Study: More Subs, Fewer Carriers to Combat Chinese Military Growth

Stars and Stripes ^ | Sep 21, 2015 | Wyatt Olson

[sukhoi-30mki]

Faced with China's growing anti-surface ship capacity, the United States should decrease its emphasis on large aircraft carriers in the Pacific and spend more on submarines, space capabilities and ways to make air bases and aircraft less vulnerable, according to a report released earlier this month by Rand Corp.

In the 430-page report, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based think tank analyzed the relative military capabilities of the U.S. and China in certain scenarios based on open-source documents. The analysis makes comparisons using 10 "scorecards" covering air, maritime, space, cyber and nuclear domains.

Capabilities were examined at seven-year intervals, beginning in 1996 and projecting to 2017, considering two "plausible" scenarios of conflict between the two countries: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and its forcible occupation of the Spratly Islands. China claims sovereignty over both.

This past year, China expanded a number of the tiny Spratly atolls through dredging and has built several runways -- even as the U.S. has denounced those moves as militarizing the archipelago.

"Over the next five to 15 years, if U.S. and (People's Liberation Army) forces remain on roughly current trajectories, Asia will witness a progressively receding frontier of U.S. dominance," the report said.

Although China is not close to catching up to the U.S. in terms of overall military power, that's not necessary for it to control the region at its doorstep, the report said.

"No one wants war; nobody expects war," said Eric Heginbotham, lead author and political scientist at Rand, when explaining the analysis' purpose. "But I think the balance of power affects calculations on both sides. Balance of power has a major impact on the probability of war."

Military dominance by the U.S., however, does not necessarily equate to deterrence in mom

[The_Victor]

Let's do both!

Submersible aircraft carriers.

[ETL]

From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
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"Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants."

http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2005/09/war-games-russia-china-grow-alliance

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170287,00.html
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Obama: "We Welcome China's Rise"
CBS News ^ | January 19, 2011 | Stephanie Condon
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Sept 11, 2014

China and Russia to build major seaport: report

China and Russia will build one of the largest ports in north-east Asia on Russia’s Sea of Japan coast, reports say, in a further sign of the powerhouses’ growing alliance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-11/china-and-russia-to-build-major-seaport-report/5738036

[moose07]

Landing could be a little tricky in rough weather. :)

[skeeter]

Recommending a defensive posture rather than an offensive one. A sign of the times, I guess.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Most Chinese submarines are littoral (coastal), and shy away from the much, much harder “blue water” operations. The US Mark-48 torpedo is designed for blue water submarines and advanced surface ships, and is extraordinarily deadly.

And this is just one of the torpedoes and torpedo mines (like the Mark-60 CAPTOR, that can be deployed in a location, and detect an enemy submarine before launching.

[SampleMan]

Submarines are just about worthless against large numbers of landing craft, which is what you need to defeat if you are trying to stop an invasion of Taiwan. Obviously, they are of no value in protecting Taiwanese airspace.

Japan is a large aircraft carrier, so CVNs aren’t required to protect it.

SSNs are quite effective if you want to put Chinese warships on the bottom, presuming the PLAN comes out to play, and they are also quite effective at neutralizing the Chinese submarine threat.

CVNs would be very handy in the Spratly’s, but then so would SSNs.

[PapaBear3625]

The Ohio ballistic missile sub was modified to carry up to 154 cruise missiles.

[wally_bert]

The Japanese had a workable aircraft carrying sub back in WWII.

More practical than Sky One on Gerry Anderson’s UFO.

[GreyFriar]

That Japanese ‘workable aircraft carrying sub...” only carried three 810 mile range Aichi_M6A seaplanes. It was hardly a strike force of any worth when compared to any Japanese or US aircraft carrier of WWII.

Submarine info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400-class_submarine

Seaplane info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_M6A

[tanknetter]

Doesn’t the Tomahawk have a cluster munition warhead?

I imagine an Ohio SSGN conversion or two, plus a few SSNs with a bunch of those would really mess with any attempted invasion. Especially if you get Ticonderogas and Burkes launching them from a completely different direction.

People tend to forget that in a war with China the one thing that the USN isn’t going to do is raise battle flags and steam it’s carriers into the Taiwan Strait. The carriers will kept to the East and be used to provide defense air cover for the other subs and ships that will go after the ChiComs. And probably be used to conduct offensive fighter sweeps over Taiwan as well.

[Rebelbase]

“More subs, fewer calories to combat Chinese.”

Need more coffee and my glases this morning.

[tanknetter]

A B-2 can carry 80 or so Mk.82 bombs.

Which means that it can carry 80 or so Quikstrike mines derived from the Mk.82.

10 B-2s can, on a single sweep down the Strait, deploy 800 of these mines.

[SampleMan]

SSGNs would only be of value hitting the staging areas. Historical ROE would dictate that we aren’t going to do any shooting until they leave the staging areas.

No, precision weapons flying to a designated lat/long aren’t of much use on moving targets.

Attack helicopters would be the best platform to use against landing craft, once the screening DDGs and air cover were taken out of the fight.

[central_va]

When are the Japs going to build an indigenous CVN?

[tanknetter]

But I’m not talking about true precision weapons per se, rather TLAMs with cluster munition warheads.

I recall that when the initial laser guided bombs were developed during Vietnam there was a laser guided Rockeye. It was quickly dropped under the auspices of “why bother?”

And, iirc, TLAMs can receive course correction from 3rd party platforms.

[SampleMan]

I've dropped cluster bomb units (CBUs) over the water, and believe me when I say, that the ocean is very large and that CBU pattern is very small. Getting a CBU pattern on top of a boat is going to require precision guidance. Yea, maybe a 50 ft CPA would work, but you have to have some idea within a small basket where to fire it at (requiring the SSGN to be receiving radio signals over long periods of time), and then you need constant targeting updates on a particular moving target.

But, let's for the sake of argument say that a data-link, man in the loop, course update capability existed for TLAMs. And let's also assume that CBU TLAMs existed.

Whatever platform is providing the updates is going to have to have targeting sensors, which means they'll need to be close to the targets, and not jammed. The complicating factors are large, unless they are well defended from in the air.

Finally, you are looking at expending $400k+ each to attack small boats.

I'll stick with attack helicopters and beach fired anti-tank missiles as the best means of repelling an amphibious invasion. You'll also need something to survive the hundreds of SRBMs that will precede the attack, and some ability to deal with the airborne assault that will be sent in 6-12 hrs in advance to take key bridges, transport hubs, etc.

[tanknetter]

Ok, thanks!