I think if they have 8 CSGs, they can keep 1 CSG out in centpac at all time. USN routinely have several CSGs out in the ocean at the same time. The other 2 CSGs that rotate through are not necessarily going to do nothing rest of the time. Unless they are going through scheduled maintenance, I don't see why you can't use them during rest of the year. Similar to Gulf of Aden missions, I see rotating 1 CSG through a centpac base as a great way to really train crew members. I'd advocate rotating all the carriers to have long deployments away from home base for that reason. They are going to need to deploy CSG around the world for training and other reasons. Why not just deploy them to centpac? What better way than that to get them great real experience?
There is no reason why a CSG (and not in scheduled maintenance) that was deployed to centpac 4 months ago cannot be available in westpac or SCS during a heightened security scenario. I don't get why they can't have 4 or 5 CSGs ready for combat within westpac/SCS.
If you want a CSG to be out at sea deployed at blue water distances constantly, then that kind of deployment pattern requires three CSGs to attain.
You'll have one CSG on station, one CSG in maintenance/overhaul, one CSG in workup.
That's the sort of deployment pattern that USN CSGs do for blue water deployments when they are constantly on station, and that is the kind of deployment pattern the PLA will have to do for their CSGs.
In other words, if you want "1 CSG out in centpac at all time," then of the 8 CSGs in the fleet that the PLA has, 3 of those 8 CSGs will be required to keep 1 CSG in centpac at all time, with the other 2 CSGs not deployable at those times.
That leaves the PLA with only 5 CSGs in the fleet left at home, and assuming those are kept at home in high readiness but not deployed until periods of high tension, they would be able to surge up to 3 of those CSGs.
Putting it another way, if you're committing 1 CSG in centpac all the time, then it means if conflict occurs, the PLA will only have 4 operational CSGs at maximum (3 CSGs in westpac surged, and 1 CSG in centpac on station permanently).
So, I see something like this. a 004 can have deck of 28 J-35s, 12 J-15s + 12 UCAVs (just a rough guess). a Type 076 could carry 6 J-35s, 20 UCAVs. I see 076 contribution will be to provide some additional land attack capabilities from UCAVs that can hover and keeping things offline.
The key initial component to attack sequence is all the 055s and the long range missiles they can carry (kind of like the Soviet cold war strategy, but with a real air wing to back it up) You can argue that it will be a better usage of that resource to keep like 30 055s all in westpac and fire off 500 hypersonic ASBM missiles at the same time. That may well be a better strategy.
I am not supportive of any idea where the PLA deploys maneuver units/platforms (CSGs, SAGs) to the centpac theater without first establishing significant degradation or destruction of US forces in westpac which is the theater of far higher priority and the frontline of conflict.
Trying to broach into centpac to conduct large scale strikes against Hawaii with maneuver units, without first degrading and destroying US forces in westpac to shatter their frontline of combat and ISR capabilities, is a recipe for disaster, unless the PLA forces in both westpac and centpac were somehow laughably more capable, larger and more technologically than their opposing US forces in the respective theaters.
The key is the # of 055s and H-20s/UCAVs availability.
Given the task of finding USN SSNs, I'd task land attack tasks with 055s. U-VLS has unique advantages over MK-41s in the size of missiles they can launch. US Navy neutralizes that with the general quietness of their subs, but I see PLAN having a clear advantage in surface combatants going forward in terms of capabilities of 055 vs AB, future frigate vs constellation class, quality and cost of AShM and just the build rate of surface combatants. I think that's the area for PLAN to exploit.
Agreed, but not specific to your Kiribati centpac proposal.
You cannot take out Pearl by long range missiles alone. Even if they have like 10 long range missile launchers there (which would be crazy high), you just can't get enough missiles out before the retaliation comes. The attractiveness of having 6 055s is that they would have 6 x 128 = 868 VLS cells. Using half of that for LACMs and hypersonic missiles, then you have an initial wave that can degrade air defense enough where a group of 5 H20 + UCAV can follow up and severely degrade the main airbase. I think you need close to 1000 missiles to put Pearl Harbour offline for any stretch of time. And you need many sorties of J-15s/J-35s/UCAVs (50 to 80?) + additional H-20 sorties to degrade all the targets in Hawaii. I think you will need another 1000 PGMs at least. There are so many air strips across the 4 main islands and the other 2 habited ones. However, there aren't many people outside of Oahu who would be capable of doing repairs, so if you do cripple it, it will stay offline for months.1 CSG + 1 076 would be 20% of their active fleet in this scenario. There seems to be a little inconsistency here. You don't think 1 CSG + 1 SAG + land based air defense can defend again 160 missiles, but what I'm proposing here is an order of magnitude more bombardment.
I'm going to repost my reply to Moshin in post 287, because it basically addresses why I think focusing on these numbers of theoretical maximal sortie sizes is not useful.
"Overall, conducting small scale strikes against an enemy's depth with long range systems makes sense -- but conducting large scale sustained operations with one's own maneuver units int he enemy's depth requires you to be able to robustly break through their lines so that they cannot prepare and counter-maneuver against you, for you to be able to sustain and defend your own maneuver force in the enemy's depth to complete their mission, and in such a manner that the actions of your maneuver units in the enemy's depths does not cause the rest of your front to collapse because you've drawn out too much of your forces for this in depth action.
That applies for operational warfare on land as well as strategic air-naval-missile actions.
For the PLA to be able to carry out a realistic "maneuver unit" (i.e.: involving large scale naval forces like CSGs) strike operation against Hawaii (a target of depth), it would require them to first devastate US forces on the "frontline" -- i.e.: US air and naval forces in the first and second island chain, to be able to outmaneuver and outmass and defeat US maneuver units that may be conducting counter-maneuver and defensive actions between the second island chain and Hawaii (any naval forces like SSNs and CSGs and the like) and US fires systems (bombers, LRHWs) and ISR, and only then are they able to carry out a robust and sustained proper strike mission against the target in depth (exploitation).
Long range strike systems from the PLA like long range bomber sorties, SSNs with hypersonics and LACMs, would certainly help to supplement that PLA's "maneuver unit" strike against Hawaii, but similar to long range fires in land warfare, unless your density of fires is sufficiently great, it is unlikely to achieve the sort of damage that you need to permanently put the enemy's depths out of action.
In other words, to actually be able to "exploit" the enemy's depths with your maneuver units, you have to defeat and breakthrough the enemy's front lines first.
If you do not, then the enemy will simply be able to track and monitor you and do their own organized counter-maneuvering to defeat your maneuver units."
Your proposal is seeking to use maneuver units to strike at the enemy's depths, without being able to disrupt, degrade or destroy their frontline combat capabilities at all. What that means, is that the enemy will be able to monitor your every move as you approach their depths, while being able to position their own counter force capabilities against your maneuver forces in the optimal way, where your maneuver units will be at a significant disadvantage in offensive and defensive fires and concentration of fires, disadvantage in ISR, disadvantage in positioning, and disadvantage in dispersal.
Unless your maneuver unit is massively superior to the local enemy forces in the enemy's depths, there is simply no way that such a mission is capable of succeeding.
