Future PLAN naval and carrier operations

@Brumby

The 2017 Australian Government Foreign Policy White Paper


The 2016 Australia Government Defence White Paper


Some of the key points are:

2030 GDP using PPP exchange rates
China: $42 Trillion
US: $24 Trillion

That is China approaching twice the size.

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2035 Military Spending using PPP
China's spending grows significant from today's level.
By 2035, China is spending slightly more than the US

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These 2 projections argue for a sustained aircraft carrier programme over the next decades, as part of a larger naval buildup.

And given the track record of Chinese programmes such as the J-10 fighter and J-20 Stealth Fighter - it appears likely that issues with carrier aircraft will be resolved
And if we look at the broader track record of China's naval shipbuilding over the past decade - it appears likely that carrier development issues will also be resolved.

Then it's a question of just how big a naval buildup China decides on.

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And if you read the CSBA report, you can see that they are not fans of the F-35C, and their 2040 vision is to replace most piloted aircraft with unmanned aircraft instead.

Jura said:

Brumby you seem not to understand what Bitzo has been describing which I think is something like the USN Plan Orange in the interwar period that, in several simple words, was a strategy how to counter Japanese moves in the Pacific, first of all against then-US Philippines, by seeking a decisive battle fought by battleships arriving from Pearl, and planning accordingly (emphasis on battleship squadrons), decades in advance; well it was proposed by a gentleman named Rogers (clearly influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan) at the time when there were no aircraft carriers

LOL! in the meantime noticed Trump fired Bolton, so I'll be brief:

did Japanese attack? yes
did the USN proceed with the Orange? obviously not, as Pearl had been preempted
I mean only God knows the future, but a navy has to have its doctrine

hope it helps the discussion here

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Choice of words is important because it conveys meaning. What is being postulated is not strategy but concept of operations.

A concept of operations to achieve air and sea control in the second island chain (2IC) and beyond is primarily about combat at an operational level rather than just a generalized concept. As such any conversation must first address the operational problems associated with operating at such distance from land base. Secondly since the concept is carrier group centric, the discussion should include what robust PLAN carrier operational approach would and could be instituted to exclude US military forces from the region.

Any concept of operations in the 2IC region should outline its principal components such as mission objectives and required tasks, how these would be accomplished, and by what level and composition of forces. Important elements requiring consideration include operational timelines and the timing, prioritization and sequencing, and tempo of operations.

So fat the explanation is grounded on an assumption of a chosen end state. Any idea cannot be built upon assumptions only - at least in my worldview.

Jura said:

I have a hypothetical question if China could achieve higher readiness by "saving" their carriers simply by not using them in prolonged missions (like the USN constantly bombing Iraq and 'stan for more than a decade) and resulting deferred maintenance?

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Yes, China could achieve higher readiness via this method, since less maintenance would be required. Leaving carriers at base seems to be a waste, however. It would also atrophy the carriers' NCO corps (E4-E8), who are the real beating heart of a carrier, as both commissioned officers and lower ranked enlisted sailors will eventually rotate out of their positions, while NCOs typically stay at the same rating (even the same ship) for the majority if not the entirety of their careers. These petty officers (I don't know what they are called in the PLAN) gain experience through deployments, hold this experience inside their brains as a store of knowledge throughout the carrier's life cycle, and can pass this knowledge on to greenhorn enlisted as well as to new officers fresh out of the academy.

Jura said:

OK numbers: out of hypothetical six modern carriers (of course not the Soviet Navy Riga LOL and her follow up) two always ready to deploy

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Actually, 6 carriers are almost certainly inadequate to enable 2 to be constantly deployed; most of the time you will only be able to have 1 actively deployed. You would need 7, or more likely 8 carriers to achieve a 2-carrier presence. Actually my own personal hunch is that the PLAN will go for 7 or 8 carriers in the long run, not 6. This IMO is actually the current sustainable level of the USN, 7 to 8 carriers and not 11, as currently the US military (and the rest of the US) is spending its way straight into oblivion, and can only 'afford' 11 carriers right now by printing money it doesn't have. In any case, as a comparison, the USN at 10 carriers right now (minus the Ford) is currently having significant problems maintaining a 3-carrier presence worldwide, and much of the time has had to make due to only 2 deployed at the same time. They will need all 11 carriers to make a 3-carrier deployment a consistent reality.

