Comparing 1990 with today [Archive] - China Defence Today Forum

SampanViking

02-20-2006, 08:37 AM

The capability gap cannot be anything else other than smaller.

Iraq is a relatively small country with a very low population. Overall it probably compares well to a larger better populated Mid West State in the US.

China is a country of Continental Proportions. A typical Province has the size and population of a major European Country.

This fact alone means that US ability to strike at China is heavily diluted. The 1990's coalition was able to virtually surround Iraq and conduct its campaign as a cohesive whole. In the case of China it would be a series of Air War fronts, which although intensive in the combat areas, would be highly localised and leave vast areas of China untouched. Conversly concentrating and attacking a few strategic economic areas ie PRD, Shanghai, Hebei etc would leave vast areas untouched where production and military forces could be redeployed.

The question of an objective is highly pertinant. In Iraq the coalition could overwhelm and annihialte the States Military and Civil Infrastructures in one short and highly intensive phase. In China such a plan would need to roll from area to area leaving enough time for repair and regeneration in previously targeted areas. On top of this I would suspect that an attempt of proto Shock and Awe on China would probably bankrupt the attacker prior to breaking the target.

This is course is all before you raise the matter of Air Defences which are far more advanced and far better operated than those operated by Iraq. The Iraqi Airforce never flew (except to Iran) let alone mounted counter strikes. I think we can assume this would not be the case with China. We can also assume that the practical measures used in Serbia against the NATO air campaign of 99, would certainly be utilsed very effectively by the Chinese and that Attacker Suppression of Air Defences would be only partially succesful and that the rate and level of Attacker Losses would be consistantly high.

In short, only a mass Nucleur attack on all major Chinese population centres would have any chance of destroying the country.

Roger604

02-20-2006, 10:35 AM

In short, only a mass Nucleur attack on all major Chinese population centres would have any chance of destroying the country.

I think the last part is really crucial. Saddam would never have fallen if he had even one nuclear bomb that he could deliver to Israel. Now of course, some people will say that China lacks second strike, but I think it's just the opposite. China simply doesn't reveal anything about its strategic forces (until there's a chance of hostility). But all reliable reports indicate that China is technologically capable of producing mobile ICBM's that can reach all of ConUSA.

Totoro

02-20-2006, 04:46 PM

Hmm this thread seems to be going into wrong direction now...but its my fault, i was too vague.

What i meant to say is this:

If we assume that there's a war where US does air strikes and cruise missile strikes on china - but no ground invasion - it'd be all very similar to what went on in 1990 versus iraq.

Except that china is a much larger country with many more targets. I'm gonna go with a multiplier of ten, and even that i believe is an understatement.

So lets assume the capability gap i mentioned in the first post is same in our hypothetical war as it was between us and iraq in 1990.

During little more than a month of air operations in first gulf war US led coalition lost 40 airplanes to enemy fire and had 40 more were damaged. (that's not counting accidents and friendly fire incidents, of course) Out of 40 that were lost, 30 were US airplanes and 10 were from other coalition members. Only one plane was brought down in air to air combat, and it was american f18. All else were destroyed by AAA fire and sams.

Using our multiplier of ten, minimum number of planes US can expect to lose in such an air war is 350. (since those 10 coalition lost planes in 1990 were, in part, not as advanced as us ones, i'm giving the benefit of doubt that less would be lost had all the planes been US ones)

So that's absolutely most optimistic figure for US if it does get entangled in such a war.

But some have said, and i do agree, that the capability gap between today's china and todays us is less than one between 1990 US and iraq. Why? Cause iraq had a much weaker, much more centralized (prone to decapitation) and less advanced early warning network. Cause its military equipment, planes, aams, sams was, even for back then just not as modern as chinese stuff is now. Yes, there's tons of old equipment china has now, too, but on top of that there's some top of the line stuff. Pilot training is better in china than it was in iraq then. Stealth was completely new back then, one needs to remember that f117 was unveiled to public only 2 years before the gulf war. Todays stealth tech in b2, even though its superior to one used on f117 is well known how it works and what one must do to higher its chances of success against it. Finally - unlike iraq - china has strategic depth, far away airfields, bases, factories, etc, out of reach for a good deal of US planes, putting those that can attack 'em into a more dangerous enviroment.

Of course, one can still only pull assumption out of one's behind, make up figures. So i'll do that and say US can not realistically expect to lose less than some 600 planes before obliterating most of PLAAF and PLAN's equipment and severly damagning china's command and communication netowork, taking out military factories, etc. Its not improbable the final number of planes lost and so damaged they'd have to be written off would approach a thousand.

So, while it would undoubtedly cost china more, the losses for US would be vast as well, so big in fact that it'd have to ask itself just how much of an edge it has left over the rest of the world, and if it is ready to put itself in such a position, especially with countries like N. korea and syria and Iran who are supposed to be in check because of fear of US attack.

adeptitus

02-21-2006, 03:19 AM

Whole point of this thread will be shown in a later post but for now can you answer me this question:
How would you rate the capability gap between the 1990 US led coalition air forces and cruise missile attacks and the iraqi air forces and air defence forces? I'm talking about the whole thing: equipment, grand strategy, tactics, readiness, etc. Just make the best guess you can make.
Now, imagine a similar type war today versus china, where US doesn't intend to put ground forces in china but just uses air power and stand off missile attacks to inflict as much damage to enemy as possible. How would you rate the same capability gap? More or less the same as the one between US and iraq in 1990? Bigger? Smaller? By how much per cent? I know, i know, these things are impossibly hard to guess but just give it a shot.

1) To compare between Gulf War I and Gulf War II, Iraq's military was severely beaten in Gulf War I and the country placed under embargo for a decade, prior to Gulf War II. During this time Iraq was not able to effectively rebuild its military or replace lost equipment. It couldn't even export its oil freely to earn income.

In comparison, the US military had proven the success of precision-strike weapons in Gulf War I, and by Gulf War II, the % of "smart" or precision-guided weapons used had increased by many times.

2) The PRC's military in 1990 was certaintely larger than Iraq's, not to mention nuclear weapons. BUT, in terms of technology, the Iraqi armed forces actually had more modern toys than the PLA. For an example, in 1990 the Iraqi AF had AWACs and MiG-29's. The Iraqi army also had more advanced SAM's. Unfortunately for them, Saddam didn't allocate decent training budget and went to war against a superpower.

3) The PLA, unlike Iraqi forces, has been able to modernize some of its forces via domestic R&D and imports. However, at present it's unlikely that the PLA is able to counter against USAF advanced stealth technology. Both the USN and USAF are far larger and more advanced than PLAN and PLAAF. i.e. the USAF has more than 2,000 F-16's in its inventory.

People often joke about "Chinese Wave Attack". In US vs. PRC scenario, I think the US is actually in a position where it can do massed wave attacks ("american wave attack"?) via stand off weapons and air/sea invasions to completely overwhelm PRC defenders. The USAF & USN can afford to lose & easily replace several hundred aircraft, the PLAAF cannot.

Lavi

02-21-2006, 08:30 AM

All this is very interesting, and I certainly agree on the fact that through sheer size China would present a huge problem for any invader, Field Marshal Montgomery once said: "Rule one on page one in the book about how to fight a war is 'never march on Moscow', rule number two is 'never go with your land armies into China'".

