4 years is long enough to spin up completely new production lines for the J-15, J-35 and GJ-11.
And again, 4 years is long enough to train a pipeline of pilots
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
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4 years is long enough to spin up completely new production lines for the J-15, J-35 and GJ-11.
And again, 4 years is long enough to train a pipeline of pilots
And then produce a thousand of J-35? Complete joke. While somehow still training the a 1-2 thousand competent pilot? You'll now need much more trainers which PLANAF don't have right now and even a few training carriers which in war time will not be available and you've completely neglected PLAAF's requirement for production which will eat into how many planes the Navy can get.
Another Fatal Incident at Taiwan's Marine Corps! Lieutenant Suspected of Taking His Own Life Under the Pretext of Inspecting Firearms
Strait Herald Comprehensive Report A gunshot incident occurred at the Taiwanese Marine Corps' 99th Brigade on the evening of the 29th. A lieutenant surnamed Hsu died after discharging his weapon inside a sentry post. The exact cause of the incident remains under investigation. The military immediately contacted the family and cordoned off the scene to assist prosecutors and police in their investigation.
The Taiwan Marine Corps Command stated on the evening of the 29th that around 7 p.m. that day, a lieutenant surnamed Hsu obtained an assault rifle and ammunition under the pretext of inspecting weapons and ammunition. He subsequently fired the weapon inside a sentry post, resulting in his death. The unit immediately cordoned off the scene to cooperate with the investigation by prosecutors and police. Simultaneously, the unit contacted the family and dispatched senior officers to assist with arrangements.
This appears to be the second suicide incident involving Taiwanese marines this week. On the morning of the 25th, a fall occurred in Zuoying District, Kaohsiung City, where a 28-year-old female non-commissioned officer surnamed Lin serving with the Taiwanese Marine Corps fell from her dormitory. She was found lying on the first-floor lawn with no signs of life. Preliminary police inspection of the scene revealed no signs of struggle inside or outside the residence, nor any evidence of forced entry through doors or windows. After forensic teams collected evidence at the scene, external interference was initially ruled out.
Engineer
Major
What you are talking about here is just for one ship. What I am talking about is expanding the supply chain and qualified personal. Completely different.
Naval vessels are built to military standard. To name one key difference, the steel used in naval vessels has much higher tensile strength, requiring more force to shape and specialised techniques to weld. Then there are certification and security clearance. What they have in the civilian sector won't cut it.
I don't think a thousand J-35 would be possible, nor would this actually be required.
We've recently seen J-20 production ramp from 20? per year to 100-120 per year. My guess is that this took 4 years between 2019 and 2023.
I already expect J-35 production to be ramping to a minimum of 40 per year.
So presumably we would be looking at <4 years to get to 120 per year.
Then the rest of the airwing is filled out with J-15 Flankers and also unmanned aircraft like the GJ-11 or other UCAVs.
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On pilot training, remember that:
1. Carrier pilot training is a lot easier these days, because landings are automated, unlike previously where landings had to be manually practiced and performed by pilots.
2. You can perform a high level of naval aviation training on a Type-076, which has the same electromagnetic catapult and arresting gear.
3. The overall Chinese military has about 4000 pilots, and the current training pipeline produces about 400 pilots per year.
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On J-35 production for the Air Force, think about it.
All J-35 production could be devoted to the Navy version, but the aircraft operate on land until the carriers are ready.
For the personnel, you would think that 6 months would be enough for security clearance and also retrain for more specialised welding.
And to convert an existing steel plant to produce naval-grade steel, how many months would it take?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think in a full WWIII scenario, individual capacity will play a fundamental and decisive part.
There will be a real numbers game when it comes to consumables end expendable assets like missiles and unmanned platforms, as well as single function cheap assets that can be pumped out quickly and en mass, like arsenal ships and probably all sorts of new designs you would never bother to build in peace time. A good example could be shield ships. These are basically skeleton ships built to be able to keep up with carriers and covered in radar reflectors and maybe CIWS. Their only role will be to get between friendly capital ships and incoming enemy missiles and take hits meant for the capital ships if anything slips through air defences.
More conventional warships will also be built at maximum speed, but there will be a series of bottlenecks to overcome so you are never going to be able to convert all your civilian shipbuilding capacity into naval warship construction.
The point is that wartime construction will supplement existing fleets, but you cannot reasonably expect to be able to just stand up whole new fleets in short order. The pre-war fleet sizes and matchup will still be fundamentally important and will be the backbone of any war effort.
There will be a real numbers game when it comes to consumables end expendable assets like missiles and unmanned platforms, as well as single function cheap assets that can be pumped out quickly and en mass, like arsenal ships and probably all sorts of new designs you would never bother to build in peace time. A good example could be shield ships. These are basically skeleton ships built to be able to keep up with carriers and covered in radar reflectors and maybe CIWS. Their only role will be to get between friendly capital ships and incoming enemy missiles and take hits meant for the capital ships if anything slips through air defences.
More conventional warships will also be built at maximum speed, but there will be a series of bottlenecks to overcome so you are never going to be able to convert all your civilian shipbuilding capacity into naval warship construction.
The point is that wartime construction will supplement existing fleets, but you cannot reasonably expect to be able to just stand up whole new fleets in short order. The pre-war fleet sizes and matchup will still be fundamentally important and will be the backbone of any war effort.
The bottleneck for massive expansion of air and naval fleets is crew training. The answer is uncrewed systems and AI. That plays to China's great strength - the ability to scale massively.
Also bear in mind that, in an actual shooting war, shipyards would be liable to attack.
Also bear in mind that, in an actual shooting war, shipyards would be liable to attack.
Is it practical to take container ships, load them with missile containers, and have them operate as arsenal ships with minimal crew retraining?
Trying to mass produce aircraft carriers in the middle of a war is very a questionable re-fighting-the-last-war idea. But having a bunch of extra carrier capable J35 on shore ready to replace losses on any carrier air wing might be an idea. I think transferring all the shore based naval aviation to the PLAAF was a
mistake.
I expect the bottleneck will be the number of missiles that can be produced, rather than the launch platforms.
So we're 6 months into a war, and it's a stalemate.
The Chinese military can dominate the 1IC and deny the 2IC, but can't reach CONUS.
The US military dominates the areas beyond the 2IC, but can't appreciably penetrate to the 1IC or mainland China.
What happens then?
The only solution for China to win is to build a larger blue-water Navy, which means aircraft carries.
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If you look back to the Napoleonic Wars, we had the French Republic supreme on land, but the British Empire ruling the seas.
Both sides (and their allies) would fight to exhaustion, then agree to a peace to recover, before resuming warfare again.
This went on for a decade, until the British Empire (and allies) won against the French Republic.
But if the French really had focused on building a larger Navy, they could have defeated the Royal Navy and won.
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It's finally gotten through that China has a significantly industrial advantage eg. 232x the shipbuilding capacity.
But what could this actually mean in practice in a full-scale wartime mobilisation?
Hence I thought it interesting to put out a scenario (reminiscent of WW2 America) where China builds 15 carriers simultaneously, immediately followed by another 15
It's something for Japan and America to think about, before saying they have the option of going to war with China.
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