in addition to warships , the plaaf has to come to the region with j-20s , j-16s and support aircraft to provide constant air cover to the surface warships escorting chinese vessels
2026 Iran War Strategy and Analysis
- Thread starter plawolf
- Start date
Expensive vs cheap is a very simple model, the real question is: expensive in what currency, and who are you paying?
The only real limitation is rail is capacity, not the train but the loading / unloading facility, all else are irrelevant for an industrial superpower
Djibouti is an almost trivially easy target for the US to take out if it comes to that.
situations like these is when you wish you had a large ssn force , probably the last time china will be vulnerable in the undersea domain during a crisis like this , will be fixed by this time next decade
The fact you said Fujian that is still ioc and a training air wing makes no sense at all... shows that your idea isn't the brightest
How did you even count to 4 super carrier? It is Nimitz class carriers, the OG Nimitz super carrier is getting decommissioned.
It is Bush transiting in Med, Lincoln off Oman and Ford in Italy mostly likely returning to Norfolk.
The only LHA is tripoli off Diego Garcia.
I call any carrier 100.000+ tonns as "super carrier".
No, the OG Nimitz just got life extention until next year and it is still active, now on its way against Iran.
"After repairs, the USS Gerald R. Ford is back to operational status in the Eastern Mediterranean".
So, Iran is about to get smoked from next week, when all 4 "super" carriers are within striking range. The ceasefire ends in 8 days from now, on 21st of April.
USS Boxer departed from Hawaii 5 days ago, so it will be south of Oman by the next week.
Next week, it's smoke time: Lincoln + Ford + Bush + Nimitz + Tripoli + Boxer and at least 15 Arleigh Burkes + bombers, etc.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Russia has a large SSN force, did it help stop their tankers getting pirated by the Americans?
SSNs are largely ineffective to counter blockade unless you skip a whole bunch of steps and go straight to WWIII.
The most effective assets for counter blockade is exactly the fleet China has built and is rapidly expanding - a well balanced surface ship dominated blue water fleet centred around carriers with SSN support.
But sending warships or fleets to run a blockade runs the massive risk of kicking off a massive point-blank firefight that will see both sides badly mauled.
As I have pointed out before, there are plenty of better cards for China to play to counter this instead of risking having a random shooting war with the USN half way around the world.
My guy, to send 1 train (65 cars), or ~30000 barrels of crude oil over the 10000km from Iran to China, the locomotives would consume approximately 5000 BOE of diesel fuel. 1 VLCC trip = 3500 BOE of diesel/bunker for 2 million barrels. Even if you paid for this in yuan its still *checks notes* 5x more expensive to ship oil by rail.
If capacity is the real limitation, and capacity presumably requires infrastructure which presumably is not free ---> rail is costly?
Are you under the impression transportation cost is a large part of oil price, or distance doesn't matter?
In normal times it cost around $5 per barrel to ship by tanker from ME to China and $14 from western Russia going by Suez, and right now conflict tanker rate from ME to China is also $14.
Rail rate from from Canada to Gulf of Mexico is $33 per barrel, that's about the same distance as Iran to China, then keep in mind this is with American freight rate and Canada's oil price.
Do you think an extra $20 per barrel matters a single iota to China when it's paid in RMB and before Iran discount?
Infact with total oil blockage everywhere else, China can make bank just by reselling oil to other countries facing shortage.
As I said, the only thing that matters is capacity. This is the real world, money is fictional, only real things matters.
Edmonton/Hardisty to Mexico is *checks notes* largely flat plains whereas Iran to China is *checks note* highly mountainous. Let alone different rail width. No difference at all. For all your talk about 'real things' you sure love to ignore the difference in gradient of track and geography.
Meanwhile lets also stop all other traffic/cargo on the China-Europe railway since the capacity will be needed for oil. Exports of cars from Chongqing to Europe? Stop it. Solar panels - nah can't do it since the rail will be tied up with tanker cars.
There is no crude by rail from Iran to China for the same reason there is no 300km/hr HSR from Xining to Lhasa because it makes no sense in the real world.
For someone who claims to think about real things - you sure ignored the fact that 1/6th of oil carried will be consumed by the train itself. This is before we even talk about whether there is sufficient pipeline capacity from Xinjiang to the interior or whether there are sufficient refinery capacity in Western China to process, or if these refineries were tuned to process blends from Iran.
Last edited: