China Shows Off Carrier, but Experts Are Skeptical

[jsr]

Source: New York Times

BEIJING — In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas...

American military planners have played down the significance of the commissioning of the carrier. Some Navy officials have even said they would encourage China to move ahead with building its own aircraft carrier and the ships to accompany it, because it would be a waste of money.

“The fact is the aircraft carrier is useless for the Chinese Navy,” You Ji, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore, said in an interview. “If it is used against America, it has no survivability. If it is used against China’s neighbors, it’s a sign of bullying.”

Vietnam, a neighbor with whom China has fought wars, operates land-based Russian Su-30 aircraft that could pose a threat to the aircraft carrier, Mr. You said. “In the South China Sea, if the carrier is damaged by the Vietnamese, it’s a huge loss of face,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/asia/china-shows-off-an-aircraft-carrier-but-experts-are-skeptical.html

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[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. floating Maginot Line

[Missycim]

25. You're joking?

This barge is for training only and if it tried to project force a 688 boat would eat its lunch.

[Bucky]

30. The chance of a US-China shootin match is about nil

Superpower showdowns are a thing of the past. Buying this carrier is China's equivalent of John Adams wearing a sabre on his hip during the Quasi War with France in 1799. Superpower projections of force are about asymmetrical warfare, bullying southeast Asia or intimidating Somali pirates off the Horn. The carrier doesn't have to win a war or survive a battle. It's job is to look mean and suck in money.

[rppper]

66. Right on.....

Two well placed MK48s will send a Nimitz class carrier to the bottom...at least that's what we were taught in sub school....

This "carrier" sat in a Chinese harbor as a floating gambling casino before the Chinese government decided to refurbish it....it's old late 70s/early 80s soviet junk. Having had a chance to tour a Chinese destroyer in Pearl Harbor in '97 just before I got out, I was empressed on how clean it was, but despite it being a 5-6 year old vessel and their fleets flagship it looked archaic parked next to an aegis destroyers that we and the Japanese share...chinas navy grows more into relation to Japan's and India's than it does ours, both of whom have very well maintained modern navies....

[Missycim]

70. Carriers can be sunk no doubt

but you have to get close enough to do it and if the skipper is half way competent that won't happen. I love the people here and elsewhere that say Iran's missiles will sink a US Carrier, do you honestly think we would allow one of our carriers to get anywhere near their missiles?

[rppper]

73. It's not a matter of how close...

The mk48, harpoon or tomahawk are OTH weapons, over the horizon, fired from miles and miles away....there are also factors like depth, water temputure, water salinity....etc, that allow a sub to hide from sonar....believe me, as good a navy as we have, only the helicopters have a snowballs chance of catching a sub....

It's all irrelevant really....the Iranian navy doesn't have Virginia or 688I class subs...

Their last attempt to flood the straights with missiles and small craft wound up with zero US navy ships lost and the Iranian fleet sent to the bottom.....

[Nolimit]

3. I thought Mao suits went out of fashion a long time ago.

I'd say China's powerful enough now to come up with their own style of naval uniform instead of the Russian-esque style they got going on.

[David__77]

17. It's not a Mao suit. It was popularized by Sun Yatsen.

Right after the revolution of 1911. Mao wore it, as did his archenemy Chiang Kai-shek.

Hu Jintao wears it only in his capacity as chairman of the country's Central Military Commission. He doesn't wear it in his civilian duties.

[Diclotican]

4. jsr

jsr

Show of force, nothing more, noting less... It is like having a battleship in a area, it is impressive to look at, but nothing more, as modern weapons can sink the ship in less than 30 minutes..

But it looks impressive I guess..

Diclotican

[chuckrocks]

5. Wal-Mart having pirate trouble?

[oldsarge54]

6. Sorry to Disagree

China has interests in the Gulf, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. To effectively project air power in areas with no bases you need carriers. That is why we have a carrier or two in each of those theaters. China tends to think strategically. Yes, costly. Totally unneeded, well as an former Air Force type, carriers are part of the necessary mix for global reach. I hope my family doesn't read this one.

[sofa king]

16. You might also need one to hold on to the Spratlys.

Definitely not an admiral, here, but the next big naval war seems likely to erupt over the Spratly islands, or Taiwan, or over those silly little islands the Japanese want.

