Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Chinese Domestically Built Aircraft Carrier

Chinese officials have confirmed their intentions to construct the nation's first domestically built aircraft carrier.  The ship design would seem to borrow liberally from the Russian Kuznetsov CV that they currently operate under very limited conditions.

The ship will not have steam catapults.  It will have a ski ramp and arresting gear.  The ship will be roughly 866 feet long and will be the first of an intended fleet of four carriers in the Chinese Navy. 

China has been on a 30 year program to upgrade and update the Navy and has studied carrier technology extensively.  While it is true that there are lessons in blood that must be learned for any Navy to truly be modernized, the buildup of this force represents a very long term regional threat.  It would be foolish to simply brush this off as an effort by a large but technologically inferior power flexing muscle.

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