According to a report by the American "Warrior Maven" media, China is building the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history, with a full load displacement that has already exceeded the 110,000-ton "Ford"-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier currently in service with the U.S. Navy.

Previously, U.S. media had reported that there were new changes in the cement aircraft carrier in Wuhan. The Wuhan cement aircraft carrier is not entirely made of cement; it is a core equipment for the development of a new aircraft carrier in China. It is equipped with radar and electronic devices, and during the design process, it can be used for testing and debugging of electromagnetic waves and communication signals. Its main purpose is to verify the reliability of the aircraft carrier's electronic equipment, electromagnetic compatibility performance, and internal structure debugging, as well as to conduct some tests on the deck scheduling of carrier-based aircraft.

In short, every change in the land-based cement aircraft carrier will reflect its characteristics in the new aircraft carrier.

Additionally, to quickly narrow the gap with countries with strong naval forces such as the United States, China is conducting training for carrier-based aircraft pilots while developing the aircraft carrier. At this time, the "cement aircraft carrier" serves as a takeoff and landing platform.

Before the construction of the Fujian Ship, the Wuhan cement aircraft carrier also underwent changes. The biggest change this time is that the original island was completely removed, leaving only several neatly arranged rectangular frames. On the rear side of the widened part of the stern, there is a section similar to an island, and its area is significantly smaller than that of an island on a conventional power aircraft carrier. The design of the island on the cement aircraft carrier is showing features of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers do not need large exhaust channels. Therefore, their island design can be more compact, thus freeing up deck space for the placement of carrier-based aircraft, which is beneficial for flight scheduling on the deck.

Therefore, the U.S. media concluded at the time that China had already prepared to build the 004 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. This time, through satellite images, the U.S. media discovered new movements in our shipyard, thus concluding that our military 004 aircraft carrier had already started construction.

There have been many speculations and analyses about the 004-class aircraft carrier for a long time, but there are few details about this aircraft carrier. However, one thing is certain: almost all agree that it is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and it will use and have four electromagnetic catapult tracks.

In recent years, Chinese warships have been built in large numbers, including amphibious assault ships, 052D missile destroyers, 055 missile destroyers, 054A, and 054B. As the number of Chinese warships continues to increase, it naturally needs more cores to match, and this core is obviously the aircraft carrier.

Actually, with the substantial shift of China's naval power from coastal defense to overseas protection, the deepening global investment layout, and the increasingly complex strategic competition with the United States, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, this constitutes an unavoidable strategic reality. We need more aircraft carriers as forward platforms to maintain our global interests.

Moreover, conventional power aircraft carriers are not enough. Although the combat capability of conventional power aircraft carriers is not different from that of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, to truly support the maritime presence covering globally important interest areas, as China, the world's largest goods trading country and important energy importer, its economic lifelines are closely related to the safety and smoothness of global maritime routes. The massive overseas investments and engineering projects require a powerful maritime force as a backing, and this requires us to effectively carry out a variety of tasks such as long-range defense, maritime route security, protection of overseas interests, and responding to complex international situations. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, with their almost unlimited range and strong power supply capacity, can perform missions for a long time and at high intensity in distant seas away from the mainland without frequent refueling, which is crucial for maintaining the safety of China's increasingly extended maritime traffic lines and responding to sudden crises.

Its large deck space and abundant power system can support the deployment of more high-performance carrier-based aircraft, thereby significantly enhancing the overall combat effectiveness and deterrent power of the entire aircraft carrier battle group.

As for the U.S. media saying that we are building the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history, for China, which has the world-leading shipbuilding technology, this is not a difficult task.

For China, the biggest challenge in building a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is the nuclear propulsion system. Because we cannot follow the old path of the United States. The U.S. nuclear propulsion system still has many problems. The reactors on the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are very large and complex, with over 30 types of pipe sizes, more than 1,200 valves, and more than 20 main pumps. When the aircraft carrier is operating, there are over 60 observation points for the reactor, so the reactor department requires a large number of personnel.

The Ford-class aircraft carrier, due to the adoption of a large number of new technologies, has frequent failures. The A1B reactor on the Ford-class aircraft carrier reduces the number of valves, pipes, and main pumps by nearly 50%. The steam generation system uses fewer than 200 valves and only eight types of pipe sizes. These improvements simplify the manufacturing of the reactor, reduce maintenance workload and personnel requirements, and make the system more compact, occupying less space. Unfortunately, in actual application, the failure rate is higher.

If we can reduce the size of the reactor while ensuring higher reliability and easier maintenance and servicing, this is what Chinese military experts have been thinking about and striving to solve.

Regarding the statement that we are going to deploy 100 J-35s, our carrier-based aircraft squadrons will not fully deploy the J-35s, but instead will be a combination of the J-15T and the J-35. Moreover, our sixth-generation fighter has already taken off, so in the future, our aircraft carrier may form a combination of sixth-generation fighters and J-15s. Regardless, the combination of J-35 + J-15T + J-15D (the world's strongest carrier-based electronic warfare aircraft) + the KJ-600 is indeed the strongest carrier-based aircraft squadron in the world.

Of course, when the U.S. media reports on our construction of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, they will certainly not miss saying that the "super aircraft carrier" we are building is an imitator of the "Ford"-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. They even boldly claim that China has replicated or stolen American technology, which is well known in history.

This is a typical symptom of arrogance and disappointment combined with anxiety towards China's military technological advancement.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7531055655097778715/

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