General Overview of US Nuclear submarine force.

[gp100man]

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...he-seas-2021-1

[Skybird]

China:

https://www.nti.org/analysis/article...-capabilities/


https://news.usni.org/2020/10/12/chi...pyard-capacity


Maybe the US boats still have better tehcnology, maybe not, i cannot judge that. But by numbers they must cover a global operaiton field, while China can concentrate its fleet near its own coast, and under missile' and aircrafts' protective umbrellas. High tech is nice, but bigger numbers and short logistical supply lines also have their charms.


Its also said the Chinese are working on superior submarine detection techniques, like Russia.


The next war will likely be not fought near the US west coast, but near and at Taiwan and in the South Chinese Sea. Home advantage for China.

[Kapitan]

What we have here is the same as what we had with the Soviet Union during the cold war.

China is building a large sea denial force, therefore it does not need long range or long endurance it will typically operate up to and around its regional area of influence.

The West will have to cross oceans and sustain the operations for extended periods should conflict arise, to give you figures in 1982 when the UK went against Argentina the Royal navy had 42 ships in the main offensive task group, it was backed up by 22 Royal fleet auxiliary vessels and 62 other merchant vessels taken up from trade.

At the end of the war all the vessels were exhausted and almost dry, any conflict with China and that number will be exceeded very quickly.

The good thing about the USN and West is the alliance we have a lot of jumping off points china does not, we also have multiple allied vessels to incorporate into a task group for various roles.
China has to cater to counter for all of this and China is doing so.

To say that China isn't a threat or their equipment is trash is a total misjudgment of the entire situation and Chinese capabilities, they can do some serious damage and we know it.

[Mr Quatro]

How would you classify the US Submarine service boats?

Offense or Defense?

SSBN's on defense and SSN's on offense

I would think some older LA class are used for Fleet operations on defense.

Still think the USN could use a diesel boat platform for the Gulf of Mexico alone or the Gulf of Alaska for defense, but that is an on going argument.

With all of that said I'm glad I'm not in the position of the Pentagon to decide how to use our boats for defense or for offence this is a serious problem.

My real fear is that we could lose a Seal Team to political reasons.

Lets hope not ... I pray a (SS) qualified admiral to tell them 'No'

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

What we have here is the same as what we had with the Soviet Union during the cold war.

China is building a large sea denial force, therefore it does not need long range or long endurance it will typically operate up to and around its regional area of influence.

The West will have to cross oceans and sustain the operations for extended periods should conflict arise, to give you figures in 1982 when the UK went against Argentina the Royal navy had 42 ships in the main offensive task group, it was backed up by 22 Royal fleet auxiliary vessels and 62 other merchant vessels taken up from trade.

At the end of the war all the vessels were exhausted and almost dry, any conflict with China and that number will be exceeded very quickly.

The good thing about the USN and West is the alliance we have a lot of jumping off points china does not, we also have multiple allied vessels to incorporate into a task group for various roles.
China has to cater to counter for all of this and China is doing so.

To say that China isn't a threat or their equipment is trash is a total misjudgment of the entire situation and Chinese capabilities, they can do some serious damage and we know it.

I am not sure that your accessment of the Chinese force is correct.

[Kapitan]

If you can elaborate on the statement Ikalugin I will be all ears, but here is how I came to make the assessment as well as draw conclusions from the sources and facts from open source.

Each year the US DOD issues a report on China they do the same on Russia as well, I follow these open reports with interest I’m also party to closed reports in some cases.
Knowing what I know in the background due to some background influences and my professional capacity, I know I am able to look at the logistical capabilities and make an assessment using the open source.

With the current hull count standing at nearly 500 vessels which we would consider major surface units those being CV, LPD/H/A, CG, DDG, FFG as being ocean going and able to operate globally.
You can see there is a large gulf between coastal / EEZ focus and global power projection just using the numbers.

Now lets look at submarines. Currently China has some 79 vessels also play a vital role in the mix, currently what we are looking at is around 60 boats which are conventionally powered, given our known knowledge of operations with conventional boats as well as witnessing how the Chinese employ their submarines it Is clear that the 60 conventional boats will not make a global appearance in combat rather, they would be limited to extended EEZ operations and sea denial missions.
This is almost the same as the later stages of the cold war with the Soviet Union which used the Bastion concept.

