China’s Plan to Beat U.S.: Missiles, Missiles and More Missiles

[Feuer Frei!]

China is militarily weaker than many people think, especially compared to America. This, despite lots of showy jet prototypes and plenty of other factory-fresh equipment.
But Beijing has a brutally simple — if risky — plan to compensate for this relative weakness: buy missiles. And then, buy more of them. All kinds of missiles: short-range and long-range; land-based, air-launched and sea-launched; ballistic and cruise; guided and “dumb.”
Those are the two striking themes that emerge from Chinese Aerospace Power, a new collection of essays edited by Andrew Erickson, an influential China analyst with the U.S. Naval War College.
Today, the PLA possesses as many as 2,000 non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles, according to Chinese Aerospace Power. This “growing arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal conventional ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles has rapidly emerged as a cornerstone of PLA warfighting capability,” Mark Stokes and Ian Easton wrote. For every category of weaponry where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lags behind the Pentagon, there’s a Chinese missile to help make up the difference.



The need is clear. Despite introducing a wide range of new hardware in recent years, including jet fighters, helicopters, destroyers, submarines and a refurbished Russian aircraft carrier, China still lacks many of the basic systems, organizations and procedures necessary to defeat a determined, well-equipped foe.
Take, for example, aerial refueling. To deploy large numbers of effective aerial tankers requires the ability to build and support large jet engines — something China cannot yet do. In-air refueling also demands planning and coordination beyond anything the PLA has ever pulled off. As a result, “tanker aircraft are in short supply” in the PLA, Wayne Ulman explained.


The PLA’s solution? Missiles, of course. Up to a thousand ballistic and cruise missiles, most of them fired by land-based launchers, “would likely comprise the initial strike” against Taiwan or U.S. Pacific bases, Ulman wrote. The goal would be to take out as many of an opponent’s aircraft as possible before the dogfighting even begins.
The PLA could take a similar approach to leveling its current disadvantage at sea. Submarines have always been the most potent ship-killers in any nation’s inventory, but China’s subs are too few, too noisy and their crews too inexperienced to take on the U.S. Navy. Once the shooting started, the “Chinese submarine force would be highly vulnerable,” Jeff Hagen predicted.


And forget using jet fighters armed with short-range weapons to attack the American navy. One Chinese analyst referenced in Chinese Aerospace Power estimated it would take between 150 and 200 Su-27-class fighters to destroy one U.S. Ticonderoga-class cruiser. The entire PLA operates only around 300 Su-27s and derivatives. The U.S. Navy has 22 Ticonderoga cruisers.
Again, missiles would compensate. A “super-saturation” attack by scores or hundreds of ballistic missiles has the potential of “instantly rendering the Ticonderoga’s air defenses useless,” Toshi Yoshihara wrote. Close to shore, China could use the older, less-precise, shorter-range missiles it already possesses in abundance. For longer-range strikes, the PLA is developing the DF-21D “carrier-killer” missile that uses satellites and aerial drones for precision targeting.


The downside to China’s missile-centric strategy is that it could represent a “single point of failure.” Over-relying on one weapon could render the PLA highly vulnerable to one kind of counter-measure. In this case, that’s the Pentagon’s anti-ballistic-missile systems, including warships carrying SM-3 missiles and land-based U.S. Army Patriot and Terminal High-Altitude Air-Defense batteries.
Plus, missiles are one-shot weapons. You don’t get to re-use them the way you would a jet fighter or a destroyer. That means, in wartime, China has to win fast … or lose. “China’s entire inventory of conventional ballistic missiles, for example, could deliver about a thousand tons of high explosives on their targets,” Roger Cliff explained. “The U.S. Air Force’s aircraft, by comparison, could deliver several times that amount of high explosives every day for an indefinite period.”


SOURCE

[Stealhead]

I read some place that the Cultural Revolution time period had very negative effects on many research and development programs in China.Obviously they did focus on some things like nuclear weapons(really only making an H-bomb and they had the "fastest" A-bomb to H-bomb development program big whoop) but other vital programs basically stagnated.That is why China is behind when it comes to advanced technology they did not have much development during the 60's and 70's a time period where the West and Russia was rapidly developing new military technologies.

Now they are trying to develop more modern weapons but they do not have much institutional know how like the US has from many years of development on top of that it is very clear that China has a problem with corruption factory owners knowingly selling inferior and even dangerous products occurs all the time they have had people sell baby formula that was known to be poisoned and it killed Chinese babies guess that factory owner got a 7.62x39mm to dome.If some are willing sell poisoned foods to their own nation there must be others that will sell inferior materials to their own military.For me that makes China's military capabilities questionable at best.

I wonder who will start the next big one, the whole dam world seems to be gearing for another conflict, carriers, subs, rockets and bombs. They should buy copies of Silent Hunter 5 and have a bit a fun.

[Platapus]

Mobile ballistic missiles are a great way to deliver ordnance.

[Betonov]

Reminds me of the time I played Civilization II, when the AI would build notthing but cruise missiles and when it was their turn your transport fleet would be destroyed by these missiles. The attack lasted for about 15min and it was very effective, I guess China's brass played too much CivII

A simple plan to defeat China?
Stop all imports from them and all exports to them.
Then they won't have the money to do crap.

[Respenus]

Originally Posted by privateer

A simple plan to defeat China?
Stop all imports from them and all exports to them.
Then they won't have the money to do crap.

And it would solve our unemployment problem at the same time. (Unfortunately, such an even is highly unlikely. Too many things are interconnected, which means that it would take too long for us to adapt, giving them time to adapt in kind. Stopping the economy of an enemy nation as big as China would require a strong, uniform, universal and extremely powerful "attack", which we are not able to deliver).

[August]

I thought the Chinese plan to beat the US was using EMP weapons.

[Torplexed]

Things sure have changed since the Korean War in the 1950s when the Chinese plan was simply men, men and more men.

[TLAM Strike]

The TBM threat to carriers has been around since the 1980s. China has been at it for 2 years. I think we are ahead of the game.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Things sure have changed since the Korean War in the 1950s when the Chinese plan was simply men, men and more men.

Seems a similar tactic but instead of men it's an overwhelming barrage of missles. I thought I read once the Soviet Navy was expected to deploy similar tactics against the U.S.N. back in the day. Why not, it worked for me in Fleet Command.


.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Seems a similar tactic but instead of men it's an overwhelming barrage of missles. I thought I read once the Soviet Navy would also deploy similar tactics against the U.S.N. Worked for me in Fleet Command.

But in FC you didn't have to spend days traveling to get in to weapons range. Those days could be murderous when faced against a carrier air wing or land based B-52s armed with AGM-84s.

[nikimcbee]

Just fund the bamster's re-election. No weapons needed. we'll self neuter.

[Castout]

Interesting read.