China has launched its third aircraft carrier. This is a truly colossal achievement, especially considering the state this country was in just forty years ago. How did the Chinese Navy manage to make this breakthrough and what role did the ships created in the USSR play in it?
On Friday morning, the most important event in China's military construction took place – the country launched its third aircraft carrier. The ship was named "Fujian" in honor of one of the provinces of the country. We have before us a technological achievement of considerable size, and it is all the more interesting to recall what path China has passed in order for it to become possible.
The Chinese military finally realized the benefits of aircraft carriers at the same time as their Soviet counterparts – in the early 1970s. That's just if the USSR hit the development of aircraft carriers right away (projects 1160, 1153, and then embodied in metal 11435), then China did not have such an opportunity in principle.
It is necessary to understand the situation of the Chinese then. There were no relations with the USA yet, and there were no relations with the USSR. There was nowhere to take the products of modern technology. It's now that the Chinese can develop and produce a lot of different things themselves, and then...
Then the residents of the southern villages of China could not afford to have shoes. It was too expensive. Socks were cheaper, a pair of socks could be earned in six months, a maximum of nine. But there was no point in them without shoes, and Chinese peasants from the south among the townspeople who could afford shoes and sneakers were nicknamed "blackfeet". To say that China was poor is to say nothing at all, it is simply impossible to imagine these days.
It was the same with technology. The Chinese had copies of Soviet fighters from the 1950s, but they were armed only with guns. The Chinese could not make a reliable air–to-air missile then.
But they had faith in the future, an unshakable conviction that one day this gap in opportunities with the West and the USSR would be overcome, and a willingness to work for this. In the meantime, it was decided to study the issue.
Aircraft carrier ambitions
In May 1982, Australia withdrew its last aircraft carrier, the Melbourne, from the Navy. The Australians dismantled the equipment from the ship that they wanted to classify, and without looking at it they sold it for cutting as scrap metal to the Chinese United Shipbuilding Corporation.
The Chinese were surprised by the huge amount of equipment the Australians considered unclassified. In 1985, the "Melbourne" stood on the dock in the Chinese port. It was cut into metal only in 2002. The Chinese copied everything they could from there: lifts, catapults, a lot of auxiliary equipment, which in the West was not considered something special, but China was unknown. The experience the Chinese have received is simply gigantic. China tried to buy even the drawings of the ship from Australia, but was refused.
In the 1990s, China tried to buy out the design documentation for Spanish light aircraft carrier projects. It didn't work out, but the Spaniards, who by that time had built two small escort aircraft carriers for themselves and for Thailand, and also had experience in designing larger ships, consulted Chinese engineers on some issues in 1995-1996.
In the same 1995, the Chinese bought the Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk, in which there was a lot from the aircraft carrier. It was carefully studied before being put into operation by merchants.
In 1996, China bought the first Soviet aircraft carrier "Kiev" in Russia, which was also studied, and in 1997, the Chinese tried to buy the Clemenceau, which was being withdrawn from the French Navy. It didn't work out, but then they had already managed to collect a huge array of information about the device of aircraft carriers of different design schools. Russian engineers, for example, have never had so much information.
The first. Liaoning
A year later, the Chinese pulled out their lottery ticket – the Soviet Varyag, which was under Ukrainian control in Nikolaev, completed by 68%. It was a victory – Ukraine sold this ship to a private company from Macau, allegedly for scrap. But along with the "scrap metal" a lot of things went there, even the Su-33 naval fighter that was on the territory of Ukraine, which helped the Chinese a lot. The mass of drawings and documents on the ship alone amounted to forty tons, the Chinese then carried them on eight trucks.
Turkey did not let the ship pass through the Bosphorus for a whole year, and it took the intervention of the Chinese government to get it through the straits, before that it was dragged around the Black Sea for a year (!). It was at this stage that it was revealed that the purchase was not made by an entrepreneur who wanted to turn the ship into a floating entertainment center like Minsk, but by the Chinese state.
Then he was not allowed through Suez, and the ship was dragged around Africa. The ship arrived at the Dalian naval shipyard only in the spring of 2002, and then stood there for a while while Chinese translators and engineers dealt with forty tons of drawings and specifications.
In 2005, the ship was transferred to a dry dock. The Chinese aircraft carrier program has begun. It was a large-scale project. China needed not only to restore the ship, but also to develop for it a number of systems that China had not produced before, very complex. So, the Chinese had a delay in the delivery of air finishers. In parallel, it was necessary, using the purchased Su-33 and the existing experience in copying the Su-27, to create a deck aircraft.
On September 25, 2012, the ship was commissioned under the name Liaoning, in honor of the province of the same name, after difficult, emergency and therefore dangerous tests. In November, the ship received a "baptism" – on November 4, 2012, the Chinese "Flying Shark" J-15 (a fighter developed using the Su-33) touched the deck. And two months after being accepted into combat service, on November 25, the first landing on an aerial finisher was performed. Chinese carrier-based aviation has become a reality.
The Liaoning has been and is being used largely as a training ship. On it, the Chinese practiced the organization of aircraft movement on the deck, mass sorties, tactical techniques, pilots were trained and are being trained on it. On it, they understood what the Americans came to many years ago at the cost of considerable losses: a deckhand pilot should be taught right away as a deckhand so that he develops the right reflexes and other purely "aircraft carrier" things that basic (coastal) aviation does not have.