A carrier would permit operations from unexpected directions, in addition to shuttle-bombing far away targets with aircraft equipped to land and be turned around on the carrier, covering invasion fleets, and for the more usual purposes of bullying and diplomatic brinksmanship.

Chinese territorial aspirations appear to stretch much farther than land-based planes from mainland China can easily reach.

When unmanned drones begin fully replacing ground-attack aircraft, the deck, storage, and maintenance facilities a carrier can provide might make one even more valuable and useful than they already are.

[defacto7]

18. but to me, it looks like a big sitting duck... no more.

But it's so war sexy!

[Sherman A1]

22. Precisely

This is a significant part of the reasoning behind their naval build up.

[oldsarge54]

23. I was also

thinking about the anti-piracy patrols China now have off somalia. And India and China have bones to pick with each other, hence force projection into the india ocean. If China is indeed likely to be one of the next superpowers, that force projection will develop.

Funny thing, about thirty years ago, I started writing a novel called "Passing the Torch" in which China is the new superpower, and Brazil is poised (as the US was in 1917) to take over as the leading power in the west. Shot down by publishers as being too unrealistic. Funny thing, I set this in the 2020 time frame. Anyone look at Brazil closely recently?

[MercutioATC]

52. China doesn't have any fighters that can actually be carrier-launched.

The carrier is simply for bragging rights. It's an unusable relic.

[oldsarge54]

53. Ever consider the J-18 that is supposed to be under development?

Supposed to be moving along better than the J-20, with a v/stol capability, that the old soviet carrier is designed for.

[MercutioATC]

54. So in 5-10 years China will be able to launch a plane from a boat.

The planes won't stand up against the F-35 and the carrier won't be supported by any sort of naval battle group, but China will be physically able to send a boat into the water and launch planes from it.


Color me unimpressed.

[SylviaD]

65. The Chinese might decide to put together a support battlegroup... nt

[Angleae]

68. It's not the US navy they're building up for.

It's India and Japan. That carrier might be old and antiquated, but behind they are only behind the US, France, and Brazil in carrier capability. This one carrier is superior to anything the UK, Spain, Italy, Russia*, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand have. No other nation even has a carrier (or facsimile thereof).

* Russia's carrier is a sister ship to China's but is extremely worn out due to lack of maintenance.

[Kolesar]

7. It has seamen, but no airplanes

How does that make it an "aircraft carrier"?

[NBachers]

8. They're waiting to buy 'em from President Rmoney

[Bucky]

29. Buy 'em? Why not just wait a couple of years and repossess 'em for free?

[backscatter712]

9. I don't know what the status is of China's carrier aircraft.

Googling around, it looks like they had developed a clone of the Russian Sukhoi Su-33 fighter, which was developed for Russia's carrier (and I might mention that China's new carrier is actually a refurbished sister-ship of Russia's Admiral Kuznetzov.)

That plane's in the process of flight-testing right now.

[oldsarge54]

24. What do you mean no airplanes?

Copies/licensed built Forgers.

[caraher]

36. Forgers?

The carrier is probably more combat-effective without planes than flying the Forger! It was a piece of shit. From the Wikipedia article on the Yak-38:

... towards the middle of the 1980s, the Yak-38 was removed from front line service and transferred to land-based operations. The aircraft proved to have problems in conditions of high heat/high humidity, was underpowered and lacked an adequate combat radius. In fact, due to these limitations, one of the nicknames that the aircraft earned in the Soviet naval jargon was "a pigeon of peace". Another less than flattering nickname earned due to inadequate combat radius was "fore-mast defense aircraft". In 1991, the type was retired from the Soviet Navy, and transferred to storage.

[Posteritatis]

41. Forgers are almost aircraft, I suppose.. (nt)

[Bucky]

31. I guess that makes me an aircraft carrier too!

[Kennah]

55. I'm a carrier, you're a carrier, he's a carrier, she's a carrier--wait, no she's not

Damned biology fucked up my Dr. Pepper ripoff

[Historic NY]

10. Chinas used car with an Earl Scheib paint job...

soon they will find out how expensive upkeep is.

[Politicub]

11. Tres North Korean

Snappy uniforms, too.

[snooper2]

12. they forgot a bilge pump

[Bucky]

28. It needs something... like a "mission accomplished" banner

and a bulge pump for Hu Jintao.

