China's war economy production capacity.

ohan_qwe

Junior Member
If China wanted to win a war by numbers, how much do you estimate that China could produce per year of the following.

Jet engines / fighters / drones
Missiles
Ships

Which systems have importing or producing bottleneck and which could be scaled as long as there are workers and factories available?

China produces half the world's steel or ten times the US production. Could this be directly translated into ship production or do modern ships have other bottlenecks?

It would be interesting to know how many loitering cruise missiles and drones China could produce. Would they be so many that the enemy couldn't shoot half of them down even with air supremacy as they will run out of AA-missiles.

Is it unrealistic to think that China could produce thousands of CJ-10 cruise missiles every month if they wanted.
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Those questions are way too hard to answer. They require projections a few years into the future, under various unknown conditions - resulting in countless variables to guesstimate.

I can say this, though: if there's a cold war arms race, without direct war damage and without sea lane blockages, without much of the economy tanking due to the war, China could ramp up its production by a very big margin.

But it'd take some years. To teach whole new generation of engineers and other workers, to expand the production facilities, to set up the whole production chains that can raise the production numbers by an order of magnitude.

Eventually, though, I do believe a 1000 fighter jets per year would be possible. As well as over 10 thousand cruise missiles of various kind per year. And something like 15+ capital combat ships/subs per year. And a new carrier every two years.

All that should be doable without making a huge dent to the economy. Certainly with less impact than what the US war effort made on the US industrial base back in the 1940s.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
I think this is very unlikely to happen.

We are going to see a vast increase in the size of China's nuclear arsenal in the next 2 years. For example there are 230 nuclear missile silos currently under construction.

This has 2 main effects.

1. Instead of a minimal nuclear deterrence posture, China could have thousands of nuclear warheads able to reach the continental USA. It makes the idea of a conventional US-China unacceptable, like how the US and Russia both understand they cannot get into a conventional war with each other.

2. It also means China doesn't have to undertake as much of a military buildup, because they can discount the idea of US using significant military force against China
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
I think this is very unlikely to happen.

We are going to see a vast increase in the size of China's nuclear arsenal in the next 2 years. For example there are 230 nuclear missile silos currently under construction.

This has 2 main effects.

1. Instead of a minimal nuclear deterrence posture, China could have thousands of nuclear warheads able to reach the continental USA. It makes the idea of a conventional US-China unacceptable, like how the US and Russia both understand they cannot get into a conventional war with each other.

2. It also means China doesn't have to undertake as much of a military buildup, because they can discount the idea of US using significant military force against China

yeahhh, wondering why China didin't do that 20 yrs ago ... technically and resources wise, were not a problem even 20 yrs ago
 

KampfAlwin

Junior Member
Registered Member
I remember reading up about how the Soviets sold dumbed down versions of their military equipment(tanks, jets etc) to allied nations. It was partly meant to allow practice manufacturing a far cheaper and inferior variant of their equipment in order to churn out larger numbers of it in the event of a war.
Would China go down that route if it comes to it?
 

escobar

Brigadier
There wasn't any need 20 years ago. China-US relations we're ok back then.

But now there is strategic competition in every realm, plus the Taiwan question
Does that mean they will destroy those missile the day relation with US became Ok again?
Always better to have those silos missile well before you enter strategic competition with US.
They didn't have effective EW system that why is they don't do it decade ago.
 

han1289

Junior Member
Registered Member
Does that mean they will destroy those missile the day relation with US became Ok again?
Always better to have those silos missile well before you enter strategic competition with US.
They didn't have effective EW system that why is they don't do it decade ago.
I doubt those missiles will ever be destroyed; the mentality of the Chinese leadership has changed, for the better. America is now seen as a long term adversary and not a partner. This is a civilizational clash.

For wartime production, refer to America’s industrial transformation when they formally joined ww2 and established the War Production Board. Car factories turned into tank factories, nail factories made bullet cartridges, etc. Literally every non-essential assembly line in the country was making weapons.

This is what truly scares Americans, because they know with China’s current industrial capacity, number of shipyards, factories etc. a conventional war of attrition isn’t in their favor.
 

nlalyst

Junior Member
Registered Member
If China wanted to win a war by numbers, how much do you estimate that China could produce per year of the following.

Jet engines / fighters / drones
Missiles
Ships

Which systems have importing or producing bottleneck and which could be scaled as long as there are workers and factories available?

China produces half the world's steel or ten times the US production. Could this be directly translated into ship production or do modern ships have other bottlenecks?

It would be interesting to know how many loitering cruise missiles and drones China could produce. Would they be so many that the enemy couldn't shoot half of them down even with air supremacy as they will run out of AA-missiles.

Is it unrealistic to think that China could produce thousands of CJ-10 cruise missiles every month if they wanted.
China could certainly outproduce the US by several multiples in everything but aircraft, but the question is would modern war between superpowers ever reach a point where attrition matters?

How many ships could each side produce if all their major shipyards and majority of their skilled workforce are completely obliterated in the first week of war?
 

escobar

Brigadier
I doubt those missiles will ever be destroyed; the mentality of the Chinese leadership has changed, for the better. America is now seen as a long term adversary and not a partner. This is a civilizational clash.

For wartime production, refer to America’s industrial transformation when they formally joined ww2 and established the War Production Board. Car factories turned into tank factories, nail factories made bullet cartridges, etc. Literally every non-essential assembly line in the country was making weapons.

This is what truly scares Americans, because they know with China’s current industrial capacity, number of shipyards, factories etc. a conventional war of attrition isn’t in their favor.
It was a rhetorical question. If the Chinese leadership really believed they were "true partner" they are sightless
 
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