IMO, the PLAN's future carrier force in a high end pacific theatre war would optimally seek to have the ambition to be able to achieve air control and sea control (surface and subsurface) as well as superiority in the EW domain up to and beyond the 2nd island chain, in conjunction with the rest of the PLA (land based PLAAF, land based PLARF, etc) as part of multi domain operations.
To achieve the above mission, I believe the PLAN's future carrier strike group should seek to have a number of capabilities:
- the ability to independently conduct air superiority missions and air defense missions, the ability to independently conduct surface strike missions, the ability to independently conduct EW missions, the ability to independently conduct AEW&C and ISR missions, the ability to independently conduct ASW missions.
- the ability to also conduct the above missions in a joint manner to support, enable and/or increase the effectiveness of other friendly services (such as PLAAF, and PLARF). In particular, focus should be placed on having carriers have aircraft that can conduct widespread dynamic and redundant ISR, to provide targeting information for land based long range AShBMs as well as land based long range bombers who will provide long range strike support against opfor carrier and surface forces to greatly supplement the PLAN's CSG's own anti surface forces (in the form of carrier based strike fighters and strike UCAVs as well as AShMs from escorting destroyers, frigates, and nuclear attack submarines).
- the range of the above missions should seek to have large footprints -- aka the aircraft conducting those missions should have long range so as to maximize the area of effect that they can have and thus to better reduce the risk the carrier itself faces from opfor threats, by virtue of having longer distance. This range should be no less than 500 nmi and should optimally aim to achieve 1000 nmi or above to match future potential US aircraft operating footprints.
- to achieve the above missions, a combination of manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft will make up the airwing, and must be sufficiently large to provide adequate range/endurance (or to have tanker aircraft that can allow an aircraft to achieve the above range.
- to achieve adequate sortie rate, each carrier itself should be capable of sustaining a competitively sized airwing.
- the future CSG should be capable of operating at distances of up to and slightly beyond the second island chain for an extended period in terms of endurance (namely, fuel and consumable stores).
Putting the above into a concept of operations, basically I envision the PLAN fielding one to two "future CSGs," with each future CSG having two carriers to provide mutual support for one another, with the future CSG escorts to include over a dozen major surface combatants (large destroyers, destroyers and frigates) and multiple nuclear attack submarines.
Each future CSG will be a mobile fire-maneuver-recon complex capable of conducting independent air control, sea control and EW missions at a range of over 1000 nmi by virtue of its airwing that will combine large manned and unmanned aircraft, and capable of operating at distances of up to and beyond the second island chain.
These future PLAN CSGs will seek to maneuver and locate opfor CSGs -- however the process of seeking to locate opfor CSGs means there will inevitably be a high chance of PLAN CSG airwings and escorts having to skirmish with opfor CSGs and escorts, which requires PLAN CSGs to be capable of independently fighting an opfor CSG on "even terms" and surviving the encounter.
However during the process of seeking to maneuver and locate and skirmish with opfor CSGs, PLAN CSG ISR aircraft will also seek to actively identify the location of the opfor CSG and provide cuing information for other PLA targeting/ISR assets in the region (whether it's space based, large land based aircraft, or OTH radars or a combination).
This will allow a robust, multi domain accurate targeting solution against opfor CSGs across multiple domains that is more dynamic, survivable and robust than only relying one on or two domains. In particular, having a CSG's own organic airborne ISR aircraft being capable of identifying and tracking an opfor CSG should substantially reduce the amount of work that the PLA's other land based, space based and large airborne targeting/ISR systems. This will create a robust kill chain that can suffer some losses but which can still be operationally effective.
The robust kill chain will then enable land based long range strike systems (land based long range AShBMs with HGVs, land based long range bombers equipped with HGVs) to target the opfor CSG either independently, or in a joint strike mission where the PLAN future CSG conducts a strike mission against the opfor CSG (with its own strike aircraft, strike UCAVs, and/or AShMs from escorting ships/submarines).
