Posted on 09/29/2022 1:06:06 PM PDT by Retain Mike
“They ended up parked off the coast in areas that were near other areas where we’ve seen them do amphibious assault training before with commercial ferries,” Shugart told USNI News. “The numbers were bigger than we’ve seen before.” The roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ferry has been identified as Bo Hai Heng Tong, a 15,000-ton multipurpose cargo ship. The ferry’s internal parking ‘lane’ is 1.6 miles long and three meters wide, spread across three decks. This translates into a vehicle cargo capacity that’s almost three times that of a San Antonio-class amphibious warship (LPD-17), Shugart said. “AN LHA or LPD spends a lot of cubic feet [on] Marines able to operate for weeks or months at sea. That’s a lot of wasted space if all you’re doing is making a quick trip across the strait,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
It is interesting to think whether the ferries are primarily civilian ships converted to military use, or military ships used currently as civilian ships?
Because civilian Ferries can avoid anti ship missiles.
This is propaganda designed for moron consumption.
“It is interesting to think whether the ferries are primarily civilian ships converted to military use, or military ships used currently as civilian ships?”
My understanding is that every ship including fishing vessels can be used as a military auxiliary. If not a weapons platform, then as a surveillance platform. The Japanese did the same thing, building dual use cruise ships that could be used as auxiliary cruisers. The Japanese actually sent two of these vessels to attack in the Indian Ocean. They attacked an oil tanker and its tiny escort ship. The oil tanker ignored the escort ship’s order to run for it and turned into the attack with its deck gun. The two ships so badly damaged one of the Japanese ships that it sank. The oil tanker got away and the Indian Corvette sank. The remaining Japanese ship got away, but the incident caused the Japanese to abandon the idea of sending basically armed civilian ships into action.
The CCP has several thousand ships of various sizes and types. Fortunately, there are only three beaches in Taiwan that could be used for a landing. Those are within artillery range of high mountains. It is hard to say if the CCP is just huffing and puffing and they’ll blow the island down. I think that Xi is just like Putin in that nobody is going to tell him that his army isn’t ready to take Taiwan in one easy stroke. (You know, four days and its all over.)
They’ve been practicing for a long time
Years and years and years.
A feast for suicide drones
The article is incomprehensible and seems written by people who do not speak English (although our young people are often this illiterate also).
Because civilian Ferries can avoid anti ship missiles.
//
Wasn’t aware the solomon islands had antiship missels alex. That’s where China has been showing interest lately.
But then again, you probably know things the average American citizen doesn’t
Say hi to the rest of your cubicle for me /-).
The Chinese do regularly do “mobilization drills”, every 5 years or so, with a focus on the local PLA forces drafting civilian boats for the “practice” invasion. There was one they started earlier this year, and it’s not limited to just a few vehicles. I can’t recall the exact figures from the translated video I watched but they were comandeering thousands of civilian vessels in two different regions for the mock invasion.
“This is propaganda designed for moron consumption.”
I would not be so quick to dismiss it. Remember China has access to literally thousands of cargo ships and a lot of them are roll-on/roll-off ships that could be used as one-way landing ships.
If they lose 50% of a 1000 ship fleet that might be an acceptable loss to them. It might even be an anticipated loss.
“whether the ferries are primarily civilian ships converted to military use, or military ships used currently as civilian ships? “
They’re civilian vessels that are commandeered to use for these type of exercises. China’s military doesn’t have any real troop transport capacity of its own to speak of, since they have no plans for any long range invasions they can’t conduct over land. Taiwan, and perhaps Japan, are the only real targets they might invade that would require naval transport, and I think they can’t justify spending the money for that capability when they can just commandeer civilian vessels instead.
Not sure what this Alex thing is all about. And the Chinese can use civilian ships in the Solomons, they don’t need to unload landing craft in ports where they have agreements.
I am glad to see you continue to display your ignorance. You might want to read a few other sites beside Truth Social.
“If they lose 50% of a 1000 ship fleet that might be an acceptable loss to them. It might even be an anticipated loss.”
Does Taiwan have more than 1000 anti-ship missiles? I imagine they do, and with big lumbering cargo ships like these it won’t take much more than one per vessel.
“Wasn’t aware the solomon islands had antiship missels alex.”
I wasn’t aware that ferries were ocean-going vessels...
China is going to Invade Taiwan in a caravan of hatchbacks.
Ro-Ro’s require a dock facility or some sort of ‘Mullberry’ to offload. Not sure they’d want to attempt that without complete local air supremacy.
They should take a page from Mexico and just start swarming Taiwan with “refugees”.
Ten or twenty years later, those refugees can outnumber the Taiwanese and just open the gates to China from the inside.
Respectfully, something you might not have thought of there, Lt. The Chinese have over 1000 MLRS launch vehicles, and they already practiced launching a 24 hour sustained volley into an area of ocean roughly equal to tiawan’s western coast during Pelosi’s visit. Those antiship misses won’t do any good if they can’t survive above ground.
The Taiwanese have installed pipes underwater to flood those beaches with gasoline, amongst other things. They are quite ready to humiliate the PLA.
The PLA will also need to send a large contingent of counselors as the PLA soldiers get very upset when kept in the field for a week.
If I remember correctly, “Bo Hai Heng Tong” means “Big Slow Rusty Target”.
Time will tell....
I have wondered if the specs when they are built are much more robust than we would have for our ferries? I am thinking of things like hard points and compartmentation.
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