China's SCS Strategy Thread

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Heliox

Junior Member
Registered Member
KampfAlwin said:
Copium Koh lol

anyone notice how the Filipinos aren’t wearing life vests or helmets compared to CCG? Does that imply their government doesn’t give a shit about their safety or are hoping one of them drowns to score some brownie points?
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The Filipinos are wearing life vest and/or helmets. Just not consistently or across the board (uniformly).

I wouldn't go so far as to allude govt level conspiracy theories but some things spring to mind;
1. Quite typically, boat operators are not organic to the unit. While the boat operators do have full battle order kit, for training missions and low intensity ops, they tend to kit out in t-shirt - which is what we're seeing here. Indication that this resupply mission is/was viewed as a (very) low intensity op for the PN.
2. The more "elite" the unit, usually, the more leeway with regards to uniform standards. Though usually in a good unit, leeway does not apply to safety equipment or standards. But a good rule of thumb is that superficial appearances aside, adherence to safety is a sign of a well led and well trained unit .
3. NAVSOG guys are in camo and for the most part are wearing inflatable life vest (and in most of the underway videos are wearing helmets as well). I can only surmise that the one or two boat(s) that was helmets-off may have "docked" with the BRP Sierra Madre and the boat occupants (NAVSOG and PN Boat operators) were considering it mission accomplished and doffed said gear. The one boat on the outside may have just arrived (the one with the finger injury being treated) and you'll see all occupants with PFD (Personal Floatation Device a.k.a Life vest) and helmets on. Likewise a couple of the underway videos show the NAVSOG crew with PFD and helmets.

I won't go so far as to be dismissive of the ramshackle appearance of the PN crew on camera. It's a mix bag of looks typical of a low intensity ops to an outpost (again typical where uniform standards are lax) ... if anything, the fault on them is that they assumed the CCG would not or could not do anything and for treating it as low intensity op.

One other thing though, the PN personnel are, as far as I can tell, using Type V Special Use Inflatable PFDs (Personal Flotation Device). These are compact, inflated on use (via a inherent CO2 cartridge) PFDs that are a lot more comfortable to move around in and work with in a tropical environment. The CCG personnel are otoh using what appears to be a rather "low budget" Inherently Bouyant Type III PFD - the kind you find as Life Vest under the seats of ferries - these are bulky and rather warm for extended use. Make what you want of that but at least the CCG looks like a tightly run outfit.
 
lcloo

lcloo

Captain
Heliox said:
The Filipinos are wearing life vest and/or helmets. Just not consistently or across the board (uniformly).

I wouldn't go so far as to allude govt level conspiracy theories but some things spring to mind;
1. Quite typically, boat operators are not organic to the unit. While the boat operators do have full battle order kit, for training missions and low intensity ops, they tend to kit out in t-shirt - which is what we're seeing here. Indication that this resupply mission is/was viewed as a (very) low intensity op for the PN.
2. The more "elite" the unit, usually, the more leeway with regards to uniform standards. Though usually in a good unit, leeway does not apply to safety equipment or standards. But a good rule of thumb is that superficial appearances aside, adherence to safety is a sign of a well led and well trained unit .
3. NAVSOG guys are in camo and for the most part are wearing inflatable life vest (and in most of the underway videos are wearing helmets as well). I can only surmise that the one or two boat(s) that was helmets-off may have "docked" with the BRP Sierra Madre and the boat occupants (NAVSOG and PN Boat operators) were considering it mission accomplished and doffed said gear. The one boat on the outside may have just arrived (the one with the finger injury being treated) and you'll see all occupants with PFD (Personal Floatation Device a.k.a Life vest) and helmets on. Likewise a couple of the underway videos show the NAVSOG crew with PFD and helmets.

I won't go so far as to be dismissive of the ramshackle appearance of the PN crew on camera. It's a mix bag of looks typical of a low intensity ops to an outpost (again typical where uniform standards are lax) ... if anything, the fault on them is that they assumed the CCG would not or could not do anything and for treating it as low intensity op.

One other thing though, the PN personnel are, as far as I can tell, using Type V Special Use Inflatable PFDs (Personal Flotation Device). These are compact, inflated on use (via a inherent CO2 cartridge) PFDs that are a lot more comfortable to move around in and work with in a tropical environment. The CCG personnel are otoh using what appears to be a rather "low budget" Inherently Bouyant Type III PFD - the kind you find as Life Vest under the seats of ferries - these are bulky and rather warm for extended use. Make what you want of that but at least the CCG looks like a tightly run outfit.
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You are comparing equipment of Pinoy special forces vs standard equipment of CCG which is a police force. It is orange vs apple.

Also trying to impress us that this is a low intensity op doesn't work. There is an all armoured boat deployed by Pinoy, and the unusual large number of supply boats (6 in total) and deploymwnt of special forces is far more intense than the pasts.
 
