Future War with (Red) China Hypotheticals/Theorycrafting

[JagerIV]

Vietnam has growing relations with us, and the people actually tend to like America there

Eh, they're still both communist countries who make gestures at liking and supporting each other. Real politic concerns would probably push Vietnam to be pro China anyways without some extremely big carrots from the US. Bigger than I can see the US realistically offer, compared to the stick China has of just invading through the land boarder.

China wouldn't like to invade, and Vietnam wouldn't like to be invaded. But China could, and with Laos and Cambodia probably friendly to China, could invade along the entire boarder. If there is a big unlimited war against China, marching south to at least Singapore and ideally down to Australia would likely be necesary to victory, and thus an objective to push for at any cost to China. Meaning Vietnam would have the option of being a speed bump, or not a speed bump.

Continuing to make billions of dollars your already making, plus likely making more, and not being killed by Chinese Assassins in a pro-China coup at best/sacrificing millions of Vietnamese at worse, is a deal the US would be hard pressed to beat.

 

[JagerIV]

The Moskva being sunk by 2 Harpoonskis isn't exactly crazy when you look at what state that ship was in, ammunition littered all over the place, no doubt damage control systems nonfunctional or malfunctioning, crew with the training of an insect, etc.
Even just 1 of those missiles would likely have done her in for good.

Yeah, it was likely a very over determined. 40 year old ship, through 90s Russia when nothing was likely maintained, Russians generally not well renowned for their careful maintaince of things anyways. Early in the War when people aren't careful. Happens a lot. I wish I could find it again but I remember an article going through the few modern times we have missiles striking ships with CIWS systems, and I believe in more than one case you had ships hit partially because the CIWS system was off, because peace time standard operating procedure was to have it generally off, because obviously in peace time leaving a 30 mm automated cannon on is an unexceptable risk.

And even in that situation it took most of a day to sink.

 

[Marduk]

Yes, the US loves overkill out of a general risk adverse ness. This I would not expect to change in a war situation. We have a fair bit of history and examples of ships taking a lot of damage to actually sink. Plus tests. I put the Standard higher because its fast, which adds to lethality over the warhead range.

Mantis is simply some of the most recent examples we have of it. Disabling takes a lot less, but that just pushes things more to relatively indecisive war. For example, China might launch a 100 missiles against a Carrier, get 3 hits, which kill a dozen crewmen and make carrier operations non-viable, but don't sink or otherwise cripple the ship. So, the Carrier is out of the war for possibly a couple of months as it returns home and is repaired, but is back in combat 6 months from now. Meanwhile China might with full ramp up manufacture 100 missiles a month, but since there's so many other targets that need to be shot at, its not actually building all that much ahead of US fleets ability to absorb hits through the mixture of repairs, countermeasures, and construction.

Mantis is a situation where overkill is used due to small scale giving it expediency.
Disabling does equal sinking a lot of the time if done away from bases and against ships without quality damage control as we see though.
The other, separate concern is solely with fighting line warships, you may want to fire much more than necessary solely due to even small risk of the ship firing off its own missiles at your ships, but that only applies to those that have such in the given scenario of sinking.
That did apply to the Praying Mantis scenario due to the very close engagement distance.

OTOH if Chinese ships are built to not so great standards, they will have similar problem as some European shipbuilders, which cheaped out on structural standards, using commercial techniques for pricing and ease of use, resulting in this:

Helge Ingstad collision - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A modern western frigate, in the middle of a NATO exercise, meaning exceptional availability of support assets...
Still sank and was not worth repairing.
The notable thing being as the shock of the collision (and larger missiles would do the same) crippling the propeller shaft and steering gear pretty much doomed the ship.

China would assumedly do the same kind of thing.

Single examples are always a a bit trickly to base things on. Fort Hood died very quickly of a luckly shot, while Bismarck took a lot of pounding. Your example however is not a particularly good one. Its a civilian ship, converted into a carrier of sorts, which was loaded with ammunition and fuel which burned uncontrollably, started being towed once the fires had burned themselves out, and only then sunk under towing 3-4 days later. I wish I could find some info on how far they towed it, but even assuming fairly slow tug speed (another thing I couldn't find quickly) of 10 kmh, 1 day could move a ship 240 km, 3 days 720 km. That would be enough to tow a ship struck off the coast of the Philippines back to Hong Kong.

But most of the tonnage to sink we are talking about is civilian ships, presumably loaded with nicely burning cargo like machines, fuel, military supplies, the important kinds of cargo.
Towing and such interventions are to consider in small scale actions, but i would doubt China would have assets to do that with more than few percent of ships in large scale war with USA.

