An artist’s impression of China’s 3rd aircraft carrier
Benar News – April 22, 2022
A new propaganda video suggests that the third aircraft carrier of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) could be launched soon, Chinese media and analysts said.
A six-minute video, produced by the PLAN Political Publicity Bureau and the army broadcaster, was posted on Friday. It provides a glimpse into China’s aircraft carrier program and how PLA carriers and personnel operate.
China already has two aircraft carriers in operation, named Liaoning and Shandong. The third is being built and the promotional video seems to give a hint that its launch is imminent.
At the end of the video, timed for China’s Navy Day which falls on Saturday, an officer is shown taking a call from his mother who appears to urge him to have “the third child,” to which the man replies: “That’s being arranged.”
The camera then moves to two photos of a carrier’s flight deck – an apparent reference to the first two aircraft carriers – before shifting to a blank screen and closing credits.
This video excited some Chinese media. The state-run tabloid Global Times wrote: “This is a very clear implication that the country’s third aircraft carrier is coming soon.”
Global Times quoted Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and TV commentator, as saying that the third carrier, known as Type 003, could be launched “in the second half of 2022.”
It said the carrier could be named Jiangsu, after the province in eastern China.
COVID-19 lockdown
“From the video, it does seem that the third Chinese carrier would be launched in the near future,” said Sheu Jyh-Shyang, a military analyst at the Taiwan’s Institute for National Defence and Security Research (INDSR).
The U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a November 2021 report that the launch “could be as soon as February 2022” but it has been delayed several times as China is struggling with the COVID pandemic.
Recently severe lockdown measures have been imposed in Shanghai, home of the Jiangnan Shipyard where the Type 003 is being constructed – and where the COVID situation has disrupted shipping and may have caused delays in arrival of components for the ship.
Compared to the first two carriers, the Type 003 appears to be larger, and it has some new important components including catapult systems, used for launching aircraft from the ship.
“It is the first CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery) carrier that China has,” said Sheu from INDSR.
“CATOBAR carriers have much better capabilities, but they still need to have enough operating experience,” he added.
The CSIS report last November also said that after launch, it would still be years before the Type 003 is commissioned into the PLA Navy and achieves initial operating capability.
China already has the biggest naval fleet in the world, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. But the U.S. has far more aircraft carriers: 11 compared to China’s two.
Vulnerable
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, which is watching China’s military developments closely, said in a report published earlier this year that the Type 003 would enable the PLA Navy to project power past the “first island chain.”
The first island chain, conceptualized during the Cold War, commonly refers to the major archipelagos that lie off the East Asian mainland coast. The chain stretches from the Kamchatka Peninsula in the northeast to the Malay Peninsula in the southwest, and includes the territory of U.S. allies Taiwan and the Philippines.
Taiwanese observers also pay attention to the PLA’s plan to procure new warplanes for the Type 003.
“The first two (aircraft carriers) have only J-15 fighters and maybe some helicopters but the third one may have some airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) KJ-600 aircraft,” military analyst Sheu said.
The Xian KJ-600 is said to accurately detect and track other airplanes and so greatly increases the effectiveness of carrier-based combat aircraft.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese media have been looking at the sinking of Russia’s flagship “Moskva,” reportedly by Ukrainian Neptune missiles, last week. Russia said it was damaged in an unexplained fire.
The missile cruiser Moskva was built in the same Black Sea Shipyard Mykolaiv in Ukraine as China’s first aircraft carrier back in the Soviet days. Beijing bought the ship, then called Varyag, and renamed it to Liaoning.
The Liaoning regularly patrols the Taiwan Strait and may be deployed in the event of armed conflict with the self-governing island. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that shall be united with the mainland.
Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times quoted an analyst as saying that “Taiwan has a bigger and more powerful anti-ship missile arsenal than Ukraine.”
The Chinese aircraft carriers could be “as vulnerable as the ‘Moskva’ to Taiwan’s anti-ship missile,” it said.
Not long ago Russia’s flagship Moskva sank after getting hit by two cruise missiles. Some say US intelligence helped Ukraine to sink the cruiser. This negatively impacted Russian moral. However this will not alter the coarse of the war and Russia’s Special Operation is going as planned albeit slowly.
Moral of the story though is that modern naval warfare should be redefined. Aircraft carriers are obsolete. China too will have to learn this the hard way sooner or later. It appears world powers are following the classic military doctrines, thinking US still has the upper hand and they should “symmetrically” develop their forces.
Aircraft carriers are extremely expensive and huge, they lack speed and agility and are very vulnerable to precision strikes such as taking out the main radar on the command bridge which would effectively render them mission unworthy. There are historical incidents too which prove how easily a small accident on the deck can cause cascading explosions and massive fires that can’t be controlled. I’m not going to delve into these now, suffice to say. Aircraft carriers or any large and slow naval vessel are a liability and a burden with modern advancements in missile and drone technology.
In contrast Iran’s IRGC strategists since the very beginning of revolution which is over 4 decades now expressed their view that the world is in the cybernetics era in which the 5 traditional sources of power namely Economic, Military, Scientific, Cultural, Political no longer apply independently and everything is defined as a subordinate function of:
1- Energy
2- Data/Information/Intelligence
IRGC’s motto has been “Fast/agile, Light, Cheap” (چابک، سبک، ارزان), this is not just because Iran could never match their enemies in wealth, but also due to the understanding of the future realities!