However, I also agree on the fatc that people seems to have forgotten the state of the Iraqi armed forces in 1990. In those days the Iraqi army was said to be the fourth largest in the world, operating high-tech aircrafts, missiles, tanks etc. (the navy was perhaps lacking somewhat, but due to the short shoreline it is understandable).

Now, what really made a difference was training, and since the US still has the qualitative edge in training I believe they could pull off a air/missile offensive. Also US still has the qualitative edge in almost every other area, so in the end the question of victory would be how much the US would be willing to spend vs. how much the Chinese government can take.

All this is however completly hypotetical, under the assumptions that no political pressure (domestic or foreign), alliances, the goal of the operations and logistical problems would be in place. In the end these things will mess up the equations, but I still would guess that the US has an advantage.

IDonT

02-21-2006, 08:48 AM

The US also has an enormous lead in the area of "force multipliers". These multipliers are what gives the US their greatest advantage.
I cannot stress enough how vital this is in war.

1.) Aerial Refueling - The capability to keep the MAJORITY of your forces in the front lines for longer periods of time.
2.) Highly Trained Ground Personel - Affects the sortie rate of your aircraft. In the Arab-Israeli wars, thanks to IDF ground crews, the IDF aircraft can be put in the air at a higher rate than their Arab counter parts. For example, you have 4 planes that you can sortie 4 per day vs your enemy with 6 planes that can sortie 2 per day. You have him outnumbered even though they have more aircraft.
3.) AEW - provides situational awareness. PLAN AEW is at its infancy...it cannot track as much aircraft as the US ones. Therefore, US aircraft know at all times, where friendly and hostile forces are, while PLA aircraft are mostly blind. Also, since the US has used its AEW equipment more, this leads to something called "equipment familiarity" - the ability to know in which condition your equipment works best, etc. It is something you get from years of training and experience
4.) ELINT support - Jamming and decoys...will have PLA Sams and aircraft going after non existing USAF strike, wasting resources, revealing their position, and leaving them vulnerable to an ambush.
5.) Stealth - The F-22, B-2, and F-117 provides USAF generals with a multitude of strategic options that conventional aircraft cannot. I mean, just to try and shoot one of these will tie up PLAN assets that could be needed elsewhere.
6.) Training and experience - USAF and USN pilots have actually dropped bombs and shot down other aircraft in a combat setting. These experiences are further sharpened by military exercises such as Red Flag, etc. In fact, no other nation spends more money in training the the US.
7.) Weapons - USAF and USN percent of precision and standoff weapons are approaching 80% of inventory.
8.) Numbers - PLAN 4th gen aircraft number around 500-600 airframes, US has over 2,000 F-16 alone.

There are others that I did not think of...I will post them when I do.

SampanViking

02-21-2006, 09:01 AM

The point I have to raise again is what would be the objective? What capability woould such an operation be seeking to destroy?

It was possible to destroy much of Iraq's operational infrastructure in 1990, because there was relativly little of it and mostly concentrated in the River Areas. This sort of bombardment only makes sense if you are opening up entry points for ground action.

I come back to the "size" and "complexity" of China. In WW2 it took literally years of near continuous bombing of Germany to denude the countries Industrial (hence subsequently its defense) capability sufficiently to enable an effective invasion to occur. Well, Germany is about the size and population (integral with complexity) of Guangdong Province. You need this campaign to at least devastate, simultainously at least all the eastern Provinces. I will not even dwell on the questions that arise from many targets being Western Corporate Assets.

The other point, I will come back to is that I do not remember the Iraqi Airforce doing anything in 1990. Hardly any planes even scrambled for combat missions, whilst some planes fled straight to Iran.

I hardly think that the PLAAF would react in the same way. I believe attacking forces would be in range of counter strikes (planes and missiles) and that the ability of even a great power like the US would have significant problems in harnessing its power to effectively prosecute a campaign of this sort.

In summary, I think too many posters are viewing this as if it were just another Short Sharp Regime Change Junkett. This for me as a Brit, is rather like comparing Kitcheners Sudanese/Nile Campaign with WW1. We constantly had to knock over local native rebellions, but this was no preperation for the horrors and rigours of a modern major war.

Totoro

02-21-2006, 10:53 AM

Sometimes I really wonder if some people here actually read what has been written in previous posts...

Anyway, we all seem to agree that US would win such an air war, no one is disputing that. I started the whole thread already stating that. Still people keep listing why would china lose such a war. No one is disputing that. If you're gonna list stuff then list out points which talk about the differences of 1990 iraq defense and 2006 china defense situation - in accordance to US forces in 1990 compared to 2006. What i am asking here, the only thing really, is for your (educated or not, preferably educated) guesses as to how many planes would US forces lose in order to succeed at doing to china today what they did to iraq in 1990.

I, myself, omitted to mention one hugely important difference. Iraq was attacked from turkey, from saudi arabia, with targets being sometimes just hundreds of km away from the airfields. Prior to that, US had to fly all the planes in the theatre. Not a small undertaking.

In attacking china, forces would have to several times larger than used in iraq in 1990 to retain the same overwhelming strike capability, outnumbering the enemy. Actually, i doubt us would field more planes than china, quantitively. Which is beside the point since quantitatively speaking, of course, most of planes china could muster would be old pieces of junk.

One has to keep in mind that US can't just whisk any plane it wants anywhere from the world and put it in combat half way round the world. Certain number of planes would have to stay home and defend home. Certain number of planes would have to remain in middle east, etc. China, on the other hand, has nothing to lose. It's defending its homeland.

It is my belief russia would no way let US use its airspace, let alone its land to base attacks from. India is more likely to do so but since it would have to live with china next to its border afterwards - it too has far more to lose politically in aiding the US. Similar logic would say no indochina country would let its bases be used, even though use of airspace would probably be unofficialy granted to the US. It doesn't leave too many different approaches to be used in attacking china. And they would all involve crossing several hundreds of km of sea, easier to monitor than ground.

Again, i must point out, there will still be parts of china not accesible to great number of US planes, at least not until the entire coast is rid of SAMs so slowly air refuelling could be done over china's soil in order for US to attack deeper inland. All that means there would be no overwhelming strike at all fronts. china is just too big and too spread apart for that. Thre would always be places deep inland for chinese forces to reorganize. (air launched cruise missiles would be spent in first days of war anyway)

I still stick to my 600 planes lost on the US side figure, at least. What is yours?

And, not that it matters that much, to those who claim US has over 2000 of F16s - you must be using wrong and/or old data. In 2005 USAAF had 758 f16s, air force reserve command had 74 f16s and the national guard had 533 f16s. Yes, there are probably more f16s stored somewhere in the deserts of nevada or new mexico, but those are not in flying condition and would all need from 3-12 months of testing and work before they could fly. (besides, then we'd have to take into account some 2-3 thousands of j6 planes, stored away in the same way)

IDonT

02-21-2006, 01:42 PM

600 is a bit much, more like 200-300. The majority will be wild weasel aircraft.

One has to keep in mind that US can't just whisk any plane it wants anywhere from the world and put it in combat half way round the world. Certain number of planes would have to stay home and defend home. Certain number of planes would have to remain in middle east, etc. China, on the other hand, has nothing to lose. It's defending its homeland.

The continental US has no hostile neighbors. It has Canada to the North and Mexico to the South. Cuba is a non-factor. It doesn't need a very large homeland defence airforce.