So, you had a relatively light cargo craft, with the least optimal cargo, a very small crew, out in the middle of no where, which still took 3-4 days to actually sink. In many other situations those would have been quite survivable hits. And of course, even given a ratio of 2 missiles per 15,000 tons of cargo ship, your still talking about 44,000 missile hits to sink the heavy merchant fleet. Let alone the lighter craft who will be pressed in to perform various services.

So? When it comes to blockading trade, sinking for 3-4 days is an acceptable victory.
99% of modern freighters very very small crews, which translates to little chance of miracles when it comes to damage control even on large ships.

And that's just the last line of survivability. Obviously, a missile boat or ship getting a missile hit on a Burke and burning up 96 unfired missiles that way is preferable to tanking the hits on a 100 ships. Number of hits to the face is just a rough measure of how many mistakes you can afford to make. China is big enough to afford several.

But when it comes to combatant fleet, China doesn't have that much raw tonnage to soak up hits, and their damage control standards are iffy at best if China keeps being China.

 

[Zachowon]

Eh, they're still both communist countries who make gestures at liking and supporting each other. Real politic concerns would probably push Vietnam to be pro China anyways without some extremely big carrots from the US. Bigger than I can see the US realistically offer, compared to the stick China has of just invading through the land boarder.

China wouldn't like to invade, and Vietnam wouldn't like to be invaded. But China could, and with Laos and Cambodia probably friendly to China, could invade along the entire boarder. If there is a big unlimited war against China, marching south to at least Singapore and ideally down to Australia would likely be necesary to victory, and thus an objective to push for at any cost to China. Meaning Vietnam would have the option of being a speed bump, or not a speed bump.

Continuing to make billions of dollars your already making, plus likely making more, and not being killed by Chinese Assassins in a pro-China coup at best/sacrificing millions of Vietnamese at worse, is a deal the US would be hard pressed to beat.

Vietnam may be communist, but arnt fans of China.
Diffrent types of communism.
We are literally thier number 2 trading partner, outside China, and we also have a lot stronger relationship with the citizenry over China.
Vietnamese actually dont hate us.
They hate China

 

[LordsFire]

China

​

January 1st: Something happens to give a fig leaf of justification to attack Wuciou, with the date of the operation to start on April 1st.

3 months: China spends doing political maneuvers, making credible declarations that they're only intention right now is Wuciou, and everything can proceed as normal if people stay calm.

April 1st: Operations around Wuciou begin, overflights, close circling, firing shells and missiles around but not on. Political maneuvers continue that this won't change anything substantial, and an overaction will cost much more than anyone could gain.

May 1st: Landing attempted by boat or helicopter. Assuming its fired upon, troops pulled back, light shelling and bombing.

Over previous 5 months, stockpiles were built, military formations were readied and put on alert, but not generally deployed except in a reactive mode. Constant diplomatic communications were made to encourage general neutrality, and for those who want to be involved, the merit of a limited, contained war around Wuciou.

Presuming there isn't an incompetent Democrat in the White House...

May 1st: The two American Carrier Groups in the area immediately declare that as the Strait of Taiwan has become an active war zone, they are rerouting all merchant shipping around the area. Anything that's already going through is largely ignored, but anything that has not yet entered the Strait is directed elsewhere by the USN. There's only really four destinations North of the Strait of Taiwan for merchant shipping; China, Korea, Japan, and Russia. It is not immediately obvious, but ships sailing for northern Chinese ports are directed to simply sail away South, while ships going to other nations are just directed to go east of Taiwan instead.

China is told they have 24 hours to get the hell off of Taiwanese land or face repercussions.

May 2nd: After China refuses to leave Wuciou island, the South China Sea is also declared to be a war zone, and in cooperation with the Philipines+ other regional allies, the USN starts redirecting merchant traffic. Traffic going to Vietnam is advised to stay in Vietnamese territorial waters, costing them a bit of extra fuel, but no major disruption. Shipping to other nations now has to go further around, a more substantial delay/fuel cost, but they're still going to their destinations.

All ships heading to Chinese ports are ordered to turn back. At this early stage, helicopter boarding actions are the only authorized mechanism for enforcing it; we don't want any accidental deaths or sinkings.

The White House declares that until China gets off of Taiwanese land, they are under a complete naval trade embargo.

 

[Zachowon]

It is a Taiwan island.
Taiwan would go "an attack on that island is an attack on Taiwan"
Within the start the US will have ships deployed to the area.

