In all honesty the Iran War already paints a pretty clear picture on the surplus force capacity of US military power projection against a regional power, let alone against a peer-level opponent in a total-war scenario where every single usable asset is committed and expended. Even at current force dispositions China has developed the critical elements necessary for a conflict against the US/JP/SK forces even before NK/Russian involvement is factored in (and has been committing the necessary resources to a more effective degree than either the Russians or Iranians had for a smaller percentage of overall spending), so if the US and its vassals were to attempt an first strike it would only end in the destruction of the US and its global political order. As I've said before, this will become increasingly clear in the next 2 years.
Future PLAN orbat discussion
- Thread starter kwaigonegin
- Start date
How should China's military buildup be increased?
In terms of 5th Gen fighters, they're still ramping up, and my guess is that they'll stabilise to 160-200 per year.
We're looking at the Chinese military buying 5th gen aircraft at rate which is 2-3x greater than the US.
In terms of the Navy, Chinese naval construction is roughly at twice the US rate in most categories.
And where Chinese procurement lags (in submarines and aircraft carriers), it is because there aren't mature designs ready yet for mass production.
But we can see the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is under construction, and 3 new nuclear-powered attack submarines launched this year, which are the first-in-class units.
From what we see in Israel, the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors had a 80-90% interception rate.
But the issue is that Israel simply didn't have enough to intercept a larger number of lower cost ballistic/hypersonic missiles.
Well, we can see China is pursuing large nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, as well as drone carriers based on the Type-076 sized hulls.
That doesn't change how the US hypersonic missiles face an unfavourable cost-exchange ratio, so the Chinese response is to continue building more defensive missiles to shoot down those incoming US hypersonic missiles - whether they have existing 13kg warheads or a proper antiship warhead.
I can see a DF-26 as a mission kill on an aircraft carrier, but I severely doubt a single missile will sink a carrier.
Also, if you have enough naval aviation assets, you can control the airspace and prevent the aircraft carriers being targeted in the first place.
If they do have to divert around opposition or suffer an mechanical/engine failure for example.
2 points here.
Theoretically, US bombers and tankers (based in Alaska) wouldn't need to land to launch missiles at mainland China.
Japan being obliterated doesn't mean that the US won't continue fighting.
Engineering fuel bumps on a stealth bomber is not an easy task. And bombers are already at the limit of what fuel/payload they can take off with. They aren't fighter jets which potentially have a lot of spare power.
Run the numbers on reducing internal payload compared to the internal fuel tanks on a B-21.
Say 5 tonnes of extra fuel on a existing ~50tonne fuel capacity doesn't get you much extra range.
It doesn't work out
Because Hawaii would inevitably be used to launch attacks on mainland China,
You proposed using missiles against Hawaii/Alaska, rather than aircraft carriers.
I agree that this would be part of a combined attack, but my point is that there aren't enough missiles for a sustained campaign.
Just look up the some of the threads on Chinese missile numbers.
I feel you're operating off "vibes" that missiles are always better than aircraft carriers, rather than looking at the technical/operational feasibility and the accompanying cost-exchange ratios to determine whether something should be pursued.
If you're advocating a missile strategy over carriers, shouldn't you have an idea of how many DF-26 missiles there are, and your own thoughts on how they could be used?
I'm saying that operating distances between China and the 3IC are very far and this limits the effectiveness/volume of attacks. But that is not to say attacks won't happen.
Submarines and stealth bombers would face limited payloads and missile inventory limits given the distances involved.
I'm looking at sustained effects
It's a notional fleet structure.
And just because the current US military structure is unsustainable for the US, doesn't mean it is unsustainable for China.
For one thing, I doubt the Chinese military will be flogging its aircraft carriers on presence missions or conducting pointless and counterproductive imperialistic wars with carriers deployed for 12 months. That imposes significant cost and readiness penalties.
In addition, consider that the US Navy and US Air Force have similar budgets. But from a strategic perspective, I think China would only need an Air Force some 50% larger than the USA, which would still easily dominate the 1st Island Chain.
So roughly speaking, a Chinese Air Force at 1.5x and a Chinese Navy at 2x would cost about ~1.6x extra
In the context of today's Chinese economy being 2x twice the size of the USA, and the continuing growth differential in favour of China, that level of military spending looks sustainable.
What shores are you referring to? Alaska and Hawaii are isolated bases, far from CONUS.
Now, the effectiveness of submarines can be debated.