[Bigmack]

13. Several posts here have skirted the issue...

... but carriers are the 20th Century battleships of the 21st Century. China's or ours.

Huuuuuuge targets for sophisticated anti-ship weapons. And prohibitively expensive.

Only a matter of time until somebody sinks one.

[Angleae]

20. Those anti-ship weapons don't even remotely have the range needed.

The delivery system (ship or aircraft) would have to be within the range of the carrier's aircraft to launch such a weapon.

The only systems that actually have the range that I know of are either out of service (tomahawk TASM) or would trigger WWIII (ICBM based)

This is why the last one sunk by hostile action was in mid 1945.

[Bigmack]

35. I know about US carriers historically...

I taught US history.

I also taught geography. The Straits of Hormuz is about 20 miles wide.

The Persian Gulf is damn small.

If the purpose of the Iranians is to embarrass the US, they could throw everything they have at one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. Maybe overwhelm the Aegis systems.

[Angleae]

39. US carriers don't usually operate in the Persian Gulf.

They stay out in the Arabian Sea, well out of range of most Iranian weapons but well withing their own.

[Bigmack]

40. It says here we have two...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57411165/navy-deploys-2nd-aircraft-carrier-to-persian-gulf-uss-enterprise-joins-abraham-lincoln-strike-group/

[Posteritatis]

42. Persian Gulf _region._

The article specifies where they're operating within that region, and it's not in the Gulf proper.

[Bigmack]

46. Nope.... inside the actual Gulf

"The U.S. Navy usually rotates one of its two carriers into the Persian Gulf while the other operates in the Arabian Sea providing air support for the war in Afghanistan."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-navy-fires-ship-persian-gulf-dead/story?id=16787035#.UGheBZs-HZg

[Lurker Deluxe]

62. If the purpose ....

"If the purpose of the Iranians is to embarrass the US, they could throw everything they have at one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. Maybe overwhelm the Aegis systems."

There would definatly be an embarsassing moment there, pretty sure it would not be the US that would be embarrassed. A direct attack on a carrier group would lead to a smackdown that would be very quick, and the point would be clear, "don't do that shit again".

[Bigmack]

63. Please describe the smackdown....

... would it involve bombing civilian targets?

Do you mean destruction of the launch sites? .... after they've fired their missiles?

Iran is NOT Iraq. They have spent a fortune on real weapons.

[Missycim]

69. They spent a fortune on RUSSIAN weapons

please there junk. Iraq war I proved that. Their airforce would be destroyed within days as would their navy. The army would soon follow. Just on a pure military level they wouldn't stand a chance.

[hack89]

71. Most likely we would destroy every military related target we can

communications, docks, barracks, ammo dumps, headquarters buildings, weapons factories.

Iran has not spent a fortune on real weapons - Iraq was the country with the modern weapons. Iran has old and obsolete equipment - most of which is Russian junk. Don't forget there has been an arms embargo on Iran for a very long time.

[Lurker Deluxe]

72. Smackdown

I would imagine, of coarse being pure speculation, that the response to a direct attack on a carrier group by Iran would look something like this.

Complete destruction of any offensive military capabilities within days.

Our POTUS making a statement to the world something to the tune of ....

Iran launched a full scale assualt on a carrier strike group last week, attacking with thier entire miliatry strength. Thier Navy, Air Force, a group of small fishing boats, and some remote controlled helicopters that appeared to be from Costco all attacked in unison and were all destroyed. Although our carriers have been designed to withstand tremendous attacks they have never been tested until now. We would like to report that although the vessel did sustain minor paint damage it will be touched up and be back in service shortly.

Smackdown.

[Bigmack]

74. OK.. then! Smack those fuckers down!....

Those people can't fight.... one good Murikan boy/ship/plane is better than the whole bunch of those camelfuckers.

Nuke 'em 'til they glow!

Kick their ass and take their gas!

Kill their cattle and rape their women... and don't get those things confused, like last time.

I'm sure the oil supply will be unaffected.

I know we wouldn't make a MidEast hero out of a nearly universally loathed leadership.

You know... I don't think people in this country have learned a damn thing since 2003.

[Lurker Deluxe]

75. Heh

The premise of this was that Iran attacked, in full force, a carrier group of the USofA. Not that we invaded them, tried to "kill thier cattle and rape thier women".

