PLAN SCS Bases/Islands/Vessels (Not a Strategy Page)

Equation said:

True, but an island base can have a larger radar and air craft to search it in greater range when scouting the area. Once contact is made it can alert the command center. The carrier force projection is only as good as its fighters range. It needed that element of surprise and initiative to be successful.

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Very true ... and remember, an island is much much cheaper to operate and maintain, and can have much bigger radar than a carrier. I would like China to install a micro nuke plant (~25MW) in the island to include a modern desalination plant.

One example (not the only type, many of them) of what being sponsored by Bill Gates and he needs China's cooperation because of China has successfully built fast nuclear reactor ( )


you don't need to refuel for over 40 years ... at that time I am pretty sure fusion will be widely available

sorry for being a bit off topic ... but it is somewhat related

joshuatree said:

In the context of the US, there's only a handful of carriers out there that are not "friendlies". I'm pretty sure these high value targets are always being tracked more or less. So anytime a carrier slips out of dock, it's being tracked. Gone are the days of the IJN amassing a strike force to Pearl covertly. Sure, inclement weather can assist the carrier in hiding but as you say, you still know roughly where to point the sats in a certain area. A carrier even at full steam can only cover a certain radius from last known position in an X amount of time. Let's not forget whatever network of subs out there are quietly watching too. I'm not saying a moving carrier doesn't have an advantage over a stationary island in this regard but I think it's overrated in 2015 and what's more important for a carrier is the ability to provide a base where one has no base in whatever part of the world.

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I don;t want to prolong this convo but in peacetime yes, for the most part everyone knows where everyone else is but when ships go dark in wartime conditions especially if it's a long protracted global war let's just say USN carriers would be quite difficult to locate. I'll just leave it at that.
also if it has come to a point where the opfor is actively seeking to sink a USN carrier I'm sure recon sats most likely would have already been taken out prior to that.

antiterror13 said:

Very true ... and remember, an island is much much cheaper to operate and maintain, and can have much bigger radar than a carrier. I would like China to install a micro nuke plant (~25MW) in the island to include a modern desalination plant.

One example (not the only type, many of them) of what being sponsored by Bill Gates and he needs China's cooperation because of China has successfully built fast nuclear reactor (

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you don't need to refuel for over 40 years ... at that time I am pretty sure fusion will be widely available

sorry for being a bit off topic ... but it is somewhat related

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I think it would be a very very bad idea to put a nuke power plant on those tiny reclaim islands but that's just my totally layman opinion!

kwaigonegin said:

I don;t want to prolong this convo but in peacetime yes, for the most part everyone knows where everyone else is but when ships go dark in wartime conditions especially if it's a long protracted global war let's just say USN carriers would be quite difficult to locate. I'll just leave it at that.
also if it has come to a point where the opfor is actively seeking to sink a USN carrier I'm sure recon sats most likely would have already been taken out prior to that.

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I was actually discussing from the context of the USN hunting other carriers since at present, no other country has the depth of surveillance tools the US has. But for the record, I wasn't the one that started the debate on difficulty or ease of tracking a carrier. I just wanted to point out in my humble opinion, the biggest advantage of a carrier is being able to provide a base for its owner country anywhere it can sail, not whether how hard or easy is it to track it and hunt it down compared to an immovable island base.

joshuatree said:

You are right an island is immovable, but it's also unsinkable.

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For the record A reclaimed island is sinkable, It's just that to do it would require a large amount of force. A tsunami or near surface earth quake or large shock wave would cause liquefaction with the island ether dissolving or the surface structures sinking. also consider that the islands themselves naturally settle sinking little by little..

Now back on topic.

An update on Subi or Zhubi Island (渚碧岛).

joshuatree said:

a carrier's major advantage is actually the portability of sovereign territory, to be able to bring your assets to a part of the world where you may have no other bases. Is it harder to hit because it can move at 30+ knots tops? Sure. That's an advantage but not really that much more than an island with the same defensive systems.

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Actually it is a LOT more of an advantage than that.

A large carrier is, simply put, a rapidly moving airfield.

Many of the islands being reclaimed in the SCS are not large enough for an airfield.

Those that are serve a purpose...but they cannot move. They cannot evade. They are harder to defend because the opposition ALWAYS knows where they are.

Anyhow...as I have said in the past, the PRC is doing very impressive work in increasing and enhancing their assets in the SCS.

Carriers would be nice...but the PRC is going to be able to enhance a lot more islands...and do it quicker...than they can build carriers. And carriers will always need to be somewhere else ultimately.

Those islands are staying where they are.

So, yes, it is a disadvantage for an island compared to a carrier that it cannot move.

But...at the same time, in other ways, that quality is also an advantage from a perspective of providing permanent presence and sovereignty because you will never keep a carrier rooted to one spot all the time...it will be called away to other duties.

BOTH have their place.

An island, in peace time, is a great place to project power. But, in wartime, an island, especially a tiny one like the one China is reclaiming, can only be a temporary stockade. Midway Islands, Iwo Jima. etc.

t2contra said:

An island, in peace time, is a great place to project power. But, in wartime, an island, especially a tiny one like the one China is reclaiming, can only be a temporary stockade. Midway Islands, Iwo Jima. etc.

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Now that you have mentioned Midway Island, did the U.S. reclaim part of Midway Islands during WWII? Or that Midway Island happen to be big enough to fit those 3 airstrips?

BTW, remember Dubai also did a massive reclamation works on World Islands.

Image of Chigua Island on 24 Jan 2015.

On the top, we can see that the new building dwarfs the original outpost. The new building is multiple storeys.