My guess of the first indigenous carrier is it may resembler this, with a superstructure reduced in size,
a ski-jump, and perhaps there's a chance for a catapult system installed at the angled deck
Rough sea
At Vladivostok
051C
052B and 052C
092
052C
Sovernmeny, will be undergoing refit soon. The SA-N-7 and SS-N-22 may be removed among other indigenization changes
I always thought those ships didn't fit in very well, but they were a stopgap measure at a time when PLAN lacked effective air defence. I wonder if the new carrier will really feature a third elevator, IMO the small number of elevators is a weakness of Liaoning.
sovremennies were bought not as stop gap for air defence, but to fend off US carrier. It was bought after the US sent 7th fleet to taiwan strait during clinton era. The moskit is the reason why it was such a huge news at that time. As for overhaul, I think it make sense if the ship itself is still seaworthy. Chinese navy still lack quantity vis a vis japan and american navy.
Its mediocre 40km Shtil missile system can just barely defend itself and ships that are very nearby. PLAN at that time depended nearly entirely on coastal PLANAF and PLAAF for air defense. It was bought for its 8 Sunburns pure and simple.
PLAN only had a few ships with SAM in 1999-2000: the two Luhus, one upgraded Luda, 167 Shenzhen was just commissioned, five or six Jiangwei II, and four Jiangwei I with the old HQ-61. Except for the latter, these were all HQ-7 and the Jiangwei doesn't even carry reloads. Moskit range is rather short and Sov only carries eight. I don't think four Sovs would survive before getting into missile range of a carrier.
Plus the PLAN was buying 2 Rif long range SAM systems at that time as well, which they intended to put on some ship, that we now know is the Luhai platform.
As for the Shtil, you could protect a tightly-packed surface action group from incoming antiship missiles, but 40km missiles from single-arm launchers could hardly be considered area air defense. Plus its minimum altitude is only 15m, so it would have missed most sea-skimmers even back in those days.
a US CVBG. Getting back to the original post, this is why the PLAN starting buying platforms such as the Sovremenny and the Kilo. The Moskits are quite potent at the ranges inside the Strait and from the coast. TBH even if it were not the Strait itself, these ships helped to deter the USN from at least operating with impunity along China's coastline until the Sovs had been dealt with. As the PLAN has modernized, the USN has become threatened more gravely further and further from the coast. At this point I don't believe the USN would even approach to within 3-400km initially at the onset of hostilities, whereas 20 years ago they could sail to within sight of the coast pretty much from the beginning and attack targets far inland.
Especially when you only have 3 (really 2.5 TBH) takeoff positions, 2 of which cannot even be used if also recovering aircraft at the same time. The Ford carrier only has 3 elevators, with 4 takeoff positions, 3 of which can be used during or shortly after a recovery.
There's definitely room aft for a port side lift. It may not get used much but these are so essential it's good to have another. I can think of a few ways an additional lift would be useful, Rotorhead can probably think of more.
If you look at an overhead shot of the Liaoning, its arrestor wires would overlap any placement of a port side aft elevator. You need a somewhat wider flight deck to accommodate that.
A port side elevator could be placed behind the aft-most wire, of course a couple of things would have to be shifted around to fit. Ford is the only US carrier class in a long time with so few lifts, even USS Midway had three lifts.
Besides, there is nothing that could be shifted around on the flight deck anyway. As for the Ford, they reduced the number of lifts because they realized only 3 are actually needed for efficient flight ops (and that's for the largest aircraft carrier in history), and they could use the extra real estate to park and ferry aircraft.
If they had decided on US-style carrier doctrine instead of having the carriers just provide air cover for subs/surface assets, Varyag might have had a different design. I wonder what PLAN did with the space formerly occupied by the flight deck missile tubes?
for both doctrines, however, so flight deck ops would have been optimized for Varyag regardless. As for the giant missile tubes, per reports they were used for additional crew comfort facilities, though specifically what I'm not sure.
The Soviets intended these ships to be big missile cruisers with organic air cover, totally different from US doctrine. The Shipwrecks were as or more important than Flankers.
The first 052D received a new paint. Did I say the 052D will be mass produced like the 054A?
The last 052C and a 052D
Two so called "paining" of the 001A indigenous carrier seen in Dalian shipyard. Some folks think this is
modifed from real photos. If so, this means we're going to see something sooner than thought.
Carrier mock-up module in JN shipyard as seen from the air. The elevator and the catapult track become clear from this perspective
Seen from the ground, compare the catapult track with the two on CVN-77. The reason Chinese indigenous carrier is not
laid down sooner is only because all the system have to be developed locally, from the arresting gear, J-15 aircraft, to
the last piece of the puzzle, the catapult system
So, the missile itself is the little black dot on the left?
I watched some video on Iran test-firing some C-802 or derivative. They showed the missile dropped a certain distance after the ejection of the booster and before the turbo-jet took over. But the booster itself burnt out almost immediately and fell into the sea.
This picture shows the booster keep flying into the distance!!!