Now to judge global capability you need to look at the logistics, why is the USA the most powerful on earth right now? Its simple logistics, same as the UK was pre-1945.
If you don’t have logistics you don’t have conflict and this is where the assessment of capability comes in.

Currently when we look at the numbers China employs some 255 auxiliaries most of which are limited to coastal or EEZ waters and come un under 2,000tons.
With that in mind what they do have is some 25 large ocean-going vessels that can work with a battle group, but again we run into another issue and that is who re supplies the supply vessels.

China over the last decade has been making alliances in and around the world using a lot of soft power, this gives them access to ports around the world, Pakistan and Mauritius in the Indian ocean, Djibouti and Eritrea in the Red Sea so on so forth.

Is 25 enough? Not really for a sustained battle group action well beyond your shores, what China has right now is the capability to send out an expeditionary strike force for a small extended deployment.

But it is clear the Chinese are building up to become a tier 1 blue water navy, they are not quite there yet, if you look at the Todd and Lindburg classification you can see in Tier 1 is the USN followed in tier 2 by the French and British then in tier 3 China.
 
Why did I make the statement they are creating a sea denial force?

That’s simple right now China knows it would be hard going to react or counter the USN and her allies platform for platform on the world stage, right now she needs to focus on her home waters and region dominance.
Thus right now she is creating or more finishing off creating a sea denial force, it’s the reason why a lot of the auxiliaries are small, and the submarines are bulked out by conventional boats, plus there’s a large contingent of small surface craft.

Will there be a shift from sea denial to global superpower?

Honestly with the way its going yes I believe so but I don’t see that shift taking place much before 2040, China has a lot of catching up to do and a lot of building to do, what we see is they are capable of the building but are they capable of the deployment and making it work that remains to be seen.

Right now China is focused on maintaining sea denial forces while building up its global power base.

[Kapitan]

The USN Submarine service is built and designed for global offensive operations, the entire USN is optimised for offensive strike warfare, and you can see that in the way it deploys and operates its fleet as well as past and present engagements.
The only real defense platform in the USN would be its SSBN force, they are simply to hide with pride and provide a second strike capability.

The entire USN is optimised to respond to any threat any where at any time on the globe, it takes a leaf from the Royal Navy on this.
What the USN has done is created a line of bases and allies around the world that it can work with and rely on to re supply using both hard and soft power (exactly what the British Empire did).

By doing this it allows the navy to forward base and be closer to any potential hot spot and also move in faster, lets take a look at just where the USN is, first off Home waters east and west coast, you have a European force in Rota Spain, A Persian gulf force housed in several gulf states they also operate in the Indian ocean, Japan and South Korea have bases as well as the Southern Pacific region of bases.
So the USN is spread right out over the globe.

In turning to your next question, the older 688’s remains a front line boat they operate both with CVBG’s and also alone, they remain a high tier class of submarine and remain capable.
these are not second-rate submarines and thus are never deployed as such.

The SSK Question

Total waste of resources the USN has no need for this type of vessel, any war and America does intend to make sure it doesn’t come within 200nm of its coast line thus the use of an SSK is void, in terms of using SSK’s in the Gulf of Mexico, what exactly would you do with them? There’s little to no threat there, and one SSN in that region has regional dominance it would take around 4 or 5 SSK’s to achieve the same.

In the Gulf of Alaska if your thinking of facing down the Chinese or Russian forces again you would not be well advised to bring a SSK, while both nations have SSK’s it would be the SSN and SSGN that would come up there to play and that’s mainly due to ice, and also rapidity of deployment.

The SSK is great in littoral conditions and if your operating in closed waters such as the Gulf, Mediterranean, Baltic regions then absolutely they are fine for those areas, the SSN out classes the SSK in every front and not just in endurance but also capability.

The SSN will give you the capability and flexibility as well as the brute force to send a message, take the 1982 sinking of Belgrano one action by a British SSN and the entire Argentine navy went home to port.

This is the sole reason the RN and USN went all nuclear the SSK even with AIP just could not match the capability level.