While Iran’s regular classic army (ارتش) has been developing more or less in every field. IRGC have kept its focus on Missiles, Drones and Satellites. IRGC’s naval force has different classes of speed boats and for open waters they have relatively smaller multipurpose drone and missile carriers, some even can deploy fast boats! Even now most average people think speed boats are a joke! You should listen to what General Fadavi (سردار فدوی) had to say about speedboats that can launch cruise missiles and torpedoes.
Just days ago Iran captured 2 Greek Tankers in retaliation and warning that Greece has 17 more in Persian Gulf. Greek as a slave nation did what their US master told them. What is the source of Iran’s power in Persian Gulf and how can they do such things under the nose of US and its ~60 nation “Naval Alliance” there!?
Understanding that this era has its own weapons IRGC has avoided wasting time and resources on things that don’t matter. In fact today enemies of Iran teach IRGC’s asymmetric military doctrines in their military universities. Can you name one world leader other than Iran’s Supreme Leader who has openly asked for rapid development of Artificial Intelligence!? Weird for a religious leader by most standards!
If I get a chance I would translate some of the awesome views of one of the IRGC’s brains on Human Intelligence VS Artificial Intelligence and how to be always one step ahead of the AI, some deep stuff!
Today Iran can destroy Aircraft carriers with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles from 2000 KM away, render them mission-unworthy with small drones, sink them with very fast Hoot underwater missile that only Russia and Iran have… or even better, Iran can use sabotage and start a fire in USS Bonhomme Richard in the docks just as it had finished upgrades! Its slogan was: “I have not yet begun to fight!”
Yes, some lone US soldier who can think sensibly can help Iran do such covert actions! Just as US and Zionists employ MEK elements in Iran to do their covert operations.
Just look up the documentaries on the shitty lives US personnel have living on these aircraft carriers. So not only Aircraft carriers are obsolete but Fighter jets too are rapidly becoming obsolete. In 5 or 10 years there could be advanced drones that can engage air targets too. Iran has some variants that can take out helicopters even now. Just imagine the cost of training human pilots, making and maintaining fighter jets and the consequence of enemy capturing pilots. But there is a great market in the artificial Arab states, US can milk Saudis big by selling them as many as they can. Problem is even Saudis have realized that for example Patriot missile system was useless against Hootie drone attacks on Aramco.
There is news that Iran has AI controlled drones. But that could be a fake news right!? US, Russia, China are not superpowers in any of these fields anymore. There is real competition.
In the coming years there will be more and more AI mobile apps and gadgets for your smartphones. It is inevitable. Even now you can undergo a tutorials to write your own Python code, just 16 lines of code and including a SDK to make your own AI that can learn from your database various things such as detecting cancer cases, etc… All of this while many Christian and Muslim people have abandoned all modern life and gone to nature not even using metal nails! I can’t blame them… but technology and it’s potentials are not inherently evil/harmful.
my two rials
China better concentrate on nuke
missiles + scram jets !
What does the British military, aircraft carriers, and the Vatican Swiss Guard have in common ? (I could include nukes in that as well…)
The Falklands conflict demonstrated the vulnerability of ships to torpedoes and missiles. Further back in time to the Battle of Midway in 1942, carriers were vulnerable to propeller driven aircraft and bombs. I’m not too sure how far carriers have evolved, but missiles and aircraft have developed far more, I would say. Like the Swiss Guard and British military, lap dogs of the Church and NATO respectively, aircraft carriers are more political gesture than hard military reality. They represent the assault on the world public’s mindspace more than the shipping lanes…
An over anxiety about military hardware demonstrates that the establishment’s offering of fear porn is matched by the alternative media’s desire for clickbait. And this point is similar I believe to what Carl Jones was trying to make when he was wrongly castigated by Rixon Stewart; namely that those who call themselves truthseekers too often identify with the antithesis – choose to live in the theatre – rather than appreciate the dialectic being played out.
Bottom line: all the copy on military hardware is like a theatre or football programme. With the latter a suspension of disbelief is warranted though.
…on reflection, I need to temper my previous observation, in that Carl’s meaning did need teasing out a little. So, I was being a little unfair to Rixon in my previous comment…
Aircraft carriers are becoming obsolete as some have said, but if China isn’t planning on projecting itself abroad through its carrier fleet where they’d be at far greater risk of being sunk, then there may still be a limited role for carriers in China’s home waters. They’d still face risks in a hot war against great powers, or even if the US supplies Taiwan’s forces with anti-ship weaponry, but in the South China Sea or Taiwan Straits they may still be a useful platform for fighter jets and helicopters in a cold war security role.
مقداد وفائی Correct. US has all but forgotten about PT109
The USS Gerald Ford can’t even launch planes because of a faulty poorly designed Electromagnetic Catapult that replaced the “unsustainable” steam powered one.
5 Shermans to each Tiger/Panther who won that war?
مقداد وفائی And don’t forget the US Navy’s latest boondoggle joke$: the Zumwalt Class and Littoral Combat $hip.
O CHINASEA
natural clouds there we seldom have
here in europa . mostly Chemtrails .
how i wish to be there !
I can name that tu8ne in one word – Seawolf.