Chapter 1067 Type 003 Large Aircraft Carrier

The world's focus is on the war in Afghanistan.

Military experts from all countries believe that the US military will win a hearty victory and will soon end the war.

Liu Tao was in a good mood. He believed that the US military would not be able to get out so easily. They would have to stay in Afghanistan for 20 years!

He came to the Yangcheng Shipyard.

With the decision to speed up the construction of the navy, it is now required to build another 002A aircraft carrier or 002B aircraft carrier.

Liu Tao did not plan to build another 002A aircraft carrier or 002B aircraft carrier, but to build a 003 aircraft carrier.

The 002B aircraft carrier is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and the catapult uses a steam catapult.

The 003 aircraft carrier is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and the catapult uses an electromagnetic catapult.

After all, he has always believed that what China needs is not a light aircraft carrier or a medium aircraft carrier, but a large aircraft carrier!

The aircraft carrier that any major country ultimately pursues will not be a light aircraft carrier or a medium aircraft carrier, but a large aircraft carrier.

The debate over the ‘big’ and ‘small’ aircraft carriers suddenly became popular a few years ago, because China’s ‘Type 001’ light aircraft carrier and ‘Type 002’ medium aircraft carrier made many people think that large aircraft carriers are outdated. In the future, aircraft carriers will develop in the direction of medium and light. Through the introduction of new technologies such as electrification and informatization, small and medium-sized aircraft carriers can have a powerful combat capability comparable to that of large aircraft carriers in service.

However, large aircraft carriers will gradually become obsolete and eliminated due to their high cost, astonishing life span costs, and incompatibility with the trend of modern military lightness and informatization. Some people even issued a ‘death sentence’ for large aircraft carriers such as Nimitz.

Large aircraft carriers are expensive to build and have astonishing life span costs, but large aircraft carriers also have very obvious advantages.

Large aircraft carriers carry a full range of aircraft types and a large number of aircraft, and perform a wide range of missions. For example, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier can carry 8 or 9 carrier-based aircraft squadrons at the same time, including 4 fighter-attack aircraft squadrons, an E-2C early warning aircraft squadron, an EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft squadron, an S-3B anti-submarine aircraft squadron and a service squadron. These carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters are responsible for various combat missions such as air control operations, ground/ship attacks, early warning command and control, electronic warfare, anti-submarine operations, and service transportation. They are powerful and comprehensive, while the tasks that medium and small aircraft carriers can perform are extremely limited. The carrier-based aircraft they carry can only perform limited tasks such as air control operations, which greatly limits the performance of aircraft carriers as the core of naval battle groups.

In addition, the combat effectiveness of large aircraft carriers is much higher than that of small and medium-sized aircraft carriers. The combat effectiveness of aircraft carriers is mainly reflected by their carrier-based combat aircraft. It has been proved through combat practice and exercise tests that the combat effectiveness of large aircraft carriers is at least twice that of medium-sized aircraft carriers and 6 to 8 times that of small aircraft carriers. In addition, the deck area is larger, the longitudinal and lateral sway of the hull is small, and the impact on the take-off and landing of carrier-based aircraft is also small. Therefore, the accident rate of carrier-based aircraft take-off and landing is lower and the safety is good. The opposite is true for small and medium-sized aircraft carriers.

In addition, the safety and seaworthiness of large aircraft carriers are obviously better than those of small and medium-sized aircraft carriers. Compared with small and medium-sized aircraft carriers, large aircraft carriers have high freeboard and large tonnage. Waves are not easy to hit the deck barrier and will not affect the normal operation of the aircraft carrier. Small and medium-sized aircraft carriers usually have only two sets of independent propulsion devices. Once one of them fails, it will seriously affect normal navigation.

Finally, the cost-effectiveness of large aircraft carriers is also higher than that of large and small aircraft carriers. Although large aircraft carriers and small and medium-sized aircraft carriers differ greatly in tonnage, volume, deck area, etc., they are almost the same in main functional equipment, such as power units, catapults, arresting cables, lifting devices, etc., but the number and scale are different.

Now China has established a complete aircraft carrier industrial system. The shipbuilding industry has accounted for more than 50% of the world for many consecutive years, making it a major shipbuilding country.

Thanks to the improvement of the industrial system, the cost of building a Type 054 frigate is only 90 million RMB, equivalent to 22.5 million USD. The cost is the same as when it was first built, and this is still due to the sharp increase in labor costs and the rising trend of materials compared to that year. The "Perry-class" frigate, which is almost the same as the Type 054 frigate, is not as good as the Type 054 frigate in performance. The price of the first ship was as high as 45 million USD (1973), and then its cost exceeded 100 million USD early. The Type 052 destroyer, the first ship cost 2 billion RMB, and then as the industrial chain was built, the price dropped significantly. Now the cost is 1 billion RMB, which is the cost of labor costs, equipment and materials.

The Type 001 light aircraft carrier, with a relatively good foundation, cost as much as 3 billion RMB for the first ship, but so far, the cost of the Type 001 light aircraft carrier has dropped significantly, and the current cost is 1.9 billion RMB.

The Type 002 medium aircraft carrier, based on the Type 001 light aircraft carrier, cost 4 billion RMB. When it comes to the Type 002B medium aircraft carrier, under the condition of adopting nuclear power, the cost has not increased, and it is still 4 billion RMB.

Liu Tao estimated that based on the current improvement of the aircraft carrier industry, considering factors such as rising labor costs, the cost of building a large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in China should be around 12 billion RMB, equivalent to 3 billion US dollars.

In addition to developing large aircraft carriers, a more powerful destroyer and a larger supply ship must also be developed.

As the United States developed the fourth-generation fighter F-22 ‘Raptor’ fighter, China’s radar systems are being upgraded accordingly to deal with the F-22 ‘Raptor’ fighter, and the ship-borne air defense radar is also being upgraded.

Liu Tao estimated that the next destroyer will be a 10,000-ton destroyer. For large warships such as destroyers, tonnage is combat power.

When he arrived at the Yangcheng Shipyard, Liu Tao began to develop the Type 003 large aircraft carrier.

The resources that Liu Tao can mobilize are very large, so large that it is unimaginable, whether it is human, material or financial resources!

He can almost mobilize the power of the entire China.

At this time, no one in the outside world knew that China was starting to develop a large aircraft carrier. All the attention was on Afghanistan and the huge rescue plan of the United States.

Even though the United States launched a war against Afghanistan, the US stock market did not stop falling. Countless funds from all over the world were shorting the US stock market, causing the US stock market, especially aviation-related stocks, to fall continuously.

In order to save the market, the US government announced a huge rescue plan to save the US stock market.

They all say free economy and advocate less government intervention in the market.

But the United States intervenes in the market the most, intervening in the Federal Reserve and the U.S. stock market at every turn, and imposing sanctions on this and that at every turn.

Now, except for the sectors related to war, such as military industry, energy, gold, and food, the rest of the U.S. stock market is falling. Even the Internet listed companies that plummeted during the Internet bubble last year are continuing to fall, and there seems to be no end.

The previous declines of A-shares are far less than this time of U.S. stocks.