Bltizo said:

1: considering my conops timespan is for 2035-2040 coming into fruition, yes, the underlying "assumption" is that Chinese carrier development and production will continue successfully going forwards. I believe that to be a reasonable "assumption". I project China to build a number of carriers (6-8) and have a deployment pattern that prioritizes keeping them at home at readiness with the capability to surge as many of them as possible in event in a high intensity conflict in the western pacific. The US would of course still have a force of more carriers than China, however I expect the US to continue their global peacetime deployments. That is to say, in event of a high intensity conflict in the western pacific, the overall cumulative carriers that each side would be capable of bringing to the theater would be about even.

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Projecting a carrier force ultimately of 6-8 is very different from a carrier force composition of 6-8 in the 2035-40 period. So what is it 6 or 8 because that would determine what is potentially available? I would like to see your underlying projection on how you get there because deploying a carrier for conflict is much more than just commissioning it. In my view it can take anywhere from 3 - 5 years after commissioning to deployment for actual combat. Take the Ford example. It was commissioned in 2017 but unlikely to deploy until 2021.

Bltizo said:

2: again, considering this is by 2035-2040 I do not think the belief of qualitative carrier aviation near parity is an unreasonable one]

3: see 2 above, but for carrier aviation competency.

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Whether it is reasonable or unreasonable is a function of facts and what projections you can apply to it to make a reasonable determination of outcome. What is unreasonable is to assume a specific outcome based on fiat .

Bltizo said:

4: my conops before spoke primarily of using it to seek air and sea control vs opfor carriers and it would be done so in a joint manner. Against guam, the operation would be similarly joint but likely rely much more heavily on long range strike systems because Guam is a fixed location that doesn't require the mobile fire-maneuver-recon complexes of a CSG to achieve a kill chain against an opfor CSG.

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Let me give you some statistics. There were approximately 200000 plus aim points in the Iragi war. In order to achieve a certain desire effect against a well defended target like Guam it is estimated a ratio of 6:1 missile to aim point is needed. I don't know what would be the aim points for a smaller target like Guam but even if it is 5 % it means China would need 60000 long range missiles to do the job. AFAIK, China doesn't even remotely have anywhere near this number. It would run out of its entire inventory on day one. Facts do matter. Not assumptions.

Bltizo said:

Reading these objections you have and which you describe as being "questionable" basically confirms the notion that I described in my previous post #61:
"we have fundamentally different views of what the balance of overall military power is like such that there would be a major divergence in opinion over something like a future PLAN of the medium to long term future being able to wage a conflict in the 2nd island chain or beyond to seek and contest air and sea control."

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The difference is I primarily deal with facts not assumptions.

Brumby said:

Choice of words is important because it conveys meaning. What is being postulated is not strategy but concept of operations.

A concept of operations to achieve air and sea control in the second island chain (2IC) and beyond is primarily about combat at an operational level rather than just a generalized concept. As such any conversation must first address the operational problems ...

Click to expand...

in short I think it's the other way around:

first a navy needs the doctrine how to win war at sea

(I gave Soviet example Monday at 7:25 AM and pre-WW2 USN example Yesterday at 7:36 PM)

and ORBAT will follow

thanks just

Iron Man said:

Yes, China could achieve higher readiness via this method, since less maintenance would be required. Leaving carriers at base seems to be a waste, however. It would also atrophy the carriers' NCO corps (E4-E8), who are the real beating heart of a carrier, as both commissioned officers and lower ranked enlisted sailors will eventually rotate out of their positions, while NCOs typically stay at the same rating (even the same ship) for the majority if not the entirety of their careers. These petty officers (I don't know what they are called in the PLAN) gain experience through deployments, hold this experience inside their brains as a store of knowledge throughout the carrier's life cycle, and can pass this knowledge on to greenhorn enlisted as well as to new officers fresh out of the academy.