 

[JagerIV]

Vietnam may be communist, but arnt fans of China.
Diffrent types of communism.
We are literally thier number 2 trading partner, outside China, and we also have a lot stronger relationship with the citizenry over China.
Vietnamese actually dont hate us.
They hate China

And China is number one, and they share a land boarder. Those are two issues that make jumping into open fighting with China very riskly, and will take some pretty huge carrots and sticks from the US to overcome, even assuming they love the US as much as your suggesting. It takes a whole lot of love or hate to risk poverty and death. More than I think Vietnam has for the US or China.

 

[Zachowon]

And China is number one, and they share a land boarder. Those are two issues that make jumping into open fighting with China very riskly, and will take some pretty huge carrots and sticks from the US to overcome, even assuming they love the US as much as your suggesting. It takes a whole lot of love or hate to risk poverty and death. More than I think Vietnam has for the US or China.

When the Vietnamese are actively forming a military unit specifically to focus on fighting on the northern border.
Have constant bouts with China in the SCS, and have closer ties to us every single time China fishes in thier waters.

But we truly don't even need Vietnam.
We have the Phillipines, the Indonesians, Koreans, Japanese, Australians, etc.
India would even get invovled because of the idea they can get the land they want back.

 

[JagerIV]

Presuming there isn't an incompetent Democrat in the White House...

May 1st: The two American Carrier Groups in the area immediately declare that as the Strait of Taiwan has become an active war zone, they are rerouting all merchant shipping around the area. Anything that's already going through is largely ignored, but anything that has not yet entered the Strait is directed elsewhere by the USN. There's only really four destinations North of the Strait of Taiwan for merchant shipping; China, Korea, Japan, and Russia. It is not immediately obvious, but ships sailing for northern Chinese ports are directed to simply sail away South, while ships going to other nations are just directed to go east of Taiwan instead.

China is told they have 24 hours to get the hell off of Taiwanese land or face repercussions.

May 2nd: After China refuses to leave Wuciou island, the South China Sea is also declared to be a war zone, and in cooperation with the Philipines+ other regional allies, the USN starts redirecting merchant traffic. Traffic going to Vietnam is advised to stay in Vietnamese territorial waters, costing them a bit of extra fuel, but no major disruption. Shipping to other nations now has to go further around, a more substantial delay/fuel cost, but they're still going to their destinations.

All ships heading to Chinese ports are ordered to turn back. At this early stage, helicopter boarding actions are the only authorized mechanism for enforcing it; we don't want any accidental deaths or sinkings.

The White House declares that until China gets off of Taiwanese land, they are under a complete naval trade embargo.

Hm, what doe you mean by in the area for these Carrier battle groups? If were saying in the China sea itself then the obvious counter is to have destroyers tail the US Carriers within gun and torpedo range. Or ideally a gun range group and a supporting missile/helicopter range group. I guess the number committed depends on the size of a Carrier battle group. I think those are generally something like 10-20 warships? So, 10-20 covering ships. Keep constant surveillance and eyes on. China easily has enough Destroyers and at sea replenishment to do this. Say helicopters forcing boardings will be shot down, as well as anyone who shoots civilian shipping in the designated area.

US helicopters get shot down, if the US decides to engage more generally the destroyers open fire with cannon, torpedos, and missiles at point blank range were some shots are bound to hit. This close combat fire might lose basically all the destroyers, but trading 1-1 with the US is a net win for China. Plus survivors can be fairly easily rescued so close to land, especially Chinese controlled land. Such a close range fight is likely to cripple US ships, and the US ships are likely to employ fairly maximum firepower: a destroyer in gun range sinking 3 days later isn't a tolerable state of affairs for the person in gun range.

This makes them maximumly vulnerable to follow on attacks. Off the coast of China itself your in range of a good deal of the land based operations, in the South China Sea you have allegedly at least 300 bombers capable of making attacks with anti ship missiles. China also has some air-air refueling, though a small compared to US: enough to have some attacks, but does not look like enough to match a Carrier wing on their own. If the Carriers are crippled though its enough to keep attacks up and wear down the remainder.

Cambodia is already fairly favorable to China and China is building up a Navy base there, so working out a back room deal to accelerate completion of that naval yard and pre-approval of China moving aircraft and ships to that base in case of hostilities probably can be worked out. Hell, doing it pre- hostilities might be superior, especially if it deters the US.

