Hmm a disagreement amongst sources
[url]http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/icbm/index.html[/url]

Problem solved!
[url]http://www.cdiss.org/btablea.htm[/url]

Whoever runs atomicarchive.com gets his data from the radical enviromentalist group the National Resources Defence Council which has labled every nuclear missle made by China as a ICBM. In fact only the CSS-4 missile is a ICBM capable of reaching the USA. Well the JF-1 SLBMs would be able to too- if the SSN they were mounted in could ever leave port.

When they first "occupied" the Spratlys,saw a picture (in Newsweek or somethin)of a couple a -literaly-bamboo shacks,attached by walkways, on stilts over a reef with a satilite dish on the roof.Guess that was their first "base" eh?Looked like a wonderfull duty assignment.  :0)

Sad part is we Americans are buying "Made in China" products from K-fart and Walfart and their gov is getting richer and richer.

Armdlbrl talking about the Spratly's being outta China's fighter range makes me wonder if their airforces have an inflight refueling capability? Experimental or extremely limited?Anyone know?

So far the Chinese air tanker fleet is small, and the majority of Chinese tactical aircraft do not have the capability to refuel in air.

They are trying to improve this, and have bought air tankers from Russia, while their newly acquired Sukhoi fighters are built with refueling probes as standard equipment.

The more interesting security clearances involve questions about any family or friends you may have in hostile countries. They figure it's a blackmail threat, among other things.

Many diesel-electric subs are quieter than nukes when on batteries, but much noisier when on diesels. They find it hard to do long transits because of this; in blue water against a sophisticated opponent they give off a big signal. OTOH, around Taiwan the water is shallow, they may recharge in bays or inlets, and they may be under at least some air cover from the mainland, which would make sending out slow ASW planes difficult. Their objective would probably be to blockade, not go after a US carrier group. Though they might use them to keep the US farther out to sea, and reduce on-station time of US aircraft.

The shallow water around Taiwan is not ideal for US nukes, either. The Taiwanese are trying to buy eight conventional subs of their own, but the Europeans aren't willing to sell to them.

Here is one look at the Chinese Submarine fleet as of last October:
[url]http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/china/submar.htm[/url]

The page at [url]www.warships1.com[/url] has pictures to go with these text descriptions, but the Chinese subs page is down right now.

These arent as good but will have to do: [url]http://members.tripod.ca/shaohz/news04.html[/url]

This is a good one too: [url]http://www.stormpages.com/jetfight/han_xia_kilo_song.htm[/url]

I hate the Chinese government! [rocket]

That's an interesting webpage you picked out, ArmdLbrl. Upon further exploration...

"Human Rights Record of the United States"

"Why Chinese should be proud of the victory in Korea War"

"CIA's Ten Commandments Against China"

(And my favorite...)

"China can defeat three USA aircraft-carrier groups"

I'll take it that you were only interested in the pictures... the site is clearly that of a rabid Chi-com militarist. Have a look folks:

[url]http://members.tripod.ca/shaohz/news.html[/url]    

I didn't realize there was any English text.

Who is this guy?

Check out this site, its old, but it explains the real problem the Chinese army has that buying or stealing high tech wont fix:
[url]http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/shadow.htm[/url]

More than dollars. We make what we procure for the most part and are the driving technological force in the world.



It's not a question of stretching a dollar. The point is that when you translate their military budget from yuan into dollars, and the piddly cost in same to field what they do, it gives a misleading impression. A billion $ super computer isn't necessarily worth a guided missile cruiser if you need it... or three PLA armored divisions in Korea if that's all it costs them.

While their naval forces are relatively weak (and their focus has always been coastal from a historical perspective), this is a new area for them and with faster economic growth you can be sure of a buildup. Germany (never a naval power before) became a challenge to Britain in a very short time; same with the Japanese to us(another - at best - coastal-oriented power). What is the trend in naval strength for the United States? Up or down for the past 10-15 years?

The Chinese on the other hand want to produce their own modern aircraft carriers (10 years?) and not have to buy from the Russians. What was that Asian country again that had practically no navy (or great experience in that area) but went on to build a formidable carrier force?



I would say, again, that it's a meaningless comparison. We can do many things that they can't... yet. (This despite gains from technology transfers, legal and otherwise, from us, our allies and "new partners" in the world.) They can also do one that we cannot: win a land war in China. Thankfully we are only interested in detering them from a strike on Taiwan.



