Future PLAN orbat discussion

Jura The idiot · Oct 9, 2019

manqiangrexue said:
I'm thinking one of the biggest reasons that China doesn't order huge batches of military equipment even though it could use them is because China's tech improves so quickly. If they ordered 24 055A to be built in 2 years, after 18 months or 2 years, they will regret having so many type A's to maintain and man when a much more capable type B design is ready to be built and will require resources to maintain and man as well.

if China obtains your "huge batches of military equipment", it'll need to obtain foreign bases, too

I mean there'd be no point in building like three dozen of Type 055 just for

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but three dozen of Type 055 should be useful if China tried to fully secure for instance the route of oil from Angola (and then bases in Indian Ocean would be needed)

it's going to be interesting to watch what the Chinese naval doctrine will be

EDIT another thing is at one point they'll need to battle-test the troops, perhaps they should think of an involvement in places like South Sudan, of course easy to say this in my comfortable airmchair, but yeah then some coffins would go home

manqiangrexue · Oct 9, 2019

Jura said:
another thing is at one point they'll need to battle-test the troops, perhaps they should think of an involvement in places like South Sudan, of course easy to say this in my comfortable airmchair, but yeah then some coffins would go home

Well, that's hard to say. I think intensive training is the best way to prepare for modern high intensity warfare. Beating up third would countries that have no military answer except insurgents is not going to provide the type of training needed for fighting a peer or near peer adversary. An 055 would get no meaningful experience being deployed on such a meaningless mission. If anything, it may accustom the soldiers to a slow pace of fighting where the threats are few and weak. This is just like how a 200 pound professional cage fighter cannot train to fight another 200 pound professional cage fighter by beating up children on the playground; if he cannot find a suitable training partner, then he would benefit more from bag-work. So, I feel that blue team vs red team training is the best way to train soldiers to fight the type of adversaries that big ticket machines like the 055 were developed to fight.

Jura The idiot · Oct 9, 2019

manqiangrexue said:
Well, that's hard to say. I think intensive training is the best way to prepare for modern high intensity warfare. Beating up third would countries that have no military answer except insurgents is not going to provide the type of training needed for fighting a peer or near peer adversary. An 055 would get no meaningful experience being deployed on such a meaningless mission. If anything, it may accustom the soldiers to a slow pace of fighting where the threats are few and weak. This is just like how a 200 pound professional cage fighter cannot train to fight another 200 pound professional cage fighter by beating up children on the playground; if he cannot find a suitable training partner, then he would benefit more from bag-work. So, I feel that blue team vs red team training is the best way to train soldiers to fight the type of adversaries that big ticket machines like the 055 were developed to fight.

first a technical thing: Today at 8:21 AM after "EDIT" (which is the part you now quoted) I referred to ground combat (which I thought was obvious as South Sudan I brought up as an example is land-locked), not to naval combat

anyway, while your post is interesting
(later I thought of sports and many people performing great in training to then screw up during the game, and some people barely qualifying to the game then to win),
combat is different because

on a soldier level, it's life-threatening
on a command level, it's important to be able to handle what Clausewitz called "friction"

and you wouldn't know until it happened if you know what I mean (no matter how much time you had spent on a range/in a military academy)

AndrewS · Oct 9, 2019

Jura said:
if China obtains your "huge batches of military equipment", it'll need to obtain foreign bases, too

I mean there'd be no point in building like three dozen of Type 055 just for
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but three dozen of Type 055 should be useful if China tried to fully secure for instance the route of oil from Angola (and then bases in Indian Ocean would be needed)

it's going to be interesting to watch what the Chinese naval doctrine will be

EDIT another thing is at one point they'll need to battle-test the troops, perhaps they should think of an involvement in places like South Sudan, of course easy to say this in my comfortable airmchair, but yeah then some coffins would go home

I would disagree on most of this

Control of the 1st and 2nd Island chains (thereby protecting coastal China) is the top priority for the Chinese Navy, not sending ships off to the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean.

By that measure, 3 dozen Type-55 is insufficient to dominate the 1st island chain.

Jura The idiot · Oct 9, 2019

AndrewS said:
I would disagree on most of this

Control of the 1st and 2nd Island chains (thereby protecting coastal China) is the top priority for the Chinese Navy, not sending ships off to the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean.

By that measure, 3 dozen Type-55 is insufficient to dominate the 1st island chain.

no problem you keep posting those whopping numbers of the PLAN major surface combatants

in fact I kind of like it, makes think like what the world would be should it happen

manqiangrexue · Oct 9, 2019

Jura said:
first a technical thing: Today at 8:21 AM after "EDIT" (which is the part you now quoted) I referred to ground combat (which I thought was obvious as South Sudan I brought up as an example is land-locked), not to naval combat

anyway, while your post is interesting
(later I thought of sports and many people performing great in training to then screw up during the game, and some people barely qualifying to the game then to win),
combat is different because

on a soldier level, it's life-threatening

on a command level, it's important to be able to handle what Clausewitz called "friction"

and you wouldn't know until it happened if you know what I mean (no matter how much time you had spent on a range/in a military academy)

Even as it pertains to ground combat though, fighting a very poorly trained, poorly armed, and outnumbered force is at best questionable in terms of how much of the experience can be transferred over to fighting another well-equipped disciplined elite force. It might cause you to rely on tactics that only work against the untrained, fighting on instinct and who have poor situational awareness due to primitive equipment. Those tactics can make you a predictable sitting duck when facing a truly elite unit.

