plawolfSOC:
“I’d think that the whole hull structure has to be made to absorb the impact. When you slam a fighter onto the deck at around 150 knots the hull is going to feel some of that pressure. It needs to be sufficiently reinforced to be able to sustain that over 20 years or so.”
yeah, of course the whole deck and probably hull structure will need to be reinforced to varying degress, but is only a small area of the flight deck that needs to be stronge enough to withstand high speed impacts dircetly. the stenght of the deck can be mapped in a curved graph, with the landing area the most heavily reinforced and the deck strongth decreasing as u move away from that area.
but when i comes down to bare basics, deck reinforcing is just adding more steel and beems, which is just adding a little weight, which isnt really much of a problem if u can build a hull to support the extra weight.
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Matt:
“It doesnt matter where the force effects, its how it effects the deck thats important, then you have to worry about dampners absorbers etc.”
as crobato already pointed out, china has been studying many carrier designs for a long time, she even bought up most of the oldsoviet carrier fleet.
“know how china does not have unless its operate a Aircraft carrier or has used consultants. Its not so simple.”
ur getting confused in a loop. by ur logic, no-one can build sth unless they have done it before, but sth new has never been built by someone before, so therefore no-one can ever build anything new.
carreirs have been in service for a long time, and all of the design criteria for a carreir has come out in some way or another by now, its only a matter of finding engineering solutions to those practical problems. while being able to build STs dont automaticlly give china the know-how to build carreris, it does however demonstrate a very high level of engineering ability and compitance. so overcoming all the engineering difficulties associated with designing and building a modern carrier hull is not out of reach of china’s shipbuilding ability.
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crobato:
“They bothered to build more because they also need more airframes. Simply said they need more planes.
Upgrading does not alleviate their quantity requirements.
I estimate that PLANAF would need at least 60 SU-30MKKs (for three regiments—one north, mid, south). It may add more to 120, for two regiments each in the north, mid, and south. That is all separate from the PLAAF requirements, which probably isn’t done yet.”
i thought the PLA had abt 80 Su30s on order already?
but the point is if the PLA does need alot more Su30s, why are they buying them in such small batches? usually unit price goes down as number purchased increases, so wouldnt it be wiser to just make one big order as opposed to several small ones? (yes, the PLA may need the planes urgently, but in that case, they would just buy, say 40 this year and dont buy any next year, its not like china needs to save up to buy them now.)
plawolf“A carrier deck and hull has to be able to withstand thousands of rather violent collisions-aircraft landings.”
acctually its only a small area of the deck that needs to be able to do this, cos there is only a very small area in which an a/c can land to ensure that he can stay on the ship, so its only that part of the deck that needs special reinforcing. however making a stronge, flat bit of steel is hardly a major engineering challenge to a nation with as much experience in construction and engineering as china.
“A USN carrier at least is much different internally than a supertanker-there are hundreds of compartments, and there are many, many, many watertight doors and such to ensure the ship’s integrity if there’s a missile hit or something.”
well thats all internal changes with no requirments on the outer hull design, and its hardly difficult to simply put more wall and doors into a hull that can easily take the extra weight.
“Besides, the minute we start slacking off Congress will want to seriously reconsider the HUGE expenditure-I can hear them now, “if you really need it, you wouldn’t be taking your sweet ass time, so no more carrier money for you!” The need to maintain so many carriers in each fleet ensures this.”
its not feet dragging, just economics. there are two things called economies of scale (EoS) and diseconomies of scale (DoS). for EoS, unit price comes down with increase in output, ie, the more u buy, the cheaper each one gets. however, if u buy too many units them DoS starts to set in, which means unit price increases with output. companies usually likes to operate at the point where EoS is just abt to go into DoS (point of productive efficiency). however, the points at which EoS and DoS meet can change and are different for each economy.
with the decline of american manufacturing, most US shipbuilders have been forced to lay off workers and/or closing down construction lines at some point or another, getting rid of redunent capacity as it were. this means that there are now fewer workers to build ships, (moving the point of productive efficiencey to the right, so u get to there with fewer units produced) leading to slower work if the company still wishes to operate at the point of productive efficiency. if the company was to increase the rate at which it is operating, then it can either ask workers to do overtime or hire new workers and buy new equipment. either way u are pushing up price, which is undesireable, so its not done.
on the otherhand, in china, wages are much lower, yet workers are still fighting for work. manufacturing is booming with companies expanding almost constaintly to increase production capacity. this means that the point of productive efficiencey is much more tp the left then in the US, meaning chinese companies can get the job done faster for the same price (in most feilds, not by no means all feilds) then american companies.
its not saying that americans are incompotent, just that for the salery to hire one worker in the US, u can get 2,3,4 or even 5 of the same level of education and experience in china, and 2 ppl can get things done alot faster then just one, and its the same for machainary that are produced in china.