Conscript, but moving away from the old model to a more streamlined and modern military. Former CIA director Gates was right: The Gulf War shook them up.



I forgive you. Sin no more, brother.

Interesting article (from '96). The PLA's involvement in commercial enterprises is not a plus in their professional development, that's for sure. Nothing is fixed however. Remember how the Germans were thought of as a second rate military (debacles of the Napoleonic Wars, etc) and how that changed, rather dramatically, catching Europe by surprise. History tends to work that way.

Here's a more recent article titled [b]What if China attacks Taiwan:[/b]

[url]http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/parameters/01autumn/Russell.htm[/url]

From my perspective it isn't the "8 more Russian submarines" (our topic) that is the threat... it's all the stuff coming down the pipeline. I'd rather err on the side of caution than play some kind of Neville Chamberlain with an "everything's fine" attitude. They said Churchill was recklessly preaching doom and gloom you know...

The real situation is that we need to be paying more attention to Russia and to India. We need closer relations with both of them. China and the Muslims are threats to all of us, but if the three of us combined against China they couldn't do shit.

These 8 Kilos, should already have been spoken for. WE should have bought them, overhauled their electrics at Electric Boat, and then sold them to TAIWAN.

I wouldn't mind a bigger navy, with more of it concentrated in the Pacific.

All of these sceneros are moot if we show up on day one with 7 or 8 CVBG's in range of Taiwan. We don't have a two ocean threat anymore. 3-4 carriers are all we need in the rest of the world, to help the MEUs with any emergancy evacuations and such. Nothing is going to happen in the Atlantic, so they could all be devoted to keeping a eye in the Med or Persian Gulf.

The big problem on our side is knowing WHEN the Chinese are REALLY going to move, so we can gather this force and send it. A force that size, they cant stop. Not without going nuclear. And we must start preparing Taiwan for a seige so that we can give ourselves a couple weeks to concentreate this force. We must avoid going into this in dribbles, if we only think they are making a show and just send one or a couple carriers to make a counter show like we did in 96'- well pretty soon that is going to be asking to loose a carrier.

We need to transfer more of our fleet to the Pacific. They can reach the Mid East just as easliy from there as from the East Coast. We especally need to get more of our submarines to the Pacific.

Also we do have another trump card, the US Air Force and its fleet of some 160 long range bombers, which the Chinese have no way of stopping.

Found another good one. [url]http://www.china-defense.com/index.html[/url]

shooter,
you must not have been reading the posts above ??

The Kilo is no good, the Chinese Navy is no good, the Sonar suite is no good, etc.  Plainly there is 'NOTHING' to worry about.

Tell me experts, have any of you EVER operated against a diesel electric boat ??  Any diesel electric boat ?? E-V-E-R ??  Operated by any Navy ??

Kepp in mind I am not 100% Fluent, But I learned most of my mandarin through living with my ex g/f for about two years that was from Dailin, taking Mandarin classes at the community college, and spending the summer over there in China.

About you Q on the NSA. In the area where my mother lives its mostly made up of wokers that are either employes by NSA,FT.Mead(US ARMY) or the Naval Acadamy. I would say that 30% of the people in her (my old neighborhood) work for NSA. Both of her neighbors work for NSA and they said that in order to get SSC(The top of the TOP secret) clearence at NSA they might and I said might in my first post,have a problem with that.

The US should buy up all the weapons.  

That's a small hill of beans compared to what the army bosses are making. They appease the people with this economic reform(eventually paid for by joe schmoe and his 9.99 K-Mart t-shirts), and they lose desire for political change. Do any of your relatives want political change? Mine don't. They're well fed. Bribed into silence.

All of these major import/export companies are owned by the Red Army or by major generals. This billion-dollar trade deficit - it's all going into hard cash reserves for them. They anticipate a trade breakdown with the U.S. (even if our leaders don't), and are building up gold and cash reserves for just that eventuality. Interesting, this was in the NYT of all places a year ago.




Ha! Younger? This is the old soviet "younger" generation all over again. They're all at least 60, and none show any sign of reform(or even free thought). Check out the June 15th issue of the Economist (the website charges money, so no link - dammit).



This sounds like hostage-taking to me. My POV: the sooner we get the Reds off their backs, the better off they are.

