"Naval Air: Chinese Carrier Fleet Fail"

[LittleLebowski]

Apparently Trump's trade war is doing some good. More at link.

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htnavai/articles/20191229.aspx


Earlier in 2019 it looked like China was moving forward to expand its carrier force by building four steam-powered carriers followed by a larger nuclear-powered class similar to the American ones. At the end of 2019, it was announced that plans had changed. There were numerous problems that contributed to the decision and it meant a smaller Chinese fleet with far fewer carriers.

The most immediate problem was the trade war with the United States. Exports to the U.S. are down 23 percent and devaluation of the yuan (the Chinese currency) means that dollars coming from the U.S. trade is down by nearly 30 percent. Exports to other Western nations are down as well, mainly due to foreign manufacturing operations moving out of China to get away from problems that have little to do with the U.S. trade war. Those dollars are important to pay for oil, which China is the largest importer of. Their growing fleet consumes a lot of oil, but the Chinese economy needs it more. Each carrier is accompanied by up to ten support ships. Half of that is warships but the other half are for “sustainment”, carrying oil and other supplies to keep the carriers going for as long as they are at sea. All those ships burn lots of oil, imported oil.

The second problem is military technology. China expected difficulties developing and implementing all the many technologies needed to effectively operate carrier task forces. Fixing those problems is taking longer than expected. This is especially true with the carriers and aircraft that can operate from them. Most of China’s modern aircraft are illegal copies of Russian designs and efforts to implement lots of stolen American aircraft tech has not gone as smoothly as hoped. There has been a pattern of delays and problems with aircraft tech that have stalled ambitious efforts to develop carrier-based fighters and stealth aircraft. No point in building a lot of carriers is they will be limited or sidelined so often by technical problems.

The third problem is that those carriers and other large warships are meant to defend Chinese claims in the South China Sea and that is proving more expensive than anticipated. Not only do the growing number of artificial island bases have to be supplied by ship but to operate larger ships in the generally shallow South China Sea you have to dredge deeper channels to move those large ships around. This year China canceled another major dredging operation because of cost, especially the oil needed for the dredging ships and support vessels. For now, smaller warships and land-based aircraft will defend Chinese claims in the South China Sea.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Still they are building a whole lot of ships: https://defpost.com/category/naval/

We are proposing drastic naval cuts. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/12/27/proposal-for-sweeping-cuts-to-us-navy-shipbuilding-force-structure-could-herald-a-new-strategy-experts-say/

Supposedly for a new strategy. Who knows?

[txdpd]

But but but according to the MSM all the trade war is doing is punishing red state republicans.

State sponsored Chinese hacking and the theft of intellectual property is a big part of the trade war. Having an administration in office that taken that seriously for the first time in 20 years and the Chinese hit a technology brick wall.

Hmm. This has to be pro-Trump fake news.

[Stephanie B]

We have nearly a century of experience with carrier ops; they remain difficult and dangerous. The USS Ford has been a debacle, but she'll eventually be made right. While it can be argued that putting in a lot of new tech made for bad problems, building a class of carriers where each one is effectively its own subclass is not a great idea.

We spent a lot of blood and treasure developing how to fly airplanes from ships. The jet age brought entirely new problems. People have forgotten that during the 1950s, in peacetime, a 20-25% casualty rate for a carrier airwing's deployment was considered to be acceptable.

So I expect the Chinese to have a lot of teething problems in developing naval air.

[GardoneVT]

We have nearly a century of experience with carrier ops; they remain difficult and dangerous. The USS Ford has been a debacle, but she'll eventually be made right. While it can be argued that putting in a lot of new tech made for bad problems, building a class of carriers where each one is effectively its own subclass is not a great idea.

We spent a lot of blood and treasure developing how to fly airplanes from ships. The jet age brought entirely new problems. People have forgotten that during the 1950s, in peacetime, a 20-25% casualty rate for a carrier airwing's deployment was considered to be acceptable.

So I expect the Chinese to have a lot of teething problems in developing naval air.

This.

The gear alone doesn’t make a weapons platform deadly; it’s the people and their experience. Copying the SU-33 is a lot easier then copying 100 years of institutional operations experience.

Insofar as the Ford class goes, its the same issue as the F-35. These weapons systems are expected to last for decades of service. They must incorporate bleeding edge tech today, or it’ll be obsolete the moment it hits the battlefield.The Chinese risk this very problem with their carrier force. By the time they get the operational bugs worked out, the ships will be antiques.

[Stephanie B]

Also, after building the first CVN, we built two more oil-fired CVs before going back to building CVNs. It may have been a matter of money, it also could have taken all that time to get the bugs out of operating large nuclear-powered warships.

Nuclear ships are nice, as they don't require frequent refuelings. But they are not cheap to run.

