[News Talk]All-electric propulsion of the Fujian ship?A Fact Slaps the Face | The CCP | The New Aircraft Carrier | In-depth Analysis

[The Epoch Times, June 20, 2022]Hello everyone, welcome to “News Talk” on Monday (June 20). I’m Fuyao (host). Today’s guests are Qin Peng, a current affairs commentator and a senior Chinese political and economic analyst, and Zhou Ziding, the anchor of the “Discovery Time” channel. (news talk to everyone)

Today’s focus:In-depth analysis of the “Fujian Ship”: Naming and launching day, gather the CCP’s “fighting” factors? Conventional powered aircraft carrier, how to power electromagnetic ejection? All-electric propulsion, just a gimmick? Fujian ship VS American aircraft carrier, complete defeat! Trying to transform into a “dark blue navy”, Beijing has encountered difficulties.

On the morning of June 17, the Chinese Communist Party’s third aircraft carrier held a launching ceremony. The aircraft carrier was named “Fujian Ship” and the hull number was “18”. It is said to be the first catapult-type aircraft carrier designed and built by itself.

The “Fujian Ship” adopts a straight, straight and long flight deck and is equipped with electromagnetic ejection and blocking devices. The full-load displacement is more than 80,000 tons, which is larger than the 60,000-70,000 tons of the first two aircraft carriers of the CCP, the “Liaoning Ship” and the “Shandong Ship”. , the same as the Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier that has been retired by the United States.

After the news came out, the technology used by the aircraft carrier and the political implications of the release attracted attention from the outside world.

[Thenamingofthe”FujianShip”andthelaunchdateoftheCCP’s”internalandexternalstruggle”?】

On the day of the launching ceremony on the 17th, a video was released on the WeChat public account of “CCTV Military”, which was widely forwarded by various media outlets of the Communist Party of China. The title of the video is: “Fujian Ship Launched on the 17th, Is It a ‘Coincidence’?” (https://youtu.be/jwR-hrI4XGw)

The video lists that on December 17, 1888, the Beiyang Naval Division was formally established; on September 17, 1894, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese naval battle, the Beiyang fleet “Zhiyuan” was hit by the Japanese fleet; on April 17, 1895, the Qing Dynasty The government signed the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan; on December 17, 2019, the CCP’s first domestically-made aircraft carrier “Shandong” was delivered to the navy.

In addition, the naming of the new aircraft carrier has also been discussed. According to the rules of the CCP’s naming of aircraft carriers, the outside world thought that it might be called “Jiangsu Ship” or “Guangdong Ship”; it was called “Fujian Ship”, which was somewhat unexpected.

Swing: Qin Peng, do you think the CCP’s emphasis on “17th” and the information released in that video is meant to be aimed at Japan? Why is it so publicized?

What are the meanings of naming the new aircraft carrier after the “Fujian Ship”? (Xi Jinping worked in Fujian for 17 years[与内斗有关？];Fujian and Taiwan face each other across the sea[恐吓台湾？]）

【Development direction of electromagnetic ejection technology for future aircraft carriers】

Swing:Zhou Ziding, with regard to the “Fujian Ship”, military observers are more focused on the way its carrier-based aircraft take off, because it is said to use a brand-new electromagnetic catapult technology.

Could you please talk about this technology, how does it affect the combat power of an aircraft carrier? Compare it with the “ski-jump take-off method” used by China’s first two aircraft carriers and the “steam catapult” used by the 10 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers of the U.S. military’s current Nimitz class.

Zhou Ziding:Aircraft carriers usually have three take-off methods: the first is a ski-jump take-off, the second is a steam catapult, and the third is an electromagnetic catapult.

The ski-jump take-off was adopted by the first two aircraft carriers of the CCP, the Liaoning and Shandong. Ski-jump takeoff, to put it bluntly, means that the deck of the aircraft carrier is tilted forward. The Shandong is about 12 degrees, and the Liaoning is 14 degrees. In this way, the aircraft will naturally have an upward lift when it takes off, and the aircraft can be lifted immediately. .

But this takeoff has a very big weakness, that is, it has a requirement for the gliding distance; secondly, it consumes a lot of fuel, because the afterburner (afterburner) needs to be opened; thirdly, even if the afterburner is turned on, you cannot Take off with full fuel, and the missile can’t be filled.

Taking the Liaoning as an example, the J-15 can only take off with two medium-range missiles and two short-range missiles. If there are more planes, it will not be able to take off, and it will fall into the sea. Therefore, the ski-jump take-off has a very big weakness.

