China's SCS Strategy Thread
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Equation
Lieutenant General
China Has a Plan to Find the Navy's Submarines Deep in the Pacific
January 29, 2018
Across vast stretches of the ocean, China is building a network of underwater sensors to detect submarines and strengthen its navy as the nation projects power further abroad.
The underwater surveillance network, which has already been deployed, uses a combination of buoys, unmanned submersibles, ships and satellites to gather data on the world’s waterways. The sensors seem innocuous, measuring water temperature, salinity, currents and oxygen levels, but this scientific data is critical for underwater military operations.
Submarines rely on sonar to discover, track, and attack targets, but the temperature and salinity of water determines how fast and in which direction sound waves travel. These factors must be taken into account when determining the position of enemy vessels as well as when navigating treacherous areas.
For decades, the U.S. Navy has been gathering this type of data around the world’s oceans, and in recent years has turned to unmanned gliders. In 2016 shortly after Trump was elected, China a U.S. glider operating in international waters in the South China Sea, sparking an international incident.
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With the Trump administration growing more confrontational and the U.S. Navy its patrols in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, China has sought to rapidly improve its deep-sea data collection abilities.
Last year, China successfully a network of twelve underwater gliders that can travel for a month at a time. But unlike American gliders, the Chinese version is capable of transmitting data back in real-time. China has also set the record for the and longest dives with its underwater gliders.
“The military can use the temperature and salt-level data from the deep to build a complete, precise model of the physical ocean,” Yu Jiancheng, the lead scientist on China’s glider project.
“The model will help submarines to avoid dangerous areas and predict the occurrence of deathtrap currents, which might jeopardize a naval operation.”
In addition to gliders, China has also a communications network more than 1,300 feet below the surface of the western Pacific. The deep-sea sensors are continuously feeding data to satellites via solar-powered buoys. The collected information is then transmitted to three intelligence centers where it is analyzed.
In the event that Chinese submarines must stay hidden and cannot surface to receive data, they have been equipped with powerful algorithms that can predict water conditions based on the limited information collected from a vessel’s sensors.
The Chinese sensor network stretches from the first island chain to the east coast of Africa across the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. This area largely falls under trading routes that China hopes to dramatically expand with its Belt and Road Initiative.
But more than just protecting its trade interests, China’s increased maritime activity is aimed at deterring the U.S. Navy.
Earlier this month, China revealed that it has two advanced acoustic sensors in the deep ocean near Guam, the largest U.S. military base in the Western Pacific. In addition to scientific research, the powerful acoustic sensors can detect the movement of submarines in the South China Sea and could even intercept communications.
According to James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, this sensor network is a sign of China’s growing might as a nation.
“China has become a great power and is acting like one,” Lewis the South China Morning Post. “All great powers put sensor arrays at the bottom of the ocean for anti-submarine warfare.”
Jura The idiot
General
LOL The National Interest quoting The SCMP
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
China reportedly deployed at least 7 Y-7 military transport aircrafts to Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
ALERT: An Y-7 transport aircraft actually landed on Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea on Dec 27 but the picture of SEVEN Y-7s was faked
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
This ignorant reporter does not know that the hangar in SCS is climate control and enclosed!
PLA scrambles Su-35s, J-20s to S China Sea as US Navy sails in
Beijing has shifted its focus to concentrate on responding to Washington's presence in the area
Beijing has responded to the US Navy’s ramped-up presence in the South China Sea – an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson has been scheduled to call at Vietnamese ports next month – with squadrons of advanced fighters including Su-35s and J-20s that will soon start patrolling the 3.5-million-square-kilometer sea.
Further incidents involving US and Chinese forces appear inevitable after the China News Service revealed that the US guided-missile destroyer Hopper came within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island) last month, and was intercepted by the Chinese missile destroyer Huangshan. CNS said the US warship steered away from the area after a brief standoff.
Similar encounters in the air are set to become frequent as well, as the People’s Liberation Army has dispatched an unconfirmed number of Su-35 multirole fighters to the sea for joint combat cruise missions.
This is “a pragmatic action for the air force to fulfill its mission in the new era and conduct combat training exercises” above the South China Sea, said a statement by the PLA Air Force on its Weibo social media account.
It is also rumored that several J-20s already in service with the PLAAF will fly south to join Russian-made counterparts to test the 4.5th generation fighter’s operational reliability.
