Posted on 06/28/2011 8:18:16 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Should We Be Afraid of China's New Aircraft Carrier?
Not yet.
BY ABRAHAM M. DENMARK, ANDREW S. ERICKSON, AND GABRIEL COLLINS | JUNE 27, 2011
Six months ago, Gen. Liu Huaqing -- the father of China's modern navy and its commander from 1982 to 1988 (and, according to the state-run People's Daily, "a distinguished member of the CPC, a seasoned loyal Communist fighter, an outstanding proletarian revolutionist, politician and strategist, and an excellent leader of the Party, the state and the military") -- passed away. Liu sought to build China's navy first into a "green water" fleet and, eventually, into a full-fledged "blue water" navy capable of projecting power over vast distances. Key to realizing Liu's vision was an aircraft carrier, and Liu reportedly vowed: "I will not die with my eyes closed if I do not see a Chinese aircraft carrier in front of me."
While Liu may have died with his eyes open, they can close now. From the harbor at Dalian naval shipyard in northeast China, the first aircraft carrier of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will soon set sail for the first time. And much of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the Asia-watching strategic community in the United States, is hotly debating the implications of this move.
Adm. Robert Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said in an April interview with Bloomberg that he is "not concerned" about China's first carrier going to sea, but allowed: "Based on the feedback that we received from our partners and allies in the Pacific, I think the change in perception by the region will be significant." Japan's Asahi Shimbun
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Re: “It takes three years to build a ship, it takes three centuries to build a tradition”
Zhanghe, they said, built not only the greatest of tradition ever, more to that, he was said to have established for himself a maritime legacy that dwarfs even the greatest navy in modern record and it all started with but a dream. He was said to have commanded an armada of [three thousand boats]. So how hard is it for an old hand to scrap the rust off and brush away the dusts and start anew all over again? An old saying “necessity is the mother of all creations” and creation, or creativity works magics!
Re: A straight fight between the two navies would probably be a walkover for the Japanese.
Hmmmm... that might hold true a decade or two ago. The reality of the matter however is this: If the central ojective of the PLA-N is focused on the US Pacific Fleet, which it is, and which the PLA-N is not shy about letting Keating’s in on it; then, if your Pentium IV computes as should, it should give you a pretty good picture of what the PLA-N is all about. Meaning if the Japanese Self Defense Force’s strategy is to out number the ChiCom’s frigate for frigate and destroyer for destroyers by 50 boats, then the strategy of the ChiCom’s is to out number Japan’s submarine force by twice the number with cutting edge and deadly antiship missiles and super “Shkvatl-ype-Torpedoes”.
Re: LOL, the Chinese can’t even make functioning toenail clippers.
Heck! What do we want from them? We scour the world for low cost production in order to make a profit at home. We bring our designs and technical drawings to them to have the products we wanted produced to specified we wanted and at dirt cheap. They ship it back to us as per our specification and as per agreement. And now we b*tch about it?
The Chinese have a few good Kilo-class diesels, the rest of their diesel fleet are clunkers and "generic" diesels mostly good for exercise work and training, and their nukey-boats are noisy as hell and easy meat for Japanese boats equipped with new-generation fire-control equipment.
American naval officers don't call the Japanese Maritime SDF the "Eighth Fleet" for nothing.
A Chinese made bridge built in China and then shipped to the SF Bay area has more potential damage.
Admittedly, in days of yore the supply of spirits was far too high, but it was always "cut". Even then it was mildly preferable and healthier to drinking the onboard water.
"The detestable practice of buggery" was specifically included as a capital offence under the "Articles of war", under which the Royal Navy was regulated, first written about 1650 and regularly reaffirmed for at least the next two centuries. You packed fudge, you swung for it. No exceptions.
Discipline in Nelson's Royal navy was savage by modern day standards, but it was scarcely worse than the contemporary civilian penal code, and it was heavily regulated. All punishments had to be entered in the log and justified later to higher authorities. Captains who were too fond of floggings would find themselves in trouble. A study of the logs makes it quite clear that most sailors were never flogged. It was actually uncommon. Usually the same old names crop up in the books time after time - the hard cases and the troublemakers.
