The Kremlin's goals were defensive in nature here. They moved on Ukraine to secure a flank which they feel is existential. The strategic objective was sound.
The reason they failed is operational, not strategic.
PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
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The Kremlin's goals were defensive in nature here. They moved on Ukraine to secure a flank which they feel is existential. The strategic objective was sound.
The reason they failed is operational, not strategic.
I have a better idea. China should just start making wooden-deck carriers.
I'm sure they can make 2/month... cuz u know, it worked in WWII.
I agree with @AndrewS here. An LHD is overkill and suboptimal for such a task. They need a lot of facilities for supporting amphibious assaults. They have subpar aviation facilities for their size because of the extra things they have to carry. Unless you heavily compromise like USS America, they make bad aviation ships. Something like HMS Ocean and JS Hyuga would work better. Risking LHDs for ASW is unreasonable unless you have an excess of them.
I don't think you are appreciating how important that initial strike is. You can say we have so many missiles and victory is guaranteed. But realistically, there is always room for things not going right. If PLAN can find ways to increase its odds of quickly hitting USN/JSDF in the opening strike without putting itself in excessive danger, it should pursue that. If it finds the moves to be too risky, then obviously that would not make sense.
Building, trialling, working up them up to combat effectiveness is absolutely slower compared to many other naval platforms, and for the PLAN that are still relatively new to carrier operations, that work up time may not be time that they have. Building a carrier itself does take time, but it is the workup which will take even more time for the PLAN's case.
(edit: workup including buying and training the airwing and producing the aircraft, the same for all the escorts, and integrating them effectively together)
I'm well aware as to the role that combat capable and effective carriers would have in a conflict.
But whether the PLAN would have such combat capability in the timespan we are talking about, and whether the pursuit of carriers is the best use of budget and resources in that time, is a whole other matter.
For example, two carriers by 2030 may already be too little too late.
Personally, I feel that unless they can commission at least 4, maybe 6 carriers by 2027, then it would be better to hold the trigger on significant additional carrier procurement and go for alternatives instead. Otherwise your carriers are either too few in number or arriving too late (or both).
In regards to SSNs, it just so happens they have a brand spanking new massive construction facility at huludao, which is a sign that they intended to go heavily into nuclear submarine construction.
We already have signs and rumours that they're kicking things off there and they may be able to launch all of the rumoured 8 09IIIBs by 2025, likely with additional orders on top of that by then, giving them ample room to produce a more competitive and larger SSN fleet that is not only easier to work up for the PLAN but also more coat effective and timely
plawolf
Lieutenant General
If your battle plan basically hinges on the outcome of your initial alpha strike, and if a few dozen cruise missiles makes or breaks your alpha strike, you need a much better plan and much more hard power to make it workable.
The Chinese and PLA in particular have never been a fan of silver bullet plans because China’s long history has repeated hammered home the risks of that kind of strategy.
The job of SSNs have always been primarily about anti-shipping. VLS and land attack was only really added because of how overwhelmingly OP the USN sub fleet became towards the end of the Cold War and especially after, when the enemy essentially disappeared and they needed to justify their massive funding.
In no conflict that sub launched missiles have been used had those missiles made any decisive difference. Delete those subs and missiles from the equation and the result would have not changed at all.
For the PLAN to pursue, for all intents and purposes, a filler side quest when they are still some way from being able to confidently achieve the primary function of SSNs is very much putting the cart in front of the horse.
Its only when the PLAN sub fleet are confident in being able to effectively protect friendly surface fleets from enemy subs, and also being able to engage and hunt enemy subs on at least even footing that they should worry about land attack. Before that, such secondary missions are at best a needless distraction and at worst a massive misallocation of vital strategic resources.
Putting SSNs into initial attack is anti-shipping. I don't know what you are talking about. Why would you put expensive ASBM into 093B and not use it to attack capital ships?
Everything is about being able to convincingly destroy USN and JSDF within 2 IC in the opening phases of a conflict. Once you do that, then you have plenty of time to destroy SOSUS, underwater cable networks and prepare whatever else to make it even easier for 093B to get into open water without being followed.
I think it is not incorrect to say that modern high intensity war between proper great powers is very sharp and violent in its opening stages, and while those opening stages may not wholesale determine the outcome of a war, it certainly can significantly influence the course in which subsequent phases occur.
In regards to the utility of SSNs carrying land attack weapons, the unique role that Tphuang describes is one where the SSNs offer a much wider geometry of attack against potential US targets in the Pacific. I.e. instead of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles coming from the Chinese mainland in a largely eastwards direction, they now must consider the serious threat of Chinese missiles coming from additional directions.
For land based air and missile defenses forcing the allocation of defenses to encompass all directions is not a minor thing, and would require the adversary to make significant additional investments to cover themselves from all angles.
However, for the PLAN at present and into this coming decade, I think it is also correct to say that one of the, if not the primary role of SSNs is still to conduct its regular subsurface activities and that would be much of the PLANs focus for their upcoming SSNs.
That is a reflection of how many SSNs they have and how capable they are, and what the threat environment is like.
Putting it another way, if the PLAN don't have enough SSNs and/or if they are insufficiently capable and/or if the threat environment at a given time is too unfavourable, then it would not be a good idea to have them launch strike missions with missiles, as that would expose them and put them at greater risk.
(However, it shouldn't be a matter of debate that SSNs have significant potential in augmenting the strike/missile role -- it just means we have to ask "when")
The more SSNs the PLAN has, the more capable they are, and the more favourable the underwater/ASW threat environment is at onset of hostilities, the more likely it would be that they will be okay allocating some SSNs to the strike/missile launch role at onset of hostilities.
So we should specifically be asking how likely it is that the PLAN would be okay doing it by the time they have 8 09IIIBs in service, IMO.
sure, if they do not have enough SSNs for their other needs, then they should obviously not try this. If they do not think they have the ability to do this without major loss, then they should also not try this.
Patch has stressed the pros of multi-axis, diversified attack on several occasions. So they should work toward acquiring delivery platforms that allow them to do that.
It does beg the question if 8 093Bs is enough? That would really depend on its capabilities and how quickly 095 becomes ready for mass production.
IMO this is the most important part of the question.
I don't think anyone would dispute the potential value of an effective multiaxis attack if one's subsurface force is not significantly compromised by it.
I think plawolf isn't wrong in challenging the idea that 8 09IIIBs are sufficient for the PLAN to commit to such a strategy (assuming they have VLS to begin with).
I personally think it would be far from an obvious conclusion to suggest that such a fleet would be best used in that sort of opening phase strike role.
We'd be having a different discussion say, if in the given time period they had 20 competitive VLS equipped SSNs, or 40, or 60.