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US Fleet and China
- Thread starter mrdrar
- Start date
first comment in comments section is spot on
This is all surround sound now… 60
Minutes piece was pablum. This is the third or fourth story on this I’ve seen today.
Preparedness is nonexistent. Not impugning our soldiery or sailors… but they aren’t being led or equipped or prepared.
Ask yourself… why is there a sudden, coordinated and multi-directional effort to suddenly start focusing on China’s military capabilities and our “being unprepared.”
Why in so many “channels at once.”
Distraction? Oh, your banks are failing… look, a big Red Dragon!! They are arresting a former President)… look, our fleet is being held together with JB Weld. Biden crime is coming out hourly…. OMG the Chinese have robot submarines.
Sirhr
Minutes piece was pablum. This is the third or fourth story on this I’ve seen today.
Preparedness is nonexistent. Not impugning our soldiery or sailors… but they aren’t being led or equipped or prepared.
Ask yourself… why is there a sudden, coordinated and multi-directional effort to suddenly start focusing on China’s military capabilities and our “being unprepared.”
Why in so many “channels at once.”
Distraction? Oh, your banks are failing… look, a big Red Dragon!! They are arresting a former President)… look, our fleet is being held together with JB Weld. Biden crime is coming out hourly…. OMG the Chinese have robot submarines.
Sirhr
A hyperlink ?
No, I'm not terribly concerned about it.
Drac did a good video on it. Carriers at least at one time are built to be survivable. I remember when the turned USS Oriskany into the reef they had to do quite a few things to make it sink. I would love to dive that one day. I would imagine modern carriers are the same.
And for some trivia, the Oriskany was used in the Bridges of toko ri.
Turn around sail back to the United States, stopping along the way to retrieve our military assets from these bases located in countries along the way!
ps, you know the countries that really do not want us their the first place, think of all the money saved by doing this, can then give to Ukraine.
ps, you know the countries that really do not want us their the first place, think of all the money saved by doing this, can then give to Ukraine.
Wonder how the New Zealander and Aussie Socialists would like being the smallest provinces of the PRC? Well, Australia is the Asian version of Lebensraum. They've wanted it for decades.
Sirhr
I keep thinking "things can't get much worse." This line of thought started with the disaster that was the US withdrawal from Afghanistan (remember that cluster f*ck?). Now we are looking at North Korean ICBMs with 18,000km range. Iranians possess 84% enriched uranium. Russia actively pursuing a ground war in Europe, with German 'panzers' back fighting on the Dnieper River (is it 1943?). Now this situation with China in is serious, serious stuff. Remember this geography supplies 75% of the world's semiconductors, more of the higher end ones.
How did things get this bad, this fast?
RE that linked article. It is way too simple. An actual naval war against China is too complex to model with a simple JASSM range + F-18 range. Every day, Pentagon has super computers going, fighting and refighting this naval engagement in silico. The US has actually moved to prohibit China from acquiring the processors the Pentagon is using to wage this conflict (NVDIA's advanced GPUs), because they know that these models have significant military value that China should be denied.
God bless the sailors of the 7th Fleet, the Marines of the littoral regiments now and in the future tasked with defending those isolated rocks, and, of course, all the airmen who will be tasked flying our long-range bombers against heavily defended targets. They deserve much better leaders than we, the collective voters of this country, have provided them...
How did things get this bad, this fast?
RE that linked article. It is way too simple. An actual naval war against China is too complex to model with a simple JASSM range + F-18 range. Every day, Pentagon has super computers going, fighting and refighting this naval engagement in silico. The US has actually moved to prohibit China from acquiring the processors the Pentagon is using to wage this conflict (NVDIA's advanced GPUs), because they know that these models have significant military value that China should be denied.
God bless the sailors of the 7th Fleet, the Marines of the littoral regiments now and in the future tasked with defending those isolated rocks, and, of course, all the airmen who will be tasked flying our long-range bombers against heavily defended targets. They deserve much better leaders than we, the collective voters of this country, have provided them...
Perhaps, but I cannot forget that whenever we've sought support Australia has stepped forward.