Even without Cambodia agreeing to basing Chinese aircraft in time for this battle, there's serval Chinese islands in the China sea that aircraft and ships can operate out of. The big ones as far as I can tell with airports on them are Fiery Cross, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef, giving the Chinese 3 airfields and naval bases to operate out of in the South China Sea before any other operations. This puts them less than 1,500 km from Singapore, within range of Chinese bombers operating from those runways.

Two US Carrier battlegroups deployed this way seems to be the kind of weakness which invites aggression. Your putting Carriers in a fight where they might be outnumbered 10-1 in Ships, outnumbered by land based aircraft who can reach them, in a relatively closed space, where a 1-1 ship numbering could be disasterous, and where support can't be very quickly gotten. Such a small force deployed this aggressively seems like its asking for its throat to be slit.

If losing 2+ carriers damaged or sunk doesn't trigger immediate backing off on the US end, other operations can spring board in the South China sea given Chinese superiority in the region to secure it and turn the flank of the first Island chain, as well as other areas.

What is the US counter to this Chinese counter? Did I suggest something you hadn't considered, or am I missing a nuance of this strategy?

 

[Marduk]

Hm, what doe you mean by in the area for these Carrier battle groups? If were saying in the China sea itself then the obvious counter is to have destroyers tail the US Carriers within gun and torpedo range. Or ideally a gun range group and a supporting missile/helicopter range group. I guess the number committed depends on the size of a Carrier battle group. I think those are generally something like 10-20 warships? So, 10-20 covering ships. Keep constant surveillance and eyes on. China easily has enough Destroyers and at sea replenishment to do this. Say helicopters forcing boardings will be shot down, as well as anyone who shoots civilian shipping in the designated area.

US helicopters get shot down, if the US decides to engage more generally the destroyers open fire with cannon, torpedos, and missiles at point blank range were some shots are bound to hit. This close combat fire might lose basically all the destroyers, but trading 1-1 with the US is a net win for China. Plus survivors can be fairly easily rescued so close to land, especially Chinese controlled land. Such a close range fight is likely to cripple US ships, and the US ships are likely to employ fairly maximum firepower: a destroyer in gun range sinking 3 days later isn't a tolerable state of affairs for the person in gun range.

This makes them maximumly vulnerable to follow on attacks. Off the coast of China itself your in range of a good deal of the land based operations, in the South China Sea you have allegedly at least 300 bombers capable of making attacks with anti ship missiles. China also has some air-air refueling, though a small compared to US: enough to have some attacks, but does not look like enough to match a Carrier wing on their own. If the Carriers are crippled though its enough to keep attacks up and wear down the remainder.

Cambodia is already fairly favorable to China and China is building up a Navy base there, so working out a back room deal to accelerate completion of that naval yard and pre-approval of China moving aircraft and ships to that base in case of hostilities probably can be worked out. Hell, doing it pre- hostilities might be superior, especially if it deters the US.

Even without Cambodia agreeing to basing Chinese aircraft in time for this battle, there's serval Chinese islands in the China sea that aircraft and ships can operate out of. The big ones as far as I can tell with airports on them are Fiery Cross, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef, giving the Chinese 3 airfields and naval bases to operate out of in the South China Sea before any other operations. This puts them less than 1,500 km from Singapore, within range of Chinese bombers operating from those runways.

Two US Carrier battlegroups deployed this way seems to be the kind of weakness which invites aggression. Your putting Carriers in a fight where they might be outnumbered 10-1 in Ships, outnumbered by land based aircraft who can reach them, in a relatively closed space, where a 1-1 ship numbering could be disasterous, and where support can't be very quickly gotten. Such a small force deployed this aggressively seems like its asking for its throat to be slit.

If losing 2+ carriers damaged or sunk doesn't trigger immediate backing off on the US end, other operations can spring board in the South China sea given Chinese superiority in the region to secure it and turn the flank of the first Island chain, as well as other areas.

What is the US counter to this Chinese counter? Did I suggest something you hadn't considered, or am I missing a nuance of this strategy?

This strategy is basically at sea trolling based on constant ideal vigilance, readiness perfect intelligence and organization of PLAN tracking groups.
Contrary to popular opinion, if carriers don't want to be found, they aren't that easy to find.
And no, China absolutely has not enough destroyers to do that. They would need to double or triple their fleet and then use most of it solely for trolling.
After all, if shooting starts or is about to start, nothing says that the battlegroup cannot take the first shot at the Chinese destroyers tracking them.
And at this range sneak attack with own submarines is preferable (the noise of 2 large groups of warships in close proximity makes ASW extra hard), so sinking slowly is not an issue.