Personally I think you were better AND luckier. Sure if Midway had not come off the whole thing would have dragged on longer, but I think even by then the US Navy had a qualitative advantage. In less than a year you would have had a quantitative advantage as well.
Well, yes, but it does have a certain lyrical tone to it... ;-)
Course it does - its a Churchillian phrase! The man was a master of the quip!
That Chinese carrier OTOH would begin a new career as fish habitat right off.
Re: Actually, on a qualitative basis, I think the edge has to go to the excellent Japanese diesel-electric flotilla.
Yes, I agree that qualitative wise that Japan is no small potato. I mean these offshoots of the Asian clan have something they can definitely take deep pride: [for a rice-farming-peasantry-of-a-community] akin to that of other Asian mainlander pre-industrial era with not a nail to their technological credit to being that of superpower status world I & II is no small feat.
Re: The Chinese have a few good Kilo-class diesels, the rest of their diesel fleet are clunkers and “generic” diesels mostly good for exercise work and training, and their nukey-boats are noisy as hell and easy meat for Japanese boats equipped with new-generation fire-control equipment.
You mean those sneaky ChiCom boats that popped up right across the bow of the USS Kitty Hawk http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Chinese_Sub_Approached_US_Aircraft_Carrier_Undetected_999.html ??? One would have thought that the Commander of the Kitty Hawk would have been much much more careful after the first such incident, i.e., an undetected Ming class surprising the Japanese Self Defense force a year previous by popping up right in front of them near Japanese waters.
And yeah! With the USS Imppecable plying the waters of both the South China Sea and the East China Sea, eventually, we’ll find that elusive Chinese Loch Nes monster, the popularly talked about 096 where one class supposedly sports up to 16 launchers and the other 24 launchers.
And those Kilos? They’ve practically been confined to dry dock ever since delivery. My speculation is that they were used as specimens for the development the 041A Yuan class clunker, a boat which no one knew existed until they intentionally let GE lock in on it. Accordingly, this boat has now matured and grown up into a handsome SD-10 firing sibling nick named the Qing class.
Re: American naval officers don’t call the Japanese Maritime SDF the “Eighth Fleet” for nothing.
That term (Eighth Fleet) may hold true for Japan WWII days. But now-a-days, the Japanese navy is no more but a faint shadow cast by the towering US Pacific fleet. The term “Eighth Fleet”, by me, is no more but a way of patronizing the Japanese, a sort of a pad in the back by the US to the Japanese navy just to make them feel important.
The purpose of patronizing the Japanese navy by calling it the “Eights Fleet” amounts to the very same as that of the ‘04 joint military exercise between the IAF and tbe USAF where Indian jets and pilots was said to creamed F-14’s piloted by USAF pilots. I mean do we seriously believe that Indian fighters and pilots are capable of beating the craps out of US jets and US pilots? Be serious! It’s just a way of flattering the Indians as a means of getting them on board America’s China posturing bandwagon.
Re: Actually, on a qualitative basis, I think the edge has to go to the excellent Japanese diesel-electric flotilla.
Yes, I agree that qualitative wise that Japan is no small potato. I mean these offshoots of the Asian clan have something they can definitely take deep pride: [for a rice-farming-peasantry-of-a-community] akin to that of other Asian mainlander pre-industrial era with not a nail to their technological credit to being that of superpower status world I & II is no small feat.
Re: The Chinese have a few good Kilo-class diesels, the rest of their diesel fleet are clunkers and “generic” diesels mostly good for exercise work and training, and their nukey-boats are noisy as hell and easy meat for Japanese boats equipped with new-generation fire-control equipment.
You mean those sneaky ChiCom boats that popped up right across the bow of the USS Kitty Hawk http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Chinese_Sub_Approached_US_Aircraft_Carrier_Undetected_999.html ??? One would have thought that the Commander of the Kitty Hawk would have been much much more careful after the first such incident, i.e., an undetected Ming class surprising the Japanese Self Defense force a year previous by popping up right in front of them near Japanese waters.
And yeah! With the USS Imppecable plying the waters of both the South China Sea and the East China Sea, eventually, we’ll find that elusive Chinese Loch Nes monster, the popularly talked about 096 where one class supposedly sports up to 16 launchers and the other 24 launchers.
