The debate about how far the military-political ambitions of China, the emerging superpower, extend, is constantly fueled by both the flow of real news and semi-fantastic "leaks" about the military megaprojects of the Celestial Empire. Recently, the theme of the aircraft carrier fleet has come to the fore. Does the Red Dragon really intend to fight for dominance of the oceans with America, or are we witnessing exercises in the art of bluffing?
In January of this year, a Hong Kong newspaper reported, citing Wang Ming, the party leader in China's Liaoning province, that China had begun building its second aircraft carrier out of four planned. The ship will be built at a shipyard in the city of Dalian and will be launched in six years. A special highlight of this news is that the new aircraft carrier will become purely home-grown, Chinese, in contrast to the first experience of the PRC in this area.
Everyone probably remembers the story of the unfinished heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser of Project 1143.6, which was called first "Riga", then "Varyag", however, due to the collapse of the USSR, it never entered service. Once in the ownership of Ukraine, the ship in a state of 67% readiness was sold to a Chinese company, ostensibly to create a floating amusement park. The United States did not believe in the version about entertainment and strongly persuaded Turkey not to let the semi-finished product through the Bosphorus, however, almost two years after leaving Nikolaev, the Varyag sailed to the shores of the Middle Kingdom.
Indian light aircraft carrier
Break free for the chain
And then the predictable happened: China finished building the ship, albeit not in the TAKR format, but in the form of an aircraft carrier, and in September 2012, under the name Liaoning, adopted it for the People's Liberation Army's navy. Following were reports of the successful landing of the Shenyang J-15 fighter on the Liaoning deck, which was a sign of China's acquisition of fixed-wing carrier-based aircraft. In December last year, the PLA navy conducted exercises in the South China Sea with the participation of an "aircraft carrier battle group" and even contrived to enter into close contact with the US Navy ships, which almost caused a conflict.
Now it is stated that China intends to have four aircraft carriers by 2020 for operations both in coastal seas and in the open ocean. This means that soon we can expect messages about the laying of new aircraft carriers, which are likely to generally repeat the design of the Varyag-Liaoning.
To understand why China needs aircraft carriers at all, it is worth dwelling a little on how the military strategists of the PRC see the position of their historically purely continental country in relation to the surrounding Pacific space. This space, from their point of view, is divided into two parts. The first is the coastal seas, bounded by the "first chain of islands", on which the military presence of large states, primarily the United States, but also Russia and Japan, is strong. This is a chain of archipelagos stretching from the tip of Kamchatka through the Japanese islands to the Philippines and Malaysia.
And of course, in this chain there is the main headache of the PRC - Taiwan, a military conflict around which cannot be excluded from the scenarios. With regard to this coastal zone, China has a doctrine, usually referred to as A2 / AD: "anti-invasion / closure of the zone."This means that, if necessary, the PLA should be able to counter hostile enemy actions within the "first line" and in the straits between the archipelagos.
This includes counteraction against the aircraft carrier strike groups of the US Navy. But in order to fight on their shores, it is not at all necessary to have aircraft carriers - the zone is perfectly shot by coastal means. In particular, China is pinning special hopes on the land-based Dong Feng-21D ballistic anti-ship missile, which is presented as a "killer of aircraft carriers."
Another thing is that China, with its growing ambitions, would not like to be locked up behind the "first chain of islands", and Chinese admirals dream of getting themselves freedom of action in the open ocean. To prevent these desires from looking unfounded, last year a group of five Chinese ships passed the La Perouse Strait (between Hokkaido and Sakhalin), then rounded Japan from the west and returned to their shores, passing north of Okinawa. This campaign was presented by the Chinese leadership as breaking the blockade of the "first chain of islands."
Leaks or fan art?
While the Chinese are mastering Soviet technologies and cautiously poking their noses outside the "first chain of islands", mysterious pictures with hieroglyphs are discussed on sites and forums devoted to military-technical topics. They supposedly show the upcoming mega-projects of the PRC in the field of aircraft carrier shipbuilding. The growing military and economic power of China intrigues the whole world so much that images that look more like fan art of computer game lovers leave no one indifferent.
Especially impressive is the catamaran aircraft carrier with two decks, from which two planes can take off at once. In addition to multipurpose fighters, reminiscent of our Su-27s, there was a place on the decks for helicopters and an aircraft of the early warning system.
Another concept of this kind is an aircraft carrier submarine: a giant, apparently, a ship with a flattened hull, which, in addition to a set of missiles with nuclear warheads and anti-ship missiles, also has a waterproof hangar for 40 aircraft. When the boat is on the surface, the hangar gates open and planes can go on a mission. In addition, the huge submarine will allegedly be capable of serving as a base for submarines of standard sizes.
