The Chinese will operate this one in a similar fashion IMHO.
Posted on 03/03/2007 6:36:47 AM PST by Jeff Head
Edited on 03/03/2007 8:34:45 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
"And if the Chinese do want a carrier" N-S
Yea you are probably right - just a really cool floating casino.
Were you part of the crowd that thought that (casino) when the Chicoms first bought it? there were so many I've lost track
First, there are no other carriers of this class to buy...and I do not believe the Russians or the Ukranians are in a position to build one for the PRC. The Chinese bought the only one that was available...this one.
As to being gold-plated, the Chinese got a structurally sound hull for next to nothing, where all that metal had already been processed and put together. I evidence the structurally sound part by the simple fact that it made the treck, across the ocean and around the world, without breaking up or being damaged.
The design itself is a workable one as the russians have proved over the last twenty years now and so the Chinese are gaining a wealth of information on the construction and layout of such a vessel...in combination with the info they gleaned from the two Minsk class carriers they have had and the earlier Australian one. They are learning a lot and they are getting a leg up on something that only experience will ultimately allow them to operate them.
I believe they can ultimately get this carrier into operation much cheaper than having the Ukranians or russians build a new one for them...if they even would. Chinese labor is cheaper...and its a dual benefit because now it is the Chinese themselves who are gaining the experience of examining, repairing, and refitting this carrier, not someone else.
Ultimately, I have no doubt that it will lead to a class of indigenous carriers of their own that are STOBAR with cats and the whole nine yards. From my perspective and based on their own position statements and what they are doing, it is clear to me that that is their intent and it is one we cannot discount or underestimate, and should be taking measures economically top thwart (IMHO) if we can.
I was a B-47 navigator-bombardier in Strategic Air Command. And you're right, from that point-of-view, anything on the surface can be a target. The only question is whether you have been authorized to hit it.
Thanks for your service and helping defend and preserve our liberty through very trying times with the Soviets. God bless you for that service.
The coordinates are 38 degrees, 56 minutes, 28.94 seconds North by 121 degrees, 38 minutes, 37.86 seconds East.
Conventional forces are very expensive and burdensome.
Nuclear weapons are cheap and terrifying.
Missile defense is very high tech, and American fingers are just beginning to clutch something that's effective. The Chinese are not there.
We have to be practical. Our economy is now only 20% of the world's, down from something like 60% at the end of World War II.
We CAN'T provide the conventional forces to take on all threats everywhere, not without doing to our own economy and people what the Soviets did to theirs.
But we CAN protect countries from being invaded, and they can protect themselves too, quite cheaply, the same way we really protected Western Europe from the USSR for decades. We never matched the Russians tank for tank and plane for plane, and we would have been insane to try. It would have dragged our whole economy and progress down into the mire.
What we did, was deploy nuclear weapons, and so did the English and French, and made it CLEAR to the Soviets that if they invaded Western Europe, it was nuclear war and the end of the world.
That is the cheap and effective way to defend against massive threats that it doesn't make sense to try and match ship-for-ship, tank-for-tank. The question is one of credibility. Did the Russians REALLY BELIEVE that the Americans would go to nuclear war to save Western Europe? The French didn't. So they built their own nuclear force. The actual probability that America would commit collective suicide with the Soviets in response to an invasion of Western Europe is unknown and unknowable, but one thing is certain, that the French (who are on the Continent and thus touchable by the Soviet Shock Armies in a way the English were not) were probably likely to lose nukes if the Russians were crossing the Rhine and surging in against France. Multiple nuclear forces in the hands of allies complicated the Soviet planning.
We should not by any means embark on a massive military buildup to try and face down the Chinese AND a renascent Russia. We don't have the economy to do it, and it's not our responsibility anyway.
No, we should be ensuring that Japan and Taiwan swiftly develop and deploy nuclear weapons and make sure that our missile defense umbrella, to the extent we can extend it, covers them, and that they are onboard with deploying their own. China can create the largest conventional navy in the world, but if it is perfectly clear that Taiwan herself will nuke China in the event of an invasion, all of that expense is for naught. If WE alone have the nuclear monopoly among allied nations, there's the REAL RISK we WON'T have a nuclear war with China over Taiwan. But Taiwan will.
The answer is to proliferate into allied countries: Japan and Taiwan should be nuclear powers in their own right, and Taiwan should make it clear that a Chinese CONVENTIONAL invasion of Taiwan will provoke the immediate response of a Taiwanese NUCLEAR war on China. That is how you eucher massive militaries.
