“Yep, not to mention that China is quite lacking in the experience department. They haven’t fought a real war in almost 70 years.”
And we haven’t fought a Naval war in 70 years either. For that matter, we haven’t WON a war in 70 years.
Nobody has fought a current-tech Naval war since 1945. The situation is ripe for surprises in all directions. Weapons systems and sensors and tactics and platforms will be found to be useless, inadequate, or decisive wonder weapons. No telling what they will be.
My current expectation is that Chinese ship survivability is poor vs US long range attack from USN and USAF systems, and ditto for their submarines. And this is without risking carrier groups within the danger zone of Chinese missile attack.
Strategically the Chinese Navy is a long way from being able to protect their foreign trade from a USN “distant blockade”, a la the Royal Navy vs Germany in WWI and WWII.
But we may find out.
78.
“And we haven’t fought a Naval war in 70 years either.”
True, but that’s a consequence of having a navy nobody is stupid enough to challenge I guess.
“For that matter, we haven’t WON a war in 70 years.”
Perhaps not completely, but the conventional portion of both Iraq wars and the Afghan war, we won handily in weeks. It was the unconventional portion of the last 2 that we faltered on, just like in Vietnam. So I think the main takeaway there is to steer clear of unconventional conflicts, unless we are ready to do the very messy things it would take to win them.