Agreed. They only need to get in one hit to score a major victory. Put out all 8 of these suckers at once, lose 7 to our anti-sub defenses, but if one, just ONE, gets through,
BAM, one sunk carrier.
Not a bad investment for 1.6 billion.

I agree with you completely about Russia and India (as I have said here many times). We are natural allies: democracies (alright not perfect) with the same threats posed above.

Should China move on Taiwan, however, I don't see either of those nations doing anything to assist us from a military perspective (diplomatic yes).



Is this a viable strategy in general to deal with China's desired naval buildup and modernization? I seem to recall at one point there was talk of them buying an aircraft carrier from Spain of all countries (they were planning to build one and could just as easily build two). Seems that if you have the hard currency you can get what you want...



We need to get back to the size we had in the 80's under Lehman. [;)]



You're right of course but I just don't see that happening for the reasons you mentioned  and the fact that the status quo is hard to change.

What! You think your real world experience is the equal of our armchair prognostications? Harumph. [:D]

Two more interesting articles from the Army War College Quarterly:

[b]China's Hunger: The Consequences of a Rising Demand for Food and Energy[/b]

[url]http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/parameters/01autumn/Kane.htm[/url]

And a more broad and well thought out overview...

[b]An Evitable War: Engaged Containment and the US-China Balance[/b]

[url]http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/parameters/01autumn/Howle.htm[/url]

There is one other country we need to be getting friendly with in order to protect Taiwan.

Vietnam.

Our continuing grudge from the war is now being very unprodcutive. They greatly fear a Chinese attack on them. A direct ground attack like that attempted in 1979 probably won't happen again, China doesn't need a protracted guerilla war. But Vietnam and China do have competing dibs on the Spratlys, and the large oil reserves there.

Vietnam would let us use Camh Ran Bay again.  They need cash. The loss of Subic Bay and Clark Field greatly weekend our ability to protect Taiwan. Camh Ran Bay would make up for that. US forces based in Vietnam would generally unhinge a LOT of Chinese strategy regarding strangling Taiwan.

Shooter 69

You make some good points,but I don't see modern China's situation as anything like WW2 Japan Or WW1-WW2 Germany.The cost and sophistication of building these weapons means it isn't gonna happen overnight.Our latest carrier(Ronald Reagan?)has taken us what 4 years(4 bilion) to get into the water and we have the greatest experience with these things.Even if they could amass the weapons they stil have to learn to be operationally effective and who are they gonna practice against?The final obvios problem with your scenario is our surveillance and communications capability.Not to mention our presence around the globe.I don't think anyones gonna show up out of the fog and surprise us with an Imperial Chinese navy and blow us outta the Pacific with weapons and tactics previously unknown too us and far superior.We're watching evry step of their buildup.And we'are also constantly improving ourselves.

I sorta understand what your saying bout expenditures,but I'm saying that if their 3 armoured divisions cost 1 bill.and ours cost 10(cause we had to desigin em on our 2.5 bill. super computer :0) -still has value in the overall equation doesn't it?- ),still who's more survivable ?Who's more lethal?Maybe a direct comparison of moneys spent doesn't make sense,but the shear amount of treasure over time adds up.So in a way it is relavent,no?

Anyhow the Chinese will never be able to do any thing without air superiority(our great trump in the world),something they won't have.

Even Taiwan has a smaller,but much higher quality air force, and who's to say we don't already have a command and control capability on Taiwan making it possible to fly land based strikes from the island ala Saudi Arabia.Far fetched?maybe but not outta the realm of possibility.

I know ,"apples and oranges"on our interests.Just throwing it out there.

I'm not advicating ignoreing China or dicounting the threat,I just think their capabilities have a long way to go before they can seriously threaten an occupation of an island like Taiwan.

How many Carrier groups do we have around the world?12-15?How many in the 80's?

Actually we only had 14 carriers during the Regan years, and now we have only 11.

Even getting to 14 was only achieved by putting Coral Sea back into service as a fleet carrier, after she had already been converted to replace Lexington as the training carrier. And by having Midway serve all the way till her 46th birthday.

Let see that was
2 Midway
4 Forrestall
1 Enterprise
3 Kitty Hawk
1 John F. Kennedy
4 Nimitz

4 Nimitz were on order

1 "long hull" Essex class, Lexington, classed as a Auxillary.

Is this what the Beatles meant by
[B]YELLOW SUBMARINE?[/B]
I don't think so, Ringo!