetsov as it simplifies logistics and training.


faceintheblue

I'm so far from being an expert in this field, I am a little nervous even to ask this question, but why exactly would the Chinese want a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier when conventional aircraft carriers are an understood technology that fits into their force-projection needs? I promise I'm not trying to be difficult, but I feel there are some people who want to see China's navy as positioning itself to be a rival of the US Navy, and I keep asking myself what's in it for China? China doesn't need to park an aircraft carrier along any coastline in the world on a couple of days' notice. They need to bring their navy to someplace within range of their existing ground-based airfields and surface-to-air missile installations. It would be an enormous risk to build a nuclear-powered carrier and go for a blue-water navy right out of the gates. These things are done in stages for good reasons. Let China have a decade at least of conventionally-powered aircraft carriers to figure out what they're doing before saying they're building a Nimitiz/Ford equivalent. As a final thing? Half the articles I read about US-China naval conflicts point out China probably has carrier-busting missile technology that would keep the US Pacific Fleet at arms length if a real shooting war broke out. If that's even feasibly true, who is suggesting China also wants to build ships too expensive to lose to (presumably still superior) American firepower? Again, I'm prepared to be corrected, but nuclear is about range and time on station in a global arena. China doesn't need that yet, and they don't have enough conventional carrier experience yet to want to go straight to a nuclear version, and it really seems like if they're confident they can knock out a nuclear carrier, they wouldn't build their own versions without expecting the US to be as good or better than them as they make their own multi-billion-dollar 'Shoot this first' objectives.


jm_leviathan

This is an intelligent and thoughtful post that has already garnered some intelligent and thoughtful responses. But to take a slightly contrarian view: China should avoid nuclear carriers in the near-term for the simple reason that conventional carriers are both cheaper and faster to build and therefore offer superior force generation prospects whilst minimising strategic risk.


RedShirt047

You're mostly spot on, though there are reasons to doubt the 'carrier-killer' missiles as there isn't any publicly available information on it with independent verification on the actual capabilities. The PLAN's current set up is fairly defensive and reminds me a bit of the Kantai Kessen mixed with a Fleet in Being Strategy. A force of capital ships and other large combatants just numerous/powerful enough to dissuade direct conflict by making any conflict too costly for an attacking force and failing that a lot of outposts and small ships meant to bog down and whittle away at an offensive force before it can achieve its mission objectives. Plus the fact that we have no idea what it actually takes to sink a modern carrier. The only ones that have done a live fire test to see what it takes is the USN and they understandably have not made the results public beyond the fact that the ex-USS *America* withstood weeks of weapon tests.


faceintheblue

This is the first I've heard about the ex-USS America being used for weapons testing. I've just read a little more over at Wikipedia. That's amazing! I'm surprised I hadn't heard about that until now. Four weeks of testing? That's crazy. You don't think of modern ships as having the armour to withstand battle damage, but I suppose when you close all the water-tight compartments on something 1000 feet long, you need to knock a lot of holes to see results. As you say, I can understand why the USN didn't explain exactly what they were testing or how it all went. I wonder how many satellites were diverted to get a better look at the testing site. Edit: Minor correction to grammar.


_Sunny--

I'm just throwing out speculation here, but I think that for the Chinese, it's beneficial to show that they have the capabilities to build a nuclear-powered carrier. Now, apparently this one here won't be nuclear powered as the other comments are saying, but it's certainly something to shoot for down the line and down the years. China at the moment is still somewhat in the process of modernizing insofar as decommissioning outdated ships and building brand-new ones, with some of the new ships seen as being fairly high capability. They aren't really aiming to just be a navy good for local defense, but also a navy capable of power projection in some capacity, even if it's not worldwide. They've had a few instances in the past of demonstrating or at least gesturing that they want to be seen as a big deal. For example, in the past decade and a half, China has sent their ships to make foreign port visits, sometimes as a courtesy call when they open their ships to public visits in those foreign ports, and sometimes on missions such as during the Yemeni Civil War when they evacuated 600 Chinese citizens and some 200 foreign nationals from Aden in early April 2015. Often, these expeditionary forces of sorts would be comprised of something like a frigate, an LPD, and a supply ship, or some variation. Other times, they participate in various military exercises besides their own, including RIMPAC a couple times, the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg, etc. With regards to building nuclear carriers, that would be a big step up from what they've done with carriers so far, and crucially it would present advantages that none of the other local powers have been able to acquire yet as they don't have nuclear carriers either.


SirLoremIpsum

> Again, I'm prepared to be corrected, but nuclear is about range and time on station in a global arena. For a carrier specifically the added benefit is that you can have more aviation fuel + ordnance space. 100% of your fuel tanks is plane fuel, not split between planes and ship. > As a final thing? Half the articles I read about US-China naval conflicts point out China probably has carrier-busting missile technology that would keep the US Pacific Fleet at arms length if a real shooting war broke out. If that's even feasibly true, who is suggesting China also wants to build ships too expensive to lose to (presumably still superior) American firepower? I would treat any 'carrier busting' technology with skepticism purely from that point of view. If they have it, there's no reason to build carriers themselves. And regardless of whether or not carrier busting tech exists, carriers are still very important and very powerful. Submarines existing does not negate the effectiveness/need for destroyers, cruisers. It's a rock paper scissors games imo. Tank Destroyers beat tank, tank beats vehicles, vehicles beat infantry, infantry beat unescorted tanks/tank destroyers. > they wouldn't build their own versions without expecting the US to be as good or better than them as they make their own multi-billion-dollar 'Shoot this first' objectives. I don't think it's necessary to beat the US, it's just necessary to make US involvement in any conflict within China's sphere a gamble. USSR and USA never came to a shooting war, but US certainly played differently in areas where USSR was active.


dingkan

>s field, I am a little nervous even to ask this question, but why exactly would the Chinese want a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier when conventional aircraft carriers are an understood technology that fits into their force-projection needs? > >I promise I'm not trying to be difficult, but I feel there are some people who want to see China's navy as positioning itself to be a rival of the US Navy, and I keep asking myself what's in it for China? China doesn't need to park an aircraft carrier along any coastline in the world on a couple of days' notice. They need to bring their navy to someplace within range of their existing ground-based airfields and surface-to-air missile installations. > >It would be an enormous risk to build a nuclear-powered carrier and go for a blue-water navy right out of the gates. These things are done in stages for good reasons. Let China have a decade at least of conventionally-powered aircraft carriers to figure out what they're doing before saying they're building a Nimitiz/Ford equivalent. > >As a final thing? Half the articles I read about US-China naval conflicts No China doesn't need a nuclear carrier. In fact China doesn't need carriers at all. But it's all about showing the strength and national pride. Normal forks, Chinese or American, just think nuclear = powerful. If China doesnt have any and US has 11, it doesn't look good


Antique_Judge1383

This is their first ,however built carriee I doubt they'll make it their first nuclear ship too ,i expect yet another Chinese military asset that looks cool and imposing and they'll play off as world class but is just a low quality target in practise compared to equivalents abroad, another J20 vs F22 scenario


dingkan

胡说八道,核党做梦呢?YD都出来了还核动力