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You sank my battleship (with a Chinese ASBM)!
citizen059
hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered User regular
hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered User regular
So this is in the news today:
https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp
So is anyone more familiar with the US/China situation that can shed some light on what this sort of thing means?
We hear of things from time to time, from documents to spy plane incidents, that show that the Chinese government really isn't too fond of the good ol' U.S. of A.
Is this just posturing? Foreshadowing of future conflict? Navy propaganda designed to make us scared of the warm, fuzzy, peace-loving Chinese? According to this source, the Navy is taking it seriously enough to find ways to counter it.
Again, I don't often follow this type of stuff, but the article made me a bit curious. I figured someone here might have some insight.
https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp
Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers
Advanced missile poses substantial new threat for U.S. Navy
With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned.
After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.
First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km.
The range of the modified Dong Feng 21 missile is significant in that it covers the areas that are likely hot zones for future confrontations between U.S. and Chinese surface forces.
The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike.
Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes.
Supporting the missile is a network of satellites, radar and unmanned aerial vehicles that can locate U.S. ships and then guide the weapon, enabling it to hit moving targets.
While the ASBM has been a topic of discussion within national defense circles for quite some time, the fact that information is now coming from Chinese sources indicates that the weapon system is operational. The Chinese rarely mention weapons projects unless they are well beyond the test stages.
If operational as is believed, the system marks the first time a ballistic missile has been successfully developed to attack vessels at sea. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.
Along with the Chinese naval build-up, U.S. Navy officials appear to view the development of the anti-ship ballistic missile as a tangible threat.
After spending the last decade placing an emphasis on building a fleet that could operate in shallow waters near coastlines, the U.S. Navy seems to have quickly changed its strategy over the past several months to focus on improving the capabilities of its deep sea fleet and developing anti-ballistic defenses.
As analyst Raymond Pritchett notes in a post on the U.S. Naval Institute blog:
"The Navy's reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren't many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat."
In recent years, China has been expanding its navy to presumably better exert itself in disputed maritime regions. A recent show of strength in early March led to a confrontation with an unarmed U.S. ship in international waters.
So is anyone more familiar with the US/China situation that can shed some light on what this sort of thing means?
We hear of things from time to time, from documents to spy plane incidents, that show that the Chinese government really isn't too fond of the good ol' U.S. of A.
Is this just posturing? Foreshadowing of future conflict? Navy propaganda designed to make us scared of the warm, fuzzy, peace-loving Chinese? According to this source, the Navy is taking it seriously enough to find ways to counter it.
Again, I don't often follow this type of stuff, but the article made me a bit curious. I figured someone here might have some insight.
citizen059 on
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It's a weapon that says you can't actively fuck with China and it's allies nearby, but it's not really a large enough edge to make warfare or even trying it out on a carrier a good idea. I don't consider it a threat, it's the evolution of warfare. If it's visible, it can eventually be attacked. It was only a matter of time before someone else starting using sats to guide weapons.
edit: it's a chance for the Chinese to look strong, and the US military to create fear of a not-really-threat to get more money to develop new toys. China really can't do anything to us militarily compared to what it can do to us economically, but the navy can go OHGODWENEEDTRILLIONSTOMAKESUBMARINEAIRCRAFTCARRIERSNOW
With the current state of the economy and manufacturing and with the symbiotic relationship between China and the US I can guarantee that conflict with Russia is more likely than with China despite what some may say.
China doesn't need to go to war with the US to really hurt us anyway. They just need to sell off their massive dollar holdings and cut off all of our imports from them. That would hurt us more than any carrier being sank.
So when China develops this sort of thing or builds an aircraft carrier its more for their own propaganda purposes and to use against us if they really had to. Despite anything they may say, most intelligent people from both nations realize war would be economic suicide with really nothing to gain on either side.
But don't worry America, we still have more nukes!
Another thing bad for the economy would be nuclear winter
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
But nuclear summer is awesome.
The tomatoes will be HUGE!
There would be riots in the streets!
So sorry, Taiwan.
Also Tibet.
As the resident Taiwanese poster on this board, my opinion basically boils down to:
I also think that China will not risk war or huge economic sanctions over Taiwan, resulting in the quo of status
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Yeah, but we never cared about them anyway. After all, they don't manufacture shiny gear for my PC.