China’s indigenous 4.5th-generation J-20 stealth fighter. Photo: PLA Daily
The deployment showed that pilot training for new jets was surprisingly fast, said a Chinese military commentator.
“We just received a group of jets from Russia and inaugurated the J-20 last year, and now we can put them into a real combat mission in the South China Sea,” Xu Guangyu, senior adviser to the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, was quoted as saying by the Global Times.
China reportedly bought 24 Su-35 fighter jets for US$2 billion from Russia in 2015, and Russia completed delivery of the planes by the end of last year.
“The appearance of advanced PLA fighter jets capable of attacking surface combat vessels in this region is sort of a reaction to the provocation by the US,” Xu said.
These aircraft can easily be stationed or serviced on several airstrips and bases created via dredging sand and shoals in the vast sea, after Beijing’s frenzied island-building has created a host of “unsinkable aircraft carriers” in the sea.
Yet some observers have suggested that J-20s are not likely to have a very formidable presence above the South China Sea. Besides the current production bottlenecks, the high temperatures, humidity and brine corrosion there will render the J-20’s stealth coating ineffective after prolonged exposure to such an environment.
They argue that the J-20 is not designed for sea patrols but for air superiority above land held by an enemy.
PLA scrambles Su-35s, J-20s to S China Sea as US Navy sails in
Beijing has shifted its focus to concentrate on responding to Washington's presence in the area
Beijing has responded to the US Navy’s ramped-up presence in the South China Sea – an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson has been scheduled to call at Vietnamese ports next month – with squadrons of advanced fighters including Su-35s and J-20s that will soon start patrolling the 3.5-million-square-kilometer sea.
Further incidents involving US and Chinese forces appear inevitable after the China News Service revealed that the US guided-missile destroyer Hopper came within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island) last month, and was intercepted by the Chinese missile destroyer Huangshan. CNS said the US warship steered away from the area after a brief standoff.
Similar encounters in the air are set to become frequent as well, as the People’s Liberation Army has dispatched an unconfirmed number of Su-35 multirole fighters to the sea for joint combat cruise missions.
This is “a pragmatic action for the air force to fulfill its mission in the new era and conduct combat training exercises” above the South China Sea, said a statement by the PLA Air Force on its Weibo social media account.
It is also rumored that several J-20s already in service with the PLAAF will fly south to join Russian-made counterparts to test the 4.5th generation fighter’s operational reliability.
China’s indigenous 4.5th-generation J-20 stealth fighter. Photo: PLA Daily
The deployment showed that pilot training for new jets was surprisingly fast, said a Chinese military commentator.
“We just received a group of jets from Russia and inaugurated the J-20 last year, and now we can put them into a real combat mission in the South China Sea,” Xu Guangyu, senior adviser to the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, was quoted as saying by the Global Times.
China reportedly bought 24 Su-35 fighter jets for US$2 billion from Russia in 2015, and Russia completed delivery of the planes by the end of last year.
“The appearance of advanced PLA fighter jets capable of attacking surface combat vessels in this region is sort of a reaction to the provocation by the US,” Xu said.
These aircraft can easily be stationed or serviced on several airstrips and bases created via dredging sand and shoals in the vast sea, after Beijing’s frenzied island-building has created a host of “unsinkable aircraft carriers” in the sea.
Yet some observers have suggested that J-20s are not likely to have a very formidable presence above the South China Sea. Besides the current production bottlenecks, the high temperatures, humidity and brine corrosion there will render the J-20’s stealth coating ineffective after prolonged exposure to such an environment.
They argue that the J-20 is not designed for sea patrols but for air superiority above land held by an enemy.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Here is the video
Jura The idiot
General
Williamson wags limp finger at China
UK trying to grab attention with South China Sea mission, says Chinese state-owned newspaper
only now noticed through Twitter, then through
UK trying to grab attention with South China Sea mission, says Chinese state-owned newspaper
- Britain's Defence Ministry is trying to justify its existence and grab attention with a planned mission by a British warship to the disputed South China Sea next month, a Chinese newspaper said on Wednesday.
- "If not provocation, the Royal Navy should behave modestly when passing through the South China Sea," it said, calling for British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson to state the purpose of the mission clearly.
- British officials first flagged the voyage six months ago and the journey is likely to stoke tensions with China.