China ChiCom News Thread

[Zachowon]

The built/are building a pipeline into Iran for oil, so they are not completely dependent on either SA or Russia for petrochemical supplies.

Also, the CCP had made large inroads with places in Europe and central Asia with the Belt and Road initiative.

Treating the CCP as a paper tiger is not a wise move, and the still have a lot of diplo clout; see the nations who still will not open relations with Taiwan because they are scared of the CCP.

The CCP can be countered and beat, but only if people actually take them seriously instead of clinging to cope memes.

You mean building roads and pipelines through some of the hardest terrain to dow that woth?

 

[Bacle]

You mean building roads and pipelines through some of the hardest terrain to dow that woth?

I have no idea what the purposed route for that pipeline is.

But putting pipelines in mountainous terrian is not impossible; just look what we did to get the Alaska pipeline into Valdez back in the day.

 

[Zachowon]

I have no idea what the purposed route for that pipeline is.

But putting pipelines in mountainous terrian is not impossible; just look what we did to get the Alaska pipeline into Valdez back in the day.

Yeah, but thatbis the US, not the corner cutting China

 

[LordsFire]

The built/are building a pipeline into Iran for oil, so they are not completely dependent on either SA or Russia for petrochemical supplies.

Also, the CCP had made large inroads with places in Europe and central Asia with the Belt and Road initiative.

Treating the CCP as a paper tiger is not a wise move, and the still have a lot of diplo clout; see the nations who still will not open relations with Taiwan because they are scared of the CCP.

The CCP can be countered and beat, but only if people actually take them seriously instead of clinging to cope memes.

China is a very real tiger. A tiger with a nasty, steadily-advancing disease, but a tiger nonetheless.

To suit the metaphor, the US and allies are a group of men with high-powered rifles. If they remain reasonably alert and don't panic, the tiger attacking will just be suicide for the tiger. If the men get sloppy and lazy, the tiger will still get gunned down, but it'll manage to maul some people first.

 

[Bacle]

Yeah, but thatbis the US, not the corner cutting China

There you go with the cope memes again; automatically assuming anything the CCP does or makes will be shit as a matter of course.

Also, putting a pipeline through mountains is not terribly fancy engineering, it just requires dynamite, brave construction crews, and funding.

This is also something the CCP is unlikely to allow corners to be cut in, because they know it could be their petrochem lifeline in the event things go loud.

 

[Navarro]

 

[Bacle]

China is a very real tiger. A tiger with a nasty, steadily-advancing disease, but a tiger nonetheless.

To suit the metaphor, the US and allies are a group of men with high-powered rifles. If they remain reasonably alert and don't panic, the tiger attacking will just be suicide for the tiger. If the men get sloppy and lazy, the tiger will still get gunned down, but it'll manage to maul some people first.

If China is a tiger, we aren't men with guns on a hunt, we and our allies are just another pride of liones they compete with, and a pride with a sick and feeble leader at that.

 

[LordsFire]

There you go with the cope memes again; automatically assuming anything the CCP does or makes will be shit as a matter of course.

Also, putting a pipeline through mountains is not terribly fancy engineering, it just requires dynamite, brave construction crews, and funding.

This is also something the CCP is unlikely to allow corners to be cut in, because they know it could be their petrochem lifeline in the event things go loud.

1. Zach is going overboard with things, more or less as usual.
2. The CCP has no limit to the number of things they will let corners be cut on. All signs are that the Three Gorges Dam has serious issues caused in large part by corner-cutting, and that's their national flagship point of pride.
3. Building tunnels and pipelines through mountains is actually very involved engineering work. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but any major project going through mountain terrain is much more difficult.

If China is a tiger, we aren't men with guns on a hunt, we and our allies are just another pride of liones they compete with, and a pride with a sick and feeble leader at that.

The reason for the gun in the analogy, is because they have zero ability to project military power across the Pacific, while we have the military power to cripple and destroy them at will. Not without losses, and our allies/friends could take some particularly nasty ones, but much like Japan prior to WWII, they could start a war, they could inflict serious suffering, but they have no ability whatsoever to actually win said war, aside to hope that we pre-emptively surrender.

...Which, granted with Dems in the White House isn't completely impossible, but it's still probably no more than a 2% chance, and an outpouring of national outrage is much more likely.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

Where was that video about the fake storm drains again?

 

[Bacle]

1. Zach is going overboard with things, more or less as usual.
2. The CCP has no limit to the number of things they will let corners be cut on. All signs are that the Three Gorges Dam has serious issues caused in large part by corner-cutting, and that's their national flagship point of pride.
3. Building tunnels and pipelines through mountains is actually very involved engineering work. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but any major project going through mountain terrain is much more difficult.

