Any use of a carrier that involves operations within the range of land-based air assets is a less than ideal use of a carrier, and the closer you operate your carrier to your home shore, the more money and potential you are wasting.
That depends on the calibre and force disposition of the enemy you are facing.
Fine, but you're paying a steep price for this enhanced endurance/range at 500km from shore when the price could simply have been paid with more land-based fighters and less personnel and assets at risk. If a flight of land-based fighters can escort a sensor platform at a given distance from shore, it's invariably cheaper and more cost-effective to just do that than to build up an entire carrier industry so you can get more endurance/range from your CAP escorts. The cost/benefit calculation of a carrier would certainly not include "escorting a shore-based sensor platform with more endurance/range". This again would be a significantly less than optimal use of carriers.
Nah, escorting an MPA is easy enough for land-based fighters. Using a carrier force to escort an MPA is just ludicrously surreal.
Fortunately, my description of a carrier's utility in a high intensity near seas contingency is not limited only to using a carrier force to escort an MPA. In fact I think "escorting" MPAs isn't even an accurate descriptionfor what I envision, as it is more about being able to attain air superiority and control and being able to contest airspace at greater distances from China's coast than what land based aircraft alone can provide.
You have yet to demonstrate that your never-heard-of-before ultra-short-term carrier deployment patterns can actually work in reality or buys you the flexibility that you claim.
Do I need to demonstrate it? After all I have consistently described my proposal as that, a proposal.
Of course this logic can't be applied consistently, and that's my entire point in saying that the trend of larger sizes of destroyers recently doesn't at all mean switching from 7.5kt 052D to 12kt 055 is in any way comparable to countries switching from 6kt to 7kt destroyers. He would not be able to find even ONE example of any navy making a switch of this absolute magnitude.
I think one would be hard pressed to find any one example of a switch of such an absolute magnitude, but relative magnitude is easier.
That said, the point is that not every navy is experiencing such an increase of relative magnitude across all surface combatant classes which weakens that premise of his. But I think his other premises and overall conclusion is sound.
Like I said, if the 055's displacement is not 12kt as is currently rumored, there is a possibility in my mind that the 055 could be the new baseline destroyer for the PLAN. There are practical/functional reasons destroyers have been similarly-sized for the last several decades (~6-10kt). And for every destroyer you can name outside of this range I can name for you 5-10 that fall within this range. In any case, AFAIK there are only 2 new build destroyers that actually fall outside this range: the KDX-III and the Zumwalt. The KDX-III is a destroyer in name only with weaponry greater than that of the Tico cruisers and with similar functions in the fleet (air warfare command), and the Zumwalt is unfortunately a cruiser-sized ship with the combat armament of a destroyer (which is probably why the USN calls it a "destroyer" in the first place).
And as I said, and as Lethe as said, there is no reason to think why China cannot adopt a force structure between now and in the medium term and long term future where 12k ton destroyers make up a significant part of its orbat fleet as suggested by the orbats that he and I have proposed.
Sure, one can say no other navy in the world would adopt 12k ton cruiser sized ships in such large numbers/proportion of their overall fleet, but consider that the USN has had the vast majority of its surface fleet made up of combatants between 9k to 10k tons in the form of Ticos and Burkes with only a few hundred tons difference in displacement between the various types, and with a barely relevant number of frigate displacement ships in its orbat until recently. And this is keeping in mind their Ticos and Burkes are also heavier than any recent/modern European or UK destroyer/frigate class which were of course produced in much smaller numbers than Ticos or Burkes, including compared to JMSDF and ROKN, which until the Chinese Navy and their 055s were the only navies in the world outside of USN to field modern surface combatants in the over 9k ton range.
So if the USN in the recent past/present is able to adopt an almost all 9k-10k ton surface combatant fleet despite most of the world's most capable navies only having a few very limited numbers of modern combatants of that displacement, then why is it unreasaonable to think the Chinese Navy cannot induct a significantly proportion of its fleet of 12k ton 055s as part of a medium term three tier fleet of equal numbers of ton 055s, and equal numbers of 052D along a large number of 054A/B, and then eventually in the long term transition to a fleet made up only of 12k to 055s and a new 6k ton ship (succeeding the 052D and 054A/B)?
At the end of the day, isn't it all about how the number of 055s fits into the Navy's overall force structure? Having 24 055s would be stupid if they had only a dozen frigates or destroyers or something, as that would make their force ridiculously top heavy, but what if they had 24 055s but also another 24 052Ds and another 50+ 054A/Bs on top then isn't that a force structure that could make sense? Or having a fleet of 1/3 055s and 2/3 of a new class of 6k ton frigate?