Again, i must point out, there will still be parts of china not accesible to great number of US planes, at least not until the entire coast is rid of SAMs so slowly air refuelling could be done over china's soil in order for US to attack deeper inland. All that means there would be no overwhelming strike at all fronts. china is just too big and too spread apart for that. Thre would always be places deep inland for chinese forces to reorganize. (air launched cruise missiles would be spent in first days of war anyway)

How many S-300 sams do China possess? It cannot possibly defend its long coastline at the same level at the same time. Most of these defences will be concentrated on high value areas, such as airfields.

You are also forgeting about cruise missile attacks.
Within days, the US can station the USS Ohio (154 TLAMs), the Kitty Hawk battleg group with about (100 TLAM), sevaral TLAM capable LA subs, plus a couple of squadron of B-52 off Guam, carrying 20 CALCMs. Add this with the conjunction of stealth bomber strikes and large amounts of stand off munitions and you got a very lethal combination and that is just the first wave. This followed up by fighter sweeps, wild weasel strikes, air attacks, etc to gradually roll back PLAAF's defences until it is a shell of itself.

Targets always include fix land line communications node, forcing PLAAF to go wireless, which can be jammed or listened too; radar installations; maintenence yards; fuel depots; SAM sites; naval ports; bridges; etc...

Attacks can originate along the entirety of the Chinese coast. That is a lot of real estate to defend. PLAAF, needs top of the line CnC to respond to USAF operational tempo along any points of the coastline.

SampanViking

02-21-2006, 03:05 PM

Well nobody enjoys a good laugh more than me but really:roll:

600 is a bit much, more like 200-300. The majority will be wild weasel aircraft.

I admire your patriotisem IDont, but really this is descent into fantasy. You would lose more than that attacking Britain.

Sometimes I really wonder if some people here actually read what has been written in previous posts...

You can say that again Totoro.

Anyway, we all seem to agree that US would win such an air war, no one is disputing that.

I must be nobody then cos I cannot see how the US; with or without a stated objective could possibly win.

Now bear with me as my time is limited but their is a lot to go through.

1) If it is a purely air war, then no attacks are being launched from or across the air space of any land adjoining country as either act would be a an effective declaration of war on China, who would respond in the obvious and appropriate manner and quickly eliminate any such bases. Besides....

India is more likely to do so but since it would have to live with china next to its border afterwards - it too has far more to lose politically in aiding the US. Similar logic would say no indochina country would let its bases be used

I think that is a pretty safe assumption.

It is my belief russia would no way let US use its airspace, let alone its land to base attacks from.

Well considering China is Russia Ally and best customer another pretty safe assumption. Might Russia join in with China to fulfill its SCO obligations? well you never know. Certainly Russian factories would be working around the clock to sell toys to its friend.

That being the case you are attacking from Japan, possibly the Phillippines, from Carriers and long distance from US Territory.

2 How many S-300 sams do China possess?

Or any other missile for that matter. A better question is how many can they buy or produce. Do you really think you could hit for a few weeks and walk away?. This would be an open ended commitment the main result of which would be to restructure China "National Configuration of Power" away from Civil production and into Military, as the whole country mobilises. I think it would be very interesting to see the worlds largest Industrial Base mobilised in this way don't you?

3 most of planes china could muster would be old pieces of junk.

This is somthing a lot of people seem to have missed. The biggest loss from losing "a piece of junk" is the loss of the pilot. So when I read last year about the PLAAF turning its old Migs into Remote Controlled AV's I really took notice.

I know they were mainly talking about using them as flying bombs to ram Carriers, but they would work just as well (better in many ECM respects) as close defence around Airfields and other High Value targets. Personally I think it is only a short step from that to actually flying them as R C Interceptors, firing missiles, landing and reloading etc, but no matte, without a pilot to worry about, what does it matter, you could strap an engine and wings onto an old fridge if you needed too.

It might matter to the US F22 and F16 pilots though. They would need to use up all their missiles shooting these old wrecks down and then what??? bug out I suppose... except..... thats when we can expect to see the Flankers turn up, fresh, fully fueled and fully armed..... Oh Dear!!!

And thats the rub, China as the defender has a lot of advantages, the loss of a lot of old tin cans for the decimation of the US front line Air Strike force would be a price well worth paying, especially if it could be done with minimal pilot loss.

4) Attacks can originate along the entirety of the Chinese coast. That is a lot of real estate to defend

A huge amount to attack you mean, huge if you spread the attackers forces that thin, all you are doing is maximising their exposure to the highest number of defenders. The US would be hard pressed to Saturate attack one major province and as soon as it was finished and moved to the next, the defences would simply be reconstructed again.

But this has been the weakness of the whole thread. What is the objective??? You can bomb bridges all you like I am sure China can throw up Pontoons as quick as anybody else. But if the aim is to destroy China's Industrial Military/Economic Infrastructure then:confused: :confused: do you guys have any idea how much of it there is.

5) The central weakness of the whole arguement is to assume China could be overwhelmed like Iraq or Serbia (Serbia is a good example of how to defend against an Air Campaign and only a fool will ignore it. Serbia however is tiny, little bigger than Wales.)

The attacks on China would be pinpricks. Yes US Planes and Missiles would get through, but so would Chinese ones. "The bomber always gets through" Under those circumstances, the ability of the US to attack would be exhausted long before China lost the will or ability to defend. Period!!:coffee:

bd popeye

02-21-2006, 03:17 PM

Hummmmmm

Well Slacpiv, a man of his word, who has not posted in two weeks said it best below......Please read;

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/showthread.php?p=24258#post24258

Sea Dog. Just give up. You're in a Chinese military forum. If the people here believe that china can hit a moving target the size of vessel when no missile can do that against a static target, then let them. If they think China can launch their 200 - 300km missiles at US naval assets without being harrased by F-18S, sea wolfs, LAs, then they can. If they think that they can launch missiles without over the horizon reconaissance, then they can. If they dont believe that the sm-3, sm-3, ESSM, sea ram, or the phalanx can intercept their missiles when they number in the hundreds in a US carrier group, let them. If they think the only thing to stealth technology is an airframe and paint, let them. If they thin the 093 is more powerful than anything the Russians have to offer when every other soures days it's in the same class as the victor III, let them. If they think the J-10 is more capable than a su-27 when most sources say it's on the same level as a f-16 blk 30, let them. If they think China can catch up in engine, radar, and avionics technology in less than a decade to match the f-22 let them. If they think cheap labor can get them cheap advanced fighters, let them. If they think that they can take on 4+ US carriers at once, let them. If they think they have the same level of missile saturation ability as the soviets did in the hieght of their power let them. I've given up.

I agree with most of waht he posted. I have relugated myself to simple post and posting lots of pictures of the worlds greatest Navy.

Personally I would like to see a strong PRC for the sake of Asia.

Keep smilin':D

IDonT

02-21-2006, 03:31 PM

A huge amount to attack you mean, huge if you spread the attackers forces that thin, all you are doing is maximising their exposure to the highest number of defenders. The US would be hard pressed to Saturate attack one major province and as soon as it was finished and moved to the next, the defences would simply be reconstructed again.

But this has been the weakness of the whole thread. What is the objective??? You can bomb bridges all you like I am sure China can throw up Pontoons as quick as anybody else. But if the aim is to destroy China's Industrial Military/Economic Infrastructure then do you guys have any idea how much of it there is.

