Why China can't defeat the US

[Carlsen]

China thinks it can defeat America in battle - The Week

The bad news first. The People's Republic of China now believes it can successfully prevent the United States from intervening in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or some other military assault by Beijing.

Now the good news. China is wrong — and for one major reason. It apparently disregards the decisive power of America's nuclear-powered submarines.
Moreover, for economic and demographic reasons Beijing has a narrow historical window in which to use its military to alter the world's power structure. If China doesn't make a major military move in the next couple decades, it probably never will.

Fortunately for that liberal order, America possesses by far the world's most powerful submarine force — one poised to quickly sink any Chinese invasion fleet. In announcing its readiness to hold off the U.S. military, the PLA seems to have ignored Washington's huge undersea advantage.

The Navy has 74 submarines, 60 of which are attack or missile submarines optimized for finding and sinking other ships or blasting land targets. The balance is ballistic-missile boats that carry nuclear missiles and would not routinely participate in military campaigns short of an atomic World War III.

America's eight-at-a-time submarine picket in or near Chinese waters could be equally destructive to Chinese military plans, especially considering the PLA's limited anti-submarine skills. "Although China might control the surface of the sea around Taiwan, its ability to find and sink U.S. submarines will be extremely limited for the foreseeable future," Cliff testified. "Those submarines would likely be able to intercept and sink Chinese amphibious transports as they transited toward Taiwan."

In practical military terms, that means the Pentagon can more or less ignore most of China's military capabilities, including those that appear to threaten traditional U.S. advantages in nukes, air warfare, mechanized ground operations, and surface naval maneuvers.

My morfar he tell me long time ago that when I ask him about this. I tell him that Russia it is militaire threat to USA. He say not Russia but it will be 2 countries. The one country it is China because of tech advances in militaire weapons. Another reason is China it have a lot of people and area more then any country in the world. The other country he say it is threat to Europe now

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[Katzndogz]

The bad news is China is right. They can invade Taiwan or anything else it wants to do. They have a not so secret weapon. They have obama. No matter how powerful our fleet is they will bo nothing unless ordered. The Chinese know that order would never come. They have obama in a back pocket.

 

[SteadyMercury]

I am a retard

Agreed.

 

[Mushroom]

I'm addressing the argument that a WW2 era battle is somehow impervious to modern weapons because of it's armor, not whether it can be defended with a picket like a CVN.

I myself never said modern weapons, I said modern missiles.

Yea, a heavy FAE or other bunker buster type bomb would put paid to a BB. But how are you going to get it there? So lobbing iron bombs at a BBBG is pretty much not gonna happen, which means missile attacks.

And the majority of countries around the world are now so heavily invested in their missiles, that they generally can't operate "old school" any longer.

Aircraft no longer study to dogfight, they fire missiles and scoot for home. Nobody really invests money and resources in bombing ships, they duck in to missile range, let loose then take off before they can be targeted by the anti-air missiles on the ships.

Most missions like this are with stand-off weapons.

And none of these standoff weapons is a serious threat to a BB. The Exocet which raped the Royal Navy would be a joke against an Iowa class ship.

It would take another Battle of San Carlos type engagement to give an enemy sufficient capability to do significant damage against a BB. And I do not think the US would be as stupid as the UK was in such a situation.

 

[SteadyMercury]

I was referencing this:

Absolutely unsinkable by any conventional missiles or bombs.

Here is a comparison of battleship armor: Best Battleship: Armor

Yamato had 9 inches of deck armor, much better than New Jersey's 6 inches. Yet a bunch of Hellcats with 1000lb bombs were able to damage her:

Yamato was not hit for four minutes, but at 12:41 two bombs obliterated two of her triple 25 mm anti-aircraft mounts and blew a hole in the deck. A third bomb then destroyed her radar room and the starboard aft 127 mm mount. At 12:46 another two bombs struck the battleship's port side, one slightly ahead of the aft 155 mm centreline turret and the other right on top of the gun. These caused a great deal of damage to the turret and its magazines; only one man survived.