I'll settle for paying some honor to the men who went through that. God bless them and thanks for you sacrifices.
OK, I stand corrected in my statement. I should have specified a timeline and not historical. I meant recent times
If things had ever kicked off with the FUSSR.. the carriers would have been targeted with Nuclear torpedos… and sea skimmers.
They were the big target! Because they protected the ReForGer convoys. One of the reason Iceland was so important… Keflavik was an unsinkable carrier. Could intercept the Sov planes. If NATO could hold it.
Red Storm Rising is still a great read for one scenario!
Sirhr
And CV13 took two 500 lb bombs from one good pilot and nearly sank. Yes, it was launching a strike, but that's war. had that pilot led a package, then that's war too.
One good pilot today can service the entire kill chain of a given theater. 1945 was two bombs, today, it's the entire magazine of a hundred launchers.
Ever seen a shark feeding frenzy? Whole fucking battle group gets hit and then the second wave finishes them off.
There is an alternate war game of the WWII pacific War where Japan does NOT attack the US, but focuses on the European powers' lines of communication and the resulting oil, minerals, bases, and man power. Eventually cutting off The Indian Ocean and the Cape. And then getting into the Red Sea and using carriers to destroy the Brits bases in the ME.
It ends ups with Rommel controlling the Suez and Russia being cut off from Lend lease via iran.
The Raj and Africa are lost. German wins. It's all about supply chains ( logistics).
Had Japan really thought deeply about what it was doing, rather than just reacting, and had the US reacted, rather than have had the war-games from the 20s and 30s to go back on, things would have been vastly different.
We were truly lucky that the Germans and Japanese were not driven by careful thinking.
China is different as their strategy is entirely driven by a comprehensive plan much like our efforts in the 20s and 30s were.
We have no long term integrated commercial-logistics plan, but are reacting by improving our kill chains.
We need a moral-commercial-logistics plan based on shared values, and then improving our allies long term.
Well said. I have two Nephews in the 101st. And every kid I run into the the military I take as much time with them as they want.
The polarization at home is wrecking us. We must come together and develop a long term plan to dominate this century.
The polarization isn’t wrecking us, the left is. If we could get rid of them we could own the next two centuries.
Imagine, had Hitler taken Poland and stopped. Consolidated. Take a couple smaller countries. Stop. Consolidate.. Taken France. Stop, Consolidate. Be patient, ally with Italy and Spain. Dont invade Russia and lose half your military. Dont torpedo American shipping. .
Fuck the Nazis and Fuck Joe Biden.
A lot of alternatives... that's one of the problems with alternate histories. They always turn out so much more... interesting... than the real one. As both a trained futurist and an historian (very confusing) the scenario-based alternate histories fascinate me. But they have to be taken with the grain of salt due to 20-20 hindsight.
The other day, I was thinking about D-Day and wondering... why didn't the planners run a pair of Destroyers onto the ends of each beach. They could have beached and been an amazing fortress taking the German Guns to pieces. Especially on the Cliff end of Omaha. Destroyer could have elevated enough to devastate the cliff-top. But the German guns could not aim down far enough to do real damage. Those Destroyer 5" guns and the 40mm's and .50's could have just raked the bluffs.
But back then the idea of beaching a destroyer was unthinkable to a Naval offier. Even though they did exactly this at St. Nazaire... which is one of the most amazing Commando Operations of the war... that noone has ever heard of.
All fun! So many alternate histories and futures.
Cheers,
Sirhr
Japan was always in it for their greater east Asia co-prosperity sphere. The idea of them attacking the British in the Middle East is a stretch.
Japan and Germany both had their own goals that didn’t conflict with each other and fought the same countries but that was about the extent of the alliance.
Agree as well as a good crew. I think if suffering the same damage at Coral Sea Lexington was hit that late in the war she could have been saved as well. The skill of the crew has a great deal to do with it. Yes it was a different ship, and the battle cruiser hull Lex was built on was WAY different over the Essex class carriers. I still think with the experience gained Lex could have been saved. I so wish they would have turned Saratoga into a museum. What a sight that would be today. I think you can dive her as well. I know you can other ships they sunk at those tests.