[randyho]

So I expect the Chinese to have a lot of teething problems in developing naval air.
And they aren't a short-term solution kinda people. They'll figure it out even if they can't steal the answer, which is their norm.

Our current issue re: carriers are cheap missiles vs. expensive carriers. Vendors say, "Hey, let's develop longer range aircraft to keep us outta range." I'd prefer to see those cheap missiles rendered moot.

[HeavyDuty]

The Chinese are masters of rapid iteration. They will figure it all out, and quick.

[Bergeron]

I’m very ready for us to proliferate missiles and recon systems along the 1st & 2nd Island Chains.
If China wants to play, we can have ourselves a game.

I doubt that China’s trying to achieve a capability corresponding to our own. We can operate carriers deep out at sea, at night and in severe weather, for extended periods of time while camouflaging and decoying our position. It’s getting to that point that costs lives and airframes. I doubt the Chinese are willing or able to pay that price.

Their carriers are successful as propaganda machines and have some utility against their “less-than-peer” potential adversaries. The most consequential threat remains an invasion of Taiwan.

[Ed L]

[QUOTE=Glenn E. Meyer;974397]Still they are building a whole lot of ships: https://defpost.com/category/naval/

^^What Glenn said and more.

This year China is launching more new surface ships than Britain has in its entire navy. Look at the Chinese military buildup and and some of their political actions with economic influence by buying mineral rights all over the world and financing construction of ports and infrastructure projects in Africa that will default to Chinese ownership in the likely event that the host nations cannot afford to keep up the financial payments. It is pretty clear that China intends to become the major world power in the Pacific. I think they already have enough military strength that we would not be able to get within carrier range of them in a shooting war.

Even if China built no aircraft carriers, they would still be a naval threat by the number and capabilities of their anti-ship missiles that can be launched from the land, the sea, or the air. One such missile is the YJ-18, which is a copy of the Russian Klub anti-ship missile. It has a range of about 300 miles, according to the latest DOD report.. It flies as a sea skimmer at a high subsonic speed, then when it is 25-30 miles away from the target warhead section separates and a solid rocket engine ignites accelerating it to a speed of Mach 2.5-3. This would be very hard to intercept.

They are working on a version that can be launched out of a container ship. A few container ships like this would be an excellent way to launch a surprise attack. Or maybe sell a few of these missiles to Iran to give us a nasty surprise in the gulf. Here is a link to an article on it:
https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/news/defence-news/2019/april/6971-china-is-building-long-range-cruise-missiles-launched-from-ship-containers.html

Here is a look at what their intermediate range ballistic missiles would mean in the Pacific Theater. Some of these missiles are even capable of hitting ships at sea. I think they could use numbers to overwhelm our missile defenses in the area:
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3023316/chinese-missiles-likely-cripple-asia-based-us-forces-event

[SeriousStudent]

[QUOTE=Glenn E. Meyer;974397]Still they are building a whole lot of ships: https://defpost.com/category/naval/

^^What Glenn said and more.

This year China is launching more new surface ships than Britain has in its entire navy. Look at the Chinese military buildup and and some of their political actions with economic influence by buying mineral rights all over the world and financing construction of ports and infrastructure projects in Africa that will default to Chinese ownership in the likely event that the host nations cannot afford to keep up the financial payments. It is pretty clear that China intends to become the major world power in the Pacific. I think they already have enough military strength that we would not be able to get within carrier range of them in a shooting war.

Even if China built no aircraft carriers, they would still be a naval threat by the number and capabilities of their anti-ship missiles that can be launched from the land, the sea, or the air. One such missile is the YJ-18, which is a copy of the Russian Klub anti-ship missile. It has a range of about 300 miles, according to the latest DOD report.. It flies as a sea skimmer at a high subsonic speed, then when it is 25-30 miles away from the target warhead section separates and a solid rocket engine ignites accelerating it to a speed of Mach 2.5-3. This would be very hard to intercept.

They are working on a version that can be launched out of a container ship. A few container ships like this would be an excellent way to launch a surprise attack. Or maybe sell a few of these missiles to Iran to give us a nasty surprise in the gulf. Here is a link to an article on it:
https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/news/defence-news/2019/april/6971-china-is-building-long-range-cruise-missiles-launched-from-ship-containers.html

Here is a look at what their intermediate range ballistic missiles would mean in the Pacific Theater. Some of these missiles are even capable of hitting ships at sea. I think they could use numbers to overwhelm our missile defenses in the area:
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3023316/chinese-missiles-likely-cripple-asia-based-us-forces-event

Agree with Ed, I am pretty sure that is what keeps CNO up at night. A layered defense like that is a tough nut to crack.

Stephanie is spot on about carrier ops being no easy path to success.