But my guess is that with specialised ASW USVs (such as the notional 1000tonne semi-submersible, equipped with sonars), the effectiveness of submarines is greatly reduced. I'm assuming that it has minimal or no crew and that the cost is in the $100 Mn ballpark, which means there are a lot of them and you can have them aggressively prosecute suspected submarine contacts with low-frequency sonar.
But let's say nuclear-powered attack submarines are as effective as you imagine. Well, a notional Chinese submarine force could be twice the size (120+ modern attack submarines). There would be more than enough submarines to isolate Alaska and Hawaii from seaborne resupply as well as overwhelm the US surface fleet and US submarine fleet. In such a scenario, bases in Hawaii and Alaska are blockaded and become ineffective, and therefore easy to attack.
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I agree with lots of your points regarding the fact that China needs to have what you said in order to challenge Alaska and Hawaii. I also agree with Michael90 and his reflections.
As we can see, the Empire has layed out their plans towards 2056.
PRC (China) simply needs to build whatever is needed to smoke the fvck out of what Imperial Navy wants to have towards or by 2056 in their plans that they layed out last month in a very detailed way.
China needs to be strong enough for the Empire to not even think of firing any conventional missiles towards the mainland and the tolerance from Chinese side should be zero when to comes to this topic. The same way the Empire would not tolerate Chinese conventional missiles hitting CONUS, then China should not tolerate any conventional missile on the mainland. Which means, the Pacific area, including islands, territories and the sea is the where "everything" goes.
China needs to have enough assets not only to smoke Guam, but actually land forces there and take the whole thing. This may be a scenario well into 2040s and 2050s, but nonetheless, this should be the "vision" from Chinese side - to bring the fight farther away from the Chinese mainland.
By 2040s, one will have most probably humanoid-size battle robots to invade any area theoretically, and China could always pay DPRK forces to be first in line for any landing or defence. The U.S. has their loyal ones, well, China has theirs as well.
Either way, China cannot allow itself to be even close to any resemblance of the "Russia / Ukraine" or "Iran scenario". Russia and Iran are taking too many hits, which should be unacceptable for China to accept, since China is in far stronger position, which means China should build enough forces to decimate everything several times over.
As Michael90 pointed out, China is still not producing enough compared to what U.S. has. Furthermore, the U.S. seems looking into forcing SK or Japan to build ships for U.S. Imperial Navy, which pretty much shows how the U.S. is very creative when it comes to neutralizing their troubled, domestic ship building. The U.S. will just force others to build ships for them. Hence, why one should never underestimate the Empire.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Against hypersonic missiles?? Iran has only used very few of them. Where did you get that number?
They're building a couple of them; I don't know about large numbers but surely not 22 full carriers. The 076 is something I have more support towards because the personel requirment is much lower as is the cost.
LMFAO, you wanna see an unfavorable cost-exchange ratio? Bet $30B carriers against hypersonic ASBMs.
A direct hit should penetrate the hull; it's a warhead going down at at least mach 10.
That's ridiculous; that's a loop saying you need carriers to project power onto the enemy mainland but you need to already control the airspace over the enemy mainland for carriers to safely operate.
Stealth to get through the opposition and mechanical failures rarely reduce range; they require closeby landing, which is irrelevant to enemy carriers at sea.
That's a point against your own point of using carriers to disrupt their tankers.
The farther away the US base, the more difficult it is for them. If all their bases in the first and second island chain are destroyed, they're just bullshitting by using the 3rd island chain. They will be lessa nd less effective.
Do you know what you're talking about at all? Why could you not increase fuel payload by reducing weapons payload on any aircraft? Why do you think bombers already operate at max load?
You're looking for a little extra leeway when the range without leeway is already sufficient. They're not looking to double or triple distance.
How are they gonna use it? Man, why don't you just say California will be used? Why don't we just hit it with submarine-launched missiles? How many aircraft can you fit on a carrier? How many can they fit on Hawaii? Don't be stupid.
Then produce more missiles. There sure as hell won't be enough aircraft you can fit on a boat to overwhelm the aircraft they can fit on Hawaii.
You're operating off "vibes" that to beat the US, we copy them but build more when they're bankrupting themselves. Missiles don't have people in them; missiles cause massive damage and are cheaper to produce. Carriers and planes only exist to deliver missiles. In other words, if people can buy holes, they wouldn't buy drills. More advanced missiles are the answer to everything.
You think that's information someone non-PLA can know?