[TopTorp '92]

Whenever a conflict breaks out the current resource allocation in subs, carriers, flight wings, etc. will change to reflect the new situation.

Similar to business no plan survives first contact. Pivots & adjustments will follow.

Just like Pearl Harbor of years ago, the first line of offense/defense will disappear. Second line steps up. Plans rewritten and troops retrained for unseen war.

Generals & admirals fight the last war. The next war no different. History repeats, repeats too.

[ikalugin]

Kapitan, beyond how the reporting, atleast on Russia, tends to be poor in terms of anything beyond bean counting, there is a problem of broader bias.


That is - that France or UK have a more significant blue water capability than Russia or PRC. I do not believe that to be correct, particularly in the light of PRC efforts to build bases abroad and large surface combatants together with steady out of area deployements.

If 25 ocean going combat ships (those being?) is not enough, then how does UK or France have a real blue water capability?
Especially if we count FFGs as ocean going vessels as PRC has many 054 series FFGs now.
This trend could be seen from change in average displacement.


In fact the only area they are lagging behind is, arguably (as we do not really know enough about the current gen SSNs) the SSN/SSBN technology. I would caution from falling into the same bias trap US fell before Pearl Harbour with Japanese and that they fell with the Soviets during the cold war.

[Kapitan]

In terms of capability your missing quite a bit of info here, when we talk about blue water capability there is a wide ranging set of factors that need to be taken into account its not just about warship numbers.
If you look at the Todd and Linburg classification you will find a four tier blue water section, in tier 1 is the USA tier 2 France and UK tier 3 has China and Russia and there is reasons for this.

You correct in stating its not all about bean counting that’s true it is not, there are many factors which go into making a blue water navy truly global capable.

If you look at the UK and France the reason they are where they are in ranking is because of logistical capability, what this actually means is besides being able to project power beyond its shore for a extended period of time they also have the capability to supply those positions almost indefinitely.
The UK and France because of their colonial past have huge networks on every continent, they also have basing rights and port rights and air bridges this network is so vast it takes nearly 8,000 of us to manage these networks (and yes I’m one of them).

If you break it down the UK for example it has the ability to use ports and airports on every continent, the UK has over seas capabilities in all areas something China and Russia does not have.

To give you an idea what I work with this is a list of areas open to us by treaty, these countries allow us port and air bridge rights for logistics and you will note by plotting this out on the map it encompasses the globe:

All 27 EU countries, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria , Morocco, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, BIOT Islands, India, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, U.S pacific territories, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Falklands Islands and territories, including accension island, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, United States, Canada, Multiple Caribbean nations, Brazil, French Guyana

This is what Russia does not have and it is what China is seeking to replicate in the new silk road program, however they are very much behind the UK and France.
Every country I listed above has given the UK the right to make port or land and over fly thus giving the UK a global supply chain network and yes we do utilise all of them countries!

Europe as a combined whole has the largest sea lift capability on the globe, yes you may laugh but its true there’s a big difference to how the Europeans do it as to how the Russians, Chinese and Americans do it.
Europe has the largest roll on roll off fleet in the world, and some of the largest ConRo and RoRo vessels, in terms of lane meters they are second to none and all these ships are in traffic, the reality is we utilize these vessels for civilian service but if they are needed (and they have been) they are called up (I was on one such ship called up).

Being part of NATO also helps this opens up a lot of doors, it also means that auxiliary fleets open up too, what the auxiliaries are which not a lot of people are aware is, they are not part of a navy they are a civilian merchant service, manned by Civilians the Royal fleet auxiliary is just the example.

The UK also has the 9th largest merchant marine at 39.8 million DWT, China is only slightly behind here in 10th with 37.2 million DWT.

Now in terms of ship numbers in the combat fleet yes France and UK have a lot less hulls than China and indeed Russia that is true, but unlike Russian and China both France and UK can keep a strike group in action in deep ocean indefinitely due to the logistics capability, this is something we know neither Russia nor China can do.

Both Russia and China would not be able to keep up with the level of operations logistically in order to keep a strike group at sea indefinitely.
Russia does not have the forward logistics units to relay for a start, and China’s auxiliaries are too few in number just now.

Do I think both Russia and China will hit tier 2 in the next decade? Yes I absolutely think they will.