[hchutch]

The ChiComs will go with a sub blockade, IMO. Romeos and Mings will beused to take out merchant vessels and to serve as cannon fodder, while the ChiComs use their more advanced subs (Hans, Kilos and Songs) to take out anything we send to deal with the blockade.

They have a lot of those diesel-eelctric subs, and quantity has a quality of its own.

[Poohbah]

In undersea warfare, quantity in close quarters equals "many friendly-fire engagements."

[Technogeeb]

The ChiComs will go with a sub blockade, IMO. Romeos and Mings will beused to take out merchant vessels and to serve as cannon fodder, while the ChiComs use their more advanced subs (Hans, Kilos and Songs) to take out anything we send to deal with the blockade

They would have to be remarkably clever in order to get something like this to work. Their older subs are so loud that detecting them from a distance isn't that hard, and while their newer diesel-electrics are much more quiet, they'll still have to move for a blockade to work and we can catch them on a cz with screw noise far beyond their effective torpedo range.

The only thing that I can see that would make such a strategy workable would be political failure on the part of the US (for example, another "Carter" in office at the time they try to pull it off). Of course, that's certainly within the realm of possibility, but it isn't a particularly pleasant thought...