some followup info for the carrier:
its keel was laid last august in Shanghai.
full load displacement:48K tons
conventional steam turbines with single unit power of 79K horsepower. engine is of russian technology but built in Shanghai.
full speed: 32 knots
38 aircraft on board after completion. Some French techies are helping the Chinese on convertion of land-based aircrafts to ship-borne ones.
airforce composition: one squadron of 24 J-10s, plus anti-submarine, AWAC, refuell, etc. aircrafts. all domestically manufactured with some imported foreign technology.
deck layout is of u.s. style, diagonal runway. but taking off is russian style with a sky-jump ramp.
fire control radars, automation etc. high-tech stuff is a joint effort, or medley of quite a few european countries.
budget for the carrier only excluding aircrafts: 3 billion RMB, rougly 400 million US dollars, (Darcia don't you drop your jaws on the floor. 20 billion bucks will get them 50 of this! all naked of course, but still)
new frigates built for the to-be carrier fleet, FLD 3100 tons with stealth design, are also under construction in shanghai. Meanwhile an amphibious assault ship, FLD 22K tons, is being built in DaLian the northern port city. The chinese is in a warship-building frenzy, remniscent to the japanese before WWII. what do you think?
The PLA is asking for one or two more carriers of such kind to be built.