Also, while the US might not fight to defend Taiwan in say, 50 years, if Taiwan doesn't want reunification an invasion of Taiwan would leave China crippled for a decade even if Taiwan fought alone. I still think the whole situation in China is a powder keg though. The reason they can't accept Taiwanese or TIbetan independance is because there are a whole host of regions which want to be independant, but are suppressed by the whole sticking it to Taiwan and TIbet thing the government does.
If growth slows much more, then these conflicts will come to the fore.
In any case, I'm not sure that Taiwan is "fucked" any more than it was previously. I believe the relevance of carriers in a "real" war has been on the decline for a long time. Even if China only sought to capture Taiwan, we've still got a lot of submarines and lesser naval vessels, as well as plenty of nearby air bases. If the Chinese were very determined, they could probably take the island, but I really doubt that it'd be worth the losses we could inflict even without the use of our carriers. Besides, Taiwan has a sizeable military of their own.
Besides, any warlike move from China risks the use of either nuclear or economic WMDs (in the sense that we could declare the US debt that China holds null and void). Both parties would lose massively in that sort of exchange.
Problem is, how else are the U.S. going to project power?
I'll meet you at Lost Hills
An entire 3%
Honestly, I very much doubt that Taiwan is worth saving compared to the damage that would be done standing up to China. We can rattle our sabers as much as we want, but when push came to shove, I think we'd send Taiwan a lovely gift basket...
The advent of naval air power made battleships obsolete in WWII; that this occurred does not mean that those same battleships were 'tactically unsound' up until that point. Technology evolves, and the aircraft carriers of the US Navy were a major component of keeping the cold war from becoming hot.
This just means we'll have to adapt to a new threat. Our carriers are already armed with essentially automated gatling guns to deal with missile threats; perhaps upgrading those systems will prove effective against these. Or we'll just have to think of something else.
Also IIRC 2000km is quite a bit less then the range at which a carrier battle group can project its air power.
The whole situation is strange.
http://supcom.wikia.com/wiki/UEF_Experimental_Aircraft_Carrier?
http://supcom.wikia.com/wiki/Aeon_Experimental_Aircraft_Carrier?
I think the difference though is that Taiwan is effectivly a rebelious state in China's eyes where as Hong Kong was lost to the British via war and was just being returned to them. There is a lot more room for vengeance and childlike behavior in the later that in the prior.
I do think it depends on how they got it back though. If its peaceful there will probably be a lot more international oversight to keep things from spinning out of control that wouldn't be there if it was won by force.
Amphibious ships are extremely versatile in that they can project both hard power (i.e. forcible entry) and soft power (i.e. humanitarian missions).
But otherwise you're going to need x amount of aircraft carriers if you want to maintain the same global presence because nothing else is going to replicate their capabilities. The question is whether x = 12? I don't know (or remember) if that is the minimum amount needed to keep the shipyards in business or a random number someone pulled out of their ass.
If the reports are true, these are ballistic missiles. Like what the SDI ("Star Wars") was supposed to intercept and what Bush wanted to put interceptors against into Eastern Europe. We haven't been doing too well knocking those out of the sky.
An F-18 has a combat radius of 550KM. Even a fancy pants F-35 can't do more than 1000KM.
In the event of a major conflict these missiles would be intercepted by swiftly installed an upgraded anti-mortar lasers mounted in the place of gatling cannons. Same for the planes and what not. In the first few days of the war almost all the already deployed tech will get blown up since its all designed as glass cannons, in that it is devastating providing noone can do anything to it. Pretty much all the military technology we have now will prove to be totally useless if we fought an actual war
I'd say the only thing you've got that has any chance of interception is the SM-3.
You'll have 18 ships in fleet with Aegis BMD by the end of 2009 if you trust the Navy to keep on schedule.
Then, halve whatever number is deployed in theater because for an intercept you need one ship to track and one to fire.
I'd say the odds of that missile getting through is looking pretty good. Especially if they fire more than one at a time.
Now, whether it's good enough to hit anything is another question.
Isn't a mortar an extremely low-speed weapon compared to a ballistic missile? like by several orders of magnitude? These things are supposed to move at mach 10 ... how long does a laser need to hit a target to destroy it, and what is it's range?
Yeah not so much. Nukes can't exactly provide ground support to infantry. Carrier-based planes can.