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China Moving Full Speed Ahead in Construction of Aircraft Carriers

posted by CoolHand on Monday October 05 2015, @09:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-longer-isolationist dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Satellite photos analyzed by IHS Janes show China has dramatically ramped up efforts to construct a second aircraft carrier—the first to be built indigenously there. While the new ship will likely not be a match for US aircraft carriers, it is important for a number of reasons, and representative of China's ambitions to be a naval superpower. The ship is in "advanced state of construction" in a Dailan shipyard, according to analysis of commercial satellite images by IHS Jane's. And China's goal is reportedly to launch the new carrier by this December (in time for Mao Zedong's 122nd birthday), and outfit it by the end of next year.

China's plans to build new carriers have not exactly been a secret. Construction of the ship started in March, and was confirmed to be a carrier by Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) officials speaking to Hong Kong Commercial Daily. The new carrier, called the Type 001A, will include technology currently only used aboard US carriers, according to PLA Navy senior officers: an electromagnetic catapult that will allow aircraft to be launched with greater fuel and weapons loads. That would put China into a very exclusive club.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by quacking duck on Tuesday October 06 2015, @02:59AM

    by quacking duck (1395) on Tuesday October 06 2015, @02:59AM (#245939)

    And China can lift not just the design for carriers, but the crew operating procedures for carrier ops too. Both were, as you say, developed over decades of experience. Neither can be implemented at the drop of the hat, and there will be mistakes, even fatalities, as they to learn it all and start practicing it, but I see this no different from them trying to land a person on the moon... yes, it was already done decades ago, but it's kind of like how many parts of Africa leapfrogged landline home phone systems and jumped straight to cell phones. Right now China seems keen to do a massive military buildup that won't be actively opposed by the US... yet. And the irony is that unlike the USSR, it's American companies and American consumers pumping money into China that started this Chinese chain reaction. And I doubt their their now-slowing economy is going to hinder that in any meaningful way.

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  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday October 06 2015, @11:47AM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 06 2015, @11:47AM (#246037) Journal

    Hmmm... Out-spend the enemy. No shots fired, enemy's country collapses, bankrupt. I think Ronnie came up with that plan in the 80s.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @05:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @05:45PM (#246143)
      I think Ronnie's supporters saw the Berlin wall fall, realized they were never actually going to get the Hollywood style showdown at high noon where they would either nuke the shit out of communism or go down in a blaze of gamma ray glory, and retconned the economic strategy as having been the Gipper's plan all along in the 90s.