How is USAF getting close to drop unpowered PGMs without taking out SAM candidate sites, of which there are 2100+ in a small 93000 km2 slice of Southeast China alone? Not even talking fighting combat air patrols.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
I am curious to be honest on how American carriers and other surface ships are going to defend against maneuvering ballistic missiles and the like.
You've basically got something like a $10 million (or less) missile which can take out a $10 billion+ carrier from 2,000km out. Something like this already happened in the Falklands war (Exocet missile against British ship), and missiles have only gotten more formidable over time.
No one has ever demonstrated effective defense against modern (e.g., maneuvering supersonic or hypersonic) missiles. This is not to be confused with effectiveness against ballistic scuds or slow moving cruise missiles that date from 40+ years ago.
China also has had several times per day imaging capability vs carrier groups in the western Pacific over a decade ago. Now their coverage is much better. The whole point of maneuvering ballistic missiles with final targeting seekers is that once you locate the ship you can just launch the missile toward that point and let it do the rest. I believe PLARF have had this capability for some time, as do other experts. They demonstrated this to the US in the South China Sea just recently.
The US certainly doesn't have this capability and has not tried to develop it. Obviously the US was restricted by treaty (with Russia) against developing IRBMs and as we know they haven't been thinking seriously about a peer conflict for over 20 years.
I don't believe anyone has good defenses against maneuvering ballistic missiles or hypersonic missiles at present. Is it crazy to think that (most) military strategists could fail to appreciate a powerful asymmetric threat? Yes, it happens with regularity as technology improves. There is plenty of group think and plenty of inability to analyze the consequences of new technology from first principles. But now the US is pouring billions of dollars into a crash program to develop hypersonic missiles. Why?
Re: missile attacks on airfields, they don't have to attack just the runway. They can hit control towers, radar systems, power systems, hangars, fuel stockpiles. Some US military planners sounded the alarm ~20y ago that bases needed to be hardened against this kind of attack but I don't believe this has been done as they were distracted by Iraq/Afghanistan. Just look at the recent Iranian missile attack against a US base in Iraq (e.g., 60 Minutes video on YT; not easy to protect key systems from strikes like that!) and note that Iranian missile technology is much less developed than PLARF's.
I can't see how the US is going to defend against anything if it's within a few thousand kilometers of China. Perhaps @Bltizo would be kind enough to inform.
You've basically got something like a $10 million (or less) missile which can take out a $10 billion+ carrier from 2,000km out. Something like this already happened in the Falklands war (Exocet missile against British ship), and missiles have only gotten more formidable over time.
No one has ever demonstrated effective defense against modern (e.g., maneuvering supersonic or hypersonic) missiles. This is not to be confused with effectiveness against ballistic scuds or slow moving cruise missiles that date from 40+ years ago.
China also has had several times per day imaging capability vs carrier groups in the western Pacific over a decade ago. Now their coverage is much better. The whole point of maneuvering ballistic missiles with final targeting seekers is that once you locate the ship you can just launch the missile toward that point and let it do the rest. I believe PLARF have had this capability for some time, as do other experts. They demonstrated this to the US in the South China Sea just recently.
The US certainly doesn't have this capability and has not tried to develop it. Obviously the US was restricted by treaty (with Russia) against developing IRBMs and as we know they haven't been thinking seriously about a peer conflict for over 20 years.
I don't believe anyone has good defenses against maneuvering ballistic missiles or hypersonic missiles at present. Is it crazy to think that (most) military strategists could fail to appreciate a powerful asymmetric threat? Yes, it happens with regularity as technology improves. There is plenty of group think and plenty of inability to analyze the consequences of new technology from first principles. But now the US is pouring billions of dollars into a crash program to develop hypersonic missiles. Why?
Re: missile attacks on airfields, they don't have to attack just the runway. They can hit control towers, radar systems, power systems, hangars, fuel stockpiles. Some US military planners sounded the alarm ~20y ago that bases needed to be hardened against this kind of attack but I don't believe this has been done as they were distracted by Iraq/Afghanistan. Just look at the recent Iranian missile attack against a US base in Iraq (e.g., 60 Minutes video on YT; not easy to protect key systems from strikes like that!) and note that Iranian missile technology is much less developed than PLARF's.
I can't see how the US is going to defend against anything if it's within a few thousand kilometers of China. Perhaps @Bltizo would be kind enough to inform.
CVs are definitely an important piece of the puzzle to taking Taiwan. battle groups placed east of Taiwan would isolate the Taiwan theatre from intervention. they can also be deployed in the SCS to ensure that no other parties get ideas while China is busy with Taiwan.
I'm done with this thread for a while as it pertained to the discussion before lol.
pretty sure ESSM has intercepted supersonic test targets before. obviously not a real life combat situation but should speak to the capability of ESSM defending against incoming supersonic AShM
Fair enough. I wasn't speaking specifically in relation to a war of attrition though. It's sort of a separate subject and pertains only generally to any kind of conflict with US intervention.
Hardly fuel independent China is the world's largest crude oil importer and the second-largest crude oil consumer.
China imports 10 million barrels a day with a total consumption of around 14 million barrels a day.
Er, in fact, China's imported crude oil is mainly used for the production and processing of foreign trade. If these trade are stopped, it is enough to support the military and the most basic civilian requirement. If the situation deteriorates to the point of cutting off oil supply, I think China will similarly shutdown work for the world, including upstream and downstream products for Southeast Asia.
Not crude oil, but Russia and China just recently inked a gas deal, to be settled in Euros.
China and Iran penned an oil deal not too long ago either.
Then there is the port of Gwadar, which would allow China to access Iranian oil without tankers transitting through the Straits of Malacca.