PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
- Thread starter SEAD
- Start date
Yeah they are carrying three lenses.
given what happened to USNS big horn
And the central role that replenishment ships play in the middle east
it's good to check how many of these replenishment ships are available to USN.
There is the John Lewis class Oilers
Of which, 3 are in active service with T-AO 207 just joining service.
Pretty hilarious that 8 out of these cost $6.7B
Looks like the 3 delivered John Lew class are not actually deployed yet, so all the actually in service oilers are the Kaiser class.
based on here, 14 are still in service. 6 of those 14 have decommission date already. That to me means they are probably not in the greatest shapes (being in service for 35 years does that to you).
Anyways, the importance of replenishment ship should not be under-estimated. If I were PLAN, I'd target carriers first, but replenishment ships and dry cargo ships right after that.
And the central role that replenishment ships play in the middle east
it's good to check how many of these replenishment ships are available to USN.
There is the John Lewis class Oilers
Of which, 3 are in active service with T-AO 207 just joining service.
Pretty hilarious that 8 out of these cost $6.7B
Looks like the 3 delivered John Lew class are not actually deployed yet, so all the actually in service oilers are the Kaiser class.
based on here, 14 are still in service. 6 of those 14 have decommission date already. That to me means they are probably not in the greatest shapes (being in service for 35 years does that to you).
Anyways, the importance of replenishment ship should not be under-estimated. If I were PLAN, I'd target carriers first, but replenishment ships and dry cargo ships right after that.
`I seem to recall a Senior PLAN officer expressing great enthusiasm for such a strategy to his US counterpart. Can't recall where I saw that though.
I don't share the same enthusiasm.
If anything, the PLAN is expected to face similar problems that the USN is currently facing WRT their underway replenishment ships - Not because of the across-the-fleet age of the PLAN's underway replenishment fleet (the oldest 903 AOR is about 20 years old by now), but mainly due to the comparably lower number of such ships than their American counterparts.
To put things into perspective: The USN is expected to field 4x Supply AOEs, 20x John Lewis AORs and 14x Lewis and Clark AKEs (38x total) in the coming years. Meanwhile, the PLAN currently fields 2x 901 AOEs, 9x 903/A AORs and 1x 905 AOR (12x total).
Besides, ship displacement at full-load can say a lot about cargo carrying capacity onboard the ship itself. Whereas the AOEs, AORs and AKEs of the USN generally displace (at full load) 45000-49000 tons - The 903/A AORs of the PLAN displaces only around 20000-23000 tons, with the sole 905 AOR at 37000 tons and the two 901 AOEs at 48000 tons.
Yes, the PLAN's expected theater of operations are much closer to home than the USN, such that PLAN warships can easily return to home bases for replenishment - But as the PLAN looks towards normalizing long-duration operations and deployments in the "true blue" portions of the IndoPac (namely beyond the 1IC), this means that the replenishment fleet would become exposed and more vulnerable to attrition during both peacetime (collision/grounding accidents, refer the USNS Big Horn above) and wartime (damaged or sunk by enemy action).
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For at least the next 10 years, the 2IC will still be contested as the PLAN won't have enough aircraft carriers.
You're only looking at 2-3 days sailing time to those operating areas from a Chinese port.
There's plenty of time to build more replenishment ships for when they are actually needed.
CSGs (or CBGs in the future) aren't the only ones that are using replenishment ships.
And the 2IC (and beyond) aren't the only region(s) where replenishment ships are needed for sustained naval operations.
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In a peacetime station, a shortage of Chinese replenishment ships doesn't make much difference.
And in a high intensity wartime situation, it's doubtful that many Chinese ships will want or need to operate to the 2IC. For at least another 10 years, there won't be enough Chinese aircraft carriers to subdue the 2IC and allow ships to operate beyond
You seemed to have missed my points.
I thought I addressed them?