The main advantage to training through real combat against an unworthy foe is that it prepares you to think under pressure when there is some risk of being killed (although that risk might never be too high). The con is that you can pick up bad habits underestimating your enemy's capabilities. The main advantage to blue force vs red force training with fake bullets is that you are actively trying to outsmart another elite force that is trying to outsmart you. The con is, this might turn into a game and when it gets real, your heart can freeze as you realize this time you could die.

I can't say with data or experience which is better but my reasoning to favor blue vs red was laid out in my previous post. I think that in the impersonal environment of a naval battle, there is even less chance to freeze from fear.

Jura The idiot · Oct 9, 2019

manqiangrexue said:
Even as it pertains to ground combat though, fighting a very poorly trained, poorly armed, and outnumbered force is at best questionable in terms of how much of the experience can be transferred over to fighting another well-equipped disciplined elite force. It might cause you to rely on tactics that only work against the untrained, fighting on instinct and who have poor situational awareness due to primitive equipment. Those tactics can make you a predictable sitting duck when facing a truly elite unit.

The main advantage to training through real combat against an unworthy foe is that it prepares you to think under pressure when there is some risk of being killed (although that risk might never be too high). The con is that you can pick up bad habits underestimating your enemy's capabilities. The main advantage to blue force vs red force training with fake bullets is that you are actively trying to outsmart another elite force that is trying to outsmart you. The con is, this might turn into a game and when it gets real, your heart can freeze as you realize this time you could die.

I can't say with data or experience which is better but my reasoning to favor blue vs red was laid out in my previous post. I think that in the impersonal environment of a naval battle, there is even less chance to freeze from fear.

OK I'll say it loud so that you get what I mean, but it's going to be a politically-incorrect post:
the thing is to have troops who have killed in action (plus have seen their fellow soldiers getting killed in action),
and commanders who have ordered this (plus have lost some of their subordinates),
which I suspect is the point of

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Tyler · Oct 9, 2019

AndrewS said:
Possibly, but building 12 per year would be excessive, barring a wartime scenario.

Remember that if China reduces the current construction rate from 7 to 6 per year, it is still twice the US production rate.
Eventually the Chinese Navy ends up with a destroyer fleet with 200-odd ships.
That is twice the size of the US equivalent, and would appear to be sustainable given the Chinese economy is expected to be twice the size of the US economy in 10-15years.

I couldn't imagine Chinese strategists trying to aim any higher than this.

How many ships are the Chinese retiring each year? It looks like the total number is not increasing as fast as we think.

Biscuits · Oct 9, 2019

Jura said:
on a soldier level, it's life-threatening

on a command level, it's important to be able to handle what Clausewitz called "friction"

and you wouldn't know until it happened if you know what I mean (no matter how much time you had spent on a range/in a military academy)

It is not that life threatening. Even in a huge scale military action against an extremely weak and outnumbered foe, like Iraq invasion, out of 450 000 soldiers, only 214 died.

For reference, the LA riots had ~200 000 ish participants and 62 people died. By going to the LA riots, you would have put yourself in about the same amount of danger as going to desert storm.

In an actual high tech war, 214 could die in seconds to artillery bombardment, air strikes or a sunk warship. Only in red vs blue training is it possible to prepare for such scenarios.

Killing barely armed people takes a wholly different skill set than fighting in a real war.

A group of bandits with much experience in killing villagers would scatter and be run down in seconds by an armored knight charge, even if the knights “only” had training and never killed anyone before.

Conversely, a bunch of well trained and drilled soldiers in formation trained to stop an armored charge could bring it to an halt, even if it is their first time on the battlefield.

Experience is only useful when it is relevant to the situation.

AndrewS · Oct 9, 2019

Biscuits said:
It is not that life threatening. Even in a huge scale military action against an extremely weak and outnumbered foe, like Iraq invasion, out of 450 000 soldiers, only 214 died.

For reference, the LA riots had ~200 000 ish participants and 62 people died. By going to the LA riots, you would have put yourself in about the same amount of danger as going to desert storm.

In an actual high tech war, 214 could die in seconds to artillery bombardment, air strikes or a sunk warship. Only in red vs blue training is it possible to prepare for such scenarios.

Killing barely armed people takes a wholly different skill set than fighting in a real war.

A group of bandits with much experience in killing villagers would scatter and be run down in seconds by an armored knight charge, even if the knights “only” had training and never killed anyone before.

Conversely, a bunch of well trained and drilled soldiers in formation trained to stop an armored charge could bring it to an halt, even if it is their first time on the battlefield.

Experience is only useful when it is relevant to the situation.

Yes.

For a technical branch like the Navy, routine operations looks like combat operations, with the exception of actual weapons being fired.

And there is no way for either the US or Chinese battle networks to actually gain real combat exprerience against each other.

Future PLAN orbat discussion

Jura The idiot

General

manqiangrexue

Brigadier

Jura The idiot

General

AndrewS

Brigadier

Jura The idiot

General

manqiangrexue

Brigadier

Jura The idiot

General

Tyler

Captain

Biscuits

Major

AndrewS

Brigadier