Expert’s warning to US Navy on China: Bigger fleet almost always wins

[gambit]

I can keep on going this road, but I don't feel you are going to understand why or how it didn't fit.

Broken record, ain't they? Talking points from the CPC is getting past the 50/50 humor into reality.

 

[beijingwalker]

Well, first of all, good luck shutting down the ENTIRE country just to wage war. I can tell you this, that had done a few times before, but never any good result.

Second of all, have I been talking to myself?? I already said IF YOU CAN FIND ALTERNATIVE SOURCE. That does not mean changes the source will not need to bring down the production line now. I mean you still need to consider the quality of the resource, oil need to be refined to a certain level, and raw material all have different level of concentration. It's not like you dump an Australia Bauxite and you will yield the same level or even quality of Aluminium as you dumping a Chinese Bauxite in the refineries. Same with Iron Ore, same with pretty much everything.

On the other hand, there is a reason why China don't use their resource in many of those issue and why they are more expensive than they are buying from overseas, care to have a guess??

You should know in a full out war scenario , no warring countries can run normally and keep everything abundant, China will squeeze other sectors of the economy for military buildup and life will not be nice and comfortable, this is for sure, but what about the enemy country? can they run like business as usual? they will suffer more than China, so as long as China can hold out better than the enemy, China will have a much better chance to have the last laugh.

 

[jhungary]

You should know in a full out war scenario , no warring countries can run normally and keep everything abundant, China will squeeze other sectors of the economy for military buildup and life will not be nice and comfortable, this is for sure, but what about the enemy country? can they run like business as usual? they will suffer more than China, so as long as China can hold out better than the enemy, China will have a much better chance to have the last laugh.

Well, if you want it that badly and have to destroy both countries economic development completely like you said, you would think you probably would need to rethink whether or not you can really "Win" in this scenario

Sure, you have taken back Taiwan, but can you eat them? Otherwise, what really is the point of setting your own country back 30+ years to achieve that, not to mention you would also inherit the piece of crap used to call "Taiwan" which you will need to rebuild.

That is before Taiwan decided to fight you as an insurgent and forget about challenging US afterward.

 

[beijingwalker]

Well, if you want it that badly and have to destroy both countries economic development completely like you said, you would think you probably would need to rethink whether or not you can really "Win" in this scenario

Sure, you have taken back Taiwan, but can you eat them? Otherwise, what really is the point of setting your own country back 30+ years to achieve that, not to mention you would also inherit the piece of crap used to call "Taiwan" which you will need to rebuild.

That is before Taiwan decided to fight you as an insurgent and forget about challenging US afterward.

It's just a hypothesis of war scenario, I m sure China will never want to take back a completely ruined Taiwan, as for insurgent wars, you can be sure it won't happen, Taiwan people are ethnic Chinese, soon they will naturally merge into the Chinese mainstream. mainland China's issue with Taiwan is the result of an unfinished civil war from 1949, it's not a invasion war between two countries and nations.

 

[jhungary]

It's just a hypothesis of war scenario, I m sure China will never want to take back a completely ruined Taiwan, as for insurgent wars, you can be sure it won't happen, Taiwan people are ethnic Chinese, soon they will naturally merge into the Chinese mainstream. mainland China's issue with Taiwan is the result of an unfinished civil war from 1949, it's not a invasion war between two countries and nations.

I don't have beef with this, I mean, it ain't my fight, I am all for sending (better yet, sell them) anything they need so they can do whatever they want to do, use it don't use it, that's on them. I don't want to fight for Taiwan

But I would say this, usually if you assume stuff like this and you tend to go to the worse case scenario, not the best. Because you would not be prepare to deal with that if you assume the best, not the worst. On the other hand, if Taiwan doesn't want to fight, that render the whole concept of war pointless. Because if they don't want to fight, and will be willing to merge into mainstream Chinese, then they won't fight you to have this war to begin with.

 

[Abdul Rehman Majeed]

You are assuming two things.

1.) The Japanese will use its entire Navy to fight China in a set piece.
2.) You assume no other factor or nation affect this fight.

If you are talking about a Japan v China situation, Japanese will not be stupid enough to fight a war when they know the Chinese would win. The problem is, ocean is big, it doesn't really matter if you have 1000 ship you would still not going to control the entire Pacific Ocean. What if Japanese steam their fleet somewhere in a more favorable ground? What if Japanese use a run and gun tactics? There are a lot of things to consider.

On the other hand, what if the West cut off Chinese raw material supplies? China depends on the west on 3 of the top 5 metal (Iron, Aluminum and possibly Tin (I don't remember the last one) what if all of the sudden it stopped supply Chinese those? Even if China can switch supplier, there will be a lag time from the supply in the west cut off to you apply those new resource to get back to a production rate before. How about US supplying Japanese with mothballed ships? Or even get involved directly in the war??

Following are the only possibilities as US will be a no show.

China vs Japan
China vs South Korea
China vs Taiwan

You cannot cutoff anything.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Pakistan, Myanmar and Indonesia are with China in this fight.