Taiho also supports this, went down real quick with (what I think) is less damage then the fleet carriers at Midway. Another good example it Yorktown, thing was held together with spit and bailing wire, I think she could have been saved even with the torpedo attack if she had been "really fixed"
I love this subject.
Have you read Shattered Sword? The IJN designs did not include much resilience, fire prevention, or crew-served fire fighting systems. The IJN had a fatalism built in to their ship design that focused only on fighting and not surviving the fight.
The US alone across all combat arms stressed getting the equipment and people back into the fight and learning from the fights to get better across the board.
Had the IJN done its homework, they would have first attacked the oil bunkers and dry docks at Pearl. They also would have attacked the workshops and heavy equipment. Had they just taken out the bunkers, the pacific Fleet would have had to head back to the West Coast.
Not hitting them first, or following up with a strike on the oil facilities was the first decisive point of the Pacific War.
As for D-day
They beached and sunk a lot of ships called Gooseberries, to form breakwaters to facilitate the mulberries, or portable docks. They also laid gas pipelines across the channel.
The problem with beaching a war ship is that is can't be resupplied, can't be repositioned to support further operations, can't easily spot or attack targets provided by the shore parties, and it becomes a hazard to operations.
I'm currently working through USMC WWII Amphibious operations histories. The US sent a lot of operations officers from the first Pacific assaults to help with D-Day planning.
They made it to India.
[Map] Map showing Nagumo’s and Ozawa’s movements during the Indian Ocean Raids of Apr 1942.
[Map] Map showing Nagumo’s and Ozawa’s movements during the Indian Ocean Raids of Apr 1942.
ww2db.com
And Darwin.
Bombing of Darwin
They built bases all over the Pacific. A base in Sri Lanka was all that was needed.
The IJN had scheduled the tank farm in the third strike they called off. They were afraid a third strike would take so long they would get ambushed.
Re the destroyer’s… agreed on all fronts. But in 20 minutes, they could have rendered omaha lot safer. They would not have run out of supplies. And if they had used “wwI” lend lease ships armored and minimally crewed, it would have made defense tougher.
But, woulda coulda! Makes history fun.
The attacks on India and Darwin were to try and isolate both countries from japans interests in SE Asia.
Japan never had the capability of fighting the USN head on and so decided to try and even the odds with the pearl harbour attack. With this in mind the idea of them subsequently splitting the fleet to go for an adventure in the Middle East is a stretch.
I’m all for alternate history but actions against a countries core interest take it a bit far. It would have been a lot more simple to talk about how the Africa Korp was gutted to resupply the eastern front right before El Alamein for instance. The Germans winning in Africa could certainly have swayed a lot of African and middle eastern countries that were on the fence.
And who do you think is behind the demoralization operatives or “despair trolls”?
alternative hx-off topic but here is my idea. the axis was run by incompetents at the top. i.e. yamamoto was barely competent. he split his forces during pearl harbor and midway. results of not doing so give much food for thought. attacking the US. instead of throwing everything at indonesia/SE asia would likely have had a better result for them. attacking russia in coperation with germany or diverting to africa/mid east also a possible move. attacking russia was dumb at that time and hitler declaring war on US? totally retarded i'd say. japan could likely have filled their energy needs via SE asia as they did or thru russian far east. in '41 we were just getting into rearming and there was still a lot of rational isolationism still present in "the people". not so much isolationist sentiment in the elites (driven by russian and british espionage agents). the china lobby was driven by christian idiots and had much influence on US policy vis a vis japan. the same as busch agenda bringing liberal democracy to mid east. no reason for us to ever be involved in WW2 or WW1 for that matter. china now? just can't know anything for certain. i do believe they are an active enemy but degree of danger? probably substantial and being mishandled (and aided) by our fearless leaders.
Agree personally I think it followed their belief system. That somehow it was not honorable, but that is just my take.
