Top 10 military powers ??? What is your take

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Quasar44, Jan 6, 2020.

  1. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    You can't occupy with infantry until you have established air and/or naval superiority.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  2. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Which is China's largest weakness. They have almost no fleet capabilities, and by that I mean operating their ships as a fleet. That is just not China's way, they almost exclusively send them out by 1 and 2 ships. That is more like an overpowered Coast Guard than an actual Navy. They have almost no training and experience in actual fleet operations. 5-10+ ships all operating together, shipkeeping and staying in their proper formations, and then the more advanced things like keeping a constant CAP and UNREP.

    This is one of many reasons I consider China a "paper tiger". Yea, they have a lot of really scary equipment. Much of it untested other than in the most favorable of conditions, and the rest is barely used as it should be to be a real threat or deterrent. That is good for say frightening the Philippines, but not so much the US or Japan.
     
  3. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    China currently has more combat ships that the US Navy. The Office of Navel intellgence China will have a fleet of 360 combat ships to a projected 297 for the US Navel fleet by the end of 2020. They have also been focused on mondernization and missile technoloy. Yes currently they are limited to mid-range at this point but that is what they need to assert themselves in the Western Pacific and South China Sea and in particular to threaten Taiwan their areas of interest. They have 2 Carriers in operation and expect 4 by 2021.

    So they are not to be sneezed at they already present a formidable force for our current Navy.

    https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  4. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Which I will say once again.

    Which they have almost no experience using as an actual fleet!

    China almost never does any kind of fleet operations. I said this quite clearly, they send them out mostly solo, occasionally with a second ship. THis is how you use a Coast Guard, it is not how you use a Navy.

    And numbers do not matter. Send them out individually, then they get sunk individually. Send them out as groups without experience in working in groups, likely they are as big a danger to each other as we are to them.

    Send them out in large numbers without experience in UNREP, then you just wait until they are bingo on fuel and need to return to base for supplies.

    There is a lot more involved in having a Navy than just having a bunch of ships. Just look at how well the German Navy did in WWII. You have incidents like this little ship that almost nobody remembers, called the Bismark.

    Oh, and the biggest segment of their surface combat strength? 109 missile boats (basically PT boats but missiles instead of torpedoes). Then you have 50 Corvettes. That is the smallest true combat surface vessel, smaller than a frigate.

    Their largest combat ship, 36 destroyers. 36 miscelanious Chinese destroyers of a dozen different models? Meet our 67 Burke class Destroyers, and we raise you 22 Ticonderoga class Cruisers.

    And your 2 Aircraft Carying Guided Missile Cruisers (without aircraft), we call, and raise you 10 fully loaded and armed Nimitz class carriers.

    Not even the Soviets or Russia called those things "carriers". No more than we call our LHA ships (that carry as many or more aircraft than either of those 2 Chinese ships even if they had aircraft to use on them) "carriers". Heck, any of our older Wasp class LHAs can support more aircraft than those Chinese ships.

    You are acting exactly as China does. Counting equipment like the number really matters. Guess what, the equipment is not going to be fighting, it will be those that operate that equipment. And I put our Navy way above an organization that is literally called the PLAN.

    People's Liberation Army Navy. Guess what branch of the military that country actually gives far more attention to.
     

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