 

[MastanKhan]

In WW2， Japan can never match US mighty industrial and manufacturing power, but in today's world, the shoe is on the other foot

Hi,

China has no experience of fighting a MODERN DAY war---.

It actually has no experience fighting a 20th / 21st century war either---.

US will be fighting 1000's of miles away from its shores---whereas china would be fighting for its life.

The US can always tuck its tail and leave the arena under duress---china otoh---has to stay put---.

Another 2 decades will put china in a way better position militarily due to its weapons meeting and exceeding the american threat.

 

[PakFactor]

Hi,

China has no experience of fighting a MODERN DAY war---.

It actually has no experience fighting a 20th / 21st century war either---.

US will be fighting 1000's of miles away from its shores---whereas china would be fighting for its life.

The US can always tuck its tail and leave the arena under duress---china otoh---has to stay put---.

Another 2 decades will put china in a way better position militarily due to its weapons meeting and exceeding the american threat.

I would take an experienced army equipped anyday versus an inexperienced army equipped.

“To have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.” – Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

[jhungary]

Following are the only possibilities as US will be a no show.

China vs Japan
China vs South Korea
China vs Taiwan

You cannot cutoff anything.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Pakistan, Myanmar and Indonesia are with China in this fight.

lol, okay

 

[MajesticPug]

First of all, biggest fleet NOT ALWAYS wins. A few battles comes into mind, Trafalgar (When British force out ship with 27 to 33 ship of the line), Battle off Samar (The entire Taffy Task Force weighed less than one battleship in battle, and it's a 9 vs 20 duel), Battle of Lake Erie (5 Schooner vs 2 Ship of the Line) just to name a few on top of my head.

Battle of Trafalgar - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle off Samar - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Lake Erie - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So for that, the "expert" was wrong.

On the other hand, ship number is not the deciding factor of any war, firepower is.

You look at a specific battle, experts look at the wars, the whole picture, the struggle between two battling nations. You stare at a tree and miss the whole forest.

 

[SQ8]

lol, okay

Interestingly , until vietnam every conflict the US has participated in it did under equipped and with less quality.
WW1 did not have the weapons nor trained airmen yet by Armstice day caught up.
WW2 did not have any decent aircraft and was putting up P-40s initially and Wildcats against Me-109s and Zeros.
Same with Korea…

Yet, it prevailed even when prior to it the military leadership had to beg congress for equipment and funds to train.

So now, when everyone is on the same page with the pivot and money is being pumped in along with training - the assumption is to ignore history?

Good luck to anyone who thinks like that

 

[jhungary]

Interestingly , until vietnam every conflict the US has participated in it did under equipped and with less quality.
WW1 did not have the weapons nor trained airmen yet by Armstice day caught up.
WW2 did not have any decent aircraft and was putting up P-40s initially and Wildcats against Me-109s and Zeros.
Same with Korea…

Yet, it prevailed even when prior to it the military leadership had to beg congress for equipment and funds to train.

So now, when everyone is on the same page with the pivot and money is being pumped in along with training - the assumption is to ignore history?

Good luck to anyone who thinks like that

lol, number is NOT everything, even if you have not been involved in any war knows that. I mean if number dictate everything, then wouldn't be Ukrainian folded a long time ago? Falkland will now be called Las Malvinas? I mean, that's just 2 prime example.

But on the other hand, I have absolutely no problem people think like that.

You look at a specific battle, experts look at the wars, the whole picture, the struggle between two battling nations. You stare at a tree and miss the whole forest.

Again, the concept is too complicated for layman people like you to understand. Tactical/Strategic/Operation level planning involved everything that affect to each other, I can write a 130 pages doctoral dissertation on how decision on each level affect all level (which was what I was going to do if I had got into the PhD in Strategic Studies)

On the other hand, wars are dictated by each and every battle, and culminated at a point when you do not have any battle to win/lose.

And finally, layman look at wars in general, expert looks at how individual battle change the outcome of a war.

 

[applesauce]

because Wars are built on battle, and the term you are looking for is "Complacency"

The good ol' tradition or "More" = "Good" is nothing if not a misnomer and even ever a thing to begin with, because I had studied war. And number didn't really put into either tactical level, strategic level and operational level. I can keep on going this road, but I don't feel you are going to understand why or how it didn't fit. So instead, I am going to use a recent example.

Ukrainian Navy have ZERO naval power, and Russian fleet have 5 (or 7 frigates) and also assorted ship including a battlecruiser, yet in the entire "war" in Black Sea, it was Ukrainian who is ahead at this point, and seeing Ukraine have no naval power at all and Turkey had blocked the outside access to Black Sea, this is unlikely going to change.

On the other hand, you can also argue, US Navy back in WW2 is smaller than the entire IJN when it counts, by the time US Navy had built up its strength, they had already won the War in the Pacific, because the turning point in the Pacific is unarguably the Battle of Midway, which by that point, US navy is smaller in number than the Japanese Navy at that point.

