The America skipper will follow orders, and if those orders are to get pass the SS s and sink segments of the invasion fleet, he will pick the highest value targets and do so and then try to egress...thaat is, if he has to egress.
Technically superior in the sense that they have high quality and technologically advanced equipment...not in the sense that they are nesessarily superior to the US. And I will say again, the US Naval officer corps and carreer NCOs are very disciplined and very dedicated. They will follow orders.
Well, as I understand it, and iirc, as well-informed sources such as yourself and Popeye has pointed out in the past, American commanders have a great deal of leeway in terms of making operational decisions.
As I stressed, if this was an invasion fleet heading towards American soil, American politicians and commanders would absolutely not hesitate to do what needs to be done even if it means them laying their lives on the line.
However, when Americans go to the aid of others out of choice, I somehow do not see the politicians issuing the kind of 'stop them at all costs' orders that would massively constrain the operational decision making of it's individual commanders, or American commanders interpreting their orders in such a way as to put the destruction of enemy elements as a higher priority than the safety of his ship and crew.
It was never meant to be a suggestion that USN personnel would act in an unprofessional or unbecoming way, just a deduction based on basic human nature.
Now, can you honestly tell me that if you were a USN SSN skipper, given orders to try and cause maximum disruption to a PLAN landing, you would be so aggressive in trying to attack the enemy that you would put your boat and crew in a position where it is very likely or even almost a certainty that you will not survive the attack? When you are fighting someone else's battle?
The real question is, whether the US subs can get out of there once they inflict the maximum damage they can.
In all likelihood, they wont have to. Their strategy will be to deal with the undersea threat first.
The likely strategy for the US will be to respond with massive force using 20 or more nuclear attack subs to clear the straits of PLAN subs. With those types of numbers, with the types of training they already perform, regularly, and with the equipment and weapons they have...this will be the real challenge for the PLAN...to avoid this. I do not think at this moment they will be able to. No doubt it will be a visious fight under the waves...but the US simply has too many advanced, very quiet nuclear attack subs and the Straits are too small to effectively hide from a pincer the likes of which that the US will likely set up, using blocking forces of even more subs to prevent any PLAN reinforcements from coming to the aid of those that get trapped in the Straits.
I don't want this great debate to turn into a verses contest, so please don't take this the wrong way, but have you considered the logistics of what you are suggesting?
How long would it take the USN to deploy 20 of it's SSNs to the Taiwan straits?
I don't need specifics, but would you say it would take more or less time for the PLAN to mobilize as much of the sub and surface fleets as they can and set them up in the Taiwan straits and surrounding waters?
Against the kind of numbers of SSKs, surface ships and helos that the PLAN can muster (which would pretty much be their entire deployable fleets), 20 SSNs doesn't really seem like that many. Especially when all these assets would be concentrated in a very small body of water, where the PLAN has the advantage of home turf by knowing the underwater topography and conditions better than anyone else including the USN; in shallow waters that would massively reduce the effectiveness of SSNs; in addition to all that, you can expect extensive PLAN mine fields be to laid and waiting by the time USN SSNs get on scene, where the mine fields are so close to the Chinese coast that there is simply no way USN mine clearing ships could get close enough to clear a path; and in a position where the PLAN is purely on the defensive and not out to actively hunt USN subs?
The USN has unparalleled training and experience in hunting for enemy subs and ships in the wide open expanse of the world's oceans, but have they ever trained to try and breach an underwater fortress set up like this?
The whole point to the PLA's doctrine of unconventional warfare can be perfectly expressed with this example, whereby the PLAN refuse to fight on terms the enemy knows and are obviously superior at. Instead, the PLAN seek to use technologies available and unconventional tactics to re-define the game whereby they maximize their own advantages while neutralizing the enemy's greatest strengths.
The PLAN knows they would have a hard time trying to detect enemy subs far enough to intercept them before they are in a position to fire, so they won't try to. They will instead present themselves in massive numbers with built in redundancy to take a hit and then strike back after the enemy has given up their greatest advantage of stealth by revealing themselves.
USN subs can be completely undetectable to passive sonar, but as soon as they open fire, the PLAN would know where to ping with their active sonars, and then it won't matter how quiet your boat is.
In such a scenario, the USN SSN's superior quieting technologies and mobility of SSNs would count for very little because the PLAN fully expects to get punched hard in the face. Instead of tying themselves in nots trying to avoid the blow as conventional wisdom suggests, and allowing the USN to out-dance them and wear them down through attrition and outmaneuvering (as the USN has trained to fight), the PLAN instead presents their face to the enemy and gets ready to seize the hand after the blow lands and break the enemy's arm.
It's not pretty or sporting or honourable, but this is war, not a show fight, and you beat the enemy in any way you can.
The USN can try to gradually punch a hole through all that by methodically taking out the outer layers of the defenses, but that takes time, and the PLAN can still re-deploy and re-enforce to prolong the fighting as much as possible. The USN would be fighting against the clock remember, as the longer they take, the more time the PLAAF has to clear the beaches and the PLAN to actually launch the invasion.
The PLAN does not need to defeat the USN, merely keep them at arms length long enough to launch the invasion. After that, it's a win for the PLAN even if the USN kills dozens of ships and SSKs for no loss, and the PLAN would be ok with that.
While you can considering all this, you need to remember that this is not America's fight. They will be in it by choice, and that means there is only so high a price the US would be prepared to pay.
Even if you think the USN's sub fleet could technically punch through such a set up in time to stop an invasion, you have already acknowledged that it won't be an easy fight by any means. That means heavy casualties and losses, so it could easily become a case whereby even though the USN has the numbers and capability to force a breach, they do not have the stomach to pay the butcher's bill necessary to win such a fight.
The threshold has never been about the PLAN being able to outright defeat the USN if they intervened, it is about the PLAN being able to make the price of intervention so high that America will choose not to intervene in an ideal scenario, or holding the USN off long enough to take Taiwan and render their intervention meaningless.
That was what I meant when I said the PLA has already reached the point where they feel confident that they could take Taiwan no matter what, in hindsight, I should have picked my words more carefully. But I feel the PLA has developed to a point whereby the can achieve those objectives already, and now they are setting their sights on broader goals beyond merely reclaiming Taiwan.
Agreed if it is not the US or pulls the US in. But with the numbers of SSNs and DDGs the US has (which will be near 60 or more of each), the PLAN still needs to progress in my opinion to be able to pull it off successfully aganist a determined US aministration. Now...outside of the military technology, a LOT will depend on who occupies the Whie House and the PRC knows this full well...just as Putin and other leaders do.
Yes, I think we both agree on the bigger issues, it is just a few details that we differ on. But hopefully, as I have made my position more clear, you will feel that my views are more realistic and reasonable.