“Oh, and them Russkies do refer to their ships as “he” I believe “
well its not the Russkies that are giving their ships names from the wrong ‘gender’. 😉 😀
plawolf“It might be able to build a hull for a AC but i doubt it would be of any great quality of use unless they brought in outside help from people who already build Aircrafts. its not that simple.”
so, china still cant build aircrafts? :rolleyes: i’ll assume that was a typo.
but still, what do you have in support of ur claim that any carrier china builds on its own wont be any good?
plawolfmatt:
“Wait your saying that if a country can build tankers then it can build Aircraft carriers?”
yes, i think that if a natin can build supertankers, then it can at least build the HULL of a carrier. go and read my previous posts for more.
plawolf“I dont think building large tankers is any assurance of capability
to build large carriers “
so what would u say is the major difference between the design philosophies behind building a carrier and building a ST? what extra chararteristics do a carreir hull have that ST’s dont?
plawolfcrobato:
“On the MKK2 nosegear, all the MKKs always have twin tires that are different from SU-27s and most SU-30s.”
hmm, purhaps i mistaken one of the other Su30 varients with the MKK, my bad. 😮
“The small number of MKK2s ordered can be explained in another context—all MKKs will be upgraded to the MKK2 standard with software and electronic enhancements.”
yeah, good point. but if that was the case, why bother with an order for new MKK2s in the first place? 26@36 new MKK2s isnt really going to make a big impact. it would be alot cheaper to just upgrade the existing MKKs and wait for the MKK3.
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SOC:
“the QMII isn’t anything like a carrier either.”
well, its a very big and compicated ship roughly in the same tonnage league as most carriers. i was merely using the QMII as a benchmark to show how long it would likely require to build a ship of that size.
as for fitting time, well im sure u’ll agree with me that a cruise liner will demand a higher level of craftsmenship in its fittings then a warship, but a warships does have much much more systems to intergrate, so even it a warship would need longer for fittings, it wouldnt be very long. a matter of weeks and months, not years and decades.
“You have to have knowledge of launch and recovery systems as well.”
well, i already made remarks abt the catupults, so i wont repeat myself here. as for recovery, well the ‘meatball’ lights, tracking radar and reovery cables hardly seems like a substantual engineering challenge these days do they?
“I do believe that China will eventually develop carriers, but it’s going to take some time.”
agreed, but that was never an issue of contention, i was merely pointing out the unlikely timetable set out be some as to how long it would take china to BUILD a carrier once all the groundwork has been laid, and how long it would take before thee carreri becomes operational after being built.
“As for how long it takes, it took seven years to build the USS Ronald Reagan.”
well was the USN in a harry to get her (oh i do wish ppl would stop giving ships male names yet insist that they be refered to as ‘she’) into service at the time? dont take it the wrong way, but its easy to spend alot of time doing little when there is no or little pressure on the deadline (to save on costs, to keep ppl in work etc).
plawolf:rolleyes:
“this is why things are the way it is….man, Mixtec would sure laugh out loud on these every time it is mentioned…what irony “
whats this? seeking safety in numbers?:rolleyes: and also easily ammused i see? :rolleyes: i normally dont like to judge ppl using steariotypes, but u are just making it a little too hard to resist ATM.
its interesting to note that those that have a point to make usually cuts right to the chase, whereas others tend to says alots of words with little substance in them.:rolleyes:
“On the other notes, noticed i said warship…by your logic, there are plenty of shipyards well capable of building an aircraft carrier And yes, Taiwan would be one of them too.”
and what exactly is the difference between the HULL of a warship and the HULL of a civilain ship? (and please dont bore everyone by listing all the trivial differences, what fundamental difference is there between how the HULL of a mordern warship differs for the HULL of a civilian ship?
sure, the hull in some parts will need to be reinforced to compensate for weapons systmes like VLS missiles, but the hull of a ship the size of a carreir can easily handle the extra room needed without having to resort to major changes in design philosophy; warships need to be more manoverable then civilan ships, but for ships the size of carriers, manoveraility isnt that important, so no need for a major major shift in design philosophy.
the only area where china might have a technical problem is the steam catapult. but that bottleneck is far from unpassible, and there are other ways of making carriers without needing to use catapults.
at the end of the day, the beating heart of a carrier is not its hull design but its electronics, sensors, weapons and planes.
