Taiwan experts once again misjudged that the hidden powerful combat power of 076 once again exceeded the expectations of the outside world.
The latest satellite photos of the 076 amphibious assault ship have been exposed, and relevant analysis shows that its displacement may exceed 50,000 tons. Considering that the ship may be equipped with at least one electromagnetic catapult, some experts on the island began to overturn their previous opinions, saying that the combat effectiveness of the 076 amphibious assault ship is likely to catch up with or surpass the PLA's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning.
[076 amphibious assault ship image]
Recently, as Western commercial satellites have increased their efforts to photograph shipyards across China, overseas open-source intelligence analysis agencies have been analyzing more and more 076 amphibious assault ships. These analyses have aroused a lot of discussion and repercussions within Taiwan, and the most controversial of them is the topic of "whether the Liaoning and Shandong ships will quickly take a back seat after the 076 amphibious assault ship forms a large-scale combat capability".
The reason why this topic is controversial is, naturally, in the performance indicators of the 076 amphibious assault ship. According to the satellite photos of the 076 dock assembly released by the well-known commercial satellite company Planetary Laboratories, the outside world can easily calculate that the deck length of the ship is more than 250 meters, which is about 10 meters longer than the 075 with a deck length of 240 meters.
[075 amphibious assault ship in outfitting]
At the same time, the deck width of the 076 amphibious assault ship is also more than that of the 075, although this is affected by the design factor of the deck floating structure. But even so, it is an indisputable fact that the 076 amphibious assault ship is larger than the 075.
This will inevitably lead to a significant increase in the full load displacement of the 076 amphibious assault ship compared with the 075, and considering that the 075 itself has a full load displacement of nearly 40,000 tons, and the 076 will also be additionally equipped with electromagnetic catapults, fixed-wing carrier-based aircraft/UAVs and other equipment. A series of factors have led a considerable number of experts on the island to believe that the full load displacement of the 076 amphibious assault ship is expected to exceed 50,000 tons, surpassing the US Navy's America-class to become the world's largest amphibious assault ship.
How big is the world's largest number? The full load displacement of the Liaoning, the first aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy, is about 58,000 tons, and only 48,000 tons when empty, while the full load displacement of the Vikrant aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy next door is even lower than that of the unloaded Liaoning, only 45,000 tons, and the 076 in a fully loaded state is even heavier than a medium-sized aircraft carrier.
[The Liaoning of the first aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy]
In addition, in terms of deck length, 076 and the Vikrant are also equal. The latter has a deck length of about 260 meters, and there is no qualitative gap with 076. Even after taking into account the electromagnetic catapult, it is questionable whether the flight performance of the carrier-based aircraft of the Vikrant is high or not 076.
Similarly, although the PLA's Liaoning is more than 10,000 tons larger than the Vikrant, the design of the glide deck still limits the ship's ability to fly carrier-based aircraft to a large extent.
A typical example is that at a time when the Air Police-600 carrier-based early warning aircraft has already carried out an unknown number of land test flights, the Liaoning and Shandong warships have not disclosed any information about carrying this type of early warning aircraft for carrier-based take-off and landing tests, which is enough to show that there are many difficult problems in the design of gliding over the deck in terms of the compatibility of such large carrier-based aircraft.
[Air Police-600 carrier-based early warning aircraft in test flight]
Therefore, after the 076 amphibious assault ship was revealed to be equipped with electromagnetic catapults, although a large amount of information shows that the 076 amphibious assault ship is unlikely to carry large carrier-based aircraft, but prefers to carry fixed-wing UAVs. However, in terms of carrier-based aircraft flight performance, the upgrade potential of the 076's carrier-based aircraft is obviously higher than that of the two glide deck aircraft carriers of Liaoning and Shandong.
This is not over, as a "thin-skinned" amphibious assault ship, the construction dock period of 076 is expected to be only 10-12 months. In contrast, the docking period of the Shandong and Fujian ships is 25 and 23 months respectively. From this point, it is not difficult to see that even if the overall construction of the glide aircraft carrier is less difficult, its construction period is difficult to compare with 076.
And this also means that if the PLA intends to raise the combat effectiveness of the 076 to a level comparable to that of a regular aircraft carrier by allowing the 076 to carry large fixed-wing carrier-based aircraft in the future, then the Liaoning ship may really be at the bottom in terms of combat effectiveness.
[Comparison of 076 amphibious assault ship and Shandong ship]
This is also the reason why there is a view on the island that once the number of 076 goes up, the Liaoning ship or even the Shandong ship will take a back seat. Because of the two advantages of electromagnetic catapults and a short construction period, the PLA has the ability to quickly build a large medium-sized catapult aircraft carrier fleet in a short period of time relying on 076.
At the same time, thanks to the excellent maintenance performance of electromagnetic catapults, even if these "aircraft carriers" have only one catapult, their carrier-based aircraft release efficiency is expected to reach the same level as two steam catapults.
But then again, although the flight performance of the 076's carrier-based aircraft is expected to reach a level that is difficult for glide aircraft carriers, this does not mean that the Liaoning and Shandong ships are useless.
After all, the combat effectiveness of an aircraft carrier is not completely determined by the flight performance of carrier-based aircraft, and the number of aircraft on the deck and the space for deck dispatch are also factors that cannot be ignored.
However, unfortunately, due to the straight deck design, the 076 is not as good as the Liaoning and Shandong ships in these performances. This largely limits the "aircraft carrier" upgrade of the 076, and even though the electromagnetic catapult of the 076 can fly larger carrier-based aircraft, the ship is still more suitable for carrying fixed-wing UAVs for combat.
[Comparison chart of 2 types of 076 deck schemes]
Of course, we cannot rule out that the PLA will build amphibious assault ships using angled decks in the future, and 076 had a similar scheme in the design process.
This is because with the rapid development of science and technology, military theories are constantly changing. Theories that seem anachronistic today may become obsolete in five or 10 years, and by that time "amphibious assault ships" with angled decks may be the answer.