Here is Roma, via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Roma_(1940)

The ship was protected by a main armored belt that was 280 mm (11 in) with a second layer of steel that was 70 mm (2.8 in) thick. The main deck was 162 mm (6.4 in) thick in the central area of the ship and reduced to 45 mm (1.8 in) in less critical areas. The main battery turrets were 350 mm (14 in) thick and the lower turret structure was housed in barbettes that were also 350 mm thick. The secondary turrets had 280 mm thick faces and the conning tower had 260 mm (10 in) thick sides

6.4 inch thick deck armor, and sunk by a couple 705lb WW2 era penetrating bombs that went thru her deck. Thus I have no trouble believing getting hit by a more modern titanium cased penetrating warhead from an large bunker busting missile like SLAM-ER that can set to pop up and dive down on the target can damage an Iowa class battleship. Hell that things can be guided man-in-the-loop in terminal so you could even go right for the whatever areas you think are most vulnerable.

Hit her with waves of SLAM-ER and HARMs to leave her blind and burning, sink her with 2000lb laser guided bombs.

Again I'm not addressing whether these could be put on target, just like a carrier battle group the capital ship is well defended and I would take some faith in the USN's ability to picket both planes and cruise missiles. I'm just saying claiming she can't be sunk by conventional bombs or missiles isn't true, any ship can be sunk just as Yamato was.

If we're considering the entire task force defending her then we can say the same thing about a carrier, it cannot be sunk since you've got CAP and then multiple layers of ships with SM2, ESSM, and the ESSM/RAM on the carrier itself to take out planes and incoming cruise missiles.

 

[Mushroom]

If we're considering the entire task force defending her then we can say the same thing about a carrier, it cannot be sunk since you've got CAP and then multiple layers of ships with SM2, ESSM, and the ESSM/RAM on the carrier itself to take out planes and incoming cruise missiles.

And that is exactly what I am considering. All of the escort vessels, and their defensive firepower (surface to air defensive missiles and CIWS), plus the CIWS on the BB itself.

Then there was another set of defensive systems most forget about, the MK-36 SRBOC rockets, which launched chaff and IR targets to confuse the missiles even more. A good system with the purpose of confusing any inbound missiles.

As for HARM, not an issue. As it's name implies, it seeks radiation sources (RADAR), so for a BB, this is not an issue. HARM missiles are going to lock onto the AEGIS class systems which are designed to track and target aircraft, not the much more basic air search RADAR of a battleship.

Engagements have been gamed many times pitting modern missiles and aircraft against a BBBG, and the BBBG always came out on top, with minimal losses and little effective damage against the BB itself. Missiles just can't do enough damage against them, and aircraft stand almost no change of getting close enough to launch heavy bombs against them.

You keep forgetting that modern military forces do not operate the way they did in WWII. It simply does not make sense. Especially when you consider overall a lot of battles really are broken down to cost against reward.

In WWII, anF6F Hellcat cost around $35,000. The IJN Yamato cost around $100 million. So it was unquestionably cost effective to throw huge amounts of aircraft and pilots at it in order to sink it. You could literally throw over 2,500 aircraft away in sinking it, and still come out ahead.

Compare this to say the USS Cole at just under $800 million, and then the Su-27, at around $40 million. You can throw thousands of Hellcats at the Yamato, loose all of them, and still come out ahead if you render it combat ineffective.

Throw even 20 Su-27s at the USS Cole, and odds are you will loose on the paper side.

Is it possible to sink a BB in the modern era? Yes, of course it is. But you keep missing the simple fact that no nation is going to invest what would be needed in order to accomplish such a feat. It would require such a huge percentage of their air assets that not only would it be a significant loss to them, it would render them completely vulnerable to attack from another direction.

The very purpose of BBs in the modern arena was both to be a thumb in the eye, and a distraction, forcing a nation to keep huge numbers of assets tied up to keep them distracted. And it works even today. Saddam was so convinced that the BBs were going to help the Marines conduct amphibious operations against Kuwait City in 1991, that they were faced entirely the wrong way and got royally cornholed by the Army.

