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Posted by: simeon5541 25 Nov 2012, 13:10

China landed their J-15 naval fighter at their sole Chinese Aircraft Carrier Lianing.
Since its acquisition from Ukraine this carrier has been severely modernized.
Aircraft from the video is Chinese made further development of Su-33 prototype
acquired also from Ukraine in early 2000s,it is intended to become main Chinese naval fighter by 2016.
This aircraft is not copy of Su-33 not to be confused (China already made licensed copy of Su-27 called J-11),
rather plane for itself,containing newest Chinese weaponry and equipment.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 25 Nov 2012, 14:21

The Liaoning is the first of a fleet of aircraft carriers that China should take until the next decade, analysts said the ambitious project includes the construction of aicraft carriers probably moved to nuclear energy, equipped with electromagnetic catapults instead of springboard for takeoff, will be capable of carrying heavy fighter J-15, jet aircraft JL-9, AWCS, heavy anti submarine helicopters and search and rescue helicopters.

Posted by: MARS 25 Nov 2012, 14:56

The thing that's way more interesting about the Liaoning than the technical stuff is its ridiculous history. Back in the 80s, the Soviets were building a carrier called 'Riga' at the Ukrainian Black Sea coast, but when the Eastern Bloc collapsed and Ukraine became a free country, they basically lost their land access to the ship yard and since Latvia had broken away from the Reds as well, the ship was renamed 'Varyag'. The Ukrainians didn't want to keep it, so it was sold off to some dubious Chinese business chap who supposedly wanted to turn it into a swimming hotel/casino in the late 90s. After the turn of the millennium, the ship was literally towed out of the Black Sea, into the Med where it was denied passage through the Suez canal, so it was towed through Gibraltar, around the entirety of Africa, through the Indian Ocean and finally to China where it turned out that the businessman didn't have a clearance to bring it into Macau and that the entire thing was basically a giant sham by the PLA which subsequently towed the ship to Dalian and finished what was basically a giant steel shell of a carrier bought at a bargain price.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 25 Nov 2012, 16:27

In fact, Liaoning was doomed to abandonment at some shipyard on the Black Sea, the aircarft carrier is outdated, does not support a diverse group of aircraft and is designed to operate with the Su-27 and Su-33, China does not have any these fighters and the russians recently canceled a contract with China for the sale of Su-33, the J-15 is just a chinese attempt to copy the Su-33.

The recent situation with Japan and the acquisition of Vikramaditya by India justify Liaoninge although its operational capacity is very limited.

Posted by: simeon5541 25 Nov 2012, 20:19

I think that there is really no need for some diversity of Aircraft since J-15 will be probably multy-role one,
beside that I am pretty assured that it can host Anti-Sub Helicopters.
Well Su-33 is a variant of Su-27,in Russia called Su-27K.
I disagree with you.
China operates with great amount of Su-27s directly acquired from Russia,in fact China is first foreign country
to operate these planes if I remember correctly.
China also operates with great amount of Su-30MKK and Su-30MK2,which are Su-30 variants made to fulfill
Chinese requirements and Su-30 be itself is Su-27 derivate.China has also started manufacturing their own
licensed copies of Su-27 few years before purchase of Su-30MKK,they are called Jian-11 or shortly J-11.
And about J-15 . . . Su-33(Su-27K) was introduced in 90s in Russian Navy,in early 2000s China purchased
Su-33 prototype that was left in Ukraine since breakup of Soviet Union,since they were familiar with that kind of technology.
From that time till now they are developing their own naval fighter derived from Su-33 prototype,
meaning that J-15 is not Su-33 copy,they share same prototype but development of two went in two separate directions,
so what I'm saying is that J-15 will be totally made in China,use most modern Chinese weaponry and equipment and
maybe even perform better since it is a new plane,although Russians disagree with that.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 25 Nov 2012, 23:06

Actually the J-15 is based on the J-11 (Su-27), China does not have any fighter to operate in Liaoning and Russia does not intend to sell any Su-27-33 (27k) to China and will not transfer technology to the neighboring country, the only alternative to China was venturing into the design of the J-15.

Believe me, developing an aircraft to an aircraft carrier is much more difficult than developing an aircraft carrier for an aircraft, the J-15 is a prototype based on a copy, the Russian engineers are at least decades ahead of China in the field aerospace and developing a military aircraft is not so simple, for this reason the J-15 will never operate as the Su-33 in Liaoning.

The Liaoning not support heavy helicopters, not offering a proper operational and logistical capability for Chinese naval aviation, the crew did not have any experience with aircraft carriers and the defensive capabilities of the vessel are questionable.

The Chinese acquired the aircraft carrier for naval and aerospace experience, they do not have the operational capacity.

Posted by: SorataZ 26 Nov 2012, 15:33

I lol'd.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 28 Nov 2012, 16:03

Returning to this discussion... In the next days the U.S. Navy began the first test with the prototype X-47B 'Pegasus' in the Aircraft Carriers USS Harry S. Truman, the purpose of the tests is to verify the effectiveness of the drone in the Aircraft Carriers.

The UCAV 'Pegasus' has been developed since 2001 and its main function in Aircraft Carriers will be to infiltrate the enemy territory and identify targets for air groups. He must be able to operate in sea conditions and in environments with high electromagnetic interference. The X-47B may be controlled by an operator/pilot through a portable control.

If the tests are successful we will witness something revolutionary in modern warfare.

Posted by: MARS 28 Nov 2012, 16:49

Drones on a carrier. Here's hoping it won't require a full-sized super-carrier to be sunk by one of those new Dongfeng missiles for someone to consider the idea of a smaller, perhaps submersible UCAV carrier vessel. That'd be an interesting development.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 28 Nov 2012, 19:02

The Dongfeng really is a threat to U.S. aircraft carriers, there is no effective countermeasure against this ICBM, and they can do great damage.