The current mainstream use in the United States is steam catapulting, taking the Nimitz-class and the previous Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carriers as an example. The so-called steam catapult is to use high temperature and high pressure steam – after the steam is released in a steam chamber, it forms a very strong thrust to push the slider – the steam catapult forward. The nose landing gear of the aircraft is fixed on the slider, and it follows the slider to move forward. It provides a lot of force to the plane, like a catapult, “pop” to eject it.

Steam catapults, in fact, have been mainstream for the past few decades. But compared with electromagnetic ejection, it still has many disadvantages. First, the power of steam ejection is limited, and it is about 90 megajoules at most.

Second, the steam ejection itself is a mechanical structure, and the control of the ejection force is limited.

Steam catapult cannot catapult light aircraft. For example, the United States now has a lot of drones, and the MQ-25 stealth unmanned refueling aircraft has been launched. This or lighter aircraft, it is very difficult to eject steam, because the required ejection force is very small. , that is, the required steam pressure is small. The steam pressure is reduced and some equipment may not operate, so it has a series of mechanical problems.

Another problem with steam ejection is that the ejection consumes steam. When we look at the steam ejection, white smoke comes out around the ejector. The so-called white smoke is steam. After the steam is consumed, the air pressure in the steam boiler becomes lower, and the next time the steam is ejected, the pressure becomes lower. If used 8 times in a row, take the Kitty Hawk steam catapult design as an example, its pressure will drop by 20%. At this time, the steam catapult can no longer be used, and the steam needs to be replenished.

Moreover, the power of the aircraft carrier also comes from the steam boiler, and its pressure drop power is reduced. After ejecting 8 aircraft in a row, the speed of the Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier can drop by 8 knots, which is a great impact on the aircraft carrier.

There is also an important issue. The steam ejection is too bulky and heavy, and it will take up a lot of space on the aircraft carrier. There is no such problem with electromagnetic ejection. Its volume and weight are almost reduced by half, and the remaining space can be loaded with more aircraft, ammunition, and facilities, which can greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier.

Electromagnetic ejection is such a technology that was proposed earlier but practiced relatively new. Somebody started testing this concept around in the 1940s and 1950s, but it wasn’t until the Ford-class aircraft carrier — which began construction in 2010 and entered service in 2017 — that electromagnetic catapults were used for the first time.

Let me give an example. For example, when we go to play roller coasters, some roller coasters use electromagnetic ejection, including maglev trains. Many rail transits also use similar principles. Its principle is simply a linear motor, or a liner motor. When such a concept is applied to the aircraft carrier, first of all, its degree is different, because the aircraft carrier is more delicate and has a longer length.

Electromagnetic Ejection What is it essentially? Is to use the magnetic force to eject the aircraft carrier. There are coils all around the electromagnetic ejection track. What’s going on with this coil? We know that to generate a magnetic field, in addition to magnets, the most common way is to generate a magnetic field by energizing an electromagnet. It is actually on the edge of the track, and different coils are constantly energized to generate a magnetic field, which uses the magnetic force to push the slider forward.

I took a look at the US technical documentation and it was probably about the size of each coil and the plate we ate on and 10cm thick. It senses the change of the magnetic field and the position of the slider through the “Hall effect sensor”, and then every time the slider goes to a place, the surrounding current and the magnetic field are activated to push the slider forward.

Electromagnetic catapults have many advantages over ski-jump takeoffs or steam catapults. For example, its power will be larger, up to 120 megajoules, or even 130 megajoules, and ordinary steam ejection is about 90 megajoules.

In addition to that, it is more flexible and can eject aircraft of different weights. It can eject 20-ton, 25-ton, 30-ton, 40-ton aircraft because the magnitude of the current can be controlled.

Steam ejection, taking the Nimitz aircraft carrier as an example, can carry out a maximum of 190 ejections within 24 hours. When it comes to the electromagnetic ejection of the Ford-class aircraft carrier, this number has almost doubled, increased by 70%, can reach 300 times, and can be ejected more than 300 times in 24 hours.

Therefore, electromagnetic catapult is a qualitative leap for slip-jump catapult and steam catapult, and it must be the development direction of future aircraft carriers. There is no problem with this.

[How about the CCP’s electromagnetic ejection technology? It takes time to check]

Swing:Zhou Ziding, an American military expert, believes that the operation of electromagnetic ejection technology is more complicated than steam ejection. Do you think the operators and technicians of the CCP army have enough professional quality and experience to operate this technology?

