China's Three Aircraft Carriers

[kato13]

ChalkLine 02-05-2006, 07:24 AM I found it interesting reading to find out that Chinese companies have bought the Minsk, Varyag and the Kiev, three former USSR Aircraft carriers (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/art6-w04.htm) in the 40k ton range.


One has been turned into a casino, another a theme park, and the third (and most advanced, as far as old Russian boats go) is somewhat ambiguously supposed to be the centre of a port too shallow to hold it and unaware that it's coming. All of them have no engines or armaments, but that's no big deal.


Another aspect of this story involves Australia, when we sold the Melbourne to the shipbreakers, it went to China who dissected the ship for info and took the flight deck off to practice carrier landings. Woops.

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Grimace 02-05-2006, 12:33 PM When did that "Melbourne" thing occur?


That whole thing makes you go "hmmmm."

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ChalkLine 02-05-2006, 03:06 PM When did that "Melbourne" thing occur?


During the first stage, to quickly improve its own carrier technology, China has bought several scrapped carriers from overseas in order to study the parts. The first such carrier was "Melbourne," a light carrier from Australia, bought in 1994 at a cost of $1.4 million, which was subsequently towed to southern China to be disassembled, analyzed and studied by experts.


This is from a Russian paper, headed "China's Future Route to Maritime Dominance" (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/chinasnavyroute.htm)


Note: This is post the 1989 Tiennamen Square Massacre Arms Embargo, either our high-ups were remarkably stupid or less than honest. Then again, we send our old patrol boats and jets to Indonesia and in WW2 the Japanese used frag grenades with our scrap bottle tops in them (on us).

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DeaconR 02-05-2006, 05:45 PM Sigh. I wonder if I will ever cease to be amazed at human stupidity. Maybe everything is a conspiracy.

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ChalkLine 02-06-2006, 02:58 AM It's no worry, China's not in the invading game (they can just buy anyone out), but it's bloody annoying when they blatantly undo the little humanitarian efforts that are so hard to put together. Anyway, China can get all the ex-Soviet stuff it needs, and will probably end up using it on the poor old Russians.

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