as i already made clear, its easy to build the hull of a carrier, its not so easy to equip it with all the sensors, weapons, a/c and support ships needed to keep the carrier safe so that it can be of some use in times of war.
the purpose of carriers are to fight and win wars, otherwise a carrier is just a very expensive ‘monument’ to the ‘might’ of its owner. in order to be effective, a carrier cannot be used on its own, thats why when deciding to purcahse carriers, a nation is not just deciding to add one ship to its fleet, it may well need to add a whole fleet.
although many nations can build the hull of a carrier, few of them can build all the systems and support ships needed to ensure that that carrier can be call upon in times of crisis. and even fewer can actually afford it all.
and of course, there also has to be a reason for needing a carrier in the first place, so please tell me, what would taiwan want a carrier for? to retake the mainland? :rolleyes:
“You want to know why i said a decade?”
why dont u inlighten us? :rolleyes:
“Use your brains not your emotion and nationalism”
if u would just take ur own advice, it would save me alot of time as i wouldnt need to explain every single detail to make u understand a point.
“SOC, ELP, and Jonesy would LOL on this one”
indeed.:rolleyes:
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SOC
“Do you honestly think that building a supertanker and fielding an aircraft carrier are equatable?”
and when did i say ‘feild’?:rolleyes:
sure, building a carreir hull is way different from building tankers, but most of the fundermentals are the same, so its only a modest if not small step forward for china’s shipbuilding industry.
and also i was being ‘kind’ with my interpritation of what vertex meant, as it could just as easily be seen as implying that even after china builds a carrier, it would still take china a decade to get it operational.
“And you might want to go and research just how long it takes us to build our Nimitz-class ships.One to two years it ain’t.”
and when was the last time america built carriers, a little thing called progress means that ppl can now get things done faster these days. :rolleyes: the QMII only took less the 2 years to build, and that includes fernishing.
“Vortex is right, this is pretty funny” :rolleyes: ganging up on pll might work against some, but its never bothered me.
plawolf“Guys lets say they build a twin seat twin engined naval J-10, how would this go up against the air defence Super Hornets? Can the normal J-10 now stand up to a Super Hornet? The F-35 as it seems will mostly be set for strike missions.”
according to some sources, the J10A can more then match flankers in a dogfight. a twin engine naval J10 should have at least the same TWR and turn rate, if not better, and will probably incorporate more advanced stealth features and TVC engines.
on the otherhand while the F18A/C were the most manoverable fighters the US had, the superbug wasnt really designed with dogfighting in mind, so i’d say that the superbug would be hard pressed to hold their own in WVR (both with have HMS and off-broadside AAMs), but i would put my money on the superbug having better radar and ECM, so it would have the upper hand at BVR.
being stealthy, the F35s would enjoy a substantual advanatge against the ‘J10N’ at BVR, but not sure how well/badly it would fair if it is found at WVR.
plawolfMatt:
“it doesnt fire one million bullets thats just a could of how much it can fire if needed with a 36 barrel configuration. the time for every reload would be dependent on the customer specification read the site.”
well im sure a warship commander would like hims last line of defence to work more then once before he has to refit a fresh unit, that means being able to fire a couple thousand rounds before each reload cycle. u’ll need 36 pretty long barrels for that, but then there comes teh problem of useabilty cos u dont want the dame thing to smash a couple of radar dishes when it turns to find the target.
as for accuarcy, well im sure it’ll be pretty accurate twoards the middle or end of its firing cycle, but i wouldnt bet on it being that acurate when u first fire it, cos the first XXXX rounds with only have a very short bit of gun barrel to travel throw, and in the same way a rifle is more accuarate then a handgun, the longer the lenghth of barral the round travels down, the most accurate it will be.
when the average responce time a ship’s crew can hope to expect when they are on the reciving end of state-of-the art AShMs is only a few minutes at most, a captain will probably want his CIWS to be as accuarate as it can be as soon as it starts shooting. the problem is if u make the barrels longer to increase accuracy, u make the system more difficult to aim.
also, i would have expected u to be a little wiser then to beleive everything a stronge website tells u. 😀 :p
plawolfcrobato:
“But the point remains, how many navalized planes you need to justify the creation of a new variant. If China is only to build ONE carrier, I don’t know if you can justify an expensive navalization program just to “mod” around 3 to 4 dozen J-10s without any export prospect of said carrier J-10s. “
yes, but judging from the way things have been going with the PLA, if the go ahead is given to construct carriers, then it would seem highly unlikely that china would only construct one and be done with it.