There is however a little merit in this, as there exist more realistic variations of the strategy, however using nuclear submarines, or the navy militia ships tracking carriers for intelligence purposes.
Also why the hell would a carrier battle group hang out close to Chinese mainland on the eve of a shooting war? Any commander not moving it immediately to a more survivable striking range ought to get dismissed ASAP as an idiot or traitor.
The main reason why carriers are still a major tool for peer conflicts is the sheer strike range of a carrier (range of aircraft plus the aircraft's missiles), combined with the unpredictability of where will the strike come from.
Meanwhile, strategic bombers can't be based just anywhere without anyone knowing.

 

[LordsFire]

What is the US counter to this Chinese counter? Did I suggest something you hadn't considered, or am I missing a nuance of this strategy?

...

Yes, you are missing a lot of things, and they aren't even 'nuance.' It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the reason you have the perspective and opinion that you do, is because you have no idea how naval and carrier warfare work at all.

First off, if China gets into a shooting war with the US, it's lost. This is the literal worst possible outcome for them, so they're very unlikely to start one.

Second off, Chinese Destroyers, Subs, etc, are going to be nowhere near a US Carrier in the event that China is mobilizing towards war. At a minimum the large escorting fleet will be keeping them out of visual range of the Carrier, more likely they won't be within 50-100 nautical miles. If they're anywhere remotely close when China starts shooting at Taiwan, they will be ordered to leave the area, as China is clearly in a war-starting mood. If they refuse, boarding parties will be sent to enforce the order. If they shoot at the boarding parties, then again, China has started a shooting war with the USA.

Third off, as Marduk mentioned, a Carrier being within half a thousand miles is within easy striking range of an area, and thus enforcement of a naval interdict.

Fourth off, the overwhelming majority of PLAAF aircraft are complete crap. We're talking generation 3 or earlier. They have some Soviet generation 4, and some of their own knock-offs of soviet generation 4. Soviet aircraft historically perform at a 3:1 or worse loss ratio against American aircraft of equivalent generation, and if anything, the PLAAF is likely to do worse, not better. Most front-line engagements would be American Gen 5 or Gen 4.5 aircraft, giving an even larger advantage to the US side of such a conflict.

The J-20 might live somewhere close to up to its hype, which would make it a clear threat to US Gen 4.5 and non-ignorable threat to Gen 5 aircraft. Even if it does though, which is questionable as they've had problems getting fully-functional engines into those bad enough that the world at large knows about them, they have a few dozen of them, the US has hundreds of Gen 5 and Gen 4.5 aircraft.


Fifth off, even if China manages, despite inferior training, inferior equipment, and an utter lack of actual war-fighting experience, to sink one or both Carrier groups in the region?

They are still completely and utterly screwed. They will have killed thousands of American sailors because the US tried to move merchant shipping out of a war zone. This is a clear, massive Casus Belli, on the order of Pearl Harbor, and it does nothing about the other 8 active Supercarriers, probably half of which will vector directly to the area, or Okinawa, or Yokosuka, or the US sub fleet, or the rest of those carrier battle groups.

Things immediately escalate to a full-scale war. Every Chinese naval base that is not within range of mainland China's AA envelope will be crushed within days, every merchant ship flying the Chinese flag will be captured or sunk. Within a couple of weeks, when all redeployed forces are sent into the area, what's left of the PLAAF will be torn to shreds, and systematic bombing of all military infrastructure begins.

Depending on what classified programs exist, Chinese long-range nuclear capability might get knocked out pre-emptively, and if that happens, the bombings will continue until the CCP surrenders unconditionally. This last is more of a pipe dream, but it's more likely than the PLAN being able to beat the USN, without active political sabotage by US civilian leadership.

 

[Zachowon]

Hm, what doe you mean by in the area for these Carrier battle groups? If were saying in the China sea itself then the obvious counter is to have destroyers tail the US Carriers within gun and torpedo range. Or ideally a gun range group and a supporting missile/helicopter range group. I guess the number committed depends on the size of a Carrier battle group. I think those are generally something like 10-20 warships? So, 10-20 covering ships. Keep constant surveillance and eyes on. China easily has enough Destroyers and at sea replenishment to do this. Say helicopters forcing boardings will be shot down, as well as anyone who shoots civilian shipping in the designated area.

US helicopters get shot down, if the US decides to engage more generally the destroyers open fire with cannon, torpedos, and missiles at point blank range were some shots are bound to hit. This close combat fire might lose basically all the destroyers, but trading 1-1 with the US is a net win for China. Plus survivors can be fairly easily rescued so close to land, especially Chinese controlled land. Such a close range fight is likely to cripple US ships, and the US ships are likely to employ fairly maximum firepower: a destroyer in gun range sinking 3 days later isn't a tolerable state of affairs for the person in gun range.

