Repost: Strategic nuke VS carrier

On 10 Jul 2006 14:53:30 -0700, mechdan@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

That's a pretty old fashioned and nonsensical way of fighting. There
is no necessity at all to meet one on one and doggie fight it out..
Eventually the attacking aircraft will have to obey the law of
gravity. That means little or no endurance to remain in the air. All
the opposing forces have to do is to harass and dodge until this law
applies to the enemy and then go in for the kill.

Do you have any idea at all how air warfare works?
"Harass and dodge" might work for geurilla land warfare,
and it can work very will in a jungle or in a city.
It's not an option in air warfare.

Once more with feeling. If you come in heavily loaded you are in no
position to defend yourself let alone dogfight. The Chinese
defenders will wade right in and take you out while you are still over
ocean. If you come in as a air superiority fighter there is no good
reason for the defenders to meet you on your terms. Your bullets and
AIMs are of no consequence to surface targets. You are welcome to fly
around in the empty sky and sightsee all you like. Just don't get
within range of ground based AA defences. Don't take the bait and
chase a defender into that airspace. The defenders can easily wait you
out. When you cannot maintain station any longer the defenders will
get you. A red hot tailpipe is a irresistable target.

On equipment if your planes are that good at hitting the enemy a
single F-35 should be able to take out the whole enemy air force and
be in time for breakfast back at the base. Won't happen. You said
that of your F 14, F 15, F16, F18, etc. Didn't happen, which is why
you are now saying the same things to justify your F 22 and F 35
program. Hah.

Ever heard of Cassius Clay aka Mohammed Ali? Sting like a butterfly.
Same thing. Play catch all over the sky until you run low on or out
of gas. You are out numbered. How many enemy can you direct your
attention to at any one time? How many shots can you take before you
run out of ammo? Take you eyes off the ball for a sec and that may be
the last thing you will ever see.



The above tactic means that there are no aeriel targets until way past
the "best-by time remaining in the air." That also means no easy
seaborne targets in the Straits that are not covered by shore based
defences.

If there are no vessels crossing the strait, then no one
gets killed and everyone wins. Hooray!

Exactly. You yanks are the only bloodthirsty guys around. Given her
druthers China can bring Taiwan's economy to a grinding stop without
firing a shot. Taiwan'll cry uncle in no time at all. She'll still
cry uncle even if it takes a few years. China can wait. Read Sun
Tzu's The Art of War.

Chapter III Attack by Strategem

1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best
thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact;
to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is
better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it,
to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire
than to destroy them.

2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles
is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists
in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.


If there is to be a fight over Taiwan it will be a siege. No cross
Straits seaborne invasion. All of Taiwan is within tactical missile
range. Taiwan is vulnerable for she has to import all her oil, same
as Japan.

Taiwan has to import all her oil, sure, but that's no
problem.

Taiwan should be able to import enough oil to keep her ticking over
for some months but never enough for the long term and certainly not
enough for a high intensity war. Even in the absence of a shooting
war wartime insurance rates, domestic inflation and war risks on her
exports/imports will ruin her. Taiwan has no capability of doing any
serious damage to the mainland. Furthermore I doubt her leaders will
be willing to test the loyalty of her armed forces in a military
confrontation with China. We are Chinese first, local ethnicities
second if ever there is such a thing. Far greater socio-economic
forces over the centuries had not split into smaller independent
Chinas. There is no such thing as a Taiwanese except for the
aboriginal Taiwanese who are powerless in political affairs.

One. How hard is it for the opposition to follow returning planes
back to their carrier?

Pretty darn hard, if those "returning planes" don't return
to the carrier. Those "returning planes" would rather
ditch than reveal the location of the carrier. What this
really means is that they'll keep on engaging any enemy
aircraft in the area even if they go past bingo fuel.

That's perfectly acceptable. Any method that will result in USN
planes splashing in the sea is a win.

But there's no way for Chinese forces to force that.

But its you who posited that under the circumstances a US pilot would
rather splash his plane than lead the enemy bask to his ship. No
chinaman can put that thought into his US head. Remember there is a
whole flight of planes in the same fuel short situation.

