KlubMarcus said:
The Backfire still has to evade radar to get in launching position. Radar picket ships can cover hundreds of kilometers in radius. Radar planes extend that even further. Meanwhile, the carrier could be hundreds of miles further back behind both. That means the bombers have to get through all that to close the distance to make sure that the carrier doesn't have time to evade. So the Chinese pilots will have to weigh difficult launch conditions versus saving the crew, plane, and payload for a later attack. So the air cover doesn't even have to shoot down the bombers, they just have to force them to launch too early and increase the flight time of the missile or force the crew to turn back.
I'm not sure why you assume any adversaries of the US will be fighting with sticks and stones, but the PLAAF has fighters too. Any credible attack will have to be in coordination with surface and sub-surface combants and fighters and bombers (as Migleader said before). If the USN amasses enough CVBG, then such an attack will be futile. But if the USN comes in with just 2 CVBG, for instance, they are in danger.
KlubMarcus said:
I'm sure the US Military already knows that, too. China is sorrounded by nations who dislike her expantionist plans. Just think of all the EW stations the USA can place all around China's periphery with or without the assistance of the locals. The nations in SE Asia might not be gung-ho for the USA, but they will side with us over China because they know we're not interested in taking them over. Just think of all the manpower and expertise the USA can tap in surrounding nations. Wrong. America's best hope is the PLA's lack of combat experience and general incompetence of commie armed forces. It just has to be good enough for the Chinese spend a lot of time, effort, and money attacking AEGIS ships while we attack them from another direction.
This is just getting sillier. If peripheral country is going to side with the US in a confrontation over Taiwan, they would ALREADY have electronic intelligence stations there. As it stands, 'containment' is hardly complete -- Russia and South Korea are probably on China's side. Even Taiwan itself! The US has no bases in Taiwan and nearly half of the population favor China.
I hope people with views like yourself aren't in command of the US forces. Such a cavalier, fantastic view of your own military prowess -- in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (ahem, iraq) -- will just lead to instability in the world when the world needs peace between great powers.
Sea Dog said:
1. China's electronic warfare means are still not at U.S.'s level however. And they still have got to find a way to bring those assets to the field. I have no doubt they are getting better, but I don't see them catching the U.S. within the next 2-3 decades. The U.S. allocations in this area for R & D is huge.
2. Numbers really mean nothing, when the U.S. has the force multipliers they have. Even the Soviets understood this. The Russians have learned for sure, look how their planning for their future defense needs.
3. AEGIS really is that good. I know for sure. True it was never tested in "actual" combat, but it is rigorously tested in combat-like conditions with challenging electronic warfare environments that pretty much nobody else can field.
4. PAC-3 had a much better intercept rate in Iraq than that. It was 80%. And in recent tests, they killed 17 out of 20 targets. Definitely needs work, but not exaclty terrible performance.
I appreciate your thoughtful reply Sea Dog.
Here is an article evaluating the performance of PAC-3 in 2003. My view is that the performance of PAC-3 reveals the likely performance of AEGIS.
Quote from
Reading through it, 23 Iraqi missile launches are documented (9 Ababil-100s, 4 Al Samouds, 4 CSSC-3s, 4 FROG-7s, and 2 unknowns). Of these, indeed, 9 apparently were intercepted by U.S. or Kuwaiti Patriot batteries, thanks to the at least 24 Patriot-type missiles (PAC-2, GEM, GEM+, and PAC-3) that were fired. However, that leaves 14 Iraqi missiles which were not intercepted. Excluding the one Ababil-100 which malfunctioned and blew up shortly after launch and the four FROG-7s which were outside of the Patriot’s range, leaves 9 Iraqi missiles which were not destroyed by the Patriot. The fact that they landed “harmlessly†in the desert or the Persian Gulf, in the words of the authors of the report, does not change the fact that they were not intercepted. In the CENTCOM area of responsibility at the time of the war, there were 1069 Patriot missiles (54 of which were PAC-3 missiles), and 29 U.S. and 5 Kuwaiti Patriot batteries, so there should have been ample assets on the U.S. side to counter these Iraqi threats.
Unquote
The fact that PAC-3 failed to intercept an obsolete Chinese anti-ship missile is just plain embarassing. Is there any reason why PAC-3 should do worse than AEGIS in a real combat situation?
I think the real obstacle to a carrier strike is not the AEGIS, but the fighter and destroyer cover (including ASW). If a sizable number of Chinese equipment get in range to launch more than 50 missiles, that will be more than the AEGIS can track (according to an American poster here), and the carrier will be mission killed.
Chinese EW technology is the real X-factor that will determine win or lose. If 5 years ago somebody said that China is going to field a fighter plane AESA before 2008, they would have been laughed out of the room. Ditto for really any technology: China's progress have consistently out-performance western estimates.
How much trust can you put in America's technological edge when it is not that much in the first place and shrinking too? If there's anything certain in warfare since the dawn of time, it's that numbers matter.