This makes them maximumly vulnerable to follow on attacks. Off the coast of China itself your in range of a good deal of the land based operations, in the South China Sea you have allegedly at least 300 bombers capable of making attacks with anti ship missiles. China also has some air-air refueling, though a small compared to US: enough to have some attacks, but does not look like enough to match a Carrier wing on their own. If the Carriers are crippled though its enough to keep attacks up and wear down the remainder.

Cambodia is already fairly favorable to China and China is building up a Navy base there, so working out a back room deal to accelerate completion of that naval yard and pre-approval of China moving aircraft and ships to that base in case of hostilities probably can be worked out. Hell, doing it pre- hostilities might be superior, especially if it deters the US.

Even without Cambodia agreeing to basing Chinese aircraft in time for this battle, there's serval Chinese islands in the China sea that aircraft and ships can operate out of. The big ones as far as I can tell with airports on them are Fiery Cross, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef, giving the Chinese 3 airfields and naval bases to operate out of in the South China Sea before any other operations. This puts them less than 1,500 km from Singapore, within range of Chinese bombers operating from those runways.

Two US Carrier battlegroups deployed this way seems to be the kind of weakness which invites aggression. Your putting Carriers in a fight where they might be outnumbered 10-1 in Ships, outnumbered by land based aircraft who can reach them, in a relatively closed space, where a 1-1 ship numbering could be disasterous, and where support can't be very quickly gotten. Such a small force deployed this aggressively seems like its asking for its throat to be slit.

If losing 2+ carriers damaged or sunk doesn't trigger immediate backing off on the US end, other operations can spring board in the South China sea given Chinese superiority in the region to secure it and turn the flank of the first Island chain, as well as other areas.

What is the US counter to this Chinese counter? Did I suggest something you hadn't considered, or am I missing a nuance of this strategy?

You want to try and follow the most heavily defended ship battle group in the ocean, that has more planes....
Everyone else covered it already.

...

Yes, you are missing a lot of things, and they aren't even 'nuance.' It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the reason you have the perspective and opinion that you do, is because you have no idea how naval and carrier warfare work at all.

First off, if China gets into a shooting war with the US, it's lost. This is the literal worst possible outcome for them, so they're very unlikely to start one.

Second off, Chinese Destroyers, Subs, etc, are going to be nowhere near a US Carrier in the event that China is mobilizing towards war. At a minimum the large escorting fleet will be keeping them out of visual range of the Carrier, more likely they won't be within 50-100 nautical miles. If they're anywhere remotely close when China starts shooting at Taiwan, they will be ordered to leave the area, as China is clearly in a war-starting mood. If they refuse, boarding parties will be sent to enforce the order. If they shoot at the boarding parties, then again, China has started a shooting war with the USA.

Third off, as Marduk mentioned, a Carrier being within half a thousand miles is within easy striking range of an area, and thus enforcement of a naval interdict.

Fourth off, the overwhelming majority of PLAAF aircraft are complete crap. We're talking generation 3 or earlier. They have some Soviet generation 4, and some of their own knock-offs of soviet generation 4. Soviet aircraft historically perform at a 3:1 or worse loss ratio against American aircraft of equivalent generation, and if anything, the PLAAF is likely to do worse, not better. Most front-line engagements would be American Gen 5 or Gen 4.5 aircraft, giving an even larger advantage to the US side of such a conflict.

The J-20 might live somewhere close to up to its hype, which would make it a clear threat to US Gen 4.5 and non-ignorable threat to Gen 5 aircraft. Even if it does though, which is questionable as they've had problems getting fully-functional engines into those bad enough that the world at large knows about them, they have a few dozen of them, the US has hundreds of Gen 5 and Gen 4.5 aircraft.


Fifth off, even if China manages, despite inferior training, inferior equipment, and an utter lack of actual war-fighting experience, to sink one or both Carrier groups in the region?

They are still completely and utterly screwed. They will have killed thousands of American sailors because the US tried to move merchant shipping out of a war zone. This is a clear, massive Casus Belli, on the order of Pearl Harbor, and it does nothing about the other 8 active Supercarriers, probably half of which will vector directly to the area, or Okinawa, or Yokosuka, or the US sub fleet, or the rest of those carrier battle groups.