It seems that it was the dream of going beyond the "chain of islands" that also gave rise to the idea of a cyclopean floating base, which can hardly be called a ship. It looks like an elongated parallelepiped launched into the water, on the upper edge of which there is a runway with a length of 1000 m. The width of the runway is 200 m, the height of the structure is 35. In addition to the function of an airfield, the base could serve as a sea dock, as well as become a place of deployment units of the Marine Corps.
That is, the idea is based on the desire to pull this contraption by tugboats somewhere far out to sea and to arrange a powerful stronghold surrounded by waters that would surpass any American aircraft carrier in its scale and equipment.
All these fantastic "projects" make a very strange impression both by their obvious discrepancy with the level of modern Chinese technologies, and in general by their engineering consistency and military expediency. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether we are dealing with real leaks of design projects, the "black PR" of the PRC government, or simply with the increased computer literacy of the Chinese population, who have mastered 3D modeling programs.
Springboard against catapult
So who and why is China trying to catch up with its aircraft carrier program? The first motive that comes to mind is rivalry with the United States. However, developing the theme of aircraft carriers on the basis of projects with an index of 1143, the PRC is unlikely to achieve much."Liaoning" is able to take on board only 22 aircraft, which, of course, is very small compared, for example, with the atomic giants of the Nimitz class, which can accommodate 50 more aircraft.
Once the designers of the Soviet aircraft carrier, not having solved the problem of creating a steam catapult to accelerate aircraft at the start, came up with a kind of springboard. Having swept over it, the fighter seemed to be thrown upwards, which created a margin of altitude for gaining the required speed. However, such a take-off is associated with serious restrictions on the weight of the aircraft, and therefore on their armament.
True, military analysts do not rule out that the catapult will still be used in the new versions of Chinese aircraft carriers, and a lighter aircraft will take the place of the J-15, possibly based on the (presumably) 5th generation J-31 fighter. But as long as all these improvements take place, the American military-industrial complex will also not stand still.
The largest aircraft carriers in the world
Last fall, the first American aircraft carrier, Gerald R. Ford, was baptized from a new class of the same name, which will replace the Nimitz class. He will be able to take on board up to 90 aircraft, but even this is not the main thing. Gerald R. Ford incorporates many of the latest technologies that significantly improve its energy efficiency and combat capabilities.
If the Chinese, perhaps, "grow" to a steam catapult, then on the new American ship they abandoned it as the embodiment of yesterday's technologies. Now they use electromagnetic catapults based on a linear electric motor. They allow combat aircraft to accelerate more smoothly and avoid too heavy loads on the aircraft structure.
Walking light
However, even if one avoids direct comparisons of the Chinese aircraft carrier of an outdated design with the newest American ones, it is impossible not to notice the difference in the tactics of using ships of this type in China and the United States. American aircraft carriers always follow in the center of the aircraft carrier strike group (AUG), which necessarily includes warships that provide cover for the aircraft carrier from the air, conduct anti-submarine warfare, and have powerful anti-ship weapons.
During the exercises in the South China Sea around the Liaoning, they also tried to create something like an AUG, but it was noticeably different from the American one. And not only by the number and power of warships, but also by the complete absence of such an important component as support vessels - floating re-bases, tankers with fuel, ships carrying ammunition. It is already clear from this that the Chinese aircraft carrier, at least for now, cannot serve as a tool for "projection of power" at ocean ranges, and there is simply no point in getting out of the "first chain of islands".
There is another power with which the PRC has long had a difficult relationship. This is India. Although India is China's neighbor on land rather than sea, its naval plans are surely being closely monitored in the Middle Kingdom. Today, India already has two aircraft carriers. One of them is called "Vikramaditya" - it, like "Liaoning", is a Soviet-built ship. It was originally named "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov" (project 1143.4) and was sold to India by Russia in 2004. The second aircraft carrier is much older: it was built by the British company Vickers-Armstrong back in 1959 and sold to India in 1987. It is scheduled to be written off in 2017.
At the same time, India has launched a program to build a new class of aircraft carriers, already on its own. This class, called Vikrant, will include (as of today) two ships, the Vikrant and the Vishai. The first of them was launched last year, although due to financial difficulties, the ship's acceptance into service has been postponed until 2018. The ship has a "springboard" characteristic of Soviet designs, designed to operate 12 Russian-made MiG-29K fighters. The aircraft carrier will also be able to take on board eight light locally produced HAL Tejas fighters and ten Ka-31 or Westland Sea King helicopters.
Western military experts agree that the Chinese aircraft carrier program is more a political declaration of intent than an important step in military development, and that the aircraft-carrying ships of the PRC cannot seriously compete with the American naval forces. China is able to resolve security issues in near waters relying on land bases, but the PLA Navy is not yet able to seriously declare itself in the open ocean. However, if we consider aircraft carriers as an indispensable attribute of a great power, then the symbolic meaning of China's plans can be understood. Yes, and India should not be lagged behind.