"Nuke 'em till they glow" WTF are you talking about?

And as far as it being "one good Murikan boy/ship/plane", uhh no, it is a carrier strike group. It is 12,000 American men, one carrier, 6-8 support vessel, 60+ aircraft, and most likely 2 subs. In other words, about 100 Billion in assets, or roughly a quater of the nominal GDP of Iran.

This is not something that will happen, never ... Iran is not even close to being ignorant enough to even contemplate directly attacking a carrier unprevoked. This is a what would happen as in a Clancy novel or a Bay film.

So, as far as "I don't think people in this country have learned a damn thing since 2003", again WTF are you talking about?

Damn man, lighten the hell up, no one is pining for a war with Iran.

[happyslug]

14. When designed by the Soviets, this was intended air cover, nothing more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaoning

The Soviet had some concerns about the US Navy Carriers, but had an ace in the hole, Russia's longest Sea Coast in on the Arctic, its second largest sea coast is on the Pacific, but had almost no military targets. Its third largest coast line in on the Baltic, which is an inland sea easily shut off from the Atlantic, and covered by existing land based fighters. The sea of Murmansk is slightly more open, but open only to the Arctic and within Soviet land based fighter cover. The last sea coast is the Black Sea and under international Treaty no Carrier or other Capital Ship can enter that sea through the Bosphorus, thus no US Carrier can enter the Black Sea.

Now, Cruisers can go through the Bosphorus, and when this Aircraft Carrier was designed it was called a Cruiser for that reason. Furthermore its purpose seems to be to provide Air Cover for other ships, not the all purpose attack role of the much larger US Carriers:

While designated an aircraft carrier by the West, the design of the Admiral Kuznetsov class implied a mission different from carriers of the United States Navy, Royal Navy or French Navy. The term used by her builders to describe the Russian ships is "тяжёлый авианесущий крейсер" tyazholiy avianesushchiy kreyser (TAKR or TAVKR)—“heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser”—intended to support and defend strategic missile-carrying submarines, surface ships, and maritime missile-carrying aircraft of the Russian fleet. As such, the Soviet Union and Russia argued that these ships are not aircraft carriers under the Montreux Convention and not subject to the tonnage limits imposed on these ships in traveling through the Bosporus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaoning

Thus this ship was to provide Air Cover for other vessels not to provide a deep strike like a US Carrier. Off the Chinese Coast it may be more valuable then the Larger US Carriers, permitting immediate air cover for any action in the seas between China and the off shore nations of Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan, with additional Air Cover coming from land based air craft but 15-30 minutes later. In that situation, which appears to be similar to what the Soviets intended her to be used (but off the coasts of Norway and Turkey) it appears to be an effective ship. It would be a prime target of any US Carrier, submarine, or other weapon system, but if used in conjunction with land based planes (and if it stays within range of those land based planes) a valuable asset.

This ship is twice as large as the WWII Era Essex Class Carriers, and is 10,000 tons heavier in displacement then the 1991 launched amphibious assault ship, USS Essex.

USS Essex, amphibious assault ship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Essex_(LHD-2)

USS Essex, WWII era US Carrier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Essex_(CV-9)

[Suji to Seoul]

15. Chinese Paper Tiger Military. . .looks good in their uniforms, worthless everywhere else

For photo ops like this, they look great. Normally, the uniform is wrinkled, stained, dirty and the soldiers/sailors/pilots can't stand in a straight line.

Why are we afraid of them? If someone spends five minutes living in China (five years), you would realize how much of a paper tiger they are.

[coalition_unwilling]

48. You sound like you're channeling Douglas MacArthur (pre-Chosin). I'm sure

MacArthur said something similar to Harry S. Truman!

[Suji to Seoul]

57. I live here in China. I think i know what I see everyday from the Chinese military

And you just proved to me you haven't the slightest clue about this paper tiger. The battle plans for the Chinese military is swarm with numbers and overrun.

They are a regional paper tiger.

[coalition_unwilling]

58. I'll readily defer to your current on-the-ground perspective if you promise me you

will read David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter (about the Korean War). The Chinese military may be a 'paper tiger' now, but it most certainly was not when it attacked the United States' military in the 50s in Korea, after MacArthur ignored repeated warnings and advanced his troops above the 38th parallel. Halberstam does a good job of describing what the experience was like for those attacked American troops, most of whom would take serious issue with your description of China's military as a 'paper tiger.'

