The Sino-Japanese Naval War of 2012

Like most members have already said, the chances of a skirmish let alone a conflict is extremely slim.
Predicting the outcome of the skirmish/conflict (if there is one) is impossible because no one here knows the true potential of the PLAN and JSMDF, no one knows how good the officers and commanders are in both forces, and most importantly no one can predicate other countries' response to such a conflict (especially that of the US).
However, China definitely has more public/political pressure in the event of a conflict with Japan. China is in a situation where it must win any engagement where Japan does not. China losing (even a small skirmish) would greatly weaken Chinese influence in other disputed areas such as Spratlys, and probably get labeled as "paper tiger of Asia".
Even if China wins, Western media would make China sound like the aggressor. But it would also scare off the ASEAN countries like Philippines and Vietnam.
Most importantly, China is not Russia. Russia doesn't care what other countries think or interact with them, China on the other hand does because a bad image is bad for business.
Even though there might not be a conflict with Japan today or even in this decade, I think a naval conflict with Japan is inevitable in the future.

MwRYum said:

There's a huge difference between land and naval warfare: on land, you still have the chance of winning despite technological disadvantages, if you've lots of men who are ideologically motivated, exploiting the bad weather, and the other side not that prepared for long dug-out fights...in the case you pointed out, those Chinese troops weren't that well equipped but they were mostly hardened veterans in the civil war; that year's winter was among the worst on record; and the UN command ignored all signs of Chinese mobilization across the border.

And naval warfare is all about platform vs platform, not so much as straight-off men vs men as on land, on both aspects PLAN is still lagging behind world's standard; this is no longer the era that the Chinese can dream of winning big ships with torpedo boats. Past experiences are irrelevant here, as those China faced in the past were either just as poorly equipped, or not well trained, or as motivated...JMSDF and USN are technologically superior by at least a decade and sets the world standard in professional quality.

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Then you are saying the Chinese could see a land advantage where the US couldn't with its generational technological advantage. What's stopping the Chinese seeing a sea advantage where the US and Japanese couldn't ? However improbable that maybe, it is not inconceivable as demonstrated by the past experience.

t2contra said:

China must wait, even if it takes decades.

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The recent events already indicate how outdated this policy is in today's context...it might be a logical course of action but even the official media admitted that's no longer possible; while they didn't said out loud that further "tolerating" and "diplomatic protests" would undercut the current gov't position, they acknowledged that the populace no longer tolerate further inaction by the government, and should actually gear up for military solution.

Of course, those are just words, not deeds too...

ChinaGuy said:

Then you are saying the Chinese could see a land advantage where the US couldn't with its generational technological advantage. What's stopping the Chinese seeing a sea advantage where the US and Japanese couldn't ? However improbable that maybe, it is not inconceivable as demonstrated by the past experience.

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It's sea we're talking about, platform plays a huge proportion in determining the winner...China is still at least 10 years behind the curve, while Japan and US have both quality and quantity advantages. The only way China can hope to win today is to use nukes.

MwRYum said:

The recent events already indicate how outdated this policy is in today's context...it might be a logical course of action but even the official media admitted that's no longer possible; while they didn't said out loud that further "tolerating" and "diplomatic protests" would undercut the current gov't position, they acknowledged that the populace no longer tolerate further inaction by the government, and should actually gear up for military solution.

Of course, those are just words, not deeds too...



It's sea we're talking about, platform plays a huge proportion in determining the winner...China is still at least 10 years behind the curve, while Japan and US have both quality and quantity advantages. The only way China can hope to win today is to use nukes.

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Is China really going to fight with Japan and United States? Could China bomb the Japan to the Stone Age? Could United States let Japan to be a bigger Georgia? Of course, Japan is not Kuwait, and China is no Iraq nor Yugoslavia.

A.Man said:

Is China really going to fight with Japan and United States? Could China bomb the Japan to the Stone Age? Could United States let Japan to be a bigger Georgia? Of course, Japan is not Kuwait, and China is no Iraq nor Yugoslavia.

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That'd largely depend on how the coming series of events turn out:
1. Tokyo municipal government's representatives visit the Diaoyu Islands and China's response, by the end of this month;
2. activist from Hong Kong making another visit in as early as October;
3. Japan's parliamentary election that everyone is expecting before the end of this year; and
4. new Chinese leadership formally take over before the end of this year.

The 1st and 2nd are the more volatile of the lot, that'd certainly trigger plenty of emotional responses and subsequently, force the hands of China, Japan and US. If Chinese government continues their current trend of "all-talk-and-no-deed" then they'd be damning themselves, sparking protests on other domestic fronts; if the "Second Sino-Japanese War" erupt that's the opening salvo of World War 3.

The Chinese claimed the current situation is no longer within their power to cool it down, so that depends on when'd Uncle Sam rein in the Japanese government before it's too late...unless a war against China is in the US playbook all along.

ChinaGuy said:

Then you are saying the Chinese could see a land advantage where the US couldn't with its generational technological advantage. What's stopping the Chinese seeing a sea advantage where the US and Japanese couldn't ? However improbable that maybe, it is not inconceivable as demonstrated by the past experience.