I don't know about "the US alone", I would think England was in the same boat. Carriers with armored flight decks seem like a good idea even if it did take away from other areas, aircraft, speed, range. Then there is the US tanks, built to be built fast. Not that great in any way but to take every engine known to man. Chrysler multibank....good night.
In most previous administrations, taking out a carrier would pretty much guarantee being nuked. (Biden is essentially Obama's third term, since his henchmen permeate the current decision-makers). Trump definitely would nuke, even GWB & WJC would have responded with massive attacks. Reagan of course would have let loose the dogs. Carter, not so sure, he was indecisive and failed miserably with Iran. Nixon, Yes, Johnson, Yes, JFK, Yes, Ike, Yes, Truman, Yes.
Plus we have the worst Secdef & CJCS in our history.
What we did with equipment in WWII (overwhelm with sheer volume) China is poised to do now. The traitors trying to "maximize shareholder value" gutted our industrial base, with entire steel mills being sold off, packed up and shipped to China.
Here's a blow by blow summary of one mill sold off to the chicoms:
It would take years to rebuild a steel mill from the ground up. Half the equipment isn't even made in the US any more. We could have bought a lot of the equipment from the Germans, except *someone* blew up their pipelines so a good bit of their steel equipment mfg is shut down.
Tldr: we're fooked.
There is so much to unpack here. I have found myself going back to Ike's speech. We have up to and including WWII, and I would say Korea been able to turn plowshares into swords, I would love an International Harvester Garand, those are only made during Korea, none in WWII, so really plows to guns. The rest of Ike's warnings have rang true, up till roughly two years ago with what I can only see as the wanton destruction of the United States as we know it. Ike's warning was there would not be time to allow from IH to go from making plows to guns. The ability to make guns must now always be there. Sure US law says that if for example Beretta gets a contract to make hand guns for the military the factory to make it must be in the US, ok sounds good. What about the factories for all the other parts. What good does it do if the factory to make the gun is here, but the steel comes from overseas...or any other part for that matter.
There are really two.....flaws....I guess I will say with anything relating to China and the military. First off they have not been in a "real" war since 1953 and the end of Korea. They have has scuffles with India, and Vietnam. Both cases you can argue the case that they lost. They sure as hell did not win anything. One thing you can say about the west going to war as often as they do, they have had practice in moving stuff around the globe. The only way China will hold Taiwan will be to take it very quickly, under two days. Not sure that will happen. Again they know what happened in the last big tussle with the west Korea, the Pusan Perimeter gave them a very good lesson, you must take all of it, if you don't they will push you back. They also got another good lesson, Truman, make it expensive enough in the only the the west will bend on, manpower. Then you have a chance to get them to talk. That lesson held true for Vietnam as well. Johnson hamstrung everything going on there. The famous "They can't bomb an outhouse without my approval" told our enemies everything they need to know. Look at who is in office during these post WWII conflicts. You will see why things happen when they do.
Big mess, I can say that there is a strong possibility that something will happen to the end of Biden's term, likely around election time, depending on a couple factors, is he running again, if not who. What are the outcomes going to be with another election stolen...lots of questions.
Ooops, forgot one thing, hopefully not as long winded.
We all know the saying Quantity has a quality of its own. To a point. And we have seen this proven time and time again, think of any conflict where Israel is playing in. Golan Heights tells us that there are several other things at play here, 73 Easting teaches us the same basic lesson going all the way back to the Siege of Plevna modern tech can and will turn the tide. (read up on that one if you are foggy on it). Bottom line that quantity can be over come by quality....or....more modern equipment. The quality, and something the russians learned early on is a very big deal. Remember that miles long convoy the russians had sitting there in the open for days on end. Early stages of the Ukraine thing. Vehicles being reliable was the issue. And they stopped moving because "cheap chinese" parts failed. A fan belt will stop an engine, a radiator hose will stop a multi million $$ tank. Poor quality electronics make that radar be worthless, that night vision be black as coal. It may work for a few weeks, but in a war that was to be over in days as the Russians thought it would have been no issue, it became an issue when things don't go to plan, and what is another saying, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Only thing I do know is it will be interesting, scary as hell but interesting.
