Chinese aircraft carrier will get Su-33 Flanker

Just noticed there isn't a thread on this.

China to Buy Su-33 Fighter from Russia
(24 Oct 06) Russian Kommersant online daily newspaper revealed that Russian is completing negotiations with China to deliver up to 50 Sukhoi Su-33 (NATO codename: Flanker-D) naval fighter aircraft in a purchase deal reportedly worth US$2.5 billion in total. The first two fighters would be delivered to the PLA Navy in 2007~08 for trial and evaluations from its aircraft carrier

www.sinodefence.com...

Not clear whether it will be the original Su-33 which is basically an air-superiority only fighter, or a modernised with avionics along the lines of the Su-30/35.

No suprise that the aircraft carrier was never meant to be an amusement as a casino. All along it was meant to be used for possible confrontation with the U.S., possibly over Taiwan in the future.

An aircraft carrier would be of little advantage for a Chinese confrontation with the US over Taiwan considering Taiwan is so close to the Chinese mainland.

This is a normal reflection of China's growing power, but it's a little silly to present a single possible Chinese carrier as if it were a dire threat to the USN's dozen. If it reflects a Chinese need to compete with any rival, that would be India not the US.

Originally posted by deltaboy
No suprise that the aircraft carrier was never meant to be an amusement as a casino. All along it was meant to be used for possible confrontation with the U.S., possibly over Taiwan in the future.

I doubt the 1 Chinese carrier would pose any threat to the dozen or so Fleet carriers and god knows how many escort/light carriers the USN has. I'd be more concerned (if I was that way inclined) to worry about the growing number of smaller destroyers and frigates with all those nasty anti-ship missiles.

Don't worry yourself so much.

My guess is that China has one of (or a combonation of) three things in mind.

The first that this is a political move simply to demonstrate that they can make an aircraft carrier, and that everybody should take them seriously. Considering it's the PRC, this was probably in mind from the start. This also gives then a bargaining chip to use against Taiwan, the US, India, and potentially North Korea.

Second is the possibility that they want to use an aircraft carrier for the purpose of hitting from an unexpected angle. Perhaps it'd be another Pearl Harbor in the future, but most likely I think they'd like to try hitting Taiwan with aircraft from the east. Although I'm not very familiar with Taiwan's defenses, I'd guess that most of their anti-ship and anti-aircraft weaponry are concentrated on the eastern coast. At the very least this could potentially cause Taiwan to weak it's eastern defenses by having to relocate numerous SAM's and AAA units to the west coast.

The third possibility is the long term prospect that this may not really be designed for combat. It's likely that China wants this carrier and the Flankers on board simply as a learning expirience. Figure out the do's and don'ts of operating carriers, what they'd change in future indeginous designs, what they'd keep, how to keep aircraft flights organized, taking off and landing from them, etc. China has it's sights on becoming a superpower and the best way to do that from a naval perspective is to build a respectable carrier fleet. But you've got to start somewhere. It's not as if the USN just suddenly designed and launched an entire fleet of carriers at once to fight the Japanese. Instead they built one, learned from it and then built a fleet that ultimately won the Pacific theater (along with a pair of A-boms and a bunch of heroic marines).

I think number three is closest to the truth. China wants to lear the ropes of the carrier business, and there's only one way of doing that - putting a carrier to see and doing intensive air ops training.

It's also meant to be a message to India: "we can operate carriers too"

As I said, Taiwan is close enough to the Chinese mainland that a carrier offers little advantage in a conflict scenario there.

Carriers are for force projection only, not for regional conflicts.

That carrier is to bring Chinese force to distant places, just like every other carrier ever made

Where would the chinese deploy the carrier??!!

Unfotunately for Chin there is isnt much open space to deploy it:

JMSDF to the North, PACCOM to the East and South East, Australia and ASEAN to the South.
Even if they try to move it to the Indian Ocean, they'd be spotted ages before they'd be in range for anything..

They'd need serious training on deck operations, an art only well known by western powers, who wouldn't be too keen on sharing the same.
Russia is NOT that experienced in carrier operations, especially catapult launches and arrester landings.

Anyways, the deal is proposed for 12 a/c and the speculations are it could go upto 50.
It hasn't even been finalised for the first 12 as yet. So its all speculation.

Though this would be a good time to gauge the Su33 w.r.t. the F/A 18, Sea Harrier, Rafale and F-35