"Naval Air: Chinese Carrier Fleet Fail"

[LittleLebowski]

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

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/ht.../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/20...y-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/inde...ontainers.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/polit...s-forces-event