We all know the saying Quantity has a quality of its own. To a point. And we have seen this proven time and time again, think of any conflict where Israel is playing in. Golan Heights tells us that there are several other things at play here, 73 Easting teaches us the same basic lesson going all the way back to the Siege of Plevna modern tech can and will turn the tide. (read up on that one if you are foggy on it). Bottom line that quantity can be over come by quality....or....more modern equipment. The quality, and something the russians learned early on is a very big deal. Remember that miles long convoy the russians had sitting there in the open for days on end. Early stages of the Ukraine thing. Vehicles being reliable was the issue. And they stopped moving because "cheap chinese" parts failed. A fan belt will stop an engine, a radiator hose will stop a multi million $$ tank. Poor quality electronics make that radar be worthless, that night vision be black as coal. It may work for a few weeks, but in a war that was to be over in days as the Russians thought it would have been no issue, it became an issue when things don't go to plan, and what is another saying, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Only thing I do know is it will be interesting, scary as hell but interesting.
Lots to respond to here.
I don't recall a Cold War war game leading to the loss of a carrier elevating us to respond with strategic weapons. The US has always relied on strategic ambiguity so as not to give the enemy something to ratchet. And a loss of a carrier or two to secure the GIUK gap and completely and permanently shut down Soviet air and naval operations in the Arctic was a win.
I can see the loss of a carrier, if it had nukes and was to be used in a seborne leg of nuclear deterrence, and in conjunction of other indicators, like successfully targeting boomers, then elevating the strategic posture. But that is not a strike. More likely we would do the tit for tat by taking down their boomers or degrading a triad of theirs.
The use of a nuke to take out a carrier would not necessarily lead to a limited strike and overwhelming force immediately. In fact there is a much better response such as a tit for tat, declaration of war and a buildup with hope of capitulation while we harden at home.
The presidents' hands are tied by many things that have nothing to do with them or their outlook. And they are often at the benefit or detriment of both the prior president and investments before them. Carter began the defense buildup that Reagan expanded. Carter began the deregulation that Regan expanded.
Reagan did not shut down the Jihadis and do a proper peace plan when the Russians pulled out. The Saudis had chances to take out bin Laden. Bush I had chances as did Clinton. Bush II had to deal with it as did Obama.
The failure of Desert One was as much about the ego of the mission commander and the egos of the joint chiefs/interservice rivalry and the lack of investment by Ford and the congress in the early 70s. Had the pilots been trained to fly aircraft expressly modified and maintained by hand picked crew chiefs and proper maintenance teams - and the Joint Chiefs could have set that up by appointing the right operations team led by a 2 star with experience in Air Assault operations - and that team deployed - then it would have worked. Delta was begun under Carter and was ready.
The erosion of the industrial base is the result of policy, at all levels, not just Federal. And short term profit. We have to be willing to have some pollution and some nuisance due to heavy industry and mining. And we have to push kids and the work force to apprenticeships and manufacturing and productive jobs. The non-productive degrees have to go away and colleges must be retooled to industrial and tech, not junk degrees.
The "motti" tactic the Finns on skis used on the Russian armor in the winter war was reprised by Ukrainians on 4 wheelers. Hit the head and ass of the column then attack it in the middle. Then stop any resupply by using light infantry on the resupply trucks. . It dies on the vine as men run out of fuel, food, and water.
it helped greatly that the Russians chose to invade when the ground was wet, not dry or frozen, and traffic was canalized. The idea of checking trafficability and mapping axes probably was not part of the Russian battle prep or recon, nor fielding BN sized combat teams with own ADA, CAS, arty, recon, supply, and maintenance.I bet a handful of our Generals knew it was a loseable battle a few weeks before the Russians launched.
Quantity has to be operated in space, directed, field, fed and maintained. Too much and when it fails it just clogs things up and you fall further and further behind and never catch up. it becomes its own enemy. No one ends up with enough oomph to be effective.
You want all the ducks quacking all the time and the right location. That takes a lot of work and investment all the way down the supply and training pipeline. If your ducks quack more often and mostly before the other guy';s ducks. You just need enough great ducks and you won't lose.