You misunderstand me. As the attacker, the US has the initiative. It can choose the time and place to attack. Being in the PLAAF shoes, you do not know where the attack will come from, so you put your best assets on the most likely targets.

If the US attacks at point A, can you move your assets at that position in a time frame to make a difference? How about 2 simultanous attacks, with one being the decoy? What then?

You still did not take into account the pin point cruise missile strikes that degrade PLAAF command &c Control, radar ops, etc. Though maybe half will survive, their destruction lessens the PLAAF's ability to detect, track, and vector its assets to meet the threat in time.

As for the S-300, they are very good SAM. Do you know why? Because the Russians rely on them to deny the enemy air superiority. Deny is not the same as take. US doctrine has always stressed that the best way to take out an air threat is not with a SAM but with an air superiorty fighter. Relying on SAMs for airdefence, is a war losing strategy. They do not grant you air superiority.

The central weakness of the whole arguement is to assume China could be overwhelmed like Iraq or Serbia (Serbia is a good example of how to defend against an Air Campaign and only a fool will ignore it. Serbia however is tiny, little bigger than Wales.)

The attacks on China would be pinpricks. Yes US Planes and Missiles would get through, but so would Chinese ones. "The bomber always gets through" Under those circumstances, the ability of the US to attack would be exhausted long before China lost the will or ability to defend. Period

Serbia is a bad example...of the tens of thousands of sorties they manage to only shot down two (2) aircraft. Shoot down by the same battery because 1.) its commander was very good 2.) NATO got sloppy and used the same route.

Pinpricks...These pinpricks if acurately guided can be very painful. Again, the scenario does not involved carpet bombing of cities ala WWII. It only takes one guided bomb to take out one target. Take out enough sensitive targets (power generation, telephone exchange, communications node, etc) in a small time frame you degrade their ability to defend.

KYli

02-21-2006, 04:19 PM

You misunderstand me. As the attacker, the US has the initiative. It can choose the time and place to attack. Being in the PLAAF shoes, you do not know where the attack will come from, so you put your best assets on the most likely targets.

Are you suggesting that China will just wait for US, so US can gather all their force and attack that China will not make any attempt to pre-empty offensive attack. US may has choose the time and place to attack, but before that the US needs to place their force in the attacking range first. I doubt China will sit there and do nothing. Don't forget all the M9 and M11, cruise missiles that chinese have.

If the US attacks at point A, can you move your assets at that position in a time frame to make a difference? How about 2 simultanous attacks, with one being the decoy? What then?

Well, US do have options to chose their targets and time, but since US will only attack valueable asserts. China do have the mean to chose what they consider important to protect. No matter how many attacks US could launch at same time. I doubt US could do much damage to Chinese infrastrucsture, you forgot how big and many asserts China have. It is going to weeks or even months before real damages will be acheive, China have the time and capability to repair by then.

You still did not take into account the pin point cruise missile strikes that degrade PLAAF command &c Control, radar ops, etc. Though maybe half will survive, their destruction lessens the PLAAF's ability to detect, track, and vector its assets to meet the threat in time.
Cruise missile will degrade half the PLAAF commandcontrol and radar, that is not possible. Do you know how big of network chinese have, and mulitple systems chinese have for communcation will make it rather difficult to take out.

As for the S-300, they are very good SAM. Do you know why? Because the Russians rely on them to deny the enemy air superiority. Deny is not the same as take. US doctrine has always stressed that the best way to take out an air threat is not with a SAM but with an air superiorty fighter. Relying on SAMs for airdefence, is a war losing strategy. They do not grant you air superiority.
China have many good SAM, and S300 is only one of them. How about the FT2000, TY90, TY80, HQ15, HQ16, HQ17 and etc. US dotrine is always stressed the best way to take out air threat with air superiorty fighter, but before this going to happen. How about take care of all the planes China have first. The 100SuMKK, 200J11, 50-100J10, 300J8, 500J7, 75 JH7, 300Q5, 100H6 and 3000J6, you had to take care all of them before gaining air superiorty and stop any chinese attempt for counter attack.

Serbia is a bad example...of the tens of thousands of sorties they manage to only shot down two (2) aircraft. Shoot down by the same battery because 1.) its commander was very good 2.) NATO got sloppy and used the same route.
China is not Serbia, and they have many times more air defence asserts than the Serbia had.

Pinpricks...These pinpricks if acurately guided can be very painful. Again, the scenario does not involved carpet bombing of cities ala WWII. It only takes one guided bomb to take out one target. Take out enough sensitive targets (power generation, telephone exchange, communications node, etc) in a small time frame you degrade their ability to defend.
The problem is the China have thousands of power generation, telephone and communciation node etc, and US won't have a free fly without take care of chinese Air force and Air defence first. Even by then China could still repair them.

No one deny that US is the most powerful Airforce in the World, but you have to take in to mind that the chinese is on the defensive. That will give China many advantages.

SampanViking

02-21-2006, 04:26 PM

BD Popeye and IDont.

Please do not take me wrong, mine is no "see once again how the decadent Western Dogs fall before the glorious forces of the revolution" position. I am seriously questioning the ability of anyone to effectively degrade the infrastructure of a country as massive and complex as modern China.

Even if the country was undefended, the scale of the task would probably defeat the ability of the west to achieve it.

You misunderstand the point about Serbia. Yes this was one good officer, NATO was lucky that he fought for a small country that did not have the capability of capitalising on the opportunites he provided.

It only takes one guided bomb to take out one target. Take out enough sensitive targets (power generation, telephone exchange, communications node, etc) in a small time frame you degrade their ability to defend.

Sure no arguement, but there is a huge amount of it and they can repair damage.

If the US attacks at point A, can you move your assets at that position in a time frame to make a difference? How about 2 simultanous attacks, with one being the decoy? What then?

You will have good days and you will have bad days - on a good day you go on you hit your target and you go home. On a bad day - you dont go home. This would would go on every day, for weeks, months years.

You still did not take into account the pin point cruise missile strikes that degrade PLAAF command &c Control, radar ops, etc.

Yes I do, but damage is a fact of war, you spend and train a lot to minimise the effect of that damage and to get facilites up and running again, either on the original spot or elsewere.

How many Cruise Missiles does the US have, how quickly can they be built. A common complaint by bankers on the use of Chinese Govt money is regarding the oversupply of International Capable Airports. It seems every City wants to have its own. Useful in an emergency though.

Size and time are the critical things here China is physically bigger than the USA (including Hawai and Alaska) It is more densly populated, it has far more cities with populationsof over 500 000. Each province is equivalent to a major European Country.

Sooner or later BD a Chinese Strike would get lucky and a Carrier would go down. Not every shot, not every day but sooner or later.

The US may be able to contain the PRC on the Sea and in the Air, but the days it could brake down the door and charge in with impunity have gone for ever. Trust me if people were saying somthing similar about China raiding the US, I would take the very same attitude.

In Conclusion, The US is good - but not that good.