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Yesterday at 9:21 PM
I assumed, but didn't say, short deployments which still could be realistic-training intensive;
I didn't mean to save carriers by keeping them at port LOL

Iron Man said:

Actually, 6 carriers are almost certainly inadequate to enable 2 to be constantly deployed; most of the time you will only be able to have 1 actively deployed. You would need 7, or more likely 8 carriers to achieve a 2-carrier presence. Actually my own personal hunch is that the PLAN will go for 7 or 8 carriers in the long run, not 6. This IMO is actually the current sustainable level of the USN, 7 to 8 carriers and not 11, as currently the US military (and the rest of the US) is spending its way straight into oblivion, and can only 'afford' 11 carriers right now by printing money it doesn't have. In any case, as a comparison, the USN at 10 carriers right now (minus the Ford) is currently having significant problems maintaining a 3-carrier presence worldwide, and much of the time has had to make due to only 2 deployed at the same time. They will need all 11 carriers to make a 3-carrier deployment a consistent reality.

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Yesterday at 9:21 PM
thought it was obvious I meant eight (8) carriers in total ("out of hypothetical six modern carriers (of course not the Soviet Navy Riga LOL and her follow up"),

and by "two always ready to deploy" I didn't mean both necessarily sailing all the time, but able to depart ASAP (for example once the USN 7th departs Yokosuka)

Jura said:

in short I think it's the other way around:

first a navy needs the doctrine how to win war at sea

(I gave Soviet example Monday at 7:25 AM and pre-WW2 USN example Yesterday at 7:36 PM)

and ORBAT will follow

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Except the conversation if you haven't noticed is directed at concept of operations and not doctrine. I did set the scope. I am simply responding to the nature of the thread.

Brumby said:

Projecting a carrier force ultimately of 6-8 is very different from a carrier force composition of 6-8 in the 2035-40 period. So what is it 6 or 8 because that would determine what is potentially available? I would like to see your underlying projection on how you get there because deploying a carrier for conflict is much more than just commissioning it. In my view it can take anywhere from 3 - 5 years after commissioning to deployment for actual combat. Take the Ford example. It was commissioned in 2017 but unlikely to deploy until 2021.


Whether it is reasonable or unreasonable is a function of facts and what projections you can apply to it to make a reasonable determination of outcome. What is unreasonable is to assume a specific outcome based on fiat .



Let me give you some statistics. There were approximately 200000 plus aim points in the Iragi war. In order to achieve a certain desire effect against a well defended target like Guam it is estimated a ratio of 6:1 missile to aim point is needed. I don't know what would be the aim points for a smaller target like Guam but even if it is 5 % it means China would need 60000 long range missiles to do the job. AFAIK, China doesn't even remotely have anywhere near this number. It would run out of its entire inventory on day one. Facts do matter. Not assumptions.



The difference is I primarily deal with facts not assumptions.

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Your aimpoint estimates are way off by orders of magnitude.

Looking at the aerial topography of Naval Base Guam and Anderson Air Force Base, I reckon 100 aimpoints per day would be more than enough.
Plus offensive missiles are generally much cheaper than defending missiles
eg. DF-26 versus THAAD, or Tomahawk versus AMRAAM/MEADs equivalent.

Remember that the 2016 Australian Defence White Paper expects China to be spending more on the military by 2035.

So in all likelihood, an isolated island like Guam would run out of expensive defensive missiles before mainland China runs out of cheap offensive missiles.

Brumby said:

Projecting a carrier force ultimately of 6-8 is very different from a carrier force composition of 6-8 in the 2035-40 period. So what is it 6 or 8 because that would determine what is potentially available? I would like to see your underlying projection on how you get there because deploying a carrier for conflict is much more than just commissioning it. In my view it can take anywhere from 3 - 5 years after commissioning to deployment for actual combat. Take the Ford example. It was commissioned in 2017 but unlikely to deploy until 2021.

