I’m really not sure how many times I have to repeat myself. Carrier groups do not represent an extension of power against 1st world nations. They are used against 3rd world countries.
Let me be plainer for those who don’t get it. It’s not China we’re worried about. It’s every other dick nation with modern diesel sub. China just pointed out the obvious to us. A modern diesel submarine can stay submerged for a significant period of time. That was the purpose of a nuclear Navy and that capacity has been introduced on a lesser scale with newer generation diesels.
Let me be even plainer. The United States may have the best navy in the world but that is spread out over the entire planet because of our current “world’s policeman” policy. Countries that only wish to exert power along their own shores can build a credible threat to the assets in THAT area.
Well why did the US send two carriers during the Taiwan crisis of 1996? If actual fighting had broken out, would the carriers have “run away” like Sir Robin of Holy Grail fame?
What do you think the minimum consequences would be if one of our ships were attacked? Even if it was simply rammed by another ship running a blockade?
I would say it depends on the circumstances. Are you saying that the only use of a carrier against China is serve as bait to provide a casus belli in case the carrier is attacked? If so, why not just save a few hundred million and just send a mock carrier filled with cute puppy dogs?
Whoops, it seems everyone got quite vexed and forgot to check some basic facts.
That being all said, the fact that sub’s showed up outside of a naval exercise is of no surprise to me. You potentially have an entire group underway, a mix of engine types depending on the ships involved (steam, nuclear, gas turbine, diesel), nearby commercial craft, etc. Plus, the varying depths of the ocean and currents. So, that’s a lot of activity in the water that will raise the noise floor for any type of sonar detecting equipment.
What we need to look at here is the actual acoustical environment at the time of Chinese sub surfacing in order to determine if they have any technology of merit.
If they show up along side an exercise in a noisy environment it means nothing other than they have proven they will do something like that. They pull up along side a carrier while underway all by itself and no one knew, maybe that something, maybe they got lucky maybe they got a quiet submarine. Now, they pull up along side a FFG, which has sonar and they had no idea. That means the Chinese actually got themselves some advanced technology.
Also, this talk of acoustical tiles and low-cavitation propellers as if it was just invented is absurd. It’s more like who doesn’t have acoustical tiles and low-cavitation propellers, China? So, maybe for China it’s new stuff. But, not for the US and any of its first-world allies. This stuff has been around awhile and may have not been public knowledge for obvious reasons.
The radar on an Aegis cruiser or destroyer is easily able to detect spy satellites, minutes before they’re in a position to see the CVBG. Assume a CVBG speed of 30 kts for the following:
Detect spysat, let the spysat see your course and speed.
After the 2-4 minute detection window, when the spysat can no longer see you, turn 90 degrees. Pick a direction.
They’ve targeted where you would be in 10 minutes, if you hadn’t turned. Or else they have two more choices where you might have turned, each 7 nm away from the first choice, and 14 nm away from each other. And that’s only if you limit yourself to a 90 degree turn. A 180 would take you even farther away, depending only on your turn rate, and how far it takes you to the side of the track they predicted for you. Only “Tzar Bomba” wouldn’t have had a problem taking out naval vessels, designed to take a reasonable near miss from a nuke, and it wasn’t practically deliverable against anything but a target that doesn’t move, like a city.
Your post shows a bit of a lack of understanding of time/motion physics and ballistic calculations. Or it assumes a collection of Chinese spysats can be put up that will not be detectable by any other nation. The problem is that amateur satellite watchers notice these things. And have websites devoted to anything visible by the naked eye. Which would include all spysats that could detect, and then target, something like a CVBG.
Result is that you’ll miss. Unless the admiral directing that fleet was an idiot. Most of them aren’t.
Satelites can be responded to, you are correct, but what if there are multiple satelites? China has many， Their behind-closed-doors ally, Russia has many.
The problem is we know this. But we can’t be sure the Chinese are reading the same rulebook.
Back when the Soviets were still around, their nuclear doctrine said that a tactical nuclear attack against a purely military target outside of any national territory should not be considered as a trigger for a general nuclear war. Which would basically break down to three things: nuclear attacks against orbiting satellites, high-altitude nuclear detonations for EMP strikes, and nuclear attacks against naval forces at sea.
Now the United States didn’t accept this argument. Our doctrine said that any nuclear attack would be considered as a general nuclear attack and we would respond in kind. You can see the potential for this disagreement to have had some really serious consequences. Fortunately, it never arose in the real world.
But moving up to the modern day. I don’t know if China has stated its nuclear doctrine in clear terms. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they might follow the Soviet lead and declare that a tactical nuclear attack against a carrier doesn’t count as a full nuclear attack. America obviously would still disagree. But once again, it makes it possible to believe China might consider it. The Chinese might figure that in a real confrontation, the United States will hesitate over launching a full nuclear attack and killing billions of people because some ships were sank. Instead we’ll launch a more proportional response like use nuclear weapons against some military targets like army and air force bases. And China is probably thinking they have a huge military - they can survive our limited nuclear attack and still be a strong regional power but their limited nuclear attack will drive us out of East Asia until we can recover. So a limited nuclear war creates a window for China to assert control over East Asia.
Are they guessing right? Would that work? The answer is nobody knows for certain. Which means it’s possible it might work and China might try it.
It might be the Chinese military that unveils a secret shitload of new technology that we weren’t aware of and catch us by surprise. As you pointed out, this is what military forces do.
There are self-guided missiles that don’t need to receive directions from back at their base or from orbit. You just need enough information about the location of a target in order to launch a missile in the right general area. Then the missile itself finds the target and steers in on it.
I don’t get it - if the scenario is a US/China confrontation over an invasion of Taiwan, why wouldn’t the US retaliate in kind? Kinda hard to pull off and supply an overseas invasion if your navy and convoys get nuked.
No, you’d start it as soon as the spysat can’t see you any more. No need to even assume, let alone detect a launch. Don’t be where they might be targeting. You don’t have to know that a nuke will actually arrive there.
A whole hell of a lot closer than 7 nautical miles.
@Chesire Human - you misunderstand my point, I am saying constant surveilence would render evasive action futile as their every move would be watched, I am assuming the Chinese missile will have real-time course correction.
Which is certainly a possible strategy. But transport ships are a lot cheaper than aircraft carriers. China can build a bunch of transport ships and disperse them. The loss of ten transport ships vs the loss of ten carriers? As long as the response stays proportionate China wins the numbers game.
Sure. But American defenses are vulnerable to spoofing too.
That’s the whole point. China can afford to throw a whole bunch of attacks against the American Navy and have the majority of them be defeated. But the American Navy needs to have and maintain a virtually perfect defense to survive.
Just from informal descriptions by some USN guys. Remember the Kursk submarine? It’s a missile sub, designed to take out a carrier task force using nukes. It launches ss-19 (shipwreck) missiles each carrying a 110-k warhead. When the sub, which is shadowing the TF, receives the crucial radio message, it quickly floods its tubes and fires at least 2 missiles before US hunter subs can take it out. The first missile has a radar-sensitive fuse. Any signals from an AWAC, a warplane, or a ship will cause it to detonate. The 110-kiloton blast will blind every electronic device within 50 miles (is this true?) Having done that, the next missile (or two or three) will home in using their own radar and melt the task force.