 

[SteadyMercury]

Obviously we talking apples and oranges, I'm arguing whether a battleship is impervious to modern conventional munitions, you are arguing survivability of a battleship in a modern naval task force.

Antiradiation and cruise missiles arriving at same time from different vectors would overwhelm it and mission kill, LGBs would finish it. In a real scenario where we planted one in the Taiwan Straits I think the biggest concern would be a lucky submarine.

 

[Mushroom]

Obviously we talking apples and oranges, I'm arguing whether a battleship is impervious to modern conventional munitions, you are arguing survivability of a battleship in a modern naval task force.

Antiradiation and cruise missiles arriving at same time from different vectors would overwhelm it and mission kill, LGBs would finish it. In a real scenario where we planted one in the Taiwan Straits I think the biggest concern would be a lucky submarine.

Actually, this is simply where I only discuss what is realistically possible, and not what is theoretically possible.

Theoretically, a small Duchy in Europe can take on the US in a war and win, but it is not likely. Theoretically, China can develop a ballistic missile that can strike an Aircraft Carrier at sea, but it is not likely. Theoretically a lot of things are possible, but unless they have a realistic change of actually happening, I pretty much reject them.

The only major Naval War we can look at in the last 60 years was between the UK and Argentina. And in theorizing how a future war would be conducted, that is what you have to consider. And let's look at this example, shall we?

ARA General Belgrano, a former Pre-WWII Brooklyn Light Cruiser. Escorted by 2 WWII era Sumner class Destroyers, her escorts were so far away and out of contact that they did not even see the flares she launched after she was struck. This is one of two ships sunk by submarines since the end of WWII, and both were almost completely lacking in any kind of real ASW capability.

This is not the case of the US, so I largely discount any kind of serious submarine threat to a modern US battle group in a wartime stance.

Then you have HMS Sheffield, HMS Glamorgan, and SS Atlantic Conveyor. All struck by Exocet missiles, and either destroyed or extensively damaged. And in an unrelated incident, the USS Stark was seriously damaged and taken out of service for over a year by an Exocet.

Then you have the Battle of San Carlos. This to me was one of the most pointless and expensive battles in the history of Naval Warfare in the 20th Century. Placing the bulk of the Royal Fleet where it was where their air defenses were nullified was extreme stupidity. And if the Argentines had better fuses (13 duds were pulled out of British ships after the battle concluded), they might have won the battle.

This is the only major engagement in which aircraft could get within range of a modern fleet to use conventional gravity munitions. And it was more the incompetence of the British Admiralty that let it happen then the capabilities of the Argentine Air Forces.

I have been studying conflict and war for well over 30 years now. And I never go "Well, the capability of Weapon X can defeat Weapon Y", I look at everything. Tactics, logistics, terrain, geopolitical influences, everything. Not just "is it possible in the absolute most ridiculous case possible", but "is it realistically possible in the current age".

Of course, you also have to realize I am not a believer of recommissioning the old BBs again, but in creating an entirely new class of BB, closer to a modernization of the "Pocket Battleship" or Heavy Cruiser. Enough armor to defeat anti-ship missiles, capability of launching various missiles through an Mk-41/57 VLS, and 2 triples of a modernized 14" naval gun (a supersizing basically of the 155mm AGS of the USS Zumwalt).

And not trying to design BBBGs around them, but attach them to our current Amphibious groups. I know personally that every Marine would thank the Navy for such assistance, and there would probably be fights among senior officers to serve aboard them.

 

[SteadyMercury]

I was arguing the notion of any ship being impervious to conventional bombs or missiles, as you stated. Such a ship doesn't exist, and if the argument for it is the strength of the screening task force then we are indeed going theoretical and one can say a fishing boat is impervious to modern bombs or missiles, if protected by the US Navy. Becomes an equally pointless claim.

Also a ship without good antisubmarine defenses being sunk doesn't prove that other ships with better asw cannot be sunk, it just proves ones without can. Until there is a conflict where a modern ship with antisubmarine defenses clashes with modern submarines trying to sink her, we cannot draw conclusions.