Well I am not claiming that China has a foolproof countermeasure
against attack by the US. All I am doing is to pose to you a simple
unsophisticated and low tech low cost scenario where China can fight
back effectively. Your task is to evaluate if my scenario is
plausible. Your concern is if your fearless leaders will dismiss such
a possibility and risk starting a war with China, because they believe
in Taiwan Independence and democracy. Remember there are no vital
American interests involved in the Taiwan question, that is unless
you can come up with a convincing one.

This is a debating group. If my arguments so far make you hesitate
and reconsider your instinct to shoot them up first and ask questions
later, or worse, nuking is a good idea, then I have already achieved
quite a lot.
..

As before (see above para 1),
any direct challenge by US planes will be avoided.

If any direct challenge is avoided, then no one gets killed
and everybody wins. Which is perfectly fine by all of us.

When the US planes have to turn to base, that's the same
as turning tail.

Umm...no. Every plane that ever makes a sortie does so
with the 100% knowledge beforehand that it will return
to the surface in one fashion or another. Doing so by
returning to the carrier isn't "turning tail", it's
called completing the mission.

If a US carrier aircraft patrols the strait and returns
without any enemy contact, then that's a good day!

Its a good day for all when there is no contact. An attack on a
surface target is contact. If there is contact at some time during
your mission profile you will have to show your hot tailpipe to the
enemy. Turning tail here is an inevitable and hopefully fatal event
rather than an allusion to cowardice.

They will be harrassed and shot on opportunity. Freshly
launched land based aircraft can keep this up longer than
carrier planes

No, any Chinese aircraft which attack US Navy aircraft
won't be "fresh", they'll need to reach them first.
Given the short range and low endurance of most of their
jets, this means THEY will be the ones short on fuel and
time.

If your planes stay over your fleet or base that no business of
China's. Chinese surface installations are not under threat. There
is no reason for a Chinese force to attack a well defended target,
your fleet or base certainly not on your terms.

The very same disadvantages and problems I posed for your attacking
force over China apply to any attacking force. Thus your planes will
have to cover 300 miles or more from the CV group before it can reach
a China target. It also means the planes will have to fly a
equivalent distance back. A Chinese force attracking a CV group will
suffer the same problems of exposure and of endurance.

All the point defences have to do is to thwart your mission
objectives. The next objective is to exhaust the attacking force in
preparation for the kill by oneself or by more capable defenders (Su
30s). It is teamwork and strategic objectives, not individual glory.


If you want to have some idea of what a conflict over
Taiwan might be like, look at the Falkland's conflict,
except imagine the British side with ten times as many
aircraft. The Argentine air force was at quite a
disadvantage due to the sheer distance they needed to
cross just to reach the battlezone.


No disagreement from me. Defenders have very significant advantages,
especially from a defender like China which enjoys a great depth of
geograqphical space, in equipment and in manpower. In the confusion
of a mass battle numbers and endurance count far more than fancy
equipment.

China manufactures her own weapons. Her level of weapons
sophistication may not be as advanced as the US's but not by much. Her
ability to replace battle losses or to ramp up production to meet war
requirements is unaffected by external sources. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLA_Air_Force

(Note that any surface based enemy radar obviously can't
track returning planes all the way to the carrier, if
the carrier itself is over the horizon.)

What is so hard about keeping an advanced long range fighter more 70
miles off to observe the scene.

Besides the Navy's excellent ECM, the small radar units
in a fighter doesn't have the sort of range to be "more
70 miles off" and to also be able to "observe the scene".
You're dealing with not just the range to the battlezone,
but also the extra range between that and the carrier
fleet.

In practice, it'd be much easier for a long range aerial
radar to detect a huge carrier directly than track some
small jets flying to/from it.

You own F-14 pilots reported that the
wake of a carrier can be easily seen from that distance. At 70 miles
the spotter is pretty safe from interception. You don't have the
Phoenix system any more.

You might have a point if the carrier didn't have any
aircraft. But they do, so you don't. 70 miles from
the battlezone doesn't mean 70 miles from the carrier.


