nothing beats a tank on the ground.
China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
nothing beats a tank on the ground.
Maybe an A-10, while the C-130 makes an excellent gunship, I doubt that any of the large heavy lift aircraft will ever be armed, I actually hate to see the newer 130 gun-ships with wing mounted rockets, as it will likely make all 130s more vulnerable, and there is little cover for those big turbo-props singing their song, although I am sure the six blades are much quieter than the old four bladed props with supersonic tips. What airlift does is open up your options, you have the ability to move lots of troops and equipment and put them on the ground in a very short span of time, depending on the size of your fleet, even helicopter gunships, which may actually trump a tank, so, with all the cards on the table, you can play the hand you want, not something dictated by equipment that is somewhere else. brat
well india doesn;t have any of that do they.
One assumption is that the armor would have some sort of aircover or non of this discussion is valid.
MwRYum
Major
Gunships like the AC-130 is very exclusive kind of thing, only for those who can own the skies and the other side don't have effective all-weather AA capability, on top of that have sufficient air-lift platforms to spare for such specialized mission. That's why India or China don't have something like that, and in the case of China we all know their air lifting capability is far understrength as it is.
In sparsely populated land with insecure lines of communication over hundreds or thousands of kilometers it might make sense to have some tanks for local defense of important places like airbases or mining operations but it doesn't make sense to try to occupy or defend the grazing for yaks. In Tibet some hypothetical attacker would see his tanks decimated by Second Artillery even if the weather would hinder attacks by PLAAF.
Sortie rates and current gear would not permit PLAAF to mount anything other than air superiority missions over that region and may be some key tactical strikes on nodes. CAS basically is a luxury.
in any case PLA Army does not trust PLAAF can do anything other then put a leaky umbrella against a competent enemy over their logistic base. And that is if PLAAF perform their mission. PLA would have to provide all of its own tactical fire power. that means alot of rockets and tube artillery.
on 2nd Artillery tactical strikes. those would be reserved for key nodes in enemy's C&C and logistics. not on enemy formations.
as for tank occupying grazing lands. no its not WWI , armor groups are used for deal with mobile enemy ground units as a sword and shield.
" One assumption is that the armor would have some sort of aircover or non of this discussion is valid. "
brigade sized mobile force would also have integrated air defense battalions to put some cover. in any case, PLA has used tanks in Aksai Chin and it would likely to use it again in any future eventualities.
Rowing_Ming
New Member
Airlift capabilities isn't only about being able to transport troops and equipment from point A to B, but also be able to support logistically such troop deployment.
Currently, China is limited in her heavy lifting capabilities, and I don't really don't believe that heavy brigade are able to be moved supported that way. MBT, IFV and artillery required a lot of supply, spare parts and maintenance, so does the infantry and and other supports services (such as Engineer, Health and Medical branch, etc).
For comparison purpose, Task Force 1-13, which will be the high readiness battlegroup of the Canadian Forces from July 2013 to July 2014, is only made of 1 mechanized infantry battalion (LAV III), 1 squadron of Leopard 2 (18 tanks), 1 squadron of Coyote Recon Vehicle (20 Coyote), 2 artillery battery (12 guns) and 1 company of combat engineer as combat element. By adding all the support services (health, logistics, etc), the whole task force is around 2500 men and women. But for this TF to be deployed and supported, it will take us most of our transport fleet of 2 CC-150 (Airbus 310), 4 CC-177 Globemaster, 17 CC-130J Super Hercules and 13 CC-130E/H Hercules for the whole length of the deployment (our high readiness TF is designed to be debloyable and supportable by air). Considering what China has for airlifting capabilities, I don't believe that she can move and support more than 10 000 men...
Currently, China is limited in her heavy lifting capabilities, and I don't really don't believe that heavy brigade are able to be moved supported that way. MBT, IFV and artillery required a lot of supply, spare parts and maintenance, so does the infantry and and other supports services (such as Engineer, Health and Medical branch, etc).
For comparison purpose, Task Force 1-13, which will be the high readiness battlegroup of the Canadian Forces from July 2013 to July 2014, is only made of 1 mechanized infantry battalion (LAV III), 1 squadron of Leopard 2 (18 tanks), 1 squadron of Coyote Recon Vehicle (20 Coyote), 2 artillery battery (12 guns) and 1 company of combat engineer as combat element. By adding all the support services (health, logistics, etc), the whole task force is around 2500 men and women. But for this TF to be deployed and supported, it will take us most of our transport fleet of 2 CC-150 (Airbus 310), 4 CC-177 Globemaster, 17 CC-130J Super Hercules and 13 CC-130E/H Hercules for the whole length of the deployment (our high readiness TF is designed to be debloyable and supportable by air). Considering what China has for airlifting capabilities, I don't believe that she can move and support more than 10 000 men...
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asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Yes but you missed one important aspect of all of this, distance
Being able to establish a "sky bridge" is the critical part, China as a pretty good transport fleet and can lift a lot of men and equipment but not very far
For range they need Y-20 and IL-76 for short hops they have a vast fleet of Y-7 and Y-8 plus Boeing airliners which they use also that's up to 80 aircraft
For for a air expeditionary force they need a lift of 50+ tons over many thousand kms
Having said that the China is working on lifting it's entire 15th airborne corps, thats 3 entire divisions of around 35,000 men, these special operations units are designed to be the fast mobile units for rapid reaction, currently they could mobilise 2 divisions within 48 hours if pushed for deployment within China