Oh, I am well aware of the challenges of building in mountains, but it is not nearly so difficult as Zach tried to imply.

As for the 3 Gorges and cut corners...I think that issue is part of why the CCP would be leery of cutting corners on an oil pipeline of this importance. The CCP know the problems that can come from allowing corners to be cut on national scale projects, and are unlikely to allow that to happen again.

 

[Navarro]

Where was that video about the fake storm drains again?

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

Thanks...

What was that about the CCP learning to not cut corners?

 

[The Whispering Monk]

This is also something the CCP is unlikely to allow corners to be cut in, because they know it could be their petrochem lifeline in the event things go loud.

Dude...if China expects a pipeline to actually still exist in ANY hot action they are REALLY smoking the good stuff.

It's a fixed target that is virtually impossible to harden. One cruise missile, laser guided bomb, RPG or even a truck full of explosives makes that pipeline a useless and wasted expenditure.

 

[Bacle]

Dude...if China expects a pipeline to actually still exist in ANY hot action they are REALLY smoking the good stuff.

It's a fixed target that is virtually impossible to harden. One cruise missile, laser guided bomb, RPG or even a truck full of explosives makes that pipeline a useless and wasted expenditure.

Depends on what sort of defense and hardening the CCP, Iran, and their partners put around it.

I wouldn't be shocked if one of the parties bought a few S-400s to stick around the pipeline's path, and putting it below ground secures it against most man portable weapons that could damage it.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

I wouldn't be shocked if one of the parties bought a few S-400s to stick around the pipeline's path, and putting it below ground secures it against most man portable weapons that could damage it.

Ain't gonna do it. We've shown how easy it is for US weapons to penetrate underground bunkers. And, at some point, it's got to exist above ground. In a hot war, that access is doomed.

 

[Bacle]

Ain't gonna do it. We've shown how easy it is for US weapons to penetrate underground bunkers. And, at some point, it's got to exist above ground. In a hot war, that access is doomed.

Pipelines can be repaired, you know.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Of course, but how much time and effort will that take? Can it keep pace with the damage done? Can it be realistically accomplished if the damaged location of the pipeline is underground in the mountains?

 

[LordsFire]

Depends on what sort of defense and hardening the CCP, Iran, and their partners put around it.

I wouldn't be shocked if one of the parties bought a few S-400s to stick around the pipeline's path, and putting it below ground secures it against most man portable weapons that could damage it.

It's funny that you say Zachowon is overstating the difficulty, then you're pretty much going here and doing the same thing.

First off, Russian anti-air hardware hasn't shown very dependable ability to protect as well as they claim in ME skirmishes of late.

Second off, every defense platform you put along that oil pipeline isn't protecting something else.

Third off, standing US doctrine is to take out the air defenses, then the target(s) afterwards, so odds are you'd just force the US to use a larger strike package, then you're down both the pipeline, and the AA platforms.

Fourth off, putting pipeline underground is massively more expensive than building it across the surface. It also makes it harder to access for repairs. Putting it deep enough that standard bunker-buster rounds can't break it is getting into orders of magnitude more expensive.

Fifth off, every hour that pipeline is down for repairs, it's not pumping oil.

Sixth off, once the US establishes local air supremacy, they don't just have to blow up one chunk of the pipeline, they can strafe the merry hell out of dozens of kilometers of the thing, meaning you'll need weeks to months to repair it, and nothing is stopping the US Air Force/Navy Air Corps from just doing it again then.


Defending stationary targets from an enemy who has aerospace superiority is more or less impossible in the modern day. The only real protection is the enemy not knowing where the target is, and with a project the size of a pipeline, you just cannot do that in this day of satellite imagery.


The only, only way China could secure a supply of oil during a war, is if it's coming from within their own borders, and they massively fortify the area, and they have a way of blocking attacks from Stealth Bombers that they've managed to keep secret thus far, and they have an ABM shield that can stop us from lobbing conventional warheads at it until it breaks.

Bluntly put, it's the next best thing to militarily impossible for them to pull that off. Their only hope for victory is political, not military.

 

[Zachowon]

1. Zach is going overboard with things, more or less as usual.
2. The CCP has no limit to the number of things they will let corners be cut on. All signs are that the Three Gorges Dam has serious issues caused in large part by corner-cutting, and that's their national flagship point of pride.
3. Building tunnels and pipelines through mountains is actually very involved engineering work. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but any major project going through mountain terrain is much more difficult.




The reason for the gun in the analogy, is because they have zero ability to project military power across the Pacific, while we have the military power to cripple and destroy them at will. Not without losses, and our allies/friends could take some particularly nasty ones, but much like Japan prior to WWII, they could start a war, they could inflict serious suffering, but they have no ability whatsoever to actually win said war, aside to hope that we pre-emptively surrender.