So attack them back with missiles. If we took what they had and defeated them on 1IC and 2IC, what's to fear from the much reduced capacity of the 3IC?
And carriers face limited survivability when you get them into fighter-range of the US mainland.
What does that mean to this conversation?
1. Not sustainable means that it's a huge drain; just because you can afford something doesn't mean it's the right option for you.
2. It is not suitable for fighting peer-enemies; it was made to bully smaller weaker countries. We don't need that.
And not doing so imposes significant training penalities.
OK, that's no problem.
I dunno about your actual numbers since there are many factors such as difference in build cost and the actual comparison (not an imaginary 2X) as well as basic needs (China needs 4X the food of the US to survive) but you're arguing to build a larger military and I can support that to a certain degree depending on costs decided by the CCP, but this conversation is not about that. This conversation is you insisting we should invest in 22 carriers to suppress American shores and I'm telling you that they are not survivable there.
Any shore they can put missile bases on.
I support more investment in submarines and their ability to counter ASW USVs.
To simplify this, are you confident in China's ability to defend against US carriers? If you are, then it would be foolish to think that the US could not do the same to defend against Chinese carriers, especially after we've laid out the path for them. If you're not, then that's where we need to be invested in.
The 80-90% interception rate is from RUSI, after they analysed the data.
The missile launch distance from Iran to Israel would be at least 1100km.
To cover this distance, every missile has to reach hypersonic speeds.
Again, how can you not know this, if you are so certain that hypersonic missiles cannot be countered?
I think there is an optimal fleet mix comprising both fleet carriers and Type-076 sized drone carriers.
But I don't anyone knows the answer to that question yet, as they've got to start practicing operations with multiple aircraft carriers and Type-076 to figure it out.
You're using US numbers.
My guess is that a Type-004 CVN would be around $6-7 Bn. Plus another $5-6 Bn for an airwing with 60 aircraft.
Call it $13 Billion maximum.
And the key point is that the [cost of effective Chinese SAMs] should be a lot cheaper than the incoming US missiles.
Note that the Chinese Navy is betting that Chinese aircraft carriers can be defended against hypersonic missiles.
Penetrating the hull is not the same as sinking an aircraft carrier.
Who said anything about projecting power onto the US mainland? Alaska and Hawaii are isolated bases in the middle of nowhere.
The point is that multiple aircraft carriers can project an air superiority bubble say 1500-2000km away. They should be able to prevent opposing aircraft from locating the carriers.
Agreed. But that will be the only play that the US has, so it would be better to ensure even that doesn't work.
Read it again.
I ran through a B-21 example where they decreased payload, and got an extra 5 tonnes of fuel, on top of the existing fuel of ~50 tonnes.
You barely get any additional range, at the cost of halving payload.
The point is that this is a marginal increase in range. And remember that the B-21 has a single bomb bay with a single rotary launcher. So I'm not sure how you could fit in any additional fuel without removing the entire payload.
It's obvious that California is just too far. Hawaii and Alaska are so much closer.
Submarine-launched missiles will be useful, but they are limited in number due to cost and submarine transit times.
But once you control the air, even temporarily, you can drop so many more munitions.
In terms of Hawaii, instead of blindly saying the US can field more fighters on Hawaii, run through the numbers and logistics.
8 Chinese carriers would represent 8 airbases with ~400 fighters, plus another ~160 drones from the Type-076.
In comparison, Hawaii only has 2 airbases, which do not have the capacity to operate 400 fighters.
But let's say Hawaii was built up to host 400 fighters. Well, a Chinese fleet could decide to operate against Alaska instead. So would the US deploy another 400 fighters to Alaska?
No, we can see in both US and Chinese military doctrine, that advanced missiles are used to open the door, thereby allowing lower-cost munitions to be delivered in volume.
You do realise what forum we're discussing this on? Speculating on Chinese military force structure and its doctrine is arguably the main function.
Because the 3IC is so much further away, that it can represent a secure rear area base, from which to field long-range attacks on mainland China.
Who said anything about using Chinese aircraft carriers to attack the US mainland?
We've been discussing Alaska and Hawaii, which are isolated bases, far from the US mainland.
What is the purpose of this thread? To discuss what the future Chinese Navy could look like.
Just last week, the US Navy was imposing a blockade on any Iranian seaborne traffic. That choked off the Iran-China oil tanker trade. The US Navy wasn't just bullying Iran, it was also bullying China.