The first two full naval aviation groups of the PLA Navy trained on the Liaoning. This ship became the "desk" behind which the entire Chinese aircraft carrier "business" grew up: engineers and designers, pilots, sailors, shipbuilders, military theorists. A simple example: the current commander of the aircraft carrier, Rear Admiral Liu Zhe, has a Doctor of military sciences degree in strategy, experience as an officer in headquarters and on missile ships of different classes, served as a frigate commander - and only then got on an aircraft carrier. Such a selection was there for everyone who did not begin service in the aircraft carrier fleet "from scratch". And that was just the beginning.
Second. "Shandong"
Liaoning was not built in China, it was completed there, it was necessary to take the first step. The first step the Chinese decided to make a copy of the Liaoning, but now their own completely. In 2013, at the same shipyard in Dalian, where the Varyag-Liaoning was previously studied and restored, the foundation for the construction of the first fully Chinese aircraft carrier began to be formed, and in 2015 it was laid.
Construction was proceeding at a Chinese pace. A year later, the hull was already formed and a springboard was installed, in 2017 the ship was already launched. In the spring of 2018, tests began, and on December 17, 2019, the ship was accepted into combat service. By this time, thanks to Liaoning, the Chinese had pilots and planes, and an understanding of what an aircraft carrier is, ship service regulations, personnel for ship units and divisions, coastal infrastructure.
The ship was named "Shandong". It cannot be considered a copy of Liaoning. He has a superstructure-the island is smaller, and the sponsons are larger, this provided the pilots with a larger deck area and simplified deck work with aircraft. The hangar is enlarged. The angle of descent from the tramline was changed to decrease, which reduced the overload during takeoff and simplified it in general.
Out of the innovations came the J-15D jamming aircraft based on the J-15 fighter, an extremely necessary thing in war. They are also very necessary for strikes on ships, and the fact of the appearance of such an aircraft suggests that the task of Chinese aircraft carriers is not only to protect ships from air strikes. The air group has been increased – if Liaoning carried 24 planes and 12 helicopters, then Shandong already carried 32 planes and 12 helicopters.
Basically, the design is similar to the Liaoning and its ancestor Kuznetsov. For example, just like on the old Soviet ships, the Shandong has a boiler-turbine main power plant. This is an inefficient solution, but the Chinese just had to "go to the bar" – try to build a ship themselves. They tried, and China became one of the two countries in the world at that time with more than one aircraft carrier, along with the United States. At the same time, China had aviation, pilots, and escort ships for them.
Third. 003
But the Chinese plans went much further. While pilots and naval officers were mastering the Shandong, experimental catapults were being built on the ground to launch deck-based aircraft. They even launched a specially upgraded J-15 from them. Work was underway on a new generation J-31 naval fighter.
Both the catapult and the new aircraft were intended for the first real Chinese aircraft carrier, the heavy catapult 003 (Fujian), which launched on June 17, 2022.
This is a truly ambitious project. A large ship with a displacement of 80,000-85,000 tons will have electromagnetic catapults and electric propulsion. The latter means that electric motors will work on propellers, and turbines will only turn generators.
For the first time, a full-fledged air group will appear on this ship. With fighter jets, attack aircraft, helicopters and carrier-based aircraft of long-range radar detection (AWACS) KJ-600. The numerical composition of the air group is unclear, but the fact that there will be more aviation there than on the Shandong is unequivocal.
The ship began to be built around 2015. The construction period does not turn out to be large in Chinese. Apparently, some difficulties stood in the way of creating such a huge and complex ship. But the fact that China is pulling out such an ambitious program as the simultaneous creation of a heavy strike aircraft carrier and all the aircraft necessary for it is already a huge achievement.
The way forward
What's next? Then the completion of the Fujian with the simultaneous construction of an even heavier atomic 004. Finishing of the J-31 and KJ-600. Formation of aviation groups and development of ships in the fleet.
Will everything go smoothly for the Chinese? No. They had a huge amount of problems with the J-15, and the J-31 has not yet "turned out". Shandong has a lot of problems in the design. But the Chinese have proved by deed that they can solve such problems. And it's not so much about economic power. It's about the people who are moving this Chinese car forward.
On the day of the first landing of the J-15 on the Liaoning, on the day when the Chinese had their first deckhand pilot, the chief designer of this aircraft, Luo Yang, died on board the ship. The planes had gigantic problems, they had to be solved promptly and on the spot, and he decided, he made it to that very cherished landing, met the first ever Chinese carrier-based fighter 20 meters from the deck touch point, and then he could not stand it. His brainchild is now in service.
Why does China, which had nothing at all forty years ago, get such grandiose projects? The masses of people who are ready even for self–sacrifice, who are ready to give 101% not for money or power, but for their country to move forward, at any cost for them personally - that's what became the root cause of Chinese success. People in high positions are responsible patriots who strive to make their homeland better.
And there is a selection based on intelligence, and the turnover of personnel, and responsibility for the result. And a strategy that hasn't changed for decades. And consistency in achieving rational goals that were set long ago, built around progress for their country. And that's why China is launching a heavy strike aircraft carrier, the first in its history. And in total – already the third.
Alexander Timokhin