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Considering I wrote 2035-2040 where I wrote 6-8 I thought it was fairly obvious that I meant 6 by 2035 and 8 by 2040.
The number of carriers they would be able to deploy would of course be a result of the deployment pattern they chose during peacetime -- which again, I described as being seeking to maximize the number they could surge during a high intensity conflict. The number that would be available would obviously vary if it was 2035 (6) or 2040 (8).

The ford class is unique as a first of class ship, so a 4 year delay between commissioning and deployment is not unreasonable. For ships beyond the lead ship in classes with larger runs like the Nimitz class or Kitty Hawk class, deploying 1-2 years after commissioning is not abnormal.

Whether it is reasonable or unreasonable is a function of facts and what projections you can apply to it to make a reasonable determination of outcome. What is unreasonable is to assume a specific outcome based on fiat .

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So what makes you think my projection was to "assume a specific outcome based on fiat" rather than a "function of facts and projections applied to make a reasonable determination of outcome"?

Because reading it here, all I can see is you saying "I think I'm being reasonable and logical whereas you are being unreasonable and illogical"?

Let me give you some statistics. There were approximately 200000 plus aim points in the Iragi war. In order to achieve a certain desire effect against a well defended target like Guam it is estimated a ratio of 6:1 missile to aim point is needed. I don't know what would be the aim points for a smaller target like Guam but even if it is 5 % it means China would need 60000 long range missiles to do the job. AFAIK, China doesn't even remotely have anywhere near this number. It would run out of its entire inventory on day one. Facts do matter. Not assumptions.

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Please don't write "facts do matter, not assumptions" as if you are somehow uniquely being analytical and level headed here.

For example, when you describe aim points in the Iraqi war, not only is the scale of each target set different (which you do correctly mention -- Guam is much smaller than Iraq) -- however the nature of each target is also much different and the mission that is sought to achieve is different:
Guam is not a country with large civilian populations and scattered military and civilian infrastructure across its territory which need to be identified and struck.
Guam also isn't a territory that China needs to strike at every single military related installation either.
The most highly ranked target there would of course be Anderson AFB followed by the naval base. Striking those locations to produce even transient mission kills would produce useful effects when done in conjunction with other joint forces such as naval forces.

The difference is I primarily deal with facts not assumptions.

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Considering we are talking about a projection out to 2035-2040, we are both making projections for the future, or as you write it above -- "making a reasonable determination of outcome".

You are merely applying a different set of functions to a different set of facts to make a different determination of outcome.
You are free to believe your functions and facts are reasonable and make a case for your own projection

But frankly the way you so casually dismissed my projection and therefore by extension dismissing the underlying functions and facts I used for my own projection (or even assuming I did not use functions and facts to project a future at all) is rather presumptuous.



As I wrote in my previous post, I think we have very different views of what the future military balance may be like. So much, that I also think it makes any particular discussion about the underlying functions and set of facts we are each using for our projections to be useless.

I think I've been quite reasonable in my replies to you so far, but when almost half of your word count is devoted to espousing how reasonable and logical you think you are and how unreasonable and illogical you think I am, it really doesn't leave much latitude for constructive discussion and makes me wonder if it is even worth responding to you in the first place.

Bltizo said:

Considering I wrote 2035-2040 where I wrote 6-8 I thought it was fairly obvious that I meant 6 by 2035 and 8 by 2040.
The number of carriers they would be able to deploy would of course be a result of the deployment pattern they chose during peacetime -- which again, I described as being seeking to maximize the number they could surge during a high intensity conflict. The number that would be available would obviously vary if it was 2035 (6) or 2040 (8).

The ford class is unique as a first of class ship, so a 4 year delay between commissioning and deployment is not unreasonable. For ships beyond the lead ship in classes with larger runs like the Nimitz class or Kitty Hawk class, deploying 1-2 years after commissioning is not abnormal.