In contrast, let's say China Navy had a superior fleet of aircraft carriers and other ships. The Chinese Navy could have escorted oil tankers (from Iran, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East) to China. The US Navy wouldn't have dared to interfere, given that literally every country in the world was against sees the US has a violent and unpredictable imperial power that started an unnesssary war.
Actually I don't think so.
US carriers operate to a 36 month deployment cycle. They're supposed to deploy for 6 months (16% of the time), but this frequently gets extended. Even at 6 months, people are burned out, and they are not doing training/development because they are working 70-hour weeks.
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It looks like Chinese carriers spend ~20 days at sea every 3 months or so, and during this time they are practicing/operating at wartime tempos. That implies they are at sea 22% of the time (which is more than the US deployment cycle), and otherwise are ready to deploy if necessary. It also means Chinese aircraft carriers can receive maintenance as soon as it is needed, rather than be stuck on a 6 month deployment, which then results in an extended maintenance phase.
(Note that the US Navy has a 6 month limit for naval aviators to retain carrier certification)
A future orbat discussion is inevitably going to be hypothetical and factor in strategic objectives, costs, industrial capacity, etc
The conversation is not about suppressing American shores. Remember that Hawaii and Alaska are considered part of the "Third Island Chain", because they are that far from the Continental USA. Hawaii is 3000km from California for example.
Hawaii doesn't have the land area to disperse significant numbers of large missiles. It's mostly mountains and densely populated urban areas. Alaska barely has any road infrastructure for dispersal.
And consider that the US would have to duplicate capabilities at these bases separately
Submarines really should be avoiding ASW USVs as much as possible, rather than countering them directly.
The whole point of a ASW USV is that it is expendable, and you want it to get close to an enemy submarine.
China can use the mainland as a huge airbase and missile base against US aircraft carriers approaching the Western Pacific.
We can see the upcoming J-36 is designed for air superiority missions to a distance of ~4000km.
And we should see the Chinese military able to deploy a lot more air superiority aircraft at this distance, and neutralise approaching US carriers.
Also, Chinese aircraft carriers would be operating against the 2nd Island Chain and the 3rd Island Chain, not the Continental USA.
These are isolated "island" bases far from any support, and it's not possible to fortify all of them against a concentrated attack on a single point.
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In addition, there is a fundamental difference in terms of cost-exchange ratios between China and the US, in terms of hypersonic missile costs and defensive SAM costs.
US hypersonic missiles should be [significantly more expensive] than the cost of the defensive Chinese SAMs required
Chinese hypersonic missiles should be [about the same cost] of the defensive US SAMs required
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Full stop, this is it. I have never seen anyone be so wrong on missiles before, ever. I didn't read the rest of what you wrote and there is no reason to continue this conversation as you have just made it obvious that you don't know anything about missiles, and that makes me think you likely don't know anything about anything in the military, which was already hinted at when you wanted to carrier-mog the US instead of fighting smart.
You need to learn much much more before you debate so this is for your education:
Very very very few missiles are hypersonic. Only a handful of nations can produce them. They are the creme de la creme of missiles. A large percentage of missiles aren't even supersonic. The US Tomahawk cruise missile is subsonic, basically capable of only airliner speeds, but range can be as high as 2,500km in some configurations and at least 1,600km in others. Iran has used very very few hypersonic missiles and when they do, the strikes usually crash down like a streak of lightning leaving interceptors no chance. Even Iran's more basic missiles can often elude multiple interceptors before being caught by one or striking its target.
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The definition of hypersonic speed is Mach 5.
An Iskander SRBM with a 500km range already reaches Mach 6
Given the 1000km+ distance between Israel and Iran, that means large missiles were all travelling at hypersonic speeds.
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As for Iranian missiles, in the past 12 months, Iran fired 500+650 missiles.
But there were only 150 Arrow interceptors, plus whatever the US used. And standard practice is 2 interceptors launched for each incoming missile.
It's not that interceptors had no chance. It's that the number of incoming missiles has overwhelmed the available interceptors.
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If interceptors don't work, then why has China developed and then deployed both the HQ-19 and HQ-29?
And why is the US continuing to ramp up production of SM-3 and SM-6 if they don't work? Surely the US has gathered enough data over the past 12 months, given how many they have launched.
Hypersonic missile flying a simple ballistic trajectory is not the same as hypersonic missiles not doing that though.
(bit too oversimplifying, as iskander and the better missiles in Iran flies depressed trajectories and have some maneuver capability, but many older fired missiles did not have, and even then, it is still on the lower end of hypersonic capability ladder)
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