Zhou Ziding:First of all, the CCP has made a lot of technical reserves in order to do this. For example, maglev trains were introduced from Germany in about 2000. Many technologies of maglev trains can be directly applied to electromagnetic ejection. Therefore, in the past 20 years, the CCP has been constantly learning, imitating, and continuously making technical reserves. It has such technical reserves.

Second, the electromagnetic catapult itself is not very difficult. In terms of the technical reserves of countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, they can also make electromagnetic catapults, but it is only necessary and whether there is money to do it. Like Germany does not have an aircraft carrier; the UK thinks it spends too much money, and the UK has tried this before on the Queen Elizabeth (Queen).

But in the realization of the project, will encounter a variety of problems. We know that scientific problems and engineering problems are different. For example, the USS Ford aircraft carrier in the United States has undergone many adjustments and tests after it was commissioned in 2017. It can only be said that it has such a combat capability recently.

Therefore, after the launch of the CCP 003 Fujian, it will face a lot of time for testing and verification. It is difficult to predict whether its electromagnetic ejection technology is qualified. It may be as short as 2 or 3 years, and as long as 5 or 6 years, it is very possible.

Swing:Qin Peng, what do you think about whether the operators and technicians of the CCP army have enough professional quality and experience to operate the new aircraft carrier? (Please talk about it from a political point of view, whether the corruption, bribery and other factors of the CCP’s army have caused the quality of its personnel on the post to be poor, or whether the “deception” makes the propaganda machine exaggerated, etc.)

[Howdoesaconventionalpoweredaircraftcarrierpowerelectromagneticejection?】

Swing:Zhou Ziding, “Fujian Ship” adopts electromagnetic ejection technology, but it is a conventional powered aircraft carrier. How to solve the problem of power supply?

Zhou Ziding:This is a good question, because we know that electromagnetic ejection requires different electricity than steam ejection, but there is a common misunderstanding here, what is it? As far as electromagnetic ejection is concerned, its requirements are as follows: the power consumption is not high, but the instantaneous power is very large.

What does that mean? Taking an aircraft to take off and land, taking the American Ford-class aircraft carrier as an example, it needs about 40 kWh of electricity. 40 kWh of electricity is actually nothing for an aircraft carrier. The problem is that it needs to provide 40 kWh of electricity within two seconds. Instantaneous power is equivalent to 70,000 kilowatts. Not to mention conventional power, even nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are difficult to provide.

We know that the energy source of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is unlimited, but there is no guarantee that such a large amount of energy can be supplied in a few seconds. So no matter whether it is a conventional-powered aircraft carrier or a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, there is only one way to drive the electromagnetic ejection. I just store the energy in advance and release it when it is needed.

So it needs a mechanical energy storage device, which is the heart of electromagnetic ejection. At present, the flywheel energy storage is generally used, that is, a device has a rotating flywheel in it. This flywheel rotates at a high speed, and the linear speed of its edge can reach twice the speed of sound or even more than twice the speed of sound, and the stored energy is quite high.

In order to reduce the energy loss, the inside of the flywheel must be vacuum, so the technology content of the flywheel energy storage device is very high. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the United States and the Fujian of the Chinese Communist Party must both use flywheels for energy storage.

In this respect, it does not matter whether the energy source of the flywheel comes from nuclear power or conventional power.

[“Fujian Ship” adopts all-electric propulsion? a gimmick]

Swing:The CCP claims that the use of a new integrated power system, the medium-voltage direct current full power system, is the first in the world.

Zhou Ziding:This system was actually first proposed by Academician Ma Weiming of the Communist Party of China. The West, including the United States and the United Kingdom, use medium-voltage exchanges. The CCP says it is medium-voltage direct current. It is not clear what scope this medium-voltage direct current is applicable to.

Another argument is that the CCP’s current aircraft carrier is all-electric propulsion. As for whether this is all-electric propulsion, I personally hold a negative attitude.

Why do you say that? Because what is all-electric propulsion… Let us introduce this concept to you. All-electric propulsion means that all gas turbines or other diesel engines on the aircraft are used to generate electricity, and the generated electricity is distributed uniformly. Then the warship has to move forward, and I will use it again. Electricity drives the motor to propel the warship forward.

But we must know that the CCP has no practical experience with high-power electric motors at present. At present, the CCP mainly uses gas turbines, which is actually a technology derived from Ukraine, that is, QC280, which is used on 055.