...Which, granted with Dems in the White House isn't completely impossible, but it's still probably no more than a 2% chance, and an outpouring of national outrage is much more likely.

I am not going overboard. Not this time

It's funny that you say Zachowon is overstating the difficulty, then you're pretty much going here and doing the same thing.

First off, Russian anti-air hardware hasn't shown very dependable ability to protect as well as they claim in ME skirmishes of late.

Second off, every defense platform you put along that oil pipeline isn't protecting something else.

Third off, standing US doctrine is to take out the air defenses, then the target(s) afterwards, so odds are you'd just force the US to use a larger strike package, then you're down both the pipeline, and the AA platforms.

Fourth off, putting pipeline underground is massively more expensive than building it across the surface. It also makes it harder to access for repairs. Putting it deep enough that standard bunker-buster rounds can't break it is getting into orders of magnitude more expensive.

Fifth off, every hour that pipeline is down for repairs, it's not pumping oil.

Sixth off, once the US establishes local air supremacy, they don't just have to blow up one chunk of the pipeline, they can strafe the merry hell out of dozens of kilometers of the thing, meaning you'll need weeks to months to repair it, and nothing is stopping the US Air Force/Navy Air Corps from just doing it again then.


Defending stationary targets from an enemy who has aerospace superiority is more or less impossible in the modern day. The only real protection is the enemy not knowing where the target is, and with a project the size of a pipeline, you just cannot do that in this day of satellite imagery.


The only, only way China could secure a supply of oil during a war, is if it's coming from within their own borders, and they massively fortify the area, and they have a way of blocking attacks from Stealth Bombers that they've managed to keep secret thus far, and they have an ABM shield that can stop us from lobbing conventional warheads at it until it breaks.

Bluntly put, it's the next best thing to militarily impossible for them to pull that off. Their only hope for victory is political, not military.

There is not a single country that can defeat the US militarily.

 

[Bacle]

It's funny that you say Zachowon is overstating the difficulty, then you're pretty much going here and doing the same thing.

First off, Russian anti-air hardware hasn't shown very dependable ability to protect as well as they claim in ME skirmishes of late.

Second off, every defense platform you put along that oil pipeline isn't protecting something else.

Third off, standing US doctrine is to take out the air defenses, then the target(s) afterwards, so odds are you'd just force the US to use a larger strike package, then you're down both the pipeline, and the AA platforms.

Fourth off, putting pipeline underground is massively more expensive than building it across the surface. It also makes it harder to access for repairs. Putting it deep enough that standard bunker-buster rounds can't break it is getting into orders of magnitude more expensive.

Fifth off, every hour that pipeline is down for repairs, it's not pumping oil.

Sixth off, once the US establishes local air supremacy, they don't just have to blow up one chunk of the pipeline, they can strafe the merry hell out of dozens of kilometers of the thing, meaning you'll need weeks to months to repair it, and nothing is stopping the US Air Force/Navy Air Corps from just doing it again then.


Defending stationary targets from an enemy who has aerospace superiority is more or less impossible in the modern day. The only real protection is the enemy not knowing where the target is, and with a project the size of a pipeline, you just cannot do that in this day of satellite imagery.


The only, only way China could secure a supply of oil during a war, is if it's coming from within their own borders, and they massively fortify the area, and they have a way of blocking attacks from Stealth Bombers that they've managed to keep secret thus far, and they have an ABM shield that can stop us from lobbing conventional warheads at it until it breaks.

Bluntly put, it's the next best thing to militarily impossible for them to pull that off. Their only hope for victory is political, not military.

They have Biden in the Oval, and have their roots/fingers in damn near every agency both civie and military/IC, along with all those 'reasearchers/grad students' academic spies they've sent over, and control a lot of Wall Streets money (or have in the recent past). Not to mention their influence over Hollywood and the markets, or on the international stage.

I think they are close to Diplo victory by the CCP.

I think that military conflict is likely to be either something that won't happen at all, or will be world ending (in which the pipeline won't matter anyway) or an backroom orchestrated war to bleed off population by all belligerents, in which they still get an effective victory when stalemate is reached. So we might have the weapons to demolish the pipeline for good, but will there be a matching public will to use the methods needed, and would the elite even use them if they wanted their war to be a long lasting grinder?

How else can they have their 'We have always been at war with East Asia' moment their 1984 world is headed towards?

I am not going overboard. Not this time



There is not a single country that can defeat the US militarily.

Yes, no single country.

Turns out that just means more of them team up to the point they can enforce MAD on the US.

They don't want to be Ghadaffi'ed if they become inconvenient to a US or allied leader, and they know the US military wants a 'win' so badly it glows, the rest of the world can see that, and they can also see that the US populace has no taste for the war it's military wants.