Roger604

02-21-2006, 04:37 PM

Sea Dog. Just give up. You're in a Chinese military forum. If the people here believe that china can hit a moving target the size of vessel when no missile can do that against a static target, then let them. If they think China can launch their 200 - 300km missiles at US naval assets without being harrased by F-18S, sea wolfs, LAs, then they can. If they think that they can launch missiles without over the horizon reconaissance, then they can. If they dont believe that the sm-3, sm-3, ESSM, sea ram, or the phalanx can intercept their missiles when they number in the hundreds in a US carrier group, let them. If they think the only thing to stealth technology is an airframe and paint, let them. If they thin the 093 is more powerful than anything the Russians have to offer when every other soures days it's in the same class as the victor III, let them. If they think the J-10 is more capable than a su-27 when most sources say it's on the same level as a f-16 blk 30, let them. If they think China can catch up in engine, radar, and avionics technology in less than a decade to match the f-22 let them. If they think cheap labor can get them cheap advanced fighters, let them. If they think that they can take on 4+ US carriers at once, let them. If they think they have the same level of missile saturation ability as the soviets did in the hieght of their power let them. I've given up.

The logical fallacy is that the Chinese don't just assume (like Slavpiv deceptively implies) that the PLAAF and PLAN can just blow the USAF and USN away.

Of course that would be silly.

Rather, the Chinese accept that there will be casualties on both sides. It is the American posters (like IDont) who comes up with laughable casualty figures for the American side.

Notice how IDont vehemently denies the 600 plane loss estimate Totoro gives. Perhaps this is because IDont thinks 600 planes would be "unacceptable losses"?

So what happens if China shoots down 600 planes (including F-22's and B-2's)? The Americans will probably start negotiating.

That's why China will "win" this engagement. It's like a soccer game between one team that is much better than the other. But under the rules of the game, the inferior team need only score one goal to win, and the superior team loses if they let in even one goal.

IDonT

02-21-2006, 05:05 PM

SampanViking,

We are going to go in circles in this type of threads.
In your scenario, no ground forces will be involved. Therefore, the population density of China is a non factor. In a land war, the sheer numbers of the PLA, if you can concentrate them, will overwhelm US ground forces. In fact, PLA troops are the only troops to drive the US marines from a beach.

You are right of course that China is no Iraq, Iran, and Serbia COMBINED. However, its present threat level is not comparable to the late Soviet Union. It has decades before it can even match it, and at the same time, the US technological gap is widening.

As for my 300 number losses, I stand by it. Why, US uses a lot of standoff munitions in high threat environment, thereby lowering the risk of getting shot down. The threat to actual air assets that actually go "feet dry" on Chinese soil, will be diminished from the stand off attacks, lowering the probability of being shot down. As this hypothetical airwar drags on, Chinese operational tempo will not be able to sustain or keep up with that of the US.

Are you suggesting that China will just wait for US, so US can gather all their force and attack that China will not make any attempt to pre-empty offensive attack. US may has choose the time and place to attack, but before that the US needs to place their force in the attacking range first. I doubt China will sit there and do nothing. Don't forget all the M9 and M11, cruise missiles that chinese have

How accurate are those missiles?
The main problem of the US airwar is basing. There are the carriers, Guam, Okinawa, and possibly Taiwan. The carriers are highly mobile and trying to locate and attack them is another discussion entirely. Let's just say they are very very difficult to attack. Second is basing...Guam can host the US bombers while Okinawa and Taiwan will have the US fighter planes. (Hypothetical scenario ignoring political consideration) As far as I know, Taiwan and Okinawa have very excellent hardened shelters. Does the PLAAF have the accuracy of hitting these with their ballistic missiles? Do they have "bunker buster" type guided munitions designed to take out steel reinforced concrete?

China have many good SAM, and S300 is only one of them. How about the FT2000, TY90, TY80, HQ15, HQ16, HQ17 and etc. US dotrine is always stressed the best way to take out air threat with air superiorty fighter, but before this going to happen. How about take care of all the planes China have first. The 100SuMKK, 200J11, 50-100J10, 300J8, 500J7, 75 JH7, 300Q5, 100H6 and 3000J6, you had to take care all of them before gaining air superiorty and stop any chinese attempt for counter attack.
If your read my post earlier, one of the things I stressed is AEW. PLAAF is just not up to speed in tracking and organizing those numbers of aircraft plus processing the multitude of information from a fluid air battle. How will they handle IFF? How accurately vector armed aircraft to hostiles, empty aircraft to tankers, and aircraft with no ammo to go down and reload? If you are a SAM commander, how would you know if what your shooting at is hostile or friendly? That is even before we factor in decoys and jamming. IF you only know the capabilities of the Prowlers. It can disrupt both radar AND communication signals. So a PLAAF pilot may received false data, etc...

All I can see is, China is good- but not that good. It still has a long way to go before it can stand toe to toe with the US.

SampanViking

02-21-2006, 05:44 PM

Here we go again:(

OK Idont

In your scenario, no ground forces will be involved.

Its not my scenario. this is the scenario Totoro presented us with. I wish to God I knew what the supposed objective it of is. Nobody seems able to tell me, so in that sense it seems highly unrealistic.

Therefore, the population density of China is a non factor.

Oh it is, because these are not rice farmers living on stilt huts. The ones on the East Coast live largely modern lives in big modern cities with lots of Infrastructure and Factories and Roads and Railways, Telephone Exchanges, Bridges etc. These are the targets you are talking about. My point is that there are thousands of them in every Coastal Province and they are increasing across the country at about 10% per annum in line with the countries growth.

Without the need for ground forces, many workers would be available to work in Emergency Air Defence Armaments factories.

China is no Iraq, Iran, and Serbia COMBINED.

Quite right, it is many times bigger. It is the worlds second largest country by land area, after the Russian Federation.

You mentioned earlier about the attacker being able to choose its targets. Probably true, they could. I never denied or doubted the ability of the attacker to penetrate China and bomb targets. It was the getting out I have always questioned. Damaged planes, Tired Pilots, Low/No Ammo being hit by the best the PLAAF has. Thats where my high casualty figures come from. Remember if you only scratch the Coastal strip you are leaving most of the country untouched. If you go deep, the risk of detection and interception increase exponentially.

US uses a lot of standoff munitions in high threat environment, thereby lowering the risk of getting shot down.

How many thousands did you say you have stockpiled? How many hundreds can you manufacture per week? Cos those are the figures you would need just for one major province.

The main problem of the US airwar is basing. There are the carriers, Guam, Okinawa, and possibly Taiwan.

Seriously, I am very disappointed by this, mentioning Taiwan in this context looks very close to flaming. You would be well advised to edit out any such reference.

But before you post again, get the Atlas, look at the maps, go online, find some pictures of Modern China and I hope some of what we are trying to tell you might come into a better focus.

KYli

02-21-2006, 05:51 PM

1.) Aerial Refueling - The capability to keep the MAJORITY of your forces in
the front lines for longer periods of time.
Agreed, but since US is doing the offensive, so this cannot consider as a disadvantage of China. Secondly, how many bases US could use beside Carriers, Okinawa and Guam. Guam may only used as bomber base, and Okinawa could only attack the east coast infrastucture. Carriers would try to stay as far away from land as possible.

2.) Highly Trained Ground Personel - Affects the sortie rate of your aircraft. In the Arab-Israeli wars, thanks to IDF ground crews, the IDF aircraft can be put in the air at a higher rate than their Arab counter parts. For example, you have 4 planes that you can sortie 4 per day vs your enemy with 6 planes that can sortie 2 per day. You have him outnumbered even though they have more aircraft.
True, but again how many planes US could bring to Asia to launch attack, and China do have quantity to match US.

