US Navy in a losing race to close China fleet gap

Asia Times ^ | JANUARY 15, 2024 | By GABRIEL HONRADA

[ansel12]

Since you are a boomer, you should know better.

[Mariner]

We don’t need to.

Not even close.

[hinckley buzzard]

You think so. On paper, maybe.

[minnesota_bound]

Take a look at a map. China is surrounded by enemies.
If the Chinese send their navy out those countries will sink the Chinese ships using missiles from shore from all sides.

[Svartalfiar]

https://gensteel.com/building-faqs/building-comparisons/chinese-steel-quality-vs-american-steel-quality/

[Svartalfiar]

It isn’t so much technology as the facilities to make the guns that big. Forges could be built to do it but for only 36 cannon barrels, it would be cost-prohibitive.

A better (probably cheaper) solution is to figure out the issues on the Electromagnetic Railgun they were developing and to install more powerful lasers on ships.

Old US battleships had a range of about 30 miles at max. The German Paris gun was maybe 70-80 miles at best.

Basic AMRAAM missiles have a range of 25-30 miles, and are much more accurate. But for ship launched, the basic SM-2 has a range of ~100 miles. Tomahawks are around 1500 miles, but expensive. Harpoons, depending on variant, have a range of ~80 miles or 190 miles.

There's no point in any near-peer warfare using 'big' guns when missile range is 3-6 times further. Not to mention a carrier has a range of stupid far, and are all probably way faster and definitely have more endurance than a battleship could get up to/has without an entire turbines to reactor replacement. Also, who knows how good hull integrity is. Or wiring. Or how much of the electronics need to be completely replaced (all of it).

[Svartalfiar]

I think China builds something like 20 ships for every 1 ship we build. So thank you Labor Unions, you’ve pretty much ended the US as a superpower.

China produces tons of little ships with crappy materials. And it takes some time and effort to train enough people to man all those ships. Much less effectively man them. Not to mention combat activities and damage control.

But tonnage is what really matters, not so much the quantity. China has ~2.4MM tons of ships. These US has ~4.6MM, and that matters. Bigger ships can hold more, go further, and need less resupply, and are harder to kill.

[Colorado Doug]

and now we are in 2023, where it takes 3 years to build a single forging press for artillery ammunition. And only one small company in the whole country able to do it.

That is sobering!