The IJN was able to fight the Dutch, Royal Navy and the USN head on in the Pacific up until the end of Guadalcanal. In fact they won just about every battle until Midway. The joint operations to take Singapore and The Philippines are still among the most brilliant in the war. They had clear goals and operational unity and great planning.
And the Indian Ocean Raid could have broken the British control of India had it been focused on taking and basing out of the SLN in Ceylon. Rather they went off and messed with Alaska. I'm not sure the Raid had a purpose if they could not also hold the base.
Again, the IJN was reacting not operating from a basic principle.
Cloud shoulda woulda. We got lucky.
You are simplifying history. The Japanese navy could never take on the full might of the US, they planned to cripple the Pacific fleet at Pearl Habour, bleed it as it crossed the Pacific and once the numbers were more favourable, destroy it in an decisive engagement by utilising superior training and smoking the spirit of Bushido.
The battle of the Coral Sea marked a point at which Japan could not replace trained pilots and some types of aircraft, Midway accelerated their decline but Japan was never in a position to take sustained loses.
Maybe they were going by the old idea that the point of naval combat is to destroy ships?
Japan could also have had more luck with Asian countries if they weren't barbaric with heavy overtones of schizophrenia. Bushido really was a advantage for the allies as reality doesn't revolve around the bullshit authoritarian regimes push.
Yay and nay, Japan could never match even a fraction of US industrial output so the outcome was just a matter of time and US losses. Much like the Germans, you can't decide to be at war with most the globe and expect a good result.
Well....
IMHO the tactics the Finns used on the soviets worked because of the very nature of Finland. Very heavy wooded areas with one "road" through forests that are impassible to vehicles of the time. So cutting off the head and tail would work quite well. Ukraine was called the bread basket of europe, not the same.
And again the soviets made the same mistake the Russians made here. That the rest of the world would sit by and do nothing. Help came far and wide, from Swedish and American medical people all the way down to band-aids. The russians did not expect the western powers pouring resources into Finland or Ukraine, after all before the war Ukraine was full of Nazi's remember. Articles in magazines telling about the Anzov battalion and their "nazi" ways. And those reports are accurate. No wonder the Russians thought nothing would happen and it would be over in a week.
I have a feeling the Russians went in thinking there would be no support for Ukraine, a corrupt shithole, and the western countries rotting from the inside out. I can see that thought being, yea they will not do anything. They did nothing when we took Crimea why would they do something now, same guy is in charge. They did not do it under the last guy, but this guy....why not. They underestimated the depth of the corruption, or over estimated the American people. They will not make that mistake again.
I think all of Russias issues in Ukraine come down to the huge amount of cash and supplies rolling into Ukraine.
Now I personally think with Russia and China, as well as a few others are going to try to bleed the US white. For far too long the US has been an international bully. What is going on all over the globe is going to really kick the US in the nutz. Why should any country have US dollars if oil is not going to be bought with it. Why take loans on the US. There will be no point. It is really a turning point.
I have come up with a new idea on how the US should move forward.
Refocus on what is the United States and its territories. Quickly work to add all US territories to State status. Might be a bit rough in some places, but I think it would work. Then pull in, and move to a pre Teddy Roosevelt look at the world. Today we don't need coaling stations for warships. We defend what is the United states, take care of everything in house and lock everyone else out of our house. But a great big dog at the door, and let it bite a few people that try to come in through the window. Word will get out that is not a good idea, and besides they are not doing anything to anyone else. Kick the UN off our soil would be the only rough part, but do it. Withdraw our propping up NATO, put in the same amount of cash that the lowest country is putting in, nothing more. What we can't do here we buy with whatever payment the rest of the world wants to work with, we sell what we have with our own money. You want something unique to the US you pay for it with a US dollar.
This is not sticking your head in the sand, the reverse of that. This is building a wall around your house and putting people on those walls with guns with orders to only shoot people trying to climb the walls, what they do outside of the walls is not our problem. You attack us we will attack you 10 fold. Just leave us the hell alone.