for a carrier force to be of much use to a nation, there needs to be at least two carriers to rotate when one is out of action for whatever reason (refit, repairs, crew rotation etc).
the only meaningful purpose a sole carreir group would serve is to be a sort of ‘status symble’ to show that china is now in the top league, as it were. while that is a possiblity, given how things have gone with projects like the J11, MKK, Kilo, Type 170/171 etc, it would seem very unlikely. especially seeing how china is fast overtaking japan as the world’s second largest importer of crude oil, with signs of even eventually overtaking the US in the forseeable future.
much of china’s oil is comming in by sea, and the chinese government’s sence of insecurity about the safety of its sea lines may be increasing with the chinese economy’s appitite for oil. and to easy those fears, the PLAN’s carrier supporters may be getting more ammunition when lobbying in support of the chinese carrier projects.
another factor to cnsider is the fact that it is alot easier to addapt a naval fighter to serve from land bases then vice versa, so the new J10N (N for naval) may even become the successor to the J10As. (so purhaps the leaked 300 production number of the J10A may not be wrong after all).
“Such a project would end up costing more per unit, if let’s say, China decides to procure an equal number of SU-33UBs instead. In fact, I think China would initially procure a said number of SU-33UBs to set as a technology standard before developing a carrier based plane of their own, which remains the eventual Chinese goal.”
that seems very reasonable, and purhaps we are both right and wrong at the same time. very few carriers only opperate one type of a/c, so purhaps both the Su33 and J10N will be based on carriers.
but if that was the case, then purhaps MKK2/3s would be a better choice.
i have always wondered why the ‘MKK2’ displayed at MAKS 2003 had what appeared to be a new landing gear, and it had always struck me as unsually abt the reletively small number of MKK2s ordered (26~36), so maybe, just maybe the MKK2 differs from the MKK in a few more ways that we have been told. and chinese carriers are closer to a reality then anyone had predicted.
pic of ‘MKK2’ with new landing gear at MAKS 2003.
plawolfnice! but one obvious problem i see is where and how do u keep the ammo? the 1mpm fire rate would not be worth much if u have to reload every 0.0001 seconds.
“They would be decent for anti-missle work, ala CIWS. I wonder if they’ve thought of trying them on MBTs against ATGMs.”
why stop there? im sure it would put systems like the goalkeeper to shame if they can sustain teh fire rate and get some accuaracy on it. 😀
plawolfvortex:
“Now one with common sense would see that the building of an indigenous aircraft carrier is a bigger issue than an aircraft capable of carrier operations. How long does it take to build a carrier versus how long does it take to modify an aircraft for carrier aviation…”
so, how do ppl design carriers? do they just gather the parts and start building and see how it goes or do they bother with a ‘formality’ called a blue print?:rolleyes:
and if u paid a little bit more attention to the subject, u would have realised that the ‘naval’ J10 in question is alot more then just a land based J10 with a landing hook, some anti-carosive paint, and maybe stronger landing gears. it is design to be a twin engined fighter instead of a singel engined a/c as is teh current J10. the difference between the J10A and the naval J10 would be much greater then the F18A~D and the superbug, and how long did it take to design the superbug? and we havent even talking abt pilot and ground crew training time yet.
“that alone should tell you what preceeds what, especially for a country without any experience building a warship of that size and that type.”
a) china has built many ships of much greater tonnage then the US nimatz class carriers (like supertankers), so it wont be that hard to just build the hull of a carrier.
b) it does take years and years to design sth like a carrier, but it only takes one or two years to build it. so how do u know how far china has gotten on with the blue prints for a chinese carrier? its not like they send out weekly newsletters.
china could have built a carrier years (if not decades) ago, however the decision was taken not to build one until a few key bottlenecks had been resolved. in no perticular order:
1) the lack of a decent a/c to put on a carrier. the J10 was still in the middle of development (the FC-1 wasnt even on the drawing board); the JH7 would have been in the latter stages of development, but it would have been too big to make a carrier efficeint; the same size problems applied to the J8 and it wasnt that good a fighter to being with. a carrier is only as valuble as the planes it can carry, and clearly a carrier without a decent airwing is like a white elepnant.
china did try to buy harriers from britain, and no points for guessing what the PLA wanted to do with those planes. but the deal fall throw after 89.
2) the lack of decent med/long range air defence. the PLAN probably wanted to resolve the problem by introducing a carrier, but without addequet long range air defence, a carrier would be very vonerable to attacks as was shown in the falklands wars. this problem is only now being addressed by the introduction of the 170/171 destroyers.