If the Chinese want to go ahead and spend their treasure on armed forces they can't use, let them. Matching them man-for-man is impossible for anyone but India anyway, and we don't have to. Taiwan needs nuclear weapons under its own control. THAT will keep China out.
Thank you for your blessing. I served on a B-47 aircrew from 1957 to 1964.
It was a good mission. As you know, SAC, TAC and Navy aircraft held the Soviets at bay for several years before ICBMs and SLBMs became operational.
We used to say the B-52 was the box the B-47 came in, and the B-58 was an F-102 with four engines.
No. These pictures have been coming out for years. Very hard to stop.
The Indians Navy will be using the MiG-29K. They don't operate any Su-33s. China hasn't got any Su-33s as of yet.
China won't have the kind of organic aerial refuelling requirements that the USN will have given that it's carriers will primarily operate close to Chinese waters for atleast the next 10 years.Their SU-33s will have a good range of their own can be configured for buddy refuelling.If the Chinese do venture out into the Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea-they can always base IL-78
refuellers at their bases in Pakistan & Myanmar.
Ski-jumps mean a smaller payload & range.Most Russian origin carriers always carry a smaller number of aircraft(in hangars & on deck) compared to similar American ships.
Nope. I've just been idling watching from afar.
1st, if we proliferate nuclear weapons into the hands of our "satellites", then our enemies and antagonists will proliferate the weapons into the hands of their "satellites" in response. At some point thereafter, one or more of those satellites...or groups who will claim not to be attached to any of them, will fire a large enough strike at us to overcome our defenses, or they will simply get one intop the country and detonate it.
I expect, sooner or later, that last point is going to happen anyway.
The question then is, what do we do about it?
The question in this regard is also, what do we do when a number of the smaller nations light off their weapons at each other?
2nd, will we sit idly back as Russia and or China gobbles up the many countries of the earth that do not have the weapons. We will have little choice if they have built up their convetnional forces and we have not. Sooner or later, they will own enough of the world to be able to slowly and methodically hurt us economically.
No, conventional forces will be needed to protect our interests on the sea lanes and around the world, as I have said, in these nations where the nuclear umbrella and proliferation you have described has not exteneded. And if our competitors and agressors build theirs up, we will have to build ours up.
IMHO, the answer is to do what Reagan did which involves elements of both, and also involves a strong and unwaivering economic component that helps starve these nations economically so they cannot build or modernize either neclear or conventionally to match us. I believe we do have the economy to do that...we just need to spend it much more wisely and quit wasting it on unworkable and destructive social programs and experiments that destroy our spirit anyway and drain all of us to no good end.
Anyhow, that's just my opinion.
Thanks for posting such a good thread
As to Google Earth...yes, I have seen that pic...it's been the same for some time and a lot of folks are waiting for any update that Google does on occassion from the more recent sat images. In the mean time, we depend on tourists, business traveleres, and people on the ground in China to get out the latest...every now and thn the PRC itself posts something, but not too often.
According to the article of this posting, The Chineese and the Russians are working out a deal for Su-33s.
In October of 2006, the Kommersant online newspaper in Moscow announced a deal between Russia and China where the Russians sell up to 50 Su-33 fighters to China for $2.5 billion. Details seem to indicate that China will spend $100 million to buy two Su-33 fighters from Komsomolsk-on-Amur Production Association for evaluation, with delivery expected in 2007. There appears to also be a fairly firm option for 12 more Su-33 fighters, with the potential for the deal to add another 36 SU-33s.
The carrier looks like it is designed for "jump" jets, such as the Harrier, will China have a VTOL carrier aircraft soon?
The Chinese will operate this one in a similar fashion IMHO.
The Russians have been operating the Kuznetsov for several years now. Since they only have the one, they have only a handful of aircraft and a small number of aviators. But, their doctrine is intrinsically different than ours. Their carrier has a primary purpose of providing fleet air defense for ASW operations and for SAGs. Their own strike at sea or land capabilitiy with their carrier air wing is very, very limited.
We, OTOH, use our carriers with a primary role of air strike from the carrier. The escorts primarily protect the carrier, not vice versa, though the carrier wing does provide fleet air defense as well. But it is all geared towards getting those aircraft within striking distance of a target.
The Russians are all geared towards the carrier helping get their ships and subs within striking distance.
...and of course that have one carrier that they have operated for a few years, while we have operated 12 or more carriers for well over 60 years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.