A Chinese Navy with 10 Aircraft Carriers? It Could Happen.

The National Interest via yahoo ^ | November 13, 2019 | Richard D. Fisher Jr. ,

[RomanSoldier19]

In his reaction to the December 6 Chinese Global Times article quoting experts saying China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) may require five or six aircraft carriers, David Axe wrote an article asking, “Could Beijing really pull it off?” The short answer is that Beijing is just getting started.

[Justa]

Not to bust your bubble but those things suck. Never saw one make a successful interception of a rocket on Camp Victory, Baghdad. The blasted thing was 30 meters outside the JCCC where I worked. Makes a hell of a racket. Among servicemembers who’ve depended on them CIWS stands for Crap It Won’t Shoot. And when it does it doesn’t hit. FWIW.

[elteemike]

Anyone can buy all the tools they want at any big box store...But that’s not the same thing as using them...

[Pollster1]

My ship was painted black, so I did not know that.

[Mariner]

Chinese tools don’t work, and don’t last.

[Spktyr]

In the open ocean, middle of the Pacific, yes.

Closer to China? They have stealthy missile boats that fire multiple capital shipkiller missiles. LOTS of them. Combine that with the Dong Feng carrier killer missile and a CBG is in trouble.

[Spktyr]

To be fair, the CIWS Ashore program that you saw *is* less capable than the shipborne version - it had to be ‘detuned’ for on-shore work and it doesn’t have Aegis feeding it intercept data when it’s in a ground mount.

[Spktyr]

Ummm... the Japanese absolutely did use bio weapons in World War 2. Go look up Unit 731.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

[Spktyr]

We can’t get LCS to do that either, and our destroyers hit merchant ships.

Meanwhile, the Russians just completed a total world circumnavigation with their brand new first-in-class Project 22350 frigate Admiral Gorshkov. It didn’t blow up, explode, need to go into dry dock for repairs, hit merchant shipping, or do anything mechanically objectionable.

Something none of our new classes has managed to do.

[Spktyr]

We just cancelled the powerplants for those lasers a couple years ago. And our DD1000/DDX class ships have an Advanced Gun System that doesn’t work because we didn’t buy ammo for it.

Existing shipboard generation will only be able to fire the laser once or twice a minute, not enough to shoot down waves of anything.

[BereanBrain]

The Japanese had more than that during the start of WWII.

[Starcitizen]

Sad to say, the sooner we go to war with this subhuman garbage the better.

[elteemike]

Agreed...Numbers don’t tell the whole story...Ever...

[Mariner]

” Something none of our new classes has managed to do.”

Every deployed class of US warship has circumnavigated. Every deployed class has spent at least 120 consecutive days at sea.

Except LCS, which is likely to be abandoned.

If Chinese ships spent as much time at sea as the US Navy, they too would have storied accidents.

Something you obviously relish.

[datricker]

Yes - we should hope they are so dumb as to try operate 10 aircraft carriers, so does Russia. Yeah so there some things you’re about to find out China - enjoy!

[Spktyr]

DDX/DD1000 failed to do that. Our top tech, super secret stealth new Zumwalt had to put in at Dubai for major repair and overhaul on its attempt. It spent weeks in dry dock there. The Russian frigate I mentioned? It didn’t have that problem.

I am countering what I’m seeing as your mindless boosterism with realism. Our Navy has been converted into a political social experiment, saddled with the wrong new construction and old legacy ships. We desperately need to fix the Navy and your constant claims that the Navy is just fine are not helping.

[Zhang Fei]

[The Chinese haven’t even shown the ability to put a Destroyer Group 10,000 miles from home.]

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I’m not sure what ship count you’d consider a destroyer group, but the PLAN has had ships heading all the way to Americas starting in 1997. The real issue isn’t so much this other stuff, but the fact that fact that, when adjusted for the 7 to 1 income differential, the US and Chinese defense budgets ($650b vs $250b) https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2019/world-military-expenditure-grows-18-trillion-2018 are effectively either at parity or tilted in China’s favor. Whatever the current state of China’s weaponry, our qualitative edge will be increasingly difficult to sustain, given the resources the Party is devoting to defense - a very affordable ~2% of China’s GDP compared to the Soviet Union’s estimated 1/3 at its peak.

Military capability and readiness are directly proportional to the budgets allocated to the armed services. By that measure, the Chinese military in general, and the navy specifically, is getting its entire Christmas wish list, and then some.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Navy
[As the 21st century approached, the PLAN began to transition to an off-shore defensive strategy that entailed more out-of-area operations away from its traditional territorial waters.[13]:23–30 Between 1989 and 1993, the training ship Zhenghe paid ports visits to Hawaii, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. PLAN vessels visited Vladivostok in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996. PLAN task groups also paid visits to Indonesia in 1995; North Korea in 1997; New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines in 1998; Malaysia, Tanzania, South Africa, the United States, and Canada in 2000; and India, Pakistan, France, Italy, Germany, Britain, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand in 2001.[13]:114 In March 1997, the Luhu-class guided missile destroyer Harbin, the Luda-class guided missile destroyer Zhuhai, and the replenishment oiler Nancang began the PLA Navy’s first circumnavigation of the Pacific Ocean, a 98-day voyage with port visits to Mexico, Peru, Chile, and the United States, including Pearl Harbor and San Diego. The flotilla was under the command of Vice Admiral Wang Yongguo, the commander-in-chief of the South Sea Fleet.[13]:114[14][15][16][17][18]