[Suji to Seoul]

59. nope, because it isn't 1950.

[defacto7]

19. It's probably empty...

...it barely floats and uses a lot of cardboard to make all those shippy looking parts.

[Prometheus Bound]

21. Nice boots.

And the red carpet's a nice feature.

[Missycim]

26. By the time the Chinese

build a decent Carrier and learn carrier operations, the actual carrier would have gone the way of the battleship.

[Bucky]

27. The white gloves on the Marine uniforms is a nice touch. Very Edwardian.

This is like the perfect photograph for the 21st century. The ascetic-fascist uniform of the politician, the archaic and needless pomp of the red carpet and out of date troop uniforms, the waste of aspirational military spending in a mostly peaceful world, the military hardware that will probably fall apart under actual combat conditions, and the button-down business like uniform of the bureaucrat-officers trying to make it all hold together.

Also, the photograph is well constructed. Art thrives in all conditions.

[Mopar151]

32. If they build ships like they build roads, we're all set./ n./t

[mn9driver]

33. This is the Varyag, the second hull of the Soviet Admiral Kuznetsov class

It has no catapults and has a "ski jump" bow designed for Su-33 forger STOL/VTOL aircraft, which China does not have. As fitted by the USSR, it was to be more of an aircraft-carrying missile cruiser as it had provisions for a lot of heavy surface-to-surface missiles.

Make no mistake, this thing would have been quite formidable as part of a Soviet battle group but it was not designed as an offensive force projection platform the way US carriers are. It was designed to defend naval choke points and would not be very good at defending itself without help from a large battle group.

The Chinese are saying this is a "training" ship and I believe it. They will use it to learn carrier operations and tactics before designing and building one or more of their own sometime down the road.

[caraher]

37. The Su-33 is the Flanker-D, not Forger

Forger was the NATO reporting name for the YAK-38.

[Shitty Mitty]

38. Meh...

Come back when you got 11 more, China. 11 more that ain't 30 year old Soviet-era shit.

[daleo]

43. There is some question about how well carriers of any nation would survive a major war

At any rate, China has caught up pretty fast with the west in space, so I wouldn't doubt their capacities in other areas.

[HooptieWagon]

44. China caught up to US space technology of 1965,

and carrier technology of 1945. Both are no greater threat than N Korea's ICBMs.

[daleo]

45. U.S. space technology of 1969 landed men on the moon

U.S. space technology of 2012 can't put people into the ISS.

[HooptieWagon]

49. China hasn't put a man on moon,

hasn't sent a rover to Mars, nor sent a probe into deep space... let alone built a space station. They are decades away.
Likewise, their new carrier doesn't use a catapult, nor do they have any experience launching and retrieving planes from a ship. Pretty much where the US was 70 years ago. Again, it will take them a few decades to catch up.

[daleo]

51. I would estimate a decade or less for a space station

I don't know about a moon landing. Outside of national prestige, it is hard to make a case for it. Still, China may decide it's worth it for that.

I don't know about carriers. Many sources say that they are vulnerable to the best modern missile technology anyway.

My key point is, I wouldn't underestimate China.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303703004577473850707372174.html

[sakabatou]

64. We have the tech

It's the money that's problem.

[daleo]

67. Money= political will

Money can be found if the will is there. I don't know what nation has enough of either.

[4th law of robotics]

47. I think the carriers' day is about over

they're useful in supporting a war on land. But for any significant engagement at sea they are a huge concentration of highly vulnerable assets.

[neverforget]

50. They have a long ways to go before they are a professional navy in regards to

operations of aircraft carriers. They have zero experience operating aircraft at sea. It takes A LOT of training to become efficient at it.

[Kennah]

56. Let me get this straight

The Chinese buy a mid 1980s Soviet era carrier in 1998, 14 years later it is now ready to go as a training platform, and some are worried?

[Scurrilous]

60. The bayonets are a nice touch.

Indispensable in modern naval warfare.

[jsr]

61. To repel boarders

But they also need battle axes.

[4th law of robotics]

76. Just playing devils advocate here but I would think

they would be more useful if some crew members decided to get out of line. A middle ground between doing nothing and shooting them.

That's why we have armed guards on ships. Not because we're worried about pirates swinging on board and taking 'er by force.