Posted on 05/13/2010 5:54:11 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
For much of the Cold War, China's navy was little more than an elaborate coast guard. It was barely a blip on the maritime horizons of Japan and Southeast Asia. Today the Chinese armed forces are in the midst of an intense and sustained modernization program, and the navy has emerged as a key service for protecting and advancing national interests. It gets more than one-third of the declared military budget.
China's navy, like those of other leading nations, aims to protect vital trade routes, project power and influence, and deter potential adversaries. What makes the Chinese navy significantly different is its role to secure control for China over vast sea zones and far-flung islands in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia that are contested by several Southeast Asian countries and Japan.
China says that, like Taiwan, these areas in the South China Sea and the East China Sea are a part of its territory and were taken away when China was weak. Control of these places is contested not just for reasons of national pride, but also because they contain valuable undersea oil and gas, fisheries and some of the world's busiest and most important shipping routes that are used extensively for trade and naval operations by many countries, including the United States.
The Chinese navy reportedly plans to have a refurbished former Soviet aircraft carrier in operation by 2012 for training and developing basic skills; a made-in-China carrier is to take to the seas sometime after 2015. This advance in power projection is expected to have predominantly regional implications.
Due to female infanticide China has millions of surplus men who will never find a mate. Put them on warships! In the Navy! (cue the Village People)
And Gates want to downsize our fleet.
At sea they're mere targets.
Unless the democrats furnish them with all of our IP of course.
Its hard to believe that twenty years ago they couldn't even target an ICBM properly.
They can thank the American voter for their progress.
It would appear that their technology is making our Carriers mere targets.
However, the penalty to China for sinking US Capital ships is, at the VERY LEAST, the total destruction of their Navy...and possibly much, much more.
Standard US doctrine is: Sink a Carrier and we retaliate with nukes.
Uh, that was before mr. hopey changey was elected by the gullible. The administration has admitted that an enemy could really do anything and not suffer a devastating response from the US.
To what technology do you refer?
China will need another 50 years before their navy become a bona fide threat. Like you said, they have no experience with aircraft carriers.
There’s much more to it than simply deciding to float a carrier task force.
well, that, and their lack of Rubles...
Sealift 0_o
Our prayers are with Jeff as he battles through his nemesis, and looking forward to his continued contributions to our education.
I’ve been posting something similar for 5 years now. Looks like it’s finally catching on.
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Posted by Kevin OMalley to nickcarraway On News/Activism
01/12/2005 12:07:37 PM PST · 17 of 25
Here is my swag on what is going to happen in Taiwan, posted on an earlier thread,
China Rapidly Modernizes for War With U.S..
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285398/posts
1) The one-child policy has created a testosterone-rich generation the likes of which no one on earth has ever seen. China will have an entire army of what they call little dictators who have few prospects of finding women, and they will be very aggressively pushing their old-guard superiors for action on the Taiwan issue. The final straw will be that theyll be promised wives when they invade Taiwan.
2) Their army is as much as 200 Million strong, which was the size predicted in Revelation in the Bible, called The Kings of the East. They can afford casualties in the range of 10 million, which is 5 times bigger than our army ever was. China has some unfinished business with Vietnam, having fought to a standoff in 1979. They might do a run through Vietnam first so that their troups are more battle-hardened and arrogant, knowing that the US didnt exactly win there. The added bonus is they get one of the largest warm water ports in the world.
3) Taiwan has never declared independence. Its not like the brave Estonians standing up to Russia when communism fell. Theyre like an impudent child claiming to have sovereignty over China. Their fatal miscalculation is that they know theyll need Americans to fight for them if they are in a war, but Americans will be reluctant to shed blood for an ally that didnt have the courage to declare independence until they were invaded on an internal dispute. The chinese will hammer away at this in the press.
4) Chinese weapons policy has been to cycle through older generations of weaponry and stay about one generation behind the latest stuff. They sold their old silkworm missiles to the Iranians and used that money to upgrade their newer missiles, which are inferior to US missiles but they only need to be functional. The plan is to overwhelm defenses with superior numbers. No ship can stand up to 50 supersonic silkworm missiles aimed at it. They have similar tactics for other systems, such as anti aircraft missiles.
5) The chinese went up against Americans in Korea. They sent in 300 thousand infantry up against a much smaller American force. The key was that they only had rifles for about 1 in 5 personnel. So they would tell one to go as far as he could till he got shot, then the 2nd one would pick up the rifle & keep charging, and so on. Today, every one of those infantrymen has an automatic rifle. They are not as well equipped as their US counterparts but they can afford a lot of casualties. Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia and other engagements proved that you cant replace feet on the ground with air superiority. No matter how advanced the air force is nor how many smart bombs get dropped, the US wont be able to dislodge a standing army without sending in massive troup numbers and experiencing casualties. If our press made a big deal about losing 1000 US soldiers in Iraq, theyll have a heydey with 500 thousand casualties. Seeing the press reaction emboldens the Chinese.
6) China is building a blue-water navy including submarines. They might be able to achieve a standoff in the surrounding ocean, limiting the ability to resupply american troups while the chinese troups will pillage Taiwan. Once America loses 2 nuclear powered aircraft carriers (with the resulting radioactive plumes), the calculation is that the U.S. will lose stomach for more fighting.
7) The trick to defeating these strategies with minimal casualties will be special forces operating in Taiwan. They will need to have the ability to direct standoff weapons fire onto individual tanks and squad units in order to be effective.
8) The most likely outcome will be that Taiwan will be a giant pile of rubble. Casualties could run as high as WWII. If China wins, it could be a Pyrrhic victory. If the US wins, it will take a whole generation to repair and rebuild. I think the Chinese view towards weakness or perceived weakness is a little bit like how Germany viewed the U.S. after we sent 10,000 men wandering in the hills to find Pancho Villa, to no avail. The Germans perceived it as weakness and went ahead with their war plans.
9 posted on Sunday, September 23, 2007 9:47:37 PM by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
The latter include what would be the world's first operational ballistic missile and maneuverable warhead guided by satellite and land-based over-the-horizon radar to strike aircraft carriers at up to 12 times the speed of sound far out at sea. U.S. military officials and analysts regard it as a serious threat to American naval operations in the Western Pacific.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on May 3 warned that "the virtual monopoly the U.S. has enjoyed with precision guided weapons is eroding especially with long-range, accurate anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles that can potentially strike from over the horizon."
China's anti-ship ballistic missile, with a range of 1,500 km, would be fired from mobile launchers on land. Adm. Robert Willard, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told Congress in March that China was "developing and testing" the missile. He added that it was "designed specifically to target aircraft carriers." Gates said that such a weapon could potentially put at risk a modern nuclear-powered U.S. carrier with a full complement of the latest aircraft an asset worth as much as $20 billion. He added that a combination of lethal missiles and stealthy submarines "could end the operational sanctuary our navy has enjoyed in the Western Pacific for the better part of six decades."
Interesting. Ten years ago China was supposed to have been close to completing a working cavitating torpedo. Any idea whats happening with that?
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