Such a gas turbine can directly drive the propulsion of the aircraft carrier, but if you convert it into electrical energy, and then convert it into electrical energy, if you drive a 10,000-ton warship forward, I think it is possible, but to drive an 80,000-ton 003 The Fujian ship, currently the CCP does not have such technical reserves. The CCP does not currently have the “all-electric propulsion” that many people claim.

Not to mention 003, including the 055 destroyer also uses part of the integrated electric propulsion. So the so-called “all-electric propulsion”, I think, is more of a gimmick, more of a propaganda significance, and the military significance is not so great.

Who is the real “all-electric propulsion”? It is the Zumwalt class of the United States and the Type 45 destroyer of the United Kingdom. The British Type 45 destroyer was the first to use all-electric propulsion. Of course, in the process of using all-electric propulsion, it was found that its electric motor has certain problems in some cases and certain environments; such problems are the American Mwalt class. Destroyers also encountered.

First, the CCP currently does not have the technical reserves to do complete all-electric propulsion; second, the CCP does not have the courage to do it. The CCP has always been running in small steps. It is this thing that needs to be verified on other warships before I put it on a more advanced warship, like a behemoth of 00.38 million tons. You did not use all-electric propulsion on 055. , Now put it on an aircraft carrier, the CCP will never do such a thing. So I think some concepts it’s just a gimmick.

Swing:How far do you think this “Fujian Ship” will be put into service?

Zhou Ziding:At least 3 or 4 years, as many as 6 or 7 years.

[FujianshipVSUSaircraftcarriercompletedefeat?】

Swing:Zhou Ziding, what do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of the “Fujian Ship” compared with the US aircraft carrier?

Zhou Ziding:The United States now serves mainly nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, mainly the Nimitz aircraft carrier, and the latest service USS Ford, which is also the first of the Ford class. Whether compared with the Nimitz-class or the Ford-class, the CCP’s Fujian is not a warship of the same class.

One obvious difference is the displacement. These US warships have a displacement of more than 100,000 tons, their standard displacement is close to 100,000 tons, and their full-load displacement is more than 100,000 tons.

They carry aircraft, such as the Ford class as an example, which can carry 85 aircraft; the early CCP’s Liaoning (which can carry) 24 aircraft, Shandong has 5% more aircraft, and 36 aircraft; the current 003 Fujian is expected to be in service. The number of aircraft on board may be around 50. From the perspective of the combat effectiveness of the carrier-based aircraft formation, the aircraft carrier is much different from the US warships and US aircraft carriers.

Plus, U.S. aircraft carriers are nuclear powered. Take the Ford class as an example. The two nuclear reactors in the Ford class can be used for 50 years without any replacement. This means that the aircraft carrier can be used directly at sea for 50 years.

Another point is that in terms of the capability of the aircraft carrier’s carrier-based aircraft, there is no way to compare the current Chinese and American aircraft carriers. Because the US aircraft carrier, in addition to the F/A-18 Super Hornet, the latest service is the F-35C stealth fighter, the gap between the fifth-generation fighter and the fourth-generation fighter is very large.

We’re not talking about fifth-generation fighter jets, we’re just talking about fourth-generation fighter jets. The capabilities of the U.S. F/A-18 Super Hornet are far above the CCP’s current fourth-generation fighter jet, the J-15.

Therefore, in these respects, American aircraft carriers are far above the capabilities of Chinese aircraft carriers.

[The Chinese Communist Party has the largest navy in the world and still has a huge gap with the United States]

The CCP has vigorously developed its navy over the years. On January 20 this year, the US Congressional Research Service updated its annual report “China’s Naval Modernization: Implications for US Naval Capabilities”, stating that the CCP has surpassed the US and has the largest navy in the world, with about 355 warships. Not including 85 patrol boats and combat platforms carrying anti-ship missiles.

However, in terms of the number of aircraft carriers, China has 3; the United States has 11, and they are all nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

So how big is the current naval gap between China and the US?

Swing:Qin Peng, I would like to ask you to compare the data of the navies of the two sides and make a comprehensive analysis.

[Trying to transform the “Deep Blue Navy” Beijing encounters difficulties]

Swing:Qin Peng, the CCP has always wanted to build a “deep blue navy” to challenge the United States. It has now been increasing its activity further afield, such as into the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and waters near Europe.

What do you think the dark blue navy needs to have? What else does the CCP lack? Can you make up for it? (news talk to everyone)

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