The original question was how to locate the attacking carrier force if
one's land based radars were completely knocked out. One follows the
enemy's returning planes. Once the fleet is located, and the
observation is from afar, the idea is not for the observer to take on
the fleet all on its own or duke it out with a carrier launched
interceptor. The idea is to return the favor by calling for massed
antiship weapons - ballastic missiles, cruise missiles and bomb laden
planes, fighters, whatever. Ballistic missiles can cover 300 miles
faster than a ship can make a course change. All missiles have homing
technology. Can your carrier force deal with multiple attacks on
multiple levels in altitude and in time? Especially when you have
planes to recover or else they splash.


That prohibition on surface launched AA
missiles applies when friendlies (returning aircraft) are in the air.

Are you really that stupid? AA missiles are DESIGNED to
be used when there are friendlies in the air. Otherwise,
they'd be useless. Look at ANY example of the use of
naval AA missiles--they were all used while friendlies
were in the air.

Okay. If I am the Chinese pilot I am willing to wade right inbetween
your planes and take my chances. Don't forget I am tailing your
returning planes that are between myself and your ships. Its
certainly safer than to try to outrun a AA missile. You can fire all
the AAs you want.

Then there is cockpit chatter that can be located and plotted. It
doesn't require rocket science to get a fix and determine base CV
location.

You really have no clue, do you?

Land based opposition forces will always out
number, outrange and outweigh(arm) CV planes.

The majority of the Chinese air force are short ranged
defensive aircraft in the Soviet mold. Aircraft designed
to protect mother Russia emphasized sheer numbers over
range/endurance. The Soviet attitude stems from their
WWII experience, of fighting on their own turf. The US
attitude also stems from WWII experience--of requiring
long range and endurance in both carrier and land based
aircraft.

Exactly. Incoming heavily bomb laden unmaneuverable planes will be
easy meat for the defenders.

Which, in this case, means incoming heavily bomb laden
unmaneuverable Chinese planes will be easy meat for
the USN and Taiwanese defenders.

True. It works both ways. The ideal Chinese attack scenario will be
against a CV group that is recovering its planes. Then go in with
everything, especially with shore launched anti-ship missiles. Ships
are a lot more valuable and easier to attack and to destroy than land
based targets. Everytime you send out a mission your ships are at
risk.

Point defence they may be. They will
still have longer range and more flexibility than any guided gravity
bomb carried by carrier based aircraft.

Any attacks by the USN on the Chinese mainland would
likely be limited to cruise missiles to take out
airfields. A single Tomohawk can neutralize an airstrip
with craters. The Chinese air force would be forced
to operate from airstrips far from the coast.

That's an unavoidable consequence in war. Its unlikely you have
enough cruise missiles to cripple China's air defence capabilities.
Its back to the basic argument whether it is worthwhile for the US to
risk its naval asstes and overseas bases (Okinawa, Guam, San Diego) in
a war over matters that are not vital to America's interests.

These point defence fighters
will force them to drop their loads over the sea or risk being
splashed. If you don't have a bombload you are harmless. You haven't
got a mission.

This is why the Chinese air force has very limited options
for threatening Taiwan. The Chinese military is perfectly
aware that within hours of an attempted invasion, they won't
have any aircraft over Taiwan or over the strait. (After
the airfields are neutralized by cruise missiles, it's
only a matter of time before the planes which were already
in the air are no longer in the air.)


I agree totally. Planes can be over target only for a few minutes and
cannot determine the outcome of ground events. You (US) don't have
any forces on ground. Neither does China in Taiwan. China sending in
ground forces before defeating Taiwan is pointless. There won't be
any mainland cross straits assault forces under fire. That's
pointless suicidal turkey shoot. Taiwan will be defeated through
siege.

As you acknowledged these point defence are small, fast, agile, short
range and of limited armanment. Even disposable. That's the whole
idea. Manpower is not a problem with China or NK. All the tiny
fighters have to do is carry a cannon and two small AIMs. With a two
or three or four to one superiorty in numbers over the aggressor and
attacking it from different directions no amount of Top Gun training,
combat experience or sophisticated weapons systems will save the
aggressor from getting hit.

These semi-disposable limited fighters have their purpose,
but honestly they aren't much of a threat to US forces.
They aren't an offensive threat due to lack of range.

They are not meant to be offensive weapons. They are meant to
neutralize any conventional military options you may have on China. If
you (US) have to think very carefully before you make a threat on
China it is good enough prevent you from military adventures, giving
offensive lectures and petty bullying.