Designing a UCAV carrier submersible is a good alternative, it would probably be more expensive than an aircraft carriers but would be a harder target to be achieved, the problem is that ICBMs can be loaded with nuclear warheads which increases their capacity to destruction and makes them a threat to every type of vessel.

Posted by: MARS 28 Nov 2012, 19:43

One undeniable advantage of a smaller UCAV carrier sub would be that it wouldn't have like 5000 people on board like a Nimitz-class super-carrier. As far as I'm concerned, that's one massive morale-breaking tragedy waiting to
happen in the event of a larger, more costly conflict. Who knows, maybe the classic surface carrier could eventually meet the same pathetic end as the great battleships in WW2, particularly the Bismarck and the Prince of Wales.

Posted by: DerKrieger 28 Nov 2012, 21:23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-161_Standard_Missile_3


As long as aircraft are effective in warfare there'll be a need for aircraft carriers. Being able to deploy 80 aircraft off the shore of a hostile nation within a short period of time is a hell of a force multiplier. The new Gerald R. Ford class will have more automation and less crew, however.

Posted by: MARS 28 Nov 2012, 21:51

I totally agree with that. As long as aircraft are relevant, carriers will be relevant as well. It's just that I wouldn't be surprised if there was some fundamental shift in carrier design at some point,
but that's something that only time will tell. We might end up seeing submersible UCAV carriers or the complete opposite in the form of a Mobile Offshore Base. Would be interesting either way.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 28 Nov 2012, 22:51

The tendency of modern warfare is to reduce the size of aircraft and automate the systems, probably the UCAVs will be the fighters of the future, the advantages of these aircraft are indisputable however opens precedents for a new type of electronic warfare where the enemy seeks to intercept the frequency of drone, Iran recently was able to intercept a drone of the USA 'kidnapping' their data and replacing the landing coordinates.

In the future with a reduced crew and aircraft automated the aircraft carriers will have great conceptual changes to 'survive' the conditions of modern warfare.

Posted by: flyingpancake 24 Feb 2013, 1:00

Didn't the Japanese in WW2 had something like a submarine aircraft carrier on the drawing board?

Posted by: GDIZOCOM 24 Feb 2013, 12:34

The I-400 yes, they actually built one, but it was captured by the end of the war and the Americans but due to the Reds possibly looking after it also after some time of inspection they blew it up. It was supposed to be hidden or undetected until they reached LA or New York. The whole project dated back to when the war started in the Pacific.

Posted by: Serialkillerwhale 8 Mar 2013, 9:35

I'm thinking the Helicarrier wasn't far off.

We already have mid-air refuelings and the size difference between say, a B-52 and a Globalhawk is plenty.

If they build a bigger jet, we could see planes launching other planes.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 8 Mar 2013, 11:46

I'm sure this will not happen in the future. Create an aircraft that needs to be refueled contradicts the logic of all aircraft carrier not you think?

Posted by: Serialkillerwhale 8 Mar 2013, 13:18

This isn't aircraft carrier style long-term missions.

a Airborne carrier would fly to an area, drop it's UAVs loiter around outisde the danger zone for the UAVs to come back, pick them up and fly back to base.

It's very effective actually.

Posted by: Warpath 9 Mar 2013, 12:57

Or we could just design the UCAV to have longer range, and an Airborne AC will consume a fuckton of fuel just hovering out there.

Posted by: CoLT 11 Mar 2013, 13:56

Actually something like that could exist since aircraft such as the B-52 are capable of launching drones already. The aircraft you are talking about would require the ability to retrieve them as well. Most likely if something like this were to be created in the near future, it'd most likely make the drones expendable. Therefore, the aircraft launching them would just need to reach the target area, launch the drones and then head home. It wouldn't even need to stay anywhere near the area since with satellites, you could just control the drones from your own country.

Hell, even the launcher aircraft could be a drone when you think about it.

Posted by: blgmgl 25 Jul 2013, 16:43

I guess Chinese are using this ex-Soviet aircraft carrier as a testing platform for future developments of its own aircraft carriers. And besides China has enough money now to do it.

Posted by: D' WRTHBRNGR 26 Jul 2013, 10:36

The learning curve will be steep for them, it seems:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/will-take-long-to-deploy-functional-aircraft-carrier-says-pla-navy/1145231/1

Posted by: Knossos 26 Jul 2013, 14:06

Before we say that Dongfengs are scary, let's examine first what the huck a Dongfeng missile is.

It's an ICBM, right? Intercontinental BALLISTIC Missile

Which means you just launch it on the general direction of the target and let the nuke do its thingie.

Now, in an ASBM, there are several factors which makes the weapon useless;

1. Accuracy. CEP of DF-21s are supposed to be 300m, nearly same as the SS-18s the Soviets used to deploy (220m at best). So, estimating that the length of Nimitz or George Washington is 320m, and moving at a speed of 30 knots, unless the weapon would be nuke-tipped (and unless the Chinese wants to start a fucking nuclear war), then the weapon would most certainly miss by ~50 meters minimum.

2. Guidance. Unlike a city, airbase or nuclear silos, carriers move. See above for elaboration.

3. Deterrence. How would the U.S. know if a ballistic missile launch is a nuke headed to a city, a nuke headed to a ship/ group of ships, or a conventionally-armed ASBM?

4. Interception. Standard missiles, AEGIS-equipped ships and THAAD were specifically tasked to destroy a ballistic projectile.