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The thing is, historically, no ideological driven navy had defeated a more modern and professional navel opponent unlike in land warfare.

The religious motivated Spanish armada failed against a weaker but more advanced british fleet.
The god emperor persian fleet failed against a more advanced but weaker greek fleet at salamis,
The Bushido japanese fleet failed against the technologically more advanced USN in WW2


Ok, I twisted it a bit, but the fact is, platforms are much more important in naval warfare than it is on ground warfare.

ChinaGuy said:

The battle starts when a crazed Japanese politician drives an oil rig to Diaoyu and starts drilling for oil. Then a Chinese fisheries patrol ship rams the rig, toppling it. A watching Japanese coastguard ship then opens fire on the Chinese ship destroying the bridge killing the senior officers on board. A Chinese 054A frigate arriving at the scene then rams the Japanese ship to prevent it from sinking the damaged fisheries ship. A fast approaching Japanese frigate then opens fires on the 054A at range. The 054A responds with cannon fire and damaging the rudder of the Japanese ship and causing it to take on water. By now a Japanese patrol plane is overhead buzzing the Chinese frigate and dispensing flares as a protective measure against the AA missiles. Undetected by the 054A, a Japanese submarine launches a torpedo that scores a direct hit and igniting the the 054A's VLS casing massive damage. A squadron of PLAN's flankers then arrives catching the Japanese sub on the surface. Anti-ship missiles are launched from two of the flankers at the sub, immediately sinking it. As you can imagine, war is a foregone conclusion by that stage.

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why would any ships captain want to ram another ship and damage his own when he can just engage it? esepcially if that ships is a Type 054A, its like a BMW M3 driver ramming a small Mini to beat it in a race, defeats the whole purpose of the ship, probably the sillyest thing iver ever heard!

NSF, and ESF can both field 2x JH7/A regiment of 24x planes each, with two regiments of H6 and 1x regiment of su30MKK to boost, and Diaoyu island should be within the range of 022 as well, assuming ESF can field 2 squadrons of 12 022 per squadrons, then potentially PLAN could launch few hundreds of YJ83 with Y8Js providing targeting info at potential incoming Japanese fleet around Diaoyu Island.

Lezt said:

The thing is, historically, no ideological driven navy had defeated a more modern and professional navel opponent unlike in land warfare.

The religious motivated Spanish armada failed against a weaker but more advanced british fleet.
The god emperor persian fleet failed against a more advanced but weaker greek fleet at salamis,
The Bushido japanese fleet failed against the technologically more advanced USN in WW2


Ok, I twisted it a bit, but the fact is, platforms are much more important in naval warfare than it is on ground warfare.

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I would say you are simply giving the technological advantage to the victor.

The Spanish armada was built with the principle of "ramming and boarding" in mind, which was the conventional wisdom of naval battles at the time. In that respect, they were far more "technologically advanced" than the English fleet.

I'm not sure about the persians and greeks, but I would say in the era of triremes, it's pretty hard to say who holds the technological advancement.

Finally, the IJN fell to the USN because the US massively outproduced Japan. The IJN, at the time of Pearl Harbor, had the most advanced and best trained navy in the world.

solarz said:

I would say you are simply giving the technological advantage to the victor.

The Spanish armada was built with the principle of "ramming and boarding" in mind, which was the conventional wisdom of naval battles at the time. In that respect, they were far more "technologically advanced" than the English fleet.

I'm not sure about the persians and greeks, but I would say in the era of triremes, it's pretty hard to say who holds the technological advancement.

Finally, the IJN fell to the USN because the US massively outproduced Japan. The IJN, at the time of Pearl Harbor, had the most advanced and best trained navy in the world.

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The Spanish Armada took far more damage from pre-battle storms than from the English fleet. Also, English ships were lighter and more manuverable, plus English sailors and seamanship were also better. The English didn't actually cripple the Armada, as it was still the biggest dog on the block, even after it lost the battle with the English, but the Spanish phyche suffered crippling blows. By most historical accounts, English ships were technologically more advanced and better on a case by case basis.

Greek Naval victory over the Persians at Salamis was due to Themistocles' masterful use of pre-battle propaganda, trapping the much larger Persian fleet in the narrow Strait of Artemisium where the Persians couldn't use their advantage of numbers to good effect and the Persian fleet was essentially defeated in detail. It's also notiable Greek triemes were the best technologically in those times and their Navy was suppose to also be the best, ship for ship.

The IJN had better trained and more advanced ships BEFORE WWII, and that's only because the USN had little funding from Congress. By Midway, US ships were newer and tecnologically superior to IJN ships. By Coral Sea, US ships had decisive advantages over Japanese ships. USN's widespread of radar was overwhelming and that alone would have made the difference in Naval battles. On top of all else, by the latter part of the war, US ships were newer, more numerous, technologically superior, and with better trained crews than IJN. Japan had to resort to low-tech solutions like Kamikazi to address the shortfall.

Bottom line is good tactics, well trained crews, and superior technology are great advantages that can yield victories in each own ways, but if properly combined into one solid unit, the three are overwhelming and decisive in any battle.