FYI
"it's only a model"
bump to your interesting thread Jeff.
Hope you are well!
FYI...more info for the threat matrix.
Thanks. I wish the US were more eager to spend money on next-generation surface ships. We're gonna need them, but they take years to design and build. The first DDG-1000 Destroyer is supposed to hit the water in 2012, last I heard. That seems far away, but what can you do?
What about names?
Have the Chinese named a warship the "Walmart" yet?
BTTT!
Just another trading partner. Nothing to see here...
Could be massive waste of excess American bucks..
Is that a good thing wasting capitalist capital?.. d;-)
Buump!
They join the estimated 100 million to 200 million in the "floating population" of unemployed plus millions more of acknowledged people in the unemployment line.
The rural population estimated at 800 million is more restless than ever as corruption dominates and income disparity grows. Pollution is killing hundreds of thousands every year.
Rural residents are facing eviction as the "dam happy" Chinese build more and bigger. Rural residents head to the cities only to be treated with disfavor. Industrial deaths occur at a rate of more than 100,000 each year.
There are nearly 100,000 clashes between citizens and authorities each year. A radio report (here in the U.S.) the other day stated that a PLA warehouse was raided and all contents of weapons, etc. were carried off.
The "iron rice bowl" is no more. Tens of millions more face lay-offs from the thousands of worthless government owned enterprises that are a huge drain on resources just to keep the millions "employed."
New Democrat Third Way progressives and mainline Republican "free traders" want to raise everyone's boat. China has some really big boats and it's our progressives and "free traders" that are keeping them afloat.
I know why the progressives are doing it: ideology; and Lenin knew why the Republican "free traders" are doing it: they are useful idiots.
From this update, it looks like they will have a decent start on a blue-water navy by 2009-10 and if they continue on this production rate, they will have a massive fleet by 2015-16.
The continuing buildup of their fleet, the modernization of their army and air force, and their new ability to neutralize satellites from the ground could combine into making China a very serious threat in the next decade.
I sometimes feel like Billy Mitchell, who, in 1924, knew deep down in his gut that the Japanese were going to attack the US. The Chinese don't need this large of a fleet to capture Taiwan (they have enough fifth-columists on Taiwan and so many missiles aimed at the island that they will likely knock out half to two-thirds of its defenses before the first Chinese transport leaves port); the Russian Pacific Fleet is a pathetic shadow of its former self; none of the Southeast Asian nations have naval forces that can begin to stand up against the Chinese India might be considered a moderate threat against the Chinese, but the Indian Navy is mostly defensive and lacks the ability to take the fight to the Chinese territorial waters; Japan, too, might be considered a threat, but most of their surface fleet consists of destroyers and frigates that are primarily defensive in nature, their submarines might be a threat against China, but the PLAN already has a fairly effective ASW program in place. Once you take all of these countries out of the equation, the only other logical opponent that the Chinese might he building up their forces to face is the United States.
We need to begin a massive naval construction program in the next few years if we want to have any chance of facing the Chinese on an equal footing. Otherwise we will end up like we were in 1941-42, fighting a defensive war while our shipyards scramble to produce the ships we need to take the fight to the enemy. Only this time, the enemy will have a capability of hitting us on our own soil, using sub-launched cruise missiles to hit our shipyards and repair facilities.
Beijing has studied the history of the United States and they know us almost as well as we know ourselves. They know our strengths (our vast natural resources and our massive industrial capabilities) and they know our weaknesses (our inability to truly see the evil in some men and our short tolerance for a costly war). They know that if they go to war with the United States, it will be a fight to the finish, with no quarter asked and none given. The frightening truth of the matter is that they appear to have weighed all of these risks and have decided to continue with their plans.
Nothing to worry about Jeff. They are just building all the WAR ships because they needed something for everybody to do.
They are our bestest, sweetest allies.
In only a few years they developed that into the technology to build modern ships.. wow!
Wot?
Billions and billions of dollars from western FDI? Western intellectual property? Western technology? Western equipment? "Free traders?" DNC? DNC.. what's that?
Fascinating stuff, Jeff. I can't watch the news coming out of China, Iran, and elsewhere without thinking of the prescience and accuracy of your Dragon's Fury novels.
FYI...you're hard earned dollars at work.
An off-the-wall idea of a hi-tech answer to making surface ships obsolete. Some years ago a guy(Discovery Channel Special)showed that bubbles coming up from the seafloor(methane outbursts)can indeed sink ships via loss of buoyancy. This was in a test tank, not out in the open ocean with a real ship.
But think : if you hit the WATER in front of a moving ship with a massive amount of BUBBLES, it would sink like a stone. You don't shoot at the ship at all...and once it's gone to Davy Jones Locker there's no trace left that anything happened...just a displaced ship, on the bottom.
Ok geniuses : satellite based microwaves, a field of CO2 canisters, anti-ship missiles that blow big HOLES in the water...how would you do it? Anyway, just an off-the-wall idea...
If some of you had not seen it, here is a more general review of the PLAN's growth and shipbuilding in the last year. The overall site has much more, including a PLAN vs USN comparison by ship class.