China's Defense/Military Breaking News Thread

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
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He is factually incorrect on number of VLS tubes in the PLAN. He claims 1696 VLS tubes which is about the same as just 054A + 052C alone, no 052D or 055. Meanwhile he overestimates USN by counting amphibs as carriers.

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus.

Another example of purposefully underestimating the PLAN. Unfortunately for him underestimations don't hurt the PLAN or actually reduce the VLS numbers.
 

Chilled_k6

Junior Member
Registered Member
The VLS tubes should be about 2700 currently for the PLAN doing my own quick calculation. Still quite a bit less than the USN 9000+, but VLS firepower aren't everything.

That War on the Rocks article mentions nations going to war because of perception of long term decline. How ironic that he does not seem to see that is the path the US is on, or is he trying to imply that China is the one in decline? Boasts about US superiority but then needs to keep up in arms race with China...?
 

SanWenYu

Senior Member
Registered Member
The VLS tubes should be about 2700 currently for the PLAN doing my own quick calculation. Still quite a bit less than the USN 9000+, but VLS firepower aren't everything.

That War on the Rocks article mentions nations going to war because of perception of long term decline. How ironic that he does not seem to see that is the path the US is on, or is he trying to imply that China is the one in decline? Boasts about US superiority but then needs to keep up in arms race with China...?
Schrodinger's China - a threat that has been collapsing since 1949.
 

Suetham

Senior Member
Registered Member
The VLS tubes should be about 2700 currently for the PLAN doing my own quick calculation. Still quite a bit less than the USN 9000+, but VLS firepower aren't everything.

That War on the Rocks article mentions nations going to war because of perception of long term decline. How ironic that he does not seem to see that is the path the US is on, or is he trying to imply that China is the one in decline? Boasts about US superiority but then needs to keep up in arms race with China...?
The US Navy VLS number must be between 10,000 units. As approximately 60% of the US Navy is headquartered in INDOPACOM, there are approximately 6,000 VLS units available to the US in the Pacific.

If you stated that the number of VLS for the PLAN should be at 2700 units, that would represent a little less than half of the number of VLS available to the Chinese, which makes the difference absurdly smaller. This assessment is true, because the US Navy will never place all ships in a single geographic area, they have the doctrine of fighting two wars at the same time, and the threat of Russia and Iran among others alone is a reason keep 40% of the remaining fleet in the rest of the world.

PLAN = 2700 VLS
US Navy = 6000 VLS

But yes. The number of everything does not represent everything.

As an example, the Tomahawk number is below 4000 units in the US Navy. And the number will drop more because various differential missiles are being introduced, even with the update of the older missiles (Tomahawk Block IV) and the introduction of the Anti-ship Tomahawk (Tomahawk Block V), the number will drop because a total below 1000 missiles will not will be upgraded (Tomahawk Block III) to more modern versions and will be taken out of service.

From the total of 4000 Tomahawk missiles, let's put that 60% is based on INDOPACOM (which I find this percentage difficult considering the whole global scenario like China, Russia, Iran…), that gives a total of 2400 Tomahawk.

Of this total, you can take at least 500 to 900 missiles that are in stock, the rest can be quickly deployed or it will take some time of a few days to be fully operational in the navy fleet. Well, disregarding restricted logistical aspects, let's place all 2400 operational missiles, this is a totally impossible thing, but to make the analysis easier I'll consider it.

Just to approach a valid comparison, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the authorization of the use of force by the US Congress was only given in October, therefore, the US had 5 months – from November to March – to carry out all the logistics to sustain the war, including withdrawing Tomahawk missiles from other commands to assign to CENTCOM, this is now impossible to do because the US has two world opponents in two different geographic areas to contain, and some other Middle East force deployment aimed at Iran.

Following the reasoning. The US had 5 months to prepare for war, pulling operational missiles and stockpiles elsewhere to carry out the war effort against Iraq, at the time it was a shadow of what it was in 1991 before the Gulf War. A total of 800 Tomahawk missiles were launched against Iraq, aimed at weakening the country's civil and military infrastructure, and performing a psychological effect known as “Shock and Awe”.

The war began in early March 2003, in April, more precisely from April 4th, 2003 and there are materials proving this, the US forces were asking for more Tomahawk missiles because that quantity present there was insufficient and look that the Iraq was no longer the power it was in the early 1990s, the logistical situation supporting the missile war there was so comical and ridiculous that Pentagon sources took it for granted to convert missiles that were equipped with nuclear warheads to conventional warheads in a way to support the war effort.

Now you imagine, a country that is much bigger than Iraq weakened in 2003, stronger militarily, stronger militarily, stronger numerically, stronger defensively, stronger offensively and stronger geopolitically would be defeated with 2,400 Tomahawk missiles.

Just as typical evidence of what happened at Shayrat base is used as a recent comparison of what was to come against a contingency in China, a base in Syria, Shayrat that had no consistent air defense was bombed with 59 Tomahawk missiles, and fewer 24 hours later, the base was fully operational.

This is just a comparison that American firepower may not contain China or even have the effect of paralyzing the Chinese war effort.

Obviously, the strength of the Americans cannot be overlooked.

They are:

400 Minutemans III with 800 W78 and W87 ballistic nuclear warheads.
240 Trident II missiles with 1600 ballistic warheads W76 and W88 and
540 AGM-86B nuclear cruise missiles
About 1500 B-61 and B-83 nuclear bombs
-4000 Tomahawks launched by ships and submarines
3000 cruise missiles launched from the air (target is 10,000 by 2026)
250,000 kit for JDAM pumps
250,000 kits for Paveway pumps.
-120 LASM anti-ship

The missiles that can be acquired in the medium term (2025). Are they:
200 LASM
450 Tomahawks Block V MST
190 NSM
700 SM-6
Total of 1540 missiles with anti-ship capability.

If added to about 300 Harpoons and about 1000 to 1500 SLAM-ER, you have the amount between 2540 to 3040 AShM.

Added to the approximately 1500 Mk-48 torpedoes and there are between 4000 and 4500 anti-ship weapons.

And even with long-range anti-ship capability, it has the following missiles available to Americans:

JSOW C-1
storm breaker
HARM
AARGM

The following missiles with anti-ship capability are still in the process of development:

AARGM-ER – 2023
SM-6 Block IB – 2023/24
PrSM Spiral One – 2025
 
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ecaedus

New Member
Registered Member
If added to about 300 Harpoons and about 1000 to 1500 SLAM-ER, you have the amount between 2540 to 3040 AShM.

Added to the approximately 1500 Mk-48 torpedoes and there are between 4000 and 4500 anti-ship weapons.

and going by the 60% rule, ~2700 anti ship weapons are more than enough to wipe out the entire PLAN, from carries to missile boats. which means if PLAN wants to "break free" of the 1st island chain, it needs to at least match or exceed this number.
 
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