Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfish
Would not agree with Kapitan's take on the naval situation, thanks to developing and installing airports and harbours along the african coast their naval capaility is not entirely restricted to the mainland. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String..._(Indian_Ocean) |
My first comment on the threat was looking at it from a pure Navy v Navy
As I said above in reply to Skybird, when you add in the air force you change the dimension of the war.
We should also factor in the the USA will operate from Guam, South Korea and Japan giving them a similar reach.
I also pointed out that while these overseas territories exist for china the biggest problem it would have is re supplying them during combat.
In order for China to get to the African coast and Indian ocean there's only one route really open to them, and all the USN has to do realistically is park a few SSN's and a couple of DDG's and the merchant ships wont be going much further.
The supply lanes from the west coast USA to various spots near China are move secure because they have a lack of land mass, if you think nations like the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia are going to sit back and not feed information about shipping movements to the five Eyes your heavily mistaken.
At any given day coast watchers post on facebook and other media outlets movements of ships, and at some point the Chinese supply ships will have to pass through close to land some where to make it into the Indian Ocean.
If its not the coast watchers it will be the VTS system and any ship not displaying AIS your likely to trigger a response from that countries maritime patrol system (especially Singapore)
The west will try to blockade the Chinese in the SCS this means re supply could only realistically be done via air which is unlikely.
Any supply ship heading down into the Indian ocean is likely going to be intercepted detained or sunk and that will mean any forces in that area will end up out of supplies.
As I said to Ikalugin in another thread the reason why France and UK are tier 2 blue water navies (China and Russia are Tier 3) is because both have the ability to operate indefinitely beyond their borders and have friendly ports in every corner of the globe (China doesn't have this yet) so its down to supply chains (which is what I work in).
The Islands the Chinese are building are vulnerable and they know it (history has shown us this) its more of a tactic to slow down and deplete rather than use a serious main force base.
China can absorb massive losses and still fight and the big thing is Chinese troops are not battle trained like the US forces and that really does matter and the reason it matters well again look back in History to 1982, take a look at the battle of goose green Argentina out numbered the British almost 2 to 1 and still lost.
In reality though I do strongly believe that any war between the USA and China will not be limited to just these two parties.
I do think that The USA will be allied with Japan, South Korea, UK, France and Australia (the exercises and foreign polices denote this)
I also strongly doubt Russia will want to be involved and I don't think it will come in on the side of the Chinese at all, the Iranians might but then that would also provoke the Gulf States.
Either way the outcome for both is clearly going to be Economical Suicide.