Liaoning originated in the Soviet hull known as Riga and then Varyag, sharing its original class with Kuznetsov. Chinese completion and reconstruction added enough to make the finished ship materially different for this design comparison. Shandong was built from scratch using related ideas and a similar external form. The argument therefore rejects simply counting all three as equivalent members of one class. Design inheritance needs to be distinguished from the equipment and construction decisions that produced each finished carrier.
Notable Point · 1:03:11-1:04:18
Why Liaoning and Shandong differ from Kuznetsov
A common hull origin does not settle a comparison between Kuznetsov, the reconstructed Liaoning, and the Chinese-built Shandong.