Things immediately escalate to a full-scale war. Every Chinese naval base that is not within range of mainland China's AA envelope will be crushed within days, every merchant ship flying the Chinese flag will be captured or sunk. Within a couple of weeks, when all redeployed forces are sent into the area, what's left of the PLAAF will be torn to shreds, and systematic bombing of all military infrastructure begins.

Depending on what classified programs exist, Chinese long-range nuclear capability might get knocked out pre-emptively, and if that happens, the bombings will continue until the CCP surrenders unconditionally.

If the US entered total war production once again, we have plenty if factories within the US that can be converted if need be.

 

[JagerIV]

...

Yes, you are missing a lot of things, and they aren't even 'nuance.' It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the reason you have the perspective and opinion that you do, is because you have no idea how naval and carrier warfare work at all.

First off, if China gets into a shooting war with the US, it's lost. This is the literal worst possible outcome for them, so they're very unlikely to start one.

Second off, Chinese Destroyers, Subs, etc, are going to be nowhere near a US Carrier in the event that China is mobilizing towards war. At a minimum the large escorting fleet will be keeping them out of visual range of the Carrier, more likely they won't be within 50-100 nautical miles. If they're anywhere remotely close when China starts shooting at Taiwan, they will be ordered to leave the area, as China is clearly in a war-starting mood. If they refuse, boarding parties will be sent to enforce the order. If they shoot at the boarding parties, then again, China has started a shooting war with the USA.

Third off, as Marduk mentioned, a Carrier being within half a thousand miles is within easy striking range of an area, and thus enforcement of a naval interdict.

Fourth off, the overwhelming majority of PLAAF aircraft are complete crap. We're talking generation 3 or earlier. They have some Soviet generation 4, and some of their own knock-offs of soviet generation 4. Soviet aircraft historically perform at a 3:1 or worse loss ratio against American aircraft of equivalent generation, and if anything, the PLAAF is likely to do worse, not better. Most front-line engagements would be American Gen 5 or Gen 4.5 aircraft, giving an even larger advantage to the US side of such a conflict.

The J-20 might live somewhere close to up to its hype, which would make it a clear threat to US Gen 4.5 and non-ignorable threat to Gen 5 aircraft. Even if it does though, which is questionable as they've had problems getting fully-functional engines into those bad enough that the world at large knows about them, they have a few dozen of them, the US has hundreds of Gen 5 and Gen 4.5 aircraft.


Fifth off, even if China manages, despite inferior training, inferior equipment, and an utter lack of actual war-fighting experience, to sink one or both Carrier groups in the region?

They are still completely and utterly screwed. They will have killed thousands of American sailors because the US tried to move merchant shipping out of a war zone. This is a clear, massive Casus Belli, on the order of Pearl Harbor, and it does nothing about the other 8 active Supercarriers, probably half of which will vector directly to the area, or Okinawa, or Yokosuka, or the US sub fleet, or the rest of those carrier battle groups.

Things immediately escalate to a full-scale war. Every Chinese naval base that is not within range of mainland China's AA envelope will be crushed within days, every merchant ship flying the Chinese flag will be captured or sunk. Within a couple of weeks, when all redeployed forces are sent into the area, what's left of the PLAAF will be torn to shreds, and systematic bombing of all military infrastructure begins.

Depending on what classified programs exist, Chinese long-range nuclear capability might get knocked out pre-emptively, and if that happens, the bombings will continue until the CCP surrenders unconditionally. This last is more of a pipe dream, but it's more likely than the PLAN being able to beat the USN, without active political sabotage by US civilian leadership.

Wait, so they're going to be doing boarding operations in the South China Sea without having anything in the south China sea? Something like a Black hawk has roughly a 600 km combat range, which would require the launcher to be in the South China sea to carry these out. Flying unescorted helicopter within range of land based Chinese air assets also seems questionable.

You could maybe operate out of the Philippines, but that would bring Philippines into the war, and the American presence is extremely small, and invading its fairly easy: its much bigger, the Philippine army is comparatively tiny, and extremely poorly equipped. They don't have any MBTs as far as I can tell. Amphibious operations aren't necessarily that difficult: fighting through defensive lines and surviving counter attacks is difficult. I'm not sure the Philippines is well set up to do that.

Given the map of the South China Sea, I'm not sure how the US Navy could operate in it with much success. Certainly not with maintaining the spacing your suggesting.

So your going to run a blockade keeping all the American ships out beyond Taiwan?

