China Defense Blog reports that China is has begun the process to design and build a nuclear powered icebreaker, as a prelude to building a nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
The post includes a quotation that is wrong on a couple of counts.
“The US and former Soviet Union used their experience with nuclear-powered icebreaker ships to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, he noted.”
The US, of course, never built a nuclear icebreaker, and the Soviet Union never built a nuclear carrier. The Soviets did build some very large cruisers with a hybrid nuclear and conventional steam powerplants, but those were their only nuclear powered surface warships. Both nations built nuclear submarines before building nuclear surface warships. China has also already built several classes of nuclear submarines