“Quantity has a quality all of its own.”
Ask the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS about that one. They saw their Tigers, Panthers, and Mk IVs, crewed by some of the best armor crews in the world, led by the Generals and Field Marshals that invented modern armored warfare, swamped by hordes of T-34s.
All the PLAN needs to do is get enough advanced anti-ship missile launchers in range - and the range of their next generation missile, the Hsiung Feng III, is 300 KM. At Mach 2, the targets will have less than seven minutes to kill the incoming missiles.
The question is, can the air power projected from the carriers keep PLAN’s ships and subs beyond launch range?
Like Mullen and Sestak?
When was the last time anyone fought a MAJOR naval war?? The closest I can think of would be the tanker war of the 80s. Drawing too many conclusions about the PLA-N based on lack of experience is not a very wise thing to do.
... add in the German “High Seas Fleet” of WW1.
A truly successful Navy needs fleet bases with easy access to the open ocean. The Germans & Soviets never had that. They were potentially (and actually) bottled up.
China has easier, but by no means easy, access to open water. Taiwan & Japan pretty much cut them off in the North, so they are focusing efforts around Hainan in the South.
The Spanish Armada ran into very bad weather
The German WW1 fleet fought the greatest navy in the world to a stand still.
Spain 1898, Spain had ceased being any kind of a military power long before 1898.
Russia 1904, when has Russia ever won a major naval engagement?