3) the lack of adequet ASW assets. like air defence, without good ASW ability a carrier would be very vonerable. the problem is being addressed now with the new quiet SSks, Ka28 ASW helos and new towed arry sonars on the newer destroyers etc.
4) the probably political ramerfications of the PLA aquiring a real power projection ability. even now we are constaintly hearing the so-called ‘china threat’ theories, imagine what it would be like it there were actaually something tangable to ‘back up’ those theories.
my guess is that the PLAN was seriously considering aquiring carriers in the late 80s, as relations with the ‘west’ were at their peak and teh chinese economy was staring to boom. the PLA most like planned to simply purchase systems from the west to fill in all of the ‘holes’ that the PLAN had at the time, and since relations with the west were good, there was no ‘china threat’ theories at the time. but tiananmen most likely put an end to all that.
until now that is. with all of the previous inabilties addressed, the PLA is technocally capable of constructing a modern carrier battlegroup capable of projecting power well beyond chinese terriotry, and with bettering relations with the ‘west’, the probably political backlash of aquiring carriers are much smaller.
“Now sure you can “cut and paste” one together but i’m not sure if that’s acceptable to the PLAN. Even that it’ll still take over a decade when it’s operational.”
:rolleyes: how did u manage to work that out? let me guess:
‘2 years to build a carrier, 2-3 years ‘shake down’ time, that makes 5 years……but wait, its the dumb chinese who cant do nothing witout a white man to help them we’re talking abt here! lets just double it to be on the safe side.’ :rolleyes:
“If there is a naval version of the J-10, then it is much more reasonable to assume that the JH-7 program has ended. Which makes good sense since the airframe is way outdated. If you can squeeze all the capabilities and more in a much smaller airframe and newer one it would be stupid not to do it.”
:rolleyes: is that why they are just rolling out the JH-7A and the Qunlun indigious chinese engines for it? JH-7s may not be as good an all rounder as the MKK, but that shows in the price. a plane like the JH-7 is just a flying bomb truck. it doesnt matter how ‘sleak’ it looks or how fast it turns, all that matters is how much bombs it can carry, and how far it can carry them, and in those regards, the JH-7 is better then most and not far behind the best. just look at the B52s and u’ll realise that.
plawolf“As for a PLANAF J-10 variant, why a separate version? JH-7 replacement, maybe? Or dedicated long-range Su-30MKK2 escort?”
well the JH-7 replacement is the JH-7A, but even that model is just like a later block verson as opposed to a replacement. the JH-7s are like the MKKs domestic ‘subs’, and can replace the MKKs in the anti-ship, ground attack roles should there be a need for it. currently the JH-7s are finding favour because of their ‘unique’ ability to carry the chinese C80X AShMs.
as for the naval J10, well i think the proposed a/c is more like a major redesigned a/c rather then just the ‘basic’ J10 with an anti-shipping package added. the naval J10 is suposed to be a twin engined jet more like the typhoon and rafale and is intended to form the air wing of the planned PLAN carriers. it was felt that a twin engined fighter would be better suited to sea ops then the current single engine configuration.
in this regaurd, it is neither a replacement for the JH-7 or a MKK2 escort (J11s would be more suited for that role), but rather intended to fill in a totally new role for the PLANAF.
i suspect the fate of this naval J10 would be intermately linked to the decision of whether or not to build carriers. this is because there is already at least one (two or more in most cases) a/c to carry out every role the PLAAF/ PLANAF could need to perform.
plawolfnice to finally get a look at this baby, just a shame its blurry.
as for the intended purpose of the B model, well i for one think that at present it is just intended to be used as a trainer, but will form the basis for a later, more ground attack oriented verson of the plane if an order is placed for it.
there are many advantages to having a twin seat verson of a new fighter as it would greatly help to reduce training time and risk, especially when a toatlly new type is being introduced.
fair enough AJTs can help with alot of the trianing sylobus, but some things just cant be paractived without actaully flying the plane, and having a second seat means that there is an added degree of safety, especailly when difficult and/or new manovers are practiced.
plawolf“There is a possibility of belated news or getting news not in the right chronological order.
I don’t believe we are getting news both in the right chronological order and in the right time. For all you know, events being reported already happened months or even years ago.”
or it could be that purhaps that one upgrade (SM?) would give the SKs a basic percision attack ability while the main focus is on the enhancement of AA capacity (R77 intergradtion, multipule target engagement, better detection range etc); on the other hand, the SMKs could be the full multi-role package that the VVS is choosing to upgrade its flankers with. china does have a licence for 200 Su27s, purhaps not all would be built to the same standard, with the first hundred being for air superiority while the rest being intended to be more multi-role.
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