Again, have missed what I have written. Plus, there's actually way more factors to consider than that.
But, so be it.
But, so be it.
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PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
- Thread starter SEAD
- Start date
Your main argument is time-on-station. If a ship is spending 56hours to reload its VLS cells, it is effectively out of action during that time. Another ship is needed in the area to protect the reloading ships which defeated the whole reloading at sea idea, and endanger all ships because they lost the mobility.
Again, I stood by what I said. There are way more things to consider.
Let's all just agree to disagree.
Don't know why we are talking about VLS. Pretty sure at-sea replenishment is about replenishing everything but the VLS cells. From an operational standpoint, it's probably better for planning to replenish ships rather than coordinating ships going back to port. Rotations means you have to have two ships to cover the same space rather than just one.
Sure, Chinese ships can "control" an area where they are deployed. But what does that actually mean in terms of missions?
1. Protecting a Taiwan invasion fleet. These ships are literally hugging the Chinese coastline and in no need at sea replenishment.
2. On power projection missions (either in SAGs or with carriers) against islands in the 1IC, 2IC or opposing naval vessels
Carrier aircraft will be operating at a distance of 1000km+. Then you have Destroyers on anti-ship missions using YJ-21 (1500km range) and land-attack (1500km range as well with cruise missiles or ballistic missiles). The destroyers also have a defensive anti-air mission,
So you're looking at Chinese carriers and destroyers operating at distances of 1500-2000km from the Chinese mainland.
Call it 2 days sailing time from port
I think we're looking more at Chinese fleet sorties with a specific target in mind. They unload all the ordnance they can, then retreat to a safer area to rearm. A safer rear area would be like 1000km from the Chinese mainland, and at that sort of distance there's no point performing at-sea replenishment given how close they are to a port.
Remember there are 3 carriers which each have fast replenishment ships, plus another 9 Type-903 replenishment ships.
That should be more than enough for operations to the 2IC
Well again, I don't know why we are looking at VLS munitions. If you need a VLS reload, you need a reload and there's no going around going back to port.
However, if you need provisions, ammunition, fuel, any type of consumable why would you want to return the ship to port? It's much better to sustain ships on longer deployments out at sea than to return them to port.
I don't know if PLAN has enough replenishment, but I can certainly see why some may think its too few.
But the problem is that a VLS reload at sea isn't just a 'reload'.
It's likely to be a more difficult and risky exercise to do, not to mention time consuming!
Say, like Andrews said earlier, a single VLS cell might take 30 minutes alone, and if we said it could go down to 10 minutes, that would to be 600 minutes for 60 VLS, or like 10 hours.
And during that time, the ship in question has to very likely, sail at quite slow speeds (below 15, probably below 10 knots), won't be able to speed up for maneuvers (accident might happen), and be pretty much undefended.
In other words, better to just speed home and get to safer areas.
And remember, ships should likely sail together (so multiple ships needs to get their VLS depleted), and fresh ships out of port can come and rotate out ships with lower or out of ammo.
Again, I don't understand why we are discussing VLS reloads at sea. Replenishment operations aren't about VLS reloads.
Pretty sure the starting point of this 'chain' of replies was the new US Tram system (VLS reload at sea).
At least, that what I had in mind when I replied.