Unfortunately for the Soviets, it turned out that they
aren't much of a defensive threat either, due to lack of
night fighting capability. Soviet military strategists
were quite happy with the success of their exports in the
Vietnam conflict. Vietnam seemed to confirm their thinking
that cheap daylight fighters could form a powerful defense
against more expensive western jets.

I'll let this slide. Its from an era more than 30 years ago and the
trechnologies available to them then were a lot more primitive.
Inspite of throwing everything you had at this small third world
country you still lost big. You aren't doing any better in Iraq and
Afghanistan either.

What they didn't count on was that the post-Vietnam years
saw the US military obsessively innovating with night
fighting techniques due to the lessons of Vietnam. By the
time of Desert Storm, those lessons had turned into new
hardware and tactics. The new US Military CHOSE to fight
at night, and when they did so the Soviet designed "cheap
fighters" were nothing but targets.

Iraq is open desert where you can see for miles and there is nowhere
to hide a modern piece of heavy mechanized equipment. Natrurally your
magnificient war machine will beat any conventional force an enemy may
have.

You haven't even dreamt of suggesting putting ground forces into China
- totally unsuitable terrain. Your best and only bet is aircraft.
Review my earlier arguments on why you won't get far in an air war
over Chinese territory. Ditto for your CV groups should they come
anywhere within striking range of conventional weapons. A carrier
deck is too tight a place for putting up a good fight and that's the
only place you've got to fight from. Anything else afloat hasn't got
the firepower or the range to do any serious damage to China.

Of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Russia and China were horrified by the absolute impotence
of the Iraqi fighter jets in Desert Storm, and naturally
they have worked hard to learn the lessons and develop
new hardware and tactics. Unfortunately for Russia, their
economy hasn't been up to the task of modernizing. With
China, it's a different story. China's booming economy
has given her the chance to seriously modernize and develop
new technology/tactics to catch up. The first steps have
been evidenced in the form of some new fighter jets with
unknown capabilities.

But Chinese strategists are perfectly aware of how much
of a game of catchup they have to play. They know that
they still have a long way to go.

I'll have to take a few short cuts here. Too much time spent already.
What have you got in return for your billions, your fine words and
your casualties (aka sacrifice)? Certainly not world peace and
happiness. American international reputation and influence has never
been lower than it is today. Already you play down your American
origin when travelling abroad because you fear being spat on or
assaulted. How could it have come down to this? How did it come down
to America against the rest of the world? Even you realise that
America has overreached itself. If you cannot come up with a way to
reverse direction, and its not going to happen under GWB, America is
already on a downward slide to a much smaller place in the world. The
Chinese didn't do this to you. Islamic fanatics didn't do this to
you. You did it all by yourselves.

China has no intention of building a symetrical force to challenge
America's war machine. All China needs to do is to prevent you from
having any options for a conventional military adventure on its
territory. That territory includes Taiwan and Tibet, a position your
State Department, all principal countries and the UN recognizes. Since
you never had an option on land, that leaves only the sea and the air.
Again I'll skip a lot of harware arguments other than it takes very
little investment on China's part to maintain that territorial
immunity from outside interference.

This leaves China free to concentrate on alleviating the poverty of
her peoples. For all your lecturing on the undemocratic methods China
uses the rest of the world, especially poor developing countries, is
taking a deep interest in how China managed to come so far so fast in
creatring real wealth. Already China's influence in the world is
growing by leaps and bounds while that of the US is heading for the
dumps. Of all the G8 countries only Russia's is on the ascendant. Yes
the US, EU and Japan are still considerable forces in the world scene.
But changes are on hand and each country will have to find its place
in the new world order. This placing will be based on a country's
usefullness to and cooperation with others, not on military might or
technology. I may be off on technology but I don't see any compelling
technology that imporves the quality of life that we cannot do without
at present.

While the point defenders go about their jobs in the distance and
watching will be heavily armed long range aircraft such as the Su-30.
Their mission is not to mix it in pointless dogfights. Their mission
is to take out aggressors once the point defence fighters have
bloodied and exhausted the aggressors.

