Yeah there's defintely an opportunity cost to make the enemy waste a lot of resources on continental defense, hence I expect China to make Doolittle raid style attacks (using subs, J-XD deep penetration with 5th gen escort, even H-6s flying in the Alaska path or more esoteric methods like container launched missiles on cargo ships) with a similar intent.
But at the same time, the primary function of subs might be better served attacking US shipping and resupply ships.
Not directed at you, but I think generally people are suffering from a server case of not adjusting historical case studies to the reality of this case.
When people talk and think of conventional strikes against CONUS, they seem to think it needs to be like desert storm or it’s not going to achieve anything.
However, the reality is that US domestic industrial capacity is extremely limited almost across the board, and it has comically poor regenerative capacity to recover and a massive question mark on whether it can even regenerate lost capacity during times of war when supply chains from China are severed at source.
Just look at the Baltimore bridge incident and how long it’s taken them to just clear the debris. As well as much lampooned scenes where hastily hung American flags have blown away to reveal Chinese logos on cranes at ports.
Even a handful of missiles can cause show stopping critical damage to core American military industrial capabilities. Just think how long it might take for LockMart to rebuild from any attack on their main manufacturing centre. Or how long it will take for the navy to repair their few shipyards capable of warship production.
Just because America was able to do a massive industrial spin up in WWII is zero indication they can do the same, or even anything approximating it now. Just like the glories of past Chinese dynasties counted for shit for the Qing after decades of misrule and neglect of their military and industrial fundamentals.
China doesn’t need any fancy next gen or theoretical weapons to make these limited in scale but massive in impact strikes against CONUS targets.
It can easily do its own version of the Oreshnik attack by refitting existing ICBMs. It also has demonstrated FOBS capabilities years ago.
In many ways, it might be massively beneficial for China to make such a move early in any clash against the U.S. to both demonstrate its own resolve, as well as to underline the weaknesses of existing U.S. BMD capabilities as a safeguard against US temptations for nuclear brinksmanship later once they loose conventionally.
At the very worst case, it can smuggle its shipping container missile launchers onto 3rd party freighters and hit CONUS targets while also basically creating an impossible logistical challenge for the U.S. to start screening all incoming freighters for missiles, thereby also massively disrupting its logistics.
The point is that people are setting way too high a bar for China. When in reality it can cause a colossal amount of damage with existing or easily attainable capacity. And with how weak American rebuild capabilities have demonstrably been in real life, any such damage done could take far longer than people expect for the US to recover from.
