The Ten Barreled CIWS of China’s Aircraft Carrier
 

http://i53.tinypic.com/11177a0.jpg

Some serious hardware there...

Here’s some serious Friday gun-porn for you. It’s a close up picture of the ten-barreled Gatling gun Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) installed on China’s nearly complete aircraft carrier Shi Lang (ex-Soviet Varyag). To put things in perspective the U.S. Navy’s Phalanx CIWS gun has only six barrels.
The new gun is based on China’s older, seven-barreled, Type 730 system capable of firing 5,800 rounds per minute.
Keep in mind that this isn’t the only point-defense system being installed on the Shi Lang. A couple of weeks ago we published pictures of the ship outfitted with what appears to be at least one Rolling Airframe Missile launcher (it also looks like there’s one covered by a tarp in the lower right of the picture below). These missile-based air defense weapon many think is more effective than the Gatling guns which have limited range and stopping power. These modern air defenses combined with a new phased array radar will apparently be copied by the Russian’s who say Shi Lang’s old sister ship the Admiral Kuznetzov when it is modernized in the coming years.

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Looks like their existing CIWS with a diffrent gun. Guessing 20mm rather than the existing 30mm?

Lots of rust for a nearly completed aircraft carrier. Guess it goes with the territory when the Navy is run by the Army. :DL

Got to agree with you there true they are working on a modern fleet and military in general but they have a long way to go yet.The other thing is we do not know what the intelligence analysts in our government know(and they know alot more than we do).It can be fun these topics but let us not forget back during the Cold War even our analysts where wrong many times and thought much of the Soviet technology and aspects of its military capability was much better than it turned out to be.And one can make something look fancy pants(I saw this because CIWS looks more like a mock up to me than a functioning unit) when they know that someone is looking.Our Navy on the other hand is a tangible force there is no doubt in anyone's minds what it can do.And by the time the "Peoples Liberation Army Navy is "modernized" ours will be as well and by that point the Chinese will be 20-30 years behind again.I am not saying that they are not a threat.

I think it probably has more to do with the fact that the ex-Varyag is about 30 years old. This isn't really a new carrier...it's a remodeled Soviet flattop (and the USSR hasn't existed for almost 20 years). No surprises that it's accumulated some rust.

If it's a warship being made operational for deployment in a national navy, there's no reason whatsoever for rust - certainly not running rust like the strips in those photos.

Remember: If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't move, paint it.

Well the ship is 30 years old. But so was the Akagi and the Saratoga. The air wing is where it counts.

They really need to clean those rusts. It's quite demorilizing for the crews to see their military ship having rusts.

Akagi and the Lexingtons were completed in 1927, so only would have been 14 years old when WW2 broke out.

I doubt the crew would have much say in the matter :hmmm:

It's not uncommon for vessels to have rust, whilst in shipyards for long periods of time.
'Brown' spots are commonly mistaken for rust, when infact it is red lead Primer.
However, i'd say the ship will need a complete repaint, with maybe surface treatment as well.
Let's not forget though, there is obviously still a lot of work happening here.

Almost complete CV island:

http://i51.tinypic.com/34zhhd2.jpg
NOTE: That is not rust you are seeing, it's from the barbed wire blurring into the picture.