3.) AEW - provides situational awareness. PLAN AEW is at its infancy...it cannot track as much aircraft as the US ones. Therefore, US aircraft know at all times, where friendly and hostile forces are, while PLA aircraft are mostly blind. Also, since the US has used its AEW equipment more, this leads to something called "equipment familiarity" - the ability to know in which condition your equipment works best, etc. It is something you get from years of training and experience
Well, I would agree if that is few years ago. Now China do have few platforms of AEW(KJ2000, Y8X,Y8J, Y8blance beam,etc). so eventhrough US is way better. Does not mean China will not have good awareness.

4.) ELINT support - Jamming and decoys...will have PLA Sams and aircraft going after non existing USAF strike, wasting resources, revealing their position, and leaving them vulnerable to an ambush.
China also have ELINT, actually China have been working on jamming and decoys for long time now. So I will have to ask how effective will be US cruise missiles and fighters.

5.) Stealth - The F-22, B-2, and F-117 provides USAF generals with a multitude of strategic options that conventional aircraft cannot. I mean, just to try and shoot one of these will tie up PLAN assets that could be needed elsewhere.
6.) Training and experience - USAF and USN pilots have actually dropped bombs and shot down other aircraft in a combat setting. These experiences are further sharpened by military exercises such as Red Flag, etc. In fact, no other nation spends more money in training the the US.
Agreed.

7.) Weapons - USAF and USN percent of precision and standoff weapons are approaching 80% of inventory.
You will need lot more than these.

8.) Numbers - PLAN 4th gen aircraft number around 500-600 airframes, US has over 2,000 F-16 alone.

I doubt US still operate 2000 F16, please check the numbers and provide links. And even US have 4th gen aircraft than China, how many US could bring into conflict. And do take into consideration about the 300J8, 500J7 and 3000J6, they might be outdate but they are rather good at dogfighter and interceptors.

KYli

02-21-2006, 06:13 PM

How accurate are those missiles? [
FT200 is as good as S300. others are also good medium air defence missiles.

The main problem of the US airwar is basing. There are the carriers, Guam, Okinawa, and possibly Taiwan. The carriers are highly mobile and trying to locate and attack them is another discussion entirely. Let's just say they are very very difficult to attack. Second is basing...Guam can host the US bombers while Okinawa and Taiwan will have the US fighter planes. (Hypothetical scenario ignoring political consideration) As far as I know, Taiwan and Okinawa have very excellent hardened shelters. Does the PLAAF have the accuracy of hitting these with their ballistic missiles? Do they have "bunker buster" type guided munitions designed to take out steel reinforced concrete?
Since US probably will not bring all of their carriers, Guam only host the US bombers while OKinawa do have their limit. I have doubt US phanes deployment could exceed one thousand. I seriouly doubt US planes will base at Taiwan, but since we are not allow to talk about Taiwan. I would not go into details. Taiwan is too close to China, if US do not have major force station at there. It won't be such good idea. The ballistic missiles have improve greatly, and the modifield missiles will probably pretty accurate and powerful.

If your read my post earlier, one of the things I stressed is AEW. PLAAF is just not up to speed in tracking and organizing those numbers of aircraft plus processing the multitude of information from a fluid air battle. How will they handle IFF? How accurately vector armed aircraft to hostiles, empty aircraft to tankers, and aircraft with no ammo to go down and reload? If you are a SAM commander, how would you know if what your shooting at is hostile or friendly? That is even before we factor in decoys and jamming. IF you only know the capabilities of the Prowlers. It can disrupt both radar AND communication signals. So a PLAAF pilot may received false data, etc...
In the post above, I already answer the AEW or ELint, so I will only answer the others things in this message.
That will be true if US is doing defensive, but since US is doing the offensive. The effective of decoys and jamming will greatly decrease, and China will also doing its' part of jamming and decoys also.

All I can see is, China is good- but not that good. It still has a long way to go before it can stand toe to toe with the US.
I will say again. US has more powerful Airforce, and there are no dispute about it. But in a defensive battle, China do not need to match toe to toe with the US. Since China have a vast landmass, and huge infrastucture and huge but medium tech Air force and Air defence. It will not be as easy as you think to defeat China and gain air superior.

Totoro

02-21-2006, 06:32 PM

I would like to thank IDont for showing respect for this thread and actually supplying a number. I'd also like to encourage the others to do the same, preferably explaining their figure.

Also, to answer IDont about s-300, according to news articles commented by the folks at china-defense.com china has 32 launcher vehicles for s300pmu, 96 launchers for s300pmu1 and 64 launchers for s300pmu2. With a launcher carrying four missiles that'd mean 768 missiles ready to be launched within seconds. They also say only 8-16 launchers of chinese made s300 (hq9) have been fielded so far, as its still an evolving design.

Some of you are asking what is the scenario here... well, i didnt wanna make a detailed one on purpose cause i feared it'd turn into this. Another china vs us who is better contest. I merely was interested in a figure of US planes lost if somehow, anyhow, US got itself into a situation where it decided to launch a full scale air war on china. I would assume objective of such a war would be to inflict as much damage to chinse forces, industry and infrastructure as posible. But if you want a real scenario - make one up, i don't mind.

To those who are asking how many weapons US has, i can offer number on three systems: JDAMS number around 25000 in us inventory, tomahawk cruise missiles numbered just over 2 000 after the iraq invasion, air launched cruise missiles (i forgot the name but you all know which one i'm talking about) ranged from 200-300 pieces. After low rate test production throughout 2004 full scale production of tomahawk block IV has commenced sometime in 2005, i think it was summer, but i forgot. Just go on raytheon pages, they should have the news archive up. They cite the plan to push the tomahawk inventory back to 5000 pieces over a course of 6 years. That'd mean 3 thousand missiles in 6 years... that's some 40 missiles produced per month.

Oh, and, i'm sorry, i messed up. The thread title should read 1991, not 1990. :D

KYli

02-21-2006, 07:03 PM

Hi Totoro

I would give you a number, but could you be more clearly about the objective. It would be totally different things, if you just imply that US mission is to make as much damage as it could on the chinese force, infrastructure and industry as possible and gaining air superior. Or US is going to complete destroy the Chinese Air force and Air defence, wipe out all the communication and infrastructure. I think it will be rather impossible, if this is the scenario without US involving every aspects of their force.

tphuang

02-21-2006, 10:03 PM

Hummmmmm

Well Slacpiv, a man of his word, who has not posted in two weeks said it best below......Please read;

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/showthread.php?p=24258#post24258

I agree with most of waht he posted. I have relugated myself to simple post and posting lots of pictures of the worlds greatest Navy.

Personally I would like to see a strong PRC for the sake of Asia.

Keep smilin':D
Well, Slackpiv is right on a lot of points. But to me, he has his own set of agendas. He seems to think that everything made by the Russians are better than the American stuff from the same generation. I wouldn't use his quotes as a guideline. If you read over some of his past posts, you would see that he is just as biased as some of the Chinese on this forum.

darth sidious

02-21-2006, 11:00 PM

SampanViking,

We are going to go in circles in this type of threads.
In your scenario, no ground forces will be involved. Therefore, the population density of China is a non factor. In a land war, the sheer numbers of the PLA, if you can concentrate them, will overwhelm US ground forces. In fact, PLA troops are the only troops to drive the US marines from a beach.