And those Kilos? They’ve practically been confined to dry dock ever since delivery. My speculation is that they were used as specimens for the development the 041A Yuan class clunker, a boat which no one knew existed until they intentionally let GE lock in on it. Accordingly, this boat has now matured and grown up into a handsome SD-10 firing sibling nick named the Qing class.
Re: American naval officers don’t call the Japanese Maritime SDF the “Eighth Fleet” for nothing.
That term (Eighth Fleet) may hold true for Japan WWII days. But now-a-days, the Japanese navy is no more but a faint shadow cast by the towering US Pacific fleet. The term “Eighth Fleet”, by me, is no more but a way of patronizing the Japanese, a sort of a pad in the back by the US to the Japanese navy just to make them feel important.
The purpose of patronizing the Japanese navy by calling it the “Eights Fleet” amounts to the very same as that of the ‘04 joint military exercise between the IAF and tbe USAF where Indian jets and pilots was said to creamed F-14’s piloted by USAF pilots. I mean do we seriously believe that Indian fighters and pilots are capable of beating the craps out of US jets and US pilots? Be serious! It’s just a way of flattering the Indians as a means of getting them on board America’s China posturing bandwagon.
Re: The real practical strategic value of China’s carrier may be to improve the survivability of the PRC’s ballistic missile subs.
Man!!! Can it be that big of a secret with the refurbished Varyag? I mean even a blind person can figure where the ChiCom’s are going with the induction of a carrier to their fleet. Simply by looking at [the deadly, sophisticated, and cutting edge appointments] they’ve appointed to that once stripped hull, the answer is clear — the Varyag is no HMS Vikrant and it’s no HMS Giuseppe Garibaldi...
The ChiComs have picked up where the Russians have left off and they have advanced, technology-wise, beyond even that which the Russians had in mind for a blue water navy.
I foresee a fleet of up to 60 plus such low cost platforms by 2050 and the objective: They’ve feel they’ve been pushed around much and, they are determine to [not lock horns with the Americans] but to level the playing field with them.
Re: At the end of the film “The Battle of Midway” Henry Fonda asks “were we better than the Japanese, or just luckier?” Personally I think you were better AND luckier.
My take: Just as how snitches had snitched on Saddam Huessein and OBL either through torture or through greed, there too were likely snitches who could care less about King and Country in “Imperial Japan” who snitched on Japan.
Example: Au Wei Wei is now charged with tax evasion and the amount he was said to have evaded was something like USD 2,000,000.00. That’s a damn big sum by ChiCom terms and standards. His artistic career isn’t that hot. He couldn’t have made such huge lump sums of money. So, where did he get such a stash? Greed! He was probably paid handsomely for being a trouble maker the Wang Dan way.
Wang Dan, as it is now revealed, was paid bribes by the then Taiwanese political establishment and somebody else probably paid the Taiwanese political establishment to bribe greed favoring characters such as Wang and Au.
The Imperial Japanese Navy needed a lot less than three centuries to take care of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse in 1941. Bottom line is that like Japan in the interwar years, China has built up a large navy. If we decide to oppose their policy of gradual territorial annexation at the expense of their neighbors, I expect our sailors will run into a lot of unpleasant surprises, much as they (and the Royal Navy) did against the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII.
I’ve experienced those kinds of failures also including a Harbor Freight Tools Battery Load Tester that expired yesterday (ridiculously inappropriate solder joint that melted from the heat of the device in operation). However, I also possess a couple of Chinese products that are state of the art in both performance and reliability. These are the small minority (understatement), yet the design and manufacturing capability is out there to be called upon when needed. Naturally, the best alloys and electronics are going to be saved for critical military use. The crap stuff goes to export consumer goods (with a few exceptions). I wouldn’t undersell their best efforts. I think they’re equal to anyone’s. What they lack are the decades of naval experience.
NOt while we have nuclear subs loaded with ship to ship cruise missiles bearing fissile material war heads.
BADABOOM....then just so much Hoo Flung Dung.
I agree Zhang. I mean the Japanese went fromo horse calvery with bows and arrows and muskets in 1865 to a Navy capable of defeating the Russian Navy in 1912, the Russo Japanese war.What a shock to the world that was.
No, the Red Chinese Navy would be no push over in a prolonged naval engagement, which is what the Red Chinese would make sure it would be.
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