• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

The Chinese officially have a Boat...

e6bflyer

Used to Care
pilot
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.
 

BigRed389

Registered User
None
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.

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.
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
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.
 

BigRed389

Registered User
None
How do you define that exactly? Don't necessarily disagree, just curious as to exactly what capabilities you're talking about.

Off the cuff, they're figuring out sustaining logistics support at sea and all the details required in going out beyond their own regional bubble to practice stuff like NEO for their assets abroad.
Purely my opinion, but I think their SAG ASUW/AAW proficiency is at least on par with the high end NATO navies.

Even if they're not quite "there" yet, I'd say they've demonstrated they're not just fucking around and are serious about becoming a serious force. Sure they've been making cheap shit copies of stuff they steal or buy from us, the French, the Russians, South Africans, Israelis, whatever, but now they're also turning out pretty high end homegrown systems as well at an accelerated rate.

I think 25 years for them to figure out this stuff is optimistic. They're motivated, they've got money, and they're not completely stupid.

They'll be playing in RIMPAC in 2014, should give us a pretty good look at their proficiency, but it'll also give them a great inside look at how we run a CSG.
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
When they're regularly conducting sustainment ops outside of the South China Sea, then I might invoke the word astounding. That requires more than the ability to reliably do RAS. Part of our unmatched sustainment ability is our vast network of bases and logistics hubs. China currently lacks this capability... but they're working on it. Until then, they're just getting their feet wet. ;)
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
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.
 

BusyBee604

St. Francis/Hugh Hefner Combo!
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
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.

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!:confused:
BzB
 

jmcquate

Well-Known Member
Contributor
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!:confused:
BzB
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.
 

scoober78

(HCDAW)
pilot
Contributor
When they're regularly conducting sustainment ops outside of the South China Sea, then I might invoke the word astounding.

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?
 
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.
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.

"China should receive about $74.4 million per day in payments during the current fiscal year [2011]."

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/...forbes-says-us-pays-china-739-million-day-de/
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
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?
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.
 

BusyBee604

St. Francis/Hugh Hefner Combo!
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
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.
Yeah, they are our VISA/MASTERCARD debt holders. I wonder how close we are to reaching our credit card account limit?:(
BzB
 
Top