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In effect you are claiming that by 2035 that there will be 6 carriers ready for military deployment and by 2040, 8 of them.

What I am asking for is show me how you will get to 6 carriers not just built but trained and ready for military deployment by 2035. So far you are insisting that it is reasonable to make such claims but have not shown any projection as to how you actually get to 6 by 2035.

The Ford class is unique because it is the lead ship and so will be 003 or any Chinese carrier that is nuclear powered. It would be unreasonable to assume that there will be no development issues for lead ship and consequently a longer time period to get them to deployment capable status.

Bltizo said:

So what makes you think my projection was to "assume a specific outcome based on fiat" rather than a "function of facts and projections applied to make a reasonable determination of outcome"?

Because reading it here, all I can see is you saying "I think I'm being reasonable and logical whereas you are being unreasonable and illogical"?

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I was referring to your insistence that your claims are reasonable even though they are unsubstantiated in any shape or form. I had asked at every opportunity that you provide your underlying basis to support your claims which you have yet to do so. Unsubstantiated claims grounded on an insistence that your claim is reasonable is what by fiat means i.e simply by brute force

Bltizo said:

Please don't write "facts do matter, not assumptions" as if you are somehow uniquely being analytical and level headed here.

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.... because facts do matter.

Bltizo said:

For example, when you describe aim points in the Iraqi war, not only is the scale of each target set different (which you do correctly mention -- Guam is much smaller than Iraq) -- however the nature of each target is also much different and the mission that is sought to achieve is different:
Guam is not a country with large civilian populations and scattered military and civilian infrastructure across its territory which need to be identified and struck.
Guam also isn't a territory that China needs to strike at every single military related installation either.
The most highly ranked target there would of course be Anderson AFB followed by the naval base. Striking those locations to produce even transient mission kills would produce useful effects when done in conjunction with other joint forces such as naval forces.

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The facts are there are a lot more aim points than generally appreciated in any conflict. It is the reason why the Europeans ran out of PGMs during the Libya air campaign within the first week. It also mean that China does not have near enough long range strike weapons to achieve the desire effects on Guam that would neutralize its threat against any Chinese carrier group. It is not just airfields as they can be easily recovered again and again. There are the mobile LRASM that can be moved around its 74000 acres of land. By my estimate you would need at least 16,000 PGMs to cover the whole island and up to 100,000 based on probability of arrival.

I can also assume that just 2 B-1s carrying 40 LRASM each would be sufficient to eliminate an entire Chinese CBG including its escorts. Making assumption is easy. Such an assumption is reasonable because the LRASM is VLO, is able to operate with ESM to avoid detection, and can cooperatively attack in swarm. The Chinese escorts would have no chance at all.

Bltizo said:

Considering we are talking about a projection out to 2035-2040, we are both making projections for the future, or as you write it above -- "making a reasonable determination of outcome".

You are merely applying a different set of functions to a different set of facts to make a different determination of outcome.
You are free to believe your functions and facts are reasonable and make a case for your own projection

But frankly the way you so casually dismissed my projection and therefore by extension dismissing the underlying functions and facts I used for my own projection (or even assuming I did not use functions and facts to project a future at all) is rather presumptuous.



As I wrote in my previous post, I think we have very different views of what the future military balance may be like. So much, that I also think it makes any particular discussion about the underlying functions and set of facts we are each using for our projections to be useless.

I think I've been quite reasonable in my replies to you so far, but when almost half of your word count is devoted to espousing how reasonable and logical you think you are and how unreasonable and illogical you think I am, it really doesn't leave much latitude for constructive discussion and makes me wonder if it is even worth responding to you in the first place.

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I am not casually dismissing your views. I think it is commendable that you are making an attempt to postulate a certain view. I am just asking that your articulate a defense of your views based on whatever underlying analyses that you have in support of it and not defend it based on an argument that it is reasonable because you insist it is reasonable.