there could be large amount of chinese sailors in various shipping companies willing to join PLAN if tensions get high (at least for the very basic sailor)
052C/052D Class Destroyers
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
lcloo
Major
There is no lack of Chinese youth wanting to join PLA, PLAAF and PLAN. Although China has conscription law but they don't need to apply them because every year, the number of volunteers far exceeded the recruitment target. They also have large enough training facilities and training ships to train their targetted number of crew.
Aren't Chinese warships already 25% overmanned, in anticipation of future growth?
In conjunction with the new 055 DDG seen with pennant #110 painted at its bow, a 052D DDG of the latest batch has also received the pennat number #159, likely to be named after the city of Shigatse. Posted by @太湖军I名 on Weibo.
True
but....That gap will be filled in 5 years.
China is building warships at a much faster rate than the USA.
If we count frigates, destroyers, and cruisers as "surface combatants" by 2031, if construction continues at the same pace, the PLA-navy will have the largest surface combatant force in the world measured by total tonnage. Let's divide a navy into 5 parts:
aircraft carriers,
submarines,
amphibious assault,
surface combatants,
Logistics / everything else.
The surface combatant force will be the first part of the navy that China achieves not equality but superiority to the US navy.
The second part will be amphibious assault, but that's a separate topic.