707guy
"You can't make this shit up..."
I wonder where they got the idea for that?
Where would the Russians and Chinese be without using our stuff as a starting point for their cheap copies?
I wonder where they got the idea for that?
They even copied their communist ideology from the West.Where would the Russians and Chinese be without using our stuff as a starting point for their cheap copies?
They even copied their communist ideology from the West.
Agree with above, refurbing an old Russian carrier and getting it underway - not too difficult. Building a fleet of aircraft, training and equipping personnel, building and maintaining complex equipment used on the boat, supplying and refueling a forward deployed CSG, teaching how to take off, land, refuel, maintain, and "fight" the boat along with coming up with a set of policies, procedures, doctrine, strategy - not so easy. I am getting exhausted just thinking about it. After witnessing it first hand, I am amazed at the amount of money, time, effort, ingenuity, and EXPERIENCE that it takes to run a CSG. It isn't something that you can do overnight and there is a reason that very few countries have that capability. I am wondering if this is just a hobby, or if the Chinese are actually in it for keeps. So far, their Navy hasn't been more than a regional threat. It takes a lot of resources to be able to project power like we do. It will be interesting to see where this goes in the coming decades. It took us a few decades to be able to do it well, and even longer to do it safely and reliably.
How do you define that exactly? Don't necessarily disagree, just curious as to exactly what capabilities you're talking about.They're in for keeps. The rate of progress in their Navy in the last few years in both operational and technical sides has been absolutely astounding.
How do you define that exactly? Don't necessarily disagree, just curious as to exactly what capabilities you're talking about.
It takes a lot of resources to be able to project power like we do. It will be interesting to see where this goes in the coming decades. It took us a few decades to be able to do it well, and even longer to do it safely and reliably.
Plus the Russian air wings consisted of about 30 fixed winged aircraft. Can't imagine that the ChiComs can stuff many more than that in.It takes us a total of 11 CVNs just to keep 2-3 'on the line' in trouble areas. So, they would need 3 more CVs (plus all the attendent battle group warships & support ships) just to keep 1 BG in a war zone for extended periods. We have managed to keep 2-3 BGs on station during air combat periods since the first 'Rolling Thunder' ops in '65. It would take China 50+ years of ship/aircraft building & operational training to approach our present capability. I'm assuming that we don't strip our operational capability to bare bones...which is a real possibility!
BzB
When they're regularly conducting sustainment ops outside of the South China Sea, then I might invoke the word astounding.
The US paid 189 billion dollars in interest payments alone on our debt in 2009. About 1/16 of that was to China. They're making decent money off of us.Yes, but a lot of their expansion has been made possible by a booming economy. A lot of smart people are thinking that China is due to crash hard in the next few years, which makes adventures like aircraft carriers not so affordable.
A few small boys operating in a green water permissive environment are one thing, the Chinese version of a CSG would be another. My bar is blue water sustained power projection.Curious what your bar for this is and why the GoA deployments didn't meet it. Not enough footprint? They were there for 15 or so months...are you looking for multiple years?
Yeah, they are our VISA/MASTERCARD debt holders. I wonder how close we are to reaching our credit card account limit?The US paid 189 billion dollars in interest payments alone on our debt in 2009. About 1/16 of that was to China. They're making decent money off of us.