This is possibly a viable strategy for fighting a Vietnam
style conflict back with Vietnam era technology. If for
some bizarre reason Russia decided to invade China, then
this could be a winning strategy. However, for defending
against US forces it's three decades out of date.

If US forces decided to attack mainland China, it would
only be after cruise missiles and stealth bombers had
softened up the defenses, and it would only be at night.

Don't forget Chinese defences can reach the US launch points wherever
they may be. These will be land bases (Okinawa, Guam, San Diego) and
the carrier groups. For what damage you can inflict China is too
big to be taken out completely. But China can take out completely the
afore mentioned US assets. Are your fearless leaders willing to start
a war over minor differences and put these assets at risk? China
will win any conventional war. You guys cannot even finish the Iraq
or Afghan firefights. Get those over with first before talking big
about the next war to jump into.

Are your fearless leaders willing to go nuclear over the same issues?
China will not win an all out nuke war. Be very very careful about a
nuke war. Russia will have every reason to keep China in the fight
until both the US and China are exhausted. Then it will be a Russian
universe because who else is there left to challenge their claim.

Most likely, US planes wouldn't overfly the mainland,
but would instead fire stand off weapons at anything
attempting to cross the strait. This means a constant
rotation of patrolling aircraft, rather than some
massive 200 plane alpha strike.

That's fine. This will be one scenario where its worthwhile for the
defenders to close in fast and mix it.

You're right about one thing--the only chance China really
has is a massive assault. However, their current forces
lack the range required to pull it off. As China modernizes
at replaces its old fleet of Soviet designs with more
sophisticated native designs, they will gain more capability.
It's not clear when native designs will be up to snuff,
but it is clear that China's technological sophistication
will continue to skyrocket from decade to decade.

You will have too many things
going on at the same time to sort out who's who let alone manage a
half decent defence strategy. For one, with so many friendlies in the
air you can't launch AIMs.

Absolute nonsense. You fail to comprehend the US military's
post-Vietnam nightfighting revolution. Once you've commited
to a strategy of night-fighting, you NEED to develop the
technologies and tactics required to prevent friendly fire
when you can't visually identify your friendlies. These
problems were solved decades ago, with ever more reliability
and sophistication as the years have progressed.

In Vietnam, there were rules of engagement which forced
US pilots to make visual confirmations of their targets
before firing. This imposed artificial requirements for
daylight fighting and short range dogfighting which
ultimately lulled Soviet thinking into complacency.
The US military, embittered by those artificial limitations,
struggled tooth and nail in the post-Vietnam era to free
themselves from those artifical limitations.

Your planes have no particular advantage
in a dogfight.

Actually, modern US jet fighters are excellent dogfighters.
While the US military was developing the technology to
avoid another Vietnam, they hedged their bets and also
developed the technology to win another Vietnam if they
had to. The venerable F16 was originally conceived of
as a cheap maneuverable daylight fighter, as was its
competing YF17 (which was eventually developed into the
F18). These jets eventually gained all of the newfangled
night-fighting technology, but they didn't sacrifice
their maneuverability in the process. In dogfight
maneuvers, modern US jet fighters are very difficult
opponents. This is only partly because of the capabilities
of the jet; it's largely because of extensive training
and practice.

Isaac Kuo


You have not been paying attention to world events these past few years, have you.
There have been some new terms coined, specifically Wild Weasel, HAARM, etc. You might want to Google them.

Mark

Anti-radiation bombs? So what. Haven't you heard about bi-polar
radars where the emitter dish is on a separate location from the
electronics. You can bomb all the dishes you want. No harm done.
There's plenty more where that came from.

A Wild Weasel's mission isn't to knock out radar sites
with ARMs. A Wild Weasel's mission is to use whatever
tactics are required to make an area safe for other
planes to operate in, including developing new techniques
as required. In this respect, the US military is
unique. No one else has specialized units specifically
for suppression of enemy air defenses.

If a HAARM only knocks out a radar dish until when a
replacement is set up, that's fine. It did the job of
neutralizing a missile battery long enough to get the
attack aircraft through.

I
had in my original argument said that its easy enough to use eyeball
no.1 to locate the CV group.

Which is ridiculously stupid.

Isaac Kuo
.

Loading