You are right of course that China is no Iraq, Iran, and Serbia COMBINED. However, its present threat level is not comparable to the late Soviet Union. It has decades before it can even match it, and at the same time, the US technological gap is widening.

As for my 300 number losses, I stand by it. Why, US uses a lot of standoff munitions in high threat environment, thereby lowering the risk of getting shot down. The threat to actual air assets that actually go "feet dry" on Chinese soil, will be diminished from the stand off attacks, lowering the probability of being shot down. As this hypothetical airwar drags on, Chinese operational tempo will not be able to sustain or keep up with that of the US.

How accurate are those missiles?
The main problem of the US airwar is basing. There are the carriers, Guam, Okinawa, and possibly Taiwan. The carriers are highly mobile and trying to locate and attack them is another discussion entirely. Let's just say they are very very difficult to attack. Second is basing...Guam can host the US bombers while Okinawa and Taiwan will have the US fighter planes. (Hypothetical scenario ignoring political consideration) As far as I know, Taiwan and Okinawa have very excellent hardened shelters. Does the PLAAF have the accuracy of hitting these with their ballistic missiles? Do they have "bunker buster" type guided munitions designed to take out steel reinforced concrete?

If your read my post earlier, one of the things I stressed is AEW. PLAAF is just not up to speed in tracking and organizing those numbers of aircraft plus processing the multitude of information from a fluid air battle. How will they handle IFF? How accurately vector armed aircraft to hostiles, empty aircraft to tankers, and aircraft with no ammo to go down and reload? If you are a SAM commander, how would you know if what your shooting at is hostile or friendly? That is even before we factor in decoys and jamming. IF you only know the capabilities of the Prowlers. It can disrupt both radar AND communication signals. So a PLAAF pilot may received false data, etc...

All I can see is, China is good- but not that good. It still has a long way to go before it can stand toe to toe with the US.

SOME QUESTION TO GET CLEARED FIRST

1. what is the type of conflict ? total war to destroy china or limited conflict over taiwan

2. where will the US attack from.
India /Russian/ south east asia is unlikely given the reason listed above. this leraves out korea and Japan both of which are withen range of china missiles. they also have alot more to lose then gain in a war with china.

A.korea faces the threat of MR.Kim with chinese support, given the range of SOUL to the border is highly unlikely the will try to piss of China.

B. penality Japan will face will be mostly economical is term of investment lost and trade reduction given the state of chinese nationalism. Natural anti-war elements in Japan will also resist possible conflict.

3.what is the target? is it certin airfield/ factory/military base

or large area in general

Roger604

02-22-2006, 03:14 AM

I think there are two parts to answering this question:

How well would Chinese SAM's fare against cruise missile attacks?

The answer is probably not too badly, since it is admitted that China is capable of technology that at least equals S-300PMU1 and it produces a diverse range of SAM's. It is also hard to believe that China could lose a production war when defending. The US cannot make cruise missiles faster nor cheaper than China can pump out SAM's.

Since the damage from cruise missile attacks would be very limited, as many posters point out, it is incredulous to think a country as large as China couldn't simply brush them aside.

How well would Chinese defenses fare against air strikes?

If there were no SAM's at all, admittedly the US's superior quantity of fighters would be highly advantageous. Qualitatively, the US has a small handful of F-22's but the Flanker is better than the F-16 or F-15.

But the fact that bases are limited and supply lines are long means the US can't bring all its potential air power to bear. Add to that the near certainty that plenty of SAM's and AWACS will be around, as well as cheap aircraft to swarm the F-22's, mean that the situation is hopeless for the US.

In conclusion: Given the serious quantitative/production superiority and only slight technological inferiority for the Chinese side, I expect a air war to result in 1:1 losses until the US calls it quits.

Even if the US makes a total dedicated effort, it could only maybe destroy the PLAAF's modern airforce and SAM's before it runs out of trained pilots and planes. Even then, there are still old jets under the PLAAF and lower tech SAM's and AA guns operated by the PLA remaining.

SampanViking

02-22-2006, 03:29 AM

Hi Totoro

Well I think you can tell that Kyli, Roger604 and I are all holding roughly the same position.

But thank you for explaining your question better last night, I think I understand what you are after better.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I read your question as "What level of casulaties would the US suffer in a Desert Storm type operation,and over what time duration period, before it attained total Air dominance over China, and how would this compare to the effort Iraq put up in 1991?" You Agree?

OK

Well the honest answer is I do not think the US would be ever able to establish total Air Dominance over Chinese Airspace, which means the conflict would be open ended as would the US Casualty figures. They would continue to climb until such time as the US either gave up and no longer had sufficient material to continue the Campaign.

For the record, I do not believe this is not a unique position. If you poised the question regarding any two parties from the USA, EU, Russian Federation, China and India attacking each other, I would give the same answer. Namely that there is too much infrastructure and territory for any stand alone Air Campaign to succede. With countries of this size, the best you could hope for would be local/temporary Air Dominance, sufficent for a land Invasion to begin, but that is a totally different can of worms, and do not propose to go there.

In Conclusion - I think Iran would have been a better example target for this kind of exercise.

Gollevainen

02-22-2006, 03:34 AM

Well I personally think that in this sort of scenario, TWO things come as crucial. Firts is the range where US can conduct these attacks and the seccond is the chinese homeland defences. lot is already said about the latter so i write a bit about the range...

the range is the moust crucial element. Important thing to remember is that currently, US navy lacks the true bomber and EAW/SEAD planes as old A-6s are retaired and the replacements are just flying their test fligths. This leaves USN a pretty much under the range of its F/A-18A/C/Es and that brings it close to Chinese naval forces. And Iraq lacked any capapility to threathen US naval presense, and in scenario size as this one this remains more important factor to US forces, if it wants to conduct attacks trougth it key coastal targets, ports, cityes ec...So the question should be, wheter USN is ready to risk its carriers and Tomahawk launching subs/surface ships under range of chinese naval component and air arm...

So when the size factor that you gave as ten, then count the factor that chinese resisting capapility is way different class than iraqians....I would say if US wants to win anything with assault like that, it would need a hell of a good reason to do so...

Mazepa

02-22-2006, 05:12 AM

Hummmmmm

Well Slacpiv, a man of his word, who has not posted in two weeks said it best below......Please read;

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/showthread.php?p=24258#post24258

I agree with most of waht he posted. I have relugated myself to simple post and posting lots of pictures of the worlds greatest Navy.

Personally I would like to see a strong PRC for the sake of Asia.

Keep smilin':D

The talk of a confident American indeed! And if war was just a match of the specifications of a weapon that would be just great. But surely the Vietnamese and Korean war has learnt us that underestimation is the biggest mistake to make, and USA is an expert on it... Just look at Vietnam, Korea and why not the Iraqi quagmire....

FreeAsia2000

02-22-2006, 07:11 AM

Possibly as a comparison should we look at US airforce losses during the
Vietnam war ?