[txdpd]

And they aren't a short-term solution kinda people. They'll figure it out even if they can't steal the answer, which is their norm.

Our current issue re: carriers are cheap missiles vs. expensive carriers. Vendors say, "Hey, let's develop longer range aircraft to keep us outta range." I'd prefer to see those cheap missiles rendered moot.

I’d disagree about the short term thinking. Part of China inability to recover from the recession is that all the infrastructure built in the 2000s was half assed and everything they built is falling apart. The Chinese have shown little willingness to break away from a culture of corruption and cutting corners at every opportunity that presents itself. If they have to develop their own technology they will never get out of their own way.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Denigrating the abilities of an enemy isn't always a wise choice. That's why the Japanese had us at a disadvantage for awhile in WWII. So they don't have carrier experience. No one really did before WWII. The Japanese didn't even have long naval tradition. They came up to speed with a better carrier force than ours in the beginning of the war.

In any case, a major war between us and China would be a disaster for both. However, cue WWI, and WWII for countries making decisions on that basis.

[GardoneVT]

Denigrating the abilities of an enemy isn't always a wise choice. That's why the Japanese had us at a disadvantage for awhile in WWII. So they don't have carrier experience. No one really did before WWII. The Japanese didn't even have long naval tradition. They came up to speed with a better carrier force than ours in the beginning of the war.

In any case, a major war between us and China would be a disaster for both. However, cue WWI, and WWII for countries making decisions on that basis.

The rationale behind a blue-water Chinese navy goes beyond regional power projection.

The carriers’ forte is long distance power projection. You can’t project long range military power from a shore based missile battery. With China expanding economic holdings overseas (especially in Africa), the flexibility of a carrier holds a lot of appeal for the same reason it does to the US- long range military flexibility. I rather doubt Beijing is interested in a carrier duel with the US. Their focus is protecting Chinese assets overseas in places no Chinese missile can go.

Insofar as the Japanese goes, they had over four years of operational experience before the US got involved and drilled multiple combat philosophies we didn’t, including night operations. Here the Chinese aren’t in a Naval shooting war and are basically where we were in 1913 as far as ops experience goes. You can copy intellectual property and equipment , but you can’t shortcut experience.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

We are always better. Famous last words. None of our current naval leadership has fought a near peer naval opponent either. We have exercises. They will have exercises. They will study the lesson of the past.

Before we get cocky, remember https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a30392654/millennium-challenge-qassem-soleimani/

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a18094/a-chinese-submarine-stalked-an-american-aircraft-carrier/

They are building cruiser class ships. We are cutting 12 with no replacement in sight. The existence of a significant fleet limits our intervention options for Taiwan, if it came to that.

It is debated that we could even fix significant battle damage to a large number of ships. The dock yards don't exist.

To beat the Japanese, we had a prewar naval program and then because the carriers were short an emergency program of cruiser hull usage and jeep carriers to get naval airpower up before the Essex class game really into the picture. Can't do that today. We couldn't even replace significant plane losses.

[farscott]

My experience with Chinese suppliers suggests the issues with the carrier operations will get fixed. The great outsourcing of technology that started in the 1980s and that continued until the new tariffs caused a lot of production to be pulled from China trained more than two generations of Chinese in how to make most anything.

The first experience with any new technology or product usually has issues; you do not know what you do not know until you develop it and learn what went wrong. The second time through is much smoother and yields much better results.

[Ed L]

We have faced short ranged anti-ship missiles recently off the coast of Yemen. But they were not fired in mass and were not nearly as capable as the YJ-18 anti-ship missile that I previously posted about. The missiles were Chinese made C-802 anti-ship missiles, that are similar to older Harpoon and Exocet missiles that don't have the range or the ability to dash to Mach 2.5-3 when they get within 25-30 miles of their target. These missiles were obviously supplied to the Yemenis by Iran.

One of our Aegis air defense destroyers and another ship was fired on several times by these missiles while in the waters near Yemen in October of 2016. It wasn't clear how many of the missiles were actually shot down by the US ship's air defense missiles, how many were diverted off course by the ships electronic warfare and defensive measures, or how many hit the sea by themselves.

A ship that is within a few dozen miles of shore, or in a limited body of water like the Persian Gulf or worse the straight of Hormuz, is far more vulnerable to these missiles than a ship with more standoff space in the middle of an ocean.

Here are some links relating to this which go into more detailed information:

https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-to-defend-from-yemen-cruise-missiles-attack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mason_(DDG-87)

Previously, one of these missiles had severely damaged a United Arab Emirates transport hydrofoil.

One of these missiles was used by Hezbollah to damage an Israeli corvette off the coast of Lebanon in 2006. It seems that the ship did not have its automatic air defense systems on when it was hit, either due to technical issues or because they did not realize that they faced that type of missile threat.

