Futile, Taiwan would suffer much worse than Ukraine.
Agreed, if you can stay on topic.
CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Futile, Taiwan would suffer much worse than Ukraine.
Agreed, if you can stay on topic.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
OK, if the Taliban is threatened then it's time to arm the Taliban. If any country or entity that defies the US is threatened, they should be armed. Unlike the Taiwan question, those are not domestic issues.
The US wants to fight down the the last Taiwanese I see. But it is a dream; the only side doing intelligent armament is China. And don't worry; they won't be isolated for long because the PLA will deliver them the goods they need.
Then don't start it.
I think CVN is just a prestige project for now due to both requirements (mostly within 2000-3000 km of China) and technical capability (higher availability, more short maintenance, lower long term maintenance).
Not until there's 4-5 003 style conventional CATOBAR carriers should a higher risk CVN be produced. US also agreed: they built 8
Forrestal and Kitty Hawk supercarriers first, and used them extensively. These were far cheaper than the Enterprise and Nimitz.
Kitty Hawk cost $1.7 billion in 2021 money.
Compared to Nimitz, costs $10 billion.
I totally agree. The PLA-navy does not need a CVN, at least not now.
War at sea isn't won by matchless lethality, though - certainly not alone.
It is won by bringing goods from there where they're being produced to there they're needed, by establishing control over key points that ensure it.
War at sea is won by establishing command of the sea, by being able to leverage that command of the sea for your own good. Submarines do exactly zero for that - even mighty Yasen with its whole array of hypersonic zircons won't really stop an, say, a 10'000$ Houthi drone with Alibaba firesale prop engine from burning down your supertanker.
It even won't be able to stop Somali pirates from boarding it.
Thus the simple rule is that surface ships and maritime aviation - which is brought to sea by carriers - are unavoidable. You either do them or you don't really fight for control over the seas.
bro the whole span of the Pacific , Yes you're correct BUT China will be fighting in the Taiwan proper even in the second Island chain. Carriers is a must IF you're a hegemonic power, in China current situation surrounded or cage within the Second Island Chain, you need an invisible weapon to fight back, an asymmetric warfare. Bro I'm an amateur so I hope you have the patience, as @Intrepid had mentioned I think China should take a page from Admiral Gorskov, with a lot of submarine operating in the Pacific hindering supplies line and taking valuable assets away from an American CSG, making the American think twice. Right now the Chinese was forced to react and the reaction is good from the strategic POV as they look to Eurasia and Russia to circumvent its vulnerability. Tactically as we discuss priority, My opinion Carriers is becoming obsolete with the onset of Hypersonic weapons, unless the Chinese want to replace the US as a Hegemon.
From history a lesson can be learn, China is not Japan, so WW2 carrier strategy will inflict pain BUT not total victory, with the US offshoring most of its industrial base, a Battle in the Pacific involving submarine warfare will choke those supply line. And I think people in Pentagon are more keen in Huludao than in Jiangnan.
Last edited:
Gorshkovs' "Maritime power of the state" is indeed an absolute must-read - it belongs to core books on the subject of maritime strategy, and especially - maritime strategy of a continental power.
But, we shall note, that the Soviet navy - Gorshkovs' navy basically - continuously moved in the direction of a balanced, sea superiority fleet with carriers. Theater-level missile salvoes and submarines are an attractive start and they bring results fast - but in the end they can bring you only so far.
Due to internal Soviet politics(carriers were stigmatized as a symbol of imperialism) what the Soviet navy could say and what it actually was doing had to be different.
Furthermore, it also shall be noted, that Russia(Soviet Union) is kinda self-sufficient from resources perspective: maritime trade is nice for it, but it is not existential; thus Russia/Soviet Union can grudgingly see sea denial as a reasonable fallback option. Russia can geographically resort to attack - which is a defensive maritime strategy.
China, dependent on sea lines of communications for its prosperity, dependent on incoming resources, dependent for its very connectivity(coastal traffic), and dependent on it for basic food security of a significant part of its population - has no such fallback.
Modern China since at least the mid-2000s does the same: to fight at sea, you must be able to contest the sea superiority. If you can contest sea superiority in the patch of Indo-Pacific surrounding China - well, you already have the force that can do the same over the globe.
It will still lack basing(though, as we may note, China has started addressing it in advance) - but for a blue-water navy, it's a natural development.
It's just the way world ocean works - there is no way around it. There is no way around the fact, that in modern political climate China needs a world-class ocean-going navy, there is no way around the fact that such a navy is inherently globally-capable (even if you limit yourself), there is no way around the fact that it will be seen as such(potentially globally capable - i.e. an existential threat) by existing dominant maritime power.
Such a navy by nature needs to be balanced - as only such summ of capabilities brings maximum warfighting, intervention and protection capability.
And balanced navy unavoidably has a very high ratio of carrier ships - a bottom-heavy structure isn't any more balanced than a top-heavy one.
Moreover - it's ultimately carriers that decide how many independent, high-intensity warfare-capable & survivable task forces a nation can deploy in the first place. And they're the hardest and the longest capability to add - you won't be able to bring them when you'll feel the need to. Especially not CATOBARs with their complex operations, which form basically a form of art of true maritime powers.
Last edited:
China isn't dependent on maritime supply for food. China is a net food exporter in many years, and even assuming 0 exports, it's $20 USD worth of food imports per person, which is basically just missing 1 meal per year, hardly starvation inducing.
$32 billion exports
$28 billion imports
So a sea denial strategy still isn't that bad.
For a country that does as much sea-trade as China, control of the seas become essential. And Naval Aviation is the best and perhaps the only remaining way to do it. Not even in a hundred years will submarines be able to do sea-control because they are principally a sea-denial platform.
Carriers aren't becoming obsolete anytime soon. For Carriers to become obsolete, aviation itself has to become obsolete, which is never happening! Sure, threats to Carrier operations have increased massively these past couple of decades but Carriers being super-mobile by their very nature, have their own ways to tackle them. If your F-35Cs have an unrefueled combat range of 750 nautical miles, nothing prevents you from using those same F-35Cs from a range 1500 nautical miles away - you only need an extra squadron of Carrier-based aerial refueling aircraft!
As for the Imperial Japanese Navy, they suffered defeat at Midway only because of poor planning, poor execution and poor tactical decisions taken by their Commanders who possessed a very poor tactical picture of the battle . The Kido Butai was more than capable of destroying the American Pacific Carrier fleet.
Correct bro BUT the question remain against the US can the Chinese Carriers effectively nullify the American advantages? or a combination of hypersonic missile and submarine is more cost effective?
Around Taiwan and within range of Mainland based Airforce? I think F35 and J20 encounter had the Pentagon made a rethink about strategy especially with Chinese AEW and EW predominance in that sector.
Bro China is a continent size power, that is what I'm asserting, The US think that they can dealt the same blow as they did to Japan, they may inflict pain BUT total victory is uncertain or impossible.