Totoro

02-22-2006, 08:15 AM

To KYli: Lets say US objectives are these: to destroy every military airfield, to destroy every plane/helicopter on the runways or any other place where they could be located. To destroy all the known command centers, to destroy most of military communcations network throughout the country. To destroy military ports and all the capital PLAN vessels. To destroy all the factories of military equipment, ranging from plane assembleys, tank factories, missile factories to shipyards capable of producing military ships, etc. And, of course, to destroy all the SAM sites ( basically every sam that has range more than 10-15 km) and all the chinese fighters that might get in the way of achieving the previously mentioned tasks.

Not counting the mobile targets, i would say these listed fixed targets would number in hundreds of sites, most of them large enough and spread enough to require dozens of bombs to be destroyed.

I will also use this chance to comment on following claims:
"If the people here believe that china can hit a moving target the size of vessel when no missile can do that against a static target, then let them."

I would like a clarification of this. What kind of missile is talked about here? If we're talking about a conventional ballistic missile - then i agree that they can't be used against a naval fleet with any sort of efficiency.

"If they think China can launch their 200 - 300km missiles at US naval assets without being harrased by F-18S, sea wolfs, LAs, then they can."

Harrased? Of course. US wouldn't sit still, it'd inflict heavy losses, maybe and probably bigger ones than it'd suffer itself - but in the end, it is quite within the realm of reality that US assets would also be hit. Exact range of damage and loss is a matter of scale of the attack versus scale of defense.

"If they think that they can launch missiles without over the horizon reconaissance, then they can."

You can launch, you can't hit anything. We agree.

"If they dont believe that the sm-3, sm-3, ESSM, sea ram, or the phalanx can intercept their missiles when they number in the hundreds in a US carrier group, let them."
Yes, they can intercept a certain number of missiles, surely numbering in hundreds.

"If they think the only thing to stealth technology is an airframe and paint, let them."

I'm claiming, when it comes to radar stealth, that airframe shaping (on a macro and micro level), construction material, paint, then finally size (also in accordance with construction design) have an impact on probability of detection. Various active antiradar measures not included but yes, they are out there too.

"If they thin the 093 is more powerful than anything the Russians have to offer when every other soures days it's in the same class as the victor III, let them."

I don't believe 093 is more powerful, not by far. I do believe it is quieter than victor 3.

"If they think the J-10 is more capable than a su-27 when most sources say it's on the same level as a f-16 blk 30, let them."

I would, actually, agree j-10 is on same level as said f16. is j-10 more capable than su27? Overall - no. But in a dogfight it probably does have the upper hand.

"If they think China can catch up in engine, radar, and avionics technology in less than a decade to match the f-22 let them."

Nope. I don't think china can match f22 today. radar and other avionics tech is some 10 years behind while engine tech might be even 15 years or more behind the US.

"If they think cheap labor can get them cheap advanced fighters, let them."

if by cheap labor one means cheapest available in the country - then i say thats impossible. If it's as expensive as US one in relative terms (while still being cheaper in absolute terms) then i do say - such labor can produce cheapER advanced fighters. On same tech level - what US may produce for 150 million, china can produce for 75 million. If we're talking about tech advantage US enjoys - then china needs to invest additional money and time to produce same level tech.

"If they think that they can take on 4+ US carriers at once, let them."

I don't believe china can do that. It can take on two at once, max. Maybe three if its willing to lose pretty much all its fleet and air force.

"If they think they have the same level of missile saturation ability as the soviets did in the hieght of their power let them."

I do believe they can have a higher level of missile saturation, as long as the target is within some 1000-1500 km from china's coast.

To get more on topic, sort of. I toyed with the idea of comparing the vietnam US losses too but decided against it as it was a different kind of war, where a majority of losses for the US were due to combat air support missions. Here there would be no such missions.

akinkhoo

02-22-2006, 11:01 AM

my bet is that the US can't domanace even half the sky of china in under for 2 weeks. one has to consider the actual number of planes US can deploy into the theater. there is no way US could bring its the full power to bare.

also the turnaround time is longer since there is no airbase near china that is safe from a saturated cruise missile attack which china is capable of mounting in the 1st couple of days of combat. this means the planes will have less time fighting and rearming, reducing the combat value of each plane during the critical 1st week.

china also has a habit of stationing planes in small numbers in hundreds of airfield. this makes the process of taking out the airforce completely a very diffcult task. this may cause logistical problems on china side and result in drop in effectiveness in a week as prestocked supplies runs low.

i see US losing half of the planes it brought to the theater, china losing almost all it planes. but it will cost the US alot more than china; afterall, most chinese division are armed with near retiring jet fighter only while us will be bringing in all the expensive stuff...

petty officer1

02-22-2006, 11:10 AM

KYli

02-22-2006, 01:09 PM

adeptitus

02-22-2006, 01:30 PM

The other point, I will come back to is that I do not remember the Iraqi Airforce doing anything in 1990. Hardly any planes even scrambled for combat missions, whilst some planes fled straight to Iran.

At start of Desert Storm (Jan 17, 1991), the Iraqi AF made some 235 sorties/day. After a week of bombing (Jan 23), only 5 Iraqi air bases remained functional and the daily sorties was reduced to 40. We know that on Jan 24th a Saudi F-15 pilot shot down 2 Iraqi Mirage F-1's carrying Exocet missiles in an attempt to attack USN ships, so we can say that even after being severely bombed the Iraqi AF was still capable to mount offensive operations. But by Jan 26, the Iraqi AF had started sending its aircraft to Iran for safety.

It's also claimed that out of 10 F/A-18's lost in Desert Storm, 1 was shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25PD. The USAF AWACS operator failed to warn the F/A-18 pilot that the MiG was on its tail and got shot down.

The reasons are you did not include the full extended of chinese capability being the civilian or military. US could destroy every military airfeild, but how about the hundreds of civilian airfield(Chinese Air force use a lot of civilian airbase as alternative). Even if US could take out all of them, how long and how much cruise missiles, aircraftes needed. Also China will try to repair them, do US have the prolong firepower to sustain the bombing.

Depending on the intent of the operation, that may be unnecessary if the goal is to simply hurt the PRC economically and militarily. If you're trying to prevent someone from reaching the top of the pyramid, you don't need to beat him senseless, you only need to trip him and make him tumble down the side.

KYli

02-22-2006, 01:32 PM

I think this conflict is highly, highly unlikely to happen in the near futrue.
People can't just take in the military section to study.
there is political, economical and human means that wouldn't allow this to happen.
Agreed.

Yes, China have improved in the past 10 years, BUT! most it's officer is not very highly educated (getting better now). most are from farm land and poor family. rich and educated kids those day probabily only want to make money, instead to join PLA.
And not to mention today, training officers cheat on monthly training report to the upper officers. There is also alot corruption in the higher officers.
I agreed, but we don't know how it will affect the PLA ability to fight. Corruption might weaken the force, but chinese do tends to fight hard to defend their country in her prolong history.

PLA today is getting better in educationg and tech, but moral and old time communist fighting spirit have droped :(

Agreed.

Some time I like to belive china can defence it self, but just face the truth, when american attack, it will be a very hard time.

If US ever attack China, China will definite have a hard time. You are talking about the world most powerful nation attacking you.

I also think the best way to improve the PLA, is for the PLA to loss a small war and realize the problems and improve those problem, like a awake for the people.
Bad idea, if the PLA suffered a defeat, not only CCP may have problem to control China. But it may caused internal unrest, there would be too much to lost. China only needed to participate in some low intensity conflict or excercise to gain acknowlege and find out their weakness.