OT: China's new carrier

[dragoon500ly]

Well if any one has missed this...

The PRC has moved their former Russian Kiev-class carrier from the status of floating casino to major naval combatant (like nobody saw that one coming).

The news site that I saw this report on talked about the balance of power shifting from the US to the PRC and how the PRC would be able to contest control of the Pacific.

I was left sitting going WTF?

Now I am a cav trooper and any intrest I have in the Navy is strictly from a war-gaming stand point (Harpoon Rules!!!). But the Chinese are not going to be able to dispute control of the Pacific anytime soon, at least not with their latest toy.

The Kiev's were not considered to be very effective aircraft carriers, their major claim was the very heavy SSM, SAM armament that they carried. This heavy missile armament meant that they couldn't carry a large air group, they could not carry the fuel for extensive operations by the air group and they did not have the magazine space to support the air group. Even if the Chinese scrap the missile armament, it is believed that the carrier could not support more than 30-40 aircraft at the most (a typical US carrier can field about 85 aircraft).

There is one other point that the media has missed. China didn't build the carrier. They have no sisters under construction in any shipyard. It appears that this will be the only carrier that they will have for quite some time.

The USN, at the peak of the Cold War fielded 15 carriers, of which at least 5 were in port for minor repairs or undergoing major maintenance. A naval officer in my office laughs about this, stating that the Chinese carrier would most likely spend as much as 6-7 months of each year, in port. And since it is already an older ship, they may get as much as a dozen years of service out of her.

The only nations that are really threatned by the new Chinese ship are the Phillipines, Vietnam and Indonesia, all of whom are disupting fishing rights and oil drilling with the PRC. This will most likely result in the USN deploying 1-2 SSNs into the area whenever the carrier sails, and may see a more frequent deployment of a US carrier task group into the region.

The greatest threat that the US is facing from the Chinese (at least in a naval sort of way) is the deployment of new anti-ship missiles.

Still, reporters are proclaiming that the launching of this carrier means the end of US control of the Pacific......