 

[Marduk]

Wait, so they're going to be doing boarding operations in the South China Sea without having anything in the south China sea? Something like a Black hawk has roughly a 600 km combat range, which would require the launcher to be in the South China sea to carry these out. Flying unescorted helicopter within range of land based Chinese air assets also seems questionable.

If Chinese air assets are shooting down your helicopters, you are not boarding Chinese ships. You are firing harpoons, torpedos, JASSMs and everything but a kitchen sink at them at this point of escalation, no questions about it, while land and carrier based aircraft are fighting said air assets and attacking their bases.

 

[Zachowon]

A blockade is the lowest form of escalation.
If it goes any higher AGIS will show just how effective it is.
I know only what Google tells me, but it is at the level that can integrate with iirc, THAAD and Patriot, it can basically see the world.
Try launching something when you can't hide

 

[JagerIV]

This strategy is basically at sea trolling based on constant ideal vigilance, readiness perfect intelligence and organization of PLAN tracking groups.
Contrary to popular opinion, if carriers don't want to be found, they aren't that easy to find.
And no, China absolutely has not enough destroyers to do that. They would need to double or triple their fleet and then use most of it solely for trolling.
After all, if shooting starts or is about to start, nothing says that the battlegroup cannot take the first shot at the Chinese destroyers tracking them.
And at this range sneak attack with own submarines is preferable (the noise of 2 large groups of warships in close proximity makes ASW extra hard), so sinking slowly is not an issue.

There is however a little merit in this, as there exist more realistic variations of the strategy, however using nuclear submarines, or the navy militia ships tracking carriers for intelligence purposes.
Also why the hell would a carrier battle group hang out close to Chinese mainland on the eve of a shooting war? Any commander not moving it immediately to a more survivable striking range ought to get dismissed ASAP as an idiot or traitor.
The main reason why carriers are still a major tool for peer conflicts is the sheer strike range of a carrier (range of aircraft plus the aircraft's missiles), combined with the unpredictability of where will the strike come from.
Meanwhile, strategic bombers can't be based just anywhere without anyone knowing.

I mean, in the described set up this is the cumulation of 4 months of back and force. Its villagence with 4 months of planning knowing the exact date hostilities might break out.

What do you mean they don't have enough Destroyers to trade 1-1 with a Carrier battle group? Especially if they can eliminate 2 of them? Assuming two were placed in the South China sea, which now seems to not be the plan.

Missiles and nuclear submarines make more sense for further out targets. If one is in Japan or leaving port there, or crossing the Indian Ocean. Ones in Europe or the Middle East may also be vulnerable to attacks: leaving through the Red Sea requires passing by a Chinese naval base, and ships can also be sent to the Persian gulf.

China, Russia, and Iran hold joint exercises annually. I'm not sure how many ships it would make sense to put up there, depends on how many US ships are there, as well as any back room deals there.

If the US navy wants to be in a position to institute a heavy blockade, that implies some closeness, and thus putting them in China's range too. Deep ocean is defiantly much more to the strengths of Carriers, but if the main battlespace is close in to land, that advantage is less great.

This I guess is a question of where things would be on a map. Looking at a map, I'm not quite seeing where these positioning is to carry out the kind of high tempo operation seemingly described, rather than nibbling at the edge of things.

 

[JagerIV]

A blockade is the lowest form of escalation.
If it goes any higher AGIS will show just how effective it is.
I know only what Google tells me, but it is at the level that can integrate with iirc, THAAD and Patriot, it can basically see the world.
Try launching something when you can't hide

So low we never implemented one against the USSR? And has only really been implemented in Wars to the Knife like WWI and WWII, at least in the broad, universals way described?

 

[Zachowon]

So low we never implemented one against the USSR? And has only really been implemented in Wars to the Knife like WWI and WWII, at least in the broad, universals way described?

In the fact that if we want to make sure China will suffer it is the best way.

Harder to Blockade zUSSR due to sheer size

 

[JagerIV]

In the fact that if we want to make sure China will suffer it is the best way.

Harder to Blockade zUSSR due to sheer size

Which is a war to the knife. Inflicting maximum suffering means nuclear escalation is more or less the next step up. I just don't see the politicians committing to something we weren't willing to employ against Russia, when the costs are so much higher.

I mean, if the US did do this it probably does make sense to back off now to get another 2 years in to prepare for WWIII, if the US signals it won't accept Taiwan joining without WWIII, but that just does not match US behavior in the last 100 years.

 

[Zachowon]

This is in retaliation to the invasion if Taiwanese islands.
In which case it would be telling the Chinese to back off and stop if they want the blockade to be lifted.
Fighting it would just make things worse