The Luhu-class guided missile destroyer Qingdao and the replenishment oiler Taicang completed the PLA Navy’s first circumnavigation of the world (pictured), a 123-day voyage covering 32,000 nautical miles (59,000 km; 37,000 mi) between 15 May – 23 September 2002. Port visits included Changi, Singapore; Alexandria, Egypt; Aksis, Turkey; Sevastopol, Ukraine; Piraeus, Greece; Lisbon, Portugal; Fortaleza, Brazil; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Callao, Peru; and Papeete in French Polynesia. The PLA naval vessels participated in naval exercises with the French frigates Nivôse and Prairial, as well as exercises with the Peruvian Navy. The flotilla was under the command of Vice Admiral Ding Yiping, the commander-in-chief of the North Sea Fleet, and Captain Li Yujie was the commanding officer of the Qingdao.[13]:114–115[19][20][21][22][23] Overall, between 1985 and 2006, PLAN naval vessels visited 18 Asian-Pacific nations, 4 South American nations, 8 European nations, 3 African nations, and 3 North American nations.[13]:115 In 2003, the PLAN conducted its first joint naval exercises during separate visits to Pakistan and India. Bi-lateral naval exercises were also carried out with exercises with the French, British, Australian, Canadian, Philippine, and United States navies.[13]:116

On 26 December 2008, the PLAN dispatched a task group consisting of the guided missile destroyer Haikou (flagship), the guided missile destroyer Wuhan, and the supply ship Weishanhu to the Gulf of Aden to participate in anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. A team of 16 Chinese Special Forces members from its Marine Corps armed with attack helicopters were on board.[24][25][26] Since then, China has maintained a three-ship flotilla of two warships and one supply ship in the Gulf of Aden by assigning ships to the Gulf of Aden on a three monthly basis. Other recent PLAN incidents include the 2001 Hainan Island incident, a major submarine accident in 2003, and naval incidents involving the U.S. MSC-operated ocean surveillance ships Victorious and Impeccable during 2009. At the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the PLAN, 52 to 56 vessels were shown in manoeuvres off Qingdao in April 2009 including previously unseen nuclear submarines.[27][28] The demonstration was seen as a sign of the growing status of China, while the CMC Chairman, Hu Jintao, indicated that China is neither seeking regional hegemony nor entering an arms race.[27] Predictions by Western analysts that the PLAN would outnumber the USN submarine force as early as 2011 have failed to come true because the PRC curtailed both imports and domestic production of submarines.[29]

2010s

Beginning in 2009, China orders 4 Zubr-class LCAC from Ukraine and bought 4 more from the Hellenic Navy (Greece). These hovercraft/LCACs are built to send troops and armored vehicles (tanks, etc.) onto beaches in a fast manner, acting as a landing craft, and were viewed to be a direct threat to Taiwan’s pro-independence movement as well as the conflict over Diaoyu Islands. China is continually shifting the power balance in Asia by building up Navy’s Submarines, Amphibious warfare and surface warfare capabilities.

Between 5–12 July 2013, a seven-ship task force from the Northern Fleet joined warships from the Russian Pacific Fleet to participate in Joint Sea 2013, bilateral naval maneuvers held in the Peter the Great Bay of the Sea of Japan. To date, Joint Sea 2013 was the largest naval drills yet undertaken by the People’s Liberation Army Navy with a foreign navy.[31]

On 2 April 2015, during the violent aftermath of a coup d’état in Yemen and amid an international bombing campaign, the PLAN helped 10 countries get their citizens out of Yemen safely, evacuating them aboard a missile frigate from the besieged port city of Aden. The operation was described by Reuters as “the first time that China’s military has helped other countries evacuate their people during an international crisis”.[32] ]

[Mariner]

The Zumwalt is a single ship class, and a test platform. We are very unlikely to see another.

I have never claimed the Navy is just fine.

But I have claimed it can defeat the next 3 biggest navies at sea, simultaneously. Because it can.

The USN needs 30 diesel boats, another 30 nuke boats and 50 new Frigates. And it needs to stop deferring maintenance. And continue to replenish existing classes.

But the idea it’s under some imminent challenge to supremacy is ludicrous.

[Spktyr]

Ummm, no. The Navy says the Zumwalt is a class of three. There are already two of them in commission - Zumwalt herself and the Michael Monsoor, which commissioned this year. The Lyndon B. Johnson is to be commissioned in 2021.

[Mariner]

Sending a single warship, and an oiler/maintenance ship on a circumnavigation, and sending 7 FFG/DDG to participate in drills 1,500 miles from home...hardly makes a blue water navy.

At any given time the USN has 7-10 groups of 5+ warships (3-4 with carriers) deployed over 5,000 miles from home.

To top it off, there’s a sonar tech in Pearl Harbor right now listening to Chinese nuke boats pulling in and out of Hainan.

On investment, it is critical. But it’s not like the US is standing still...and we have a 30+ year head start.

Did I mention our shit actually works?

[Mariner]

Three!?!@?!?

But none declared operationally ready, right?

Three.

That’s just dumb.