The US Navy may find itself facing these missiles launched in swarms if Iran decides to go that route. And given the geographic constraints of where they are operating, the ships would face mininal warning time.

[Ed L]

We are always better. Famous last words. None of our current naval leadership has fought a near peer naval opponent either. We have exercises. They will have exercises. They will study the lesson of the past.

Before we get cocky, remember https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a30392654/millennium-challenge-qassem-soleimani/

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a18094/a-chinese-submarine-stalked-an-american-aircraft-carrier/

They are building cruiser class ships. We are cutting 12 with no replacement in sight. The existence of a significant fleet limits our intervention options for Taiwan, if it came to that.

Given the proximity to the Chinese mainland and the anti-air and anti-ship missiles that China has based in the region that can be launched from the land, sea or air, I doubt that we could successfully intervene.


It is debated that we could even fix significant battle damage to a large number of ships. The dock yards don't exist.

This is a very good point. This isn't WWII when ships could be built more quickly and crews trained more quickly given the different American industrial base and the level of technology needed for a ship to survive and carry out its mission against a peer or near-peer level threat. I would consider China to be a peer threat level given the weapons systems that they have and the fact that we would be forced to fight them within range of all of those weapon systems.

[GardoneVT]

We are always better. Famous last words. None of our current naval leadership has fought a near peer naval opponent either. We have exercises. They will have exercises. They will study the lesson of the past.

Before we get cocky, remember https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a30392654/millennium-challenge-qassem-soleimani/

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a18094/a-chinese-submarine-stalked-an-american-aircraft-carrier/

They are building cruiser class ships. We are cutting 12 with no replacement in sight. The existence of a significant fleet limits our intervention options for Taiwan, if it came to that.

It is debated that we could even fix significant battle damage to a large number of ships. The dock yards don't exist.

To beat the Japanese, we had a prewar naval program and then because the carriers were short an emergency program of cruiser hull usage and jeep carriers to get naval airpower up before the Essex class game really into the picture. Can't do that today. We couldn't even replace significant plane losses.

Im fairly confident if China were stupid enough to invade Taiwan again,we'd spin up our industrial base rickey-tick. That industrial base got outsourced because of cost, not capability. With China no longer a source of labor or economic capital we'd have no choice but to rebuild our industrial base ; and wars have a way of clearing peacetime paperwork logjams. We started the Pacific WWII theatre down a naval base and multiple ships and ended it with one of the largest fleets in existence four odd years later .With modern tech? Probably half that time.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

You've been reading too much Tom Clancy. If China invaded Taiwan and were successful, there is no way on God's Green Earth we could redo our shipyards to produce 38 Essex class equivalent carriers and fight across the Pacific. Maybe Singer sewing machines could produce M4s but the heavy machinery capacity no longer exists.

Nor would the American public go for a WW II draft and austerity program for Taiwan. The Navy yards don't exist.

You can think what you want, but is not going to happen. How long does it take to build a Ford class ship?

[HeavyDuty]

Im fairly confident if China were stupid enough to invade Taiwan again,we'd spin up our industrial base rickey-tick. That industrial base got outsourced because of cost, not capability. With China no longer a source of labor or economic capital we'd have no choice but to rebuild our industrial base ; and wars have a way of clearing peacetime paperwork logjams. We started the Pacific WWII theatre down a naval base and multiple ships and ended it with one of the largest fleets in existence four odd years later .With modern tech? Probably half that time.

Actually, I think it would be ten times longer with modern tech - unless we choose to build armaments of the same complexity as we had in 1942.

[rcbusmc24]

If you haven't read it already I highly recommend the book " War Plan Orange, The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897 - 1945 " by Edward S Miller. It is informative....and many of the lessons can be extrapolated to a US China naval fight as well....

As for current Oplans, Well....there are Oplans and then there are OPLANS.... and some of those are pretty interesting...that's all I'm gonna say.

[HCM]

Actually, I think it would be ten times longer with modern tech - unless we choose to build armaments of the same complexity as we had in 1942.

Agree in general. Maybe not ten times as long but many times longer. Complexity is one issue, sources of supply another But the real issue is we are not spinning up production in the way we were in World War II. At that time for the most part we were converting production from one type to another and we had a base of people who knew how to make things even if they weren’t the specific things needed in the war. Nowadays we would have re-creatile much of the industrial base itself.

[SeriousStudent]

If you haven't read it already I highly recommend the book " War Plan Orange, The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897 - 1945 " by Edward S Miller. It is informative....and many of the lessons can be extrapolated to a US China naval fight as well....

As for current Oplans, Well....there are Oplans and then there are OPLANS.... and some of those are pretty interesting...that's all I'm gonna say.

Excellent book. I read it a few years back with the "Asia pivot" strategy was announced.