H

Heliox

Junior Member
Registered Member
lcloo said:
You are comparing equipment of Pinoy special forces vs standard equipment of CCG which is a police force. It is orange vs apple.

Also trying to impress us that this is a low intensity op doesn't work. There is an all armoured boat deployed by Pinoy, and the unusual large number of supply boats (6 in total) and deploymwnt of special forces is far more intense than the pasts.
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I will say that too often, we try to read too much into too little... my reply was specifically because people were pointing out (wrongly) that the PN personnel had no life jackets and that equates to some kind of govt conspiracy. I find the healthy way to approach this is to apply Hanlon's Razor - Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity (or circumstances).

Take for instance SF vs CCG personal equipment issue.
Type V PFD is nice kit but is not restricted to SF troopers. In the later 2 videos showing PN/PCG personnel rescuing the stranded RHIBs, the crew from the "bigger ship" were in Blue coveralls and flo-orange safety helmets with Type V PFDs as well. Most Navies issue Type V to any crew that is on deck or small watercraft duty. Also, if you do a quick web search, you'll find plenty of pics of CCG wearing Type V BFDs.
The issue is "crew" ... NAVSOG is not crew in this context and their Type V is therefore unit issue. CCG? Depends ... The CCG RHIBs and fast craft were heavily manned. Were those extra personnel standard boarding party carried for purpose (hence "Crew" and in which case they should have Type V) or were they roped in from some other unit (in which case explains the lack of Type V) or perhaps they purposely put on IB-PFDs to serve as a form of anti-stab vest?

We don't know, or at least I don't know. Anyone who can shed more light on SOP and TO&E at granular level is always welcome.

Why is NAVSOG being used here?
Again, circumstances? These supply runs are small watercraft-deep water ops. Your boat drivers are trained for this, no problems there but the extra manpower has to be as well. You can't just put a GI onto a watercraft without some training - unless you want to explain to the BOI in the case of a drowning death why.
Maybe the nearest pool of ready personnel just happened to be NAVSOG. Maybe the PN were expecting some trouble and wanted to make sure they had better trained people in place who can avoid escalation beyond the mission brief (get good optics?). Bear in mind that they were not wearing any belt kit let alone light plate carriers. No firearms were sighted in the photos/videos. The Pintle mount on the PN RHIBs were also unmounted (Though one of the CCG fast craft had an MG mounted). If there was escalation, it certainly wasn't in the form of firearms.

The armoured boat is a strange one I'll give you that. That said though, where was it in relation to this resupply exercise? Proximity and role? Is there a photo or video showing it directly involved in the BPR Sierra Madre resupply?

Was this a more "intensely" crewed resupply mission compared to the past? Was it a PR exercise to generate optics of CCG bad, PN good? Hence the use of NAVSOG to put a limit on how far the more latino blooded Filipino would usually go?

I was just merely point out observations ... "make what you want of that".
If somebody wants to turn that into a d**k measuring contest, I've no interest.
 
T

tamsen_ikard

Junior Member
Registered Member
Why would they send a carrier with just 1 destroyer escort? Each Chinese carrier, since its smaller should have more destroyer escorts than US. Atleast 4 destroyers and 4 frigates should be the minimum escort level. Then it can provide 2 layer protection in 4 directions.

Even the type 075 was sent in the SCS without its destroyer and frigate escorts. They should have their own 2 layer protection.
 
lcloo

lcloo

Captain
tamsen_ikard said:
Why would they send a carrier with just 1 destroyer escort? Each Chinese carrier, since its smaller should have more destroyer escorts than US. Atleast 4 destroyers and 4 frigates should be the minimum escort level. Then it can provide 2 layer protection in 4 directions.

Even the type 075 was sent in the SCS without its destroyer and frigate escorts. They should have their own 2 layer protection.
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They probably have more destroyers and frigates in South China seas escorting the aircraft carrier than the medias are awared. And I am sure a few SSBN/SSK are there too.

DDG and FFG doing escorts for Liaoning need not be moving within 5KM from the carrier. They have sensor and weapon ranges beyond hundreds of KM, and they can positioned themselves at such distance, or at least several tens of KM away. And satellite photo can't take them all in a single frame.
 
A

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
tamsen_ikard said:
Why would they send a carrier with just 1 destroyer escort? Each Chinese carrier, since its smaller should have more destroyer escorts than US. Atleast 4 destroyers and 4 frigates should be the minimum escort level. Then it can provide 2 layer protection in 4 directions.

Even the type 075 was sent in the SCS without its destroyer and frigate escorts. They should have their own 2 layer protection.
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In addition to what @Icloo has mentioned - The are already four 055s and one 052C currently conducting maneuvers in the SCS region. Even without adding Shandong and the escorting one 052D and two 054As - That fleet alone has greater combined firepower than the entire navies of most countries today.

And needless to say, those four 055s and one 052Cs are within one-day's reach of Shandong and her three escorts, so I don't see how that's a problem.
 
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