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i wonder if you have noticed this: china now has the ability to mass-produce large warships, but it hasn't even put a pot of dumplings on an aircraft carrier.

let’s not talk about anything else, just talk about our 055. we have already produced two big pots of dumplings. when the united states built the nimitz-class aircraft carrier, it built ten at a time. why hasn’t china started the mass production process of aircraft carriers yet?

there are two reasons. the first reason is that aircraft carriers themselves should not be built in batches.

aircraft carriers are a type of warship with an extremely long service life, with a normal lifespan of half a century. at this rate, if we need ten aircraft carriers, the best way would be to launch one every five or six years. this way, not only can construction experience be passed on, but new technologies can also be continuously introduced.

by the time the eleventh ship was completed, the first one had just been retired.

on the contrary, the american model is to launch more than 10 ships at a time, and then stop building aircraft carriers for the next 30 years. when there is a real need to build new aircraft carriers, the technology is completely out of date, and the old aircraft carriers that have already been built have various internal injuries.

even if the situation really changes drastically and production expansion is suddenly needed, splitting the original team into two sets of boards, with the old leading the new, would be much more effective than doing technical archaeology thirty years later.

the second reason is that china’s three current aircraft carriers, even the most advanced one like the fujian, is only a transitional aircraft carrier and has not yet reached the conditions for mass production.

everyone should know the habit of china in building warships, which is to take small steps and run fast. if there is a technological breakthrough, a small batch will be built to try it out. if the effect is good, new weapons will be installed, and then another small batch will be built. this process will continue to cycle until it fully meets the standards required by our military, and then it will officially enter the mass production stage.

take my country's experience in destroyer construction as an example. as early as 2003, my country launched the first aegis destroyer equipped with phased array radar and vertical launch system, the 052c lanzhou. however, my country only produced 6 052cs at first, and they were built in two batches, with an interval of eight years between each batch. this period of time was used to adjust the technology and upgrade it.

after all the technical adjustments are completed, the 052d destroyer will be launched.

the first 052d to be launched was the kunming ship launched at jiangnan shipyard in 2012. then in 2022, the construction of the second batch of 052d destroyers was officially launched. compared with the previous generation, my country currently has more than 30 to nearly 40 052ds. the new 052d is equipped with the meter-wave anti-stealth radar installed on the first batch of 055s and has been tested. it will continue to be upgraded in the future.

if this is the case with destroyers, then aircraft carriers must be built with even more caution. after all, aircraft carriers involve more technologies and are more complicated to build.

the 001 liaoning, a typical training ship, not only trains the chinese navy to use aircraft carriers and trains naval personnel, but also trains chinese aircraft carrier construction workers and aircraft carrier gunners. it allows china to directly skip the step of light aircraft carriers and start the research of medium and even heavy aircraft carriers.

according to the original plan, the second 002 should not have existed, but when the south china sea incident broke out in 2016, my country had to temporarily add an aircraft carrier to strengthen coastal defense.

the fujian ship that is about to be launched in my country is the second aircraft carrier originally planned, which is mainly used to train the construction of heavy flat-bed aircraft carriers. at the beginning, it was planned to launch steam catapults, but later it was directly switched to electromagnetic catapults because of the emergence of academician ma weiming. it can be said that the fujian ship is just a transitional warship.

so the next question is, what kind of aircraft carrier can reach the level of mass production?

the first possible technology is dual-reactor nuclear power technology.

in 2018, my country issued a patent document titled "joint command station for marine dual-reactor nuclear power system". the document mentioned that my country may apply "dual-reactor nuclear power" for the first time on civilian ships. this is a nuclear power reactor used on warships. its main advantages are as follows: it can provide warships with higher speeds, it can drive more shipboard power generation equipment, and it can provide safety redundancy for warships. this is also the technology used by us nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

some people have previously speculated that 004 should still be a conventionally powered aircraft carrier, because the linglong no. 1’s military nuclear reactor is a bit inadequate, but if dual-reactor nuclear power technology can be realized, then i think 004 will definitely be nuclear-powered.

the second is laser technology. currently, my country is verifying this technology on the 075 amphibious landing ship. it is definitely too late to install it on the 003. at most, it will be modernized after a while. the next aircraft carrier will definitely use laser as the main technology.

of course, these are all currently available for analysis from public information, and there are many things that cannot be analyzed. but no matter what, the fourth aircraft carrier is definitely an experimental nuclear-powered heavy aircraft carrier. for the chinese navy, the big ones are all behind.