Posted on 04/27/2014 9:59:55 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
China has surpassed Japan in the construction and purchasing of new surface combat vessels, according to an Apr. 25 article on the Canada-based Kanwa Defense Review operated by military analyst Andrei Chang, also known as Pinkov.
China's surface combat vessels may not be as good as their Japanese counterparts in terms of quality, the article said, but the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has a greater number of destroyers and frigates equipped with active electronically scanned array radar. The PLA Navy currently has six Type 052C guided-missile destroyers, each carrying up to 49 HQ9 air defense missiles. In addition, the vessel can fire YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missiles, which have a range of 280 kilometers.
The country has also completed the construction of two Type 052D destroyers based on the Type 052C, and the new vessel can carry 64 HQ9 air defense missiles. Four more Type 052Ds are under construction at the Dalian and Jiangnan shipyards.
The PLA Navy will likely operate between 10-12 Type 052C and Type 052D destroyers by 2015, but China will still lag behind the United States and Japan in building quality vessels, according to Kanwa.
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) currently has four Kongo-class and two Atago-class destroyers. Equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and RIM-161 Standard Missile 3, all six destroyers are twice as powerful as their Chinese counterparts in intercepting enemy aircraft and missiles. The JMSDF destroyers are also better than the PLA Navy destroyers in anti-submarine, electronic and cyber warfare, the article said.
Despite a disparity in quality, China has numerical superiority over Japan. The PLA Navy has 18 Type 054A frigates, while the JMSDF only has nine Murasame-class and five Takanami-class frigates.
If we come to the aid of one, we antagonize the other, and they may not only refuse to buy our debt any longer, but dump what they have on the open market, crashing the dollar, the gov’t bond market, and send interest rates skyrocketing.
Staying completely out of it is not an option either. Having valerie...I mean obama at the helm and kerry as SOS isn't tremendously reassuring either.
In a naval war—my money is still on Japan. Tradition is important in the naval service. Italy under Benito had the ships but not the Naval tradions to beat the UK. Sounds like Japan needs to start building some ships—or buying them from someplace—US maybe?
Whatever will there was died sometime during Bush Jr's presidency.
Who primaried that dork into representing Republicans for the presidency? Who thought he was the best Republicans could offer?
Fark Obama, but Bush Jr has a lot to answer for, too.
When I think about the lost opportunities I shutter and think about how we're now taking an 8 year detour into the crapper. We needed those 8 years.
A divine wind will come up and destroy the Chinese navy.
This could get very ugly very fast.
“In a naval war—my money is still on Japan. Tradition is important in the naval service. Italy under Benito had the ships but not the Naval traditions to beat the UK.”
Bingo.....you got it. The one thing the Chinese will always lack is Japanese. :->
My uncle fought in China Burma WWII and Korea. He used to say he would rather fight ten Chinese than one Japanese....but also said that is exactly how they came at you...10 to 1.
China will be able to run amuck for a few weeks or months, but as the US and Japan coalesce and concentrate their forces...the roll-back will begin pretty quickly.
The quality and elan of the Japanese and US navies are still far and away ahead of the Chinese.
The risk is, we will lose ships...and we aren’t the country we were in WWII. A Nimitz or Los Angeles class vessel is still a mortal man of war and will sink. Either will be a national tragedy that would make the loss of a space shuttle feel like a fender bender.
...plus, the Chinese are a proud people and might well go nuclear rather than lose.
And another ringer in the wash is if the neo-Ruskies coordinate a threat to Europe at the same time. Well, our war and 1/2 navy won’t be enough. 1941 deja vue all over again.
These are very interesting times.
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