Some kind of supersonic cruise missile project I presume.

Su-33 has many differences over Su-27/J-11 or even Su-30MKK. Although the Su-30MKK and the J-11 landing gear have been strengthened due to heavier loads, for the Su-33, you need to strengthen it to a whole different level to deal with carrier landings. At the same time, the body had to be strengthened further and the wings have to be foldable. The canards are added to reduce the takeoff length. Then to deal with the increased weight of all the beefed up components, and with the need to reduce take off length, you would need even more powerful engines. Then you need a radar to deal with the sea clatter.

I don’t think China would spare the development expense to create a regiment or two of carrier born J-11 variation. Not unless they’re building lots of carriers, I don’t even think China would spare the expense of even developing a J-10 version. They can spare themselves the expense just by ordering Su-33s from Sukhoi, a modified version for China fitted with the Su-30MK2 or Su-30MK3 radar.

As a matter of fact, they may already be anticipating this so. The Su-27KUB (aka two seater Su-33UB) prototype is fitted with the Zhuk-MSE radar, the radar supposedly intended for the Su-30MK3. In 1997, China had serious talks with Sukhoi about the Su-33. Two years after, the Su-27KUB came out despite there is no concievable market in the RuN for them.

Whoa this pic floored me. Got this from the CDF.

If the Varyag is brought into service, it will probably serve more like a training ship and an experience gatherer before the Chinese put their own carrier into service.

But sometimes you have to wonder why they just didn’t do this with the Minsk and the Kiev earlier. What is it with the Varyag that makes it much more preferable? Size?

From koxinga @ CDF

Cool information. Looks like small phase arrays from the description.

Ok guys, Red Knight on my board has more pics and some first hand info on the Chinese carrier- I wasn’t in dreamland, china is making Varyag read for sea

More proof on my board, please feel free to joinm up and discuss the situation.

I don’t want to bust your chops, but that carrier model you see there is made by students in some college in China as a project.

There were a lot of Japanese, Korean and Chinese pirates around the medieval or Ming period (1400s to 1600s), which is the golden age of the Junk ships. By the 1600-1700s, there were literally thousands of junks, and the Chinese navy alone had hundreds. Pirates raided much of the eastern Chinese coast, and against islands in the Far East.

During the early period of Spanish occupation in the Philippines, the Spanish and the Filipinos banded together to thwart repeated Chinese and Japanese pirate incursions, including a celebrated pirate named “Lim Ma Hong” that tried to take over Manila. They also fought against the Moro (Muslim) incursions from the south who uses fast sailing ships built like catamarans, then later against British and Portugese incursions.

The most celebrated “pirate”, although technically he’s not, is Lord Koxinga, aka Zhen Chen Gong. Not sure if I got his name spelled right, but Koxinga is what the Dutch called him, and his Japanese name is Tei Seiko. There are Kabukis in celebration of this person. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan between a Japanese mother and a father who was a lord and official of the Ming Dynasty. When he was 9, his father took him away from his mother who had taken good care of him, and sent him to China. Though heartbroken, His mother eventually did reunite with him, moving from Nagasaki to Fujien province.

To make a long story short, he had reputable military history as a Ming general against the Manchu (Qing) invasion. The Ming eventually fell to the Qing but there were many Ming holdouts who refused to surrender. As the last Ming emperor hanged himself, his father surrendered to the Qing, an act that Koxinga took as a sign of major disgrace. Rather than surrender, his Japanese mother commited suicide rather than surrender to the Qing. As he was close to his mother, this raised some heavy revenge issues.

He raised a large army and resisted the Qing successfully for many years. Eventually his army could not withstand the sheer might of the Qing and they left for the sea.

He and his large fleet of junks forced the surrender of the Dutch in the island of Formosa, then claimed the island for the Ming. Thus his status as the “liberator” of the island now known as Taiwan. He set himself up as a king in the island and made it a hotbed of Ming resistance against the Qing.

He died young at 37, but shortly before that, he was becoming murderously sociophatic. 38 years later, his Taiwan stronghold under the command of his son eventually fell to the Qing.

South Korea has been built bigger and more complicated commercial shpis than China and we are No 1 commercial ship builder but this doesn’t mean we can design our own CV. Commercial ships are different from naval ships. It needs more tech and knowhow. Does Chinese have both of them?

The Russians are far from the world’s biggest commerical ship builders, certainly behind the Chinese even on that, yet they built carriers and I’m pretty sure the South Korea has superior ship building technology than Japan in the thirties and even the US in the fifties and sixties.

This is just a matter of doing your homework. China has spent more than a decade studying carriers closely. If they want to build one they can. If South Korea did their homework in the same time segment, they might also be able to build a carrier.

This is more of a question of willpower, not ability.