Is this a potential auxiliary cruiser design or experimenting with layouts prior to building actual escort carriers (CVEs) based on their real world testing?
China is experimenting how to set up a cargo ship equipped with a catapult to launch drones:
As for the catapult setup, we see four vehicles connected in a ‘train’ to create the catapult track, with a ‘ready to launch’ drone mounted atop the rear one and another sitting on the deck behind it. This is exactly the same configuration we saw on the dock in previous pictures, aside from the addition of the fourth catapult vehicle, although satellite images showed the fourth sitting nearby but not connected to the catapult train while pier-side. As we discussed in our previous piece, the length of the catapult could be presumably tailored to the aircraft types being launched and dimensional constraints of the launch area, creating a highly adaptable and mobile catapult launch system.
New weapon. Old concept I've long advocated.
Cheap CVEs might be the future of sea-based aviation.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: The illustration is the "concept" of the layout plucked by the article from the "Chinese internet".