Number was never considered an absolute advantage in warfare, that's because it really didn't matter how many units you have, what really do matter in the end is how many units you can support, just because you have said 450 battleships, that does not mean you can put all 450 battleships in a given war. The size of the battle, the sea control, and the supply line all play a role. And that come down to what I said before, how you implement your number in Tactical level, Strategic Level and Operational Level.

no shit genius.
i had literally never said things like supply dont matter.

i asked why you bring up individual battles, as important as they may be, when the article talks about war.

yes you can win individual battles, important ones even, the article also said, larger navies are also able to take more attrition.

its really pretty simply isnt it? given roughly the same tech level, skill and competence, it would be lucky to sink 10 enemy ships to your 2, but if you only have 5 ships and the enemy 200, you would
need to be lucky many times and they only have to be lucky a couple times.
if you want to argue the us has allies, or better tech or basing or experience, those would be fine points, but that's not what you pointed out.
and Ukraine? not a naval war. and last i check Ukraine isnt winning, yes they stopped russia from taking over eastern Ukraine...so far, but not a single Ukrainian soldier is in russia nor are they even pushing russia back now and the war isnt over. expanding the draft to 60 year olds on your 10th round and the enemy is still in your country with no signs of backing off, with news of your backers getting tired of supporting you and youre not even pushing the russians back anymore is not my idea of winning. the russian black sea fleet has no naval enemies it can combat and got sniped at by Ukrainians...from land. the chinese also stopped the us led un in korea in 1950, took pot shots are various us naval craft too, but no one in their right mind would call that a naval war and use it to say the chinese with barely a navy, unused in the war, is somehow winning over the usn.
and congrats on studying war, so what? the article made a simple point, larger navies win naval wars more than not in past history. so with all your studies, are you going to disagree with that, that larger navies won more naval wars historically? and i made an even simpler point, the article is talking about wars not battles. are you going to disagree that the article said "war" not battles?

also i literal (again) never said more = better in general. I literally said tech and such counts otherwise people would be using sail boats for a navy. looks like you should study what i wrote more carefully, instead of putting words in my mouth.

 

[applesauce]

Every analogy and examples have their breaking points, meaning we must examine them to see where they are applicable and where/when compares to current situations, those analogies and past examples are no longer serviceable.

Individual battles make up a war, right? So it is appropriate to use previous wars/battles as examples.

Where US and JPN navies in WW II as examples breaks down is that current US Navy is nothing like WW II US Navy. So as far as individual naval battles go, the PLAN will most likely be sunk. Dung Fling missiles or not.

As far as China's manufacturing prowess is concerned, how far does China want to take the fight? China does not have the ability and capacity to attack US proper while the US can attack China proper. Once the US was able to outproduce JPN, JPN's manufacturing facilities were no longer safe. China will be in the same situation. The PLAAF do not the equivalent of B-52, B-1, and B-2, not counting the coming B-21. The US do not need ICBM to reach China. The US already have all the major Chinese ports targeted. When I was active duty and on the F-111, NATO had all the Black Sea ports targeted. UK based F-111s can reach all the way to Moscow. So yes, how far does China want to take this fight?

yes, individual battles make up a war, but pointing out individual battles does not paint the whole picture of the war, except in cases where a single battle was more or less the whole war.
the article specifically looked at naval wars and said the larger navy won more naval wars historically, simple point really.
i also did not say that china could take on the us in a general war right now. because i do agree on the bits about positioning. specifically that the us can target china easier than china can target the us. but not because the article is wrong, because the article is a generalization(they themselves even said there was some exceptions), china is larger numerically but still has smaller tonnage, still technologically behind in areas such as nuclear subs for now, its "larger" in only one aspect.

 

[jhungary]

no shit genius.
i had literally never said things like supply dont matter.

i asked why you bring up individual battles, as important as they may be, when the article talks about war.

yes you can win individual battles, important ones even, the article also said, larger navies are also able to take more attrition.

its really pretty simply isnt it? given roughly the same tech level, skill and competence, it would be lucky to sink 10 enemy ships to your 2, but if you only have 5 ships and the enemy 200, you would
need to be lucky many times and they only have to be lucky a couple times.
if you want to argue the us has allies, or better tech or basing or experience, those would be fine points, but that's not what you pointed out.
and Ukraine? not a naval war. and last i check Ukraine isnt winning, yes they stopped russia from taking over eastern Ukraine...so far, but not a single Ukrainian soldier is in russia nor are they even pushing russia back now and the war isnt over. expanding the draft to 60 year olds on your 10th round and the enemy is still in your country with no signs of backing off, with news of your backers getting tired of supporting you and youre not even pushing the russians back anymore is not my idea of winning. the russian black sea fleet has no naval enemies it can combat and got sniped at by Ukrainians...from land. the chinese also stopped the us led un in korea in 1950, took pot shots are various us naval craft too, but no one in their right mind would call that a naval war and use it to say the chinese with barely a navy, unused in the war, is somehow winning over the usn.
and congrats on studying war, so what? the article made a simple point, larger navies win naval wars more than not in past history. so with all your studies, are you going to disagree with that, that larger navies won more naval wars historically? and i made an even simpler point, the article is talking about wars not battles. are you going to disagree that the article said "war" not battles?

also i literal (again) never said more = better in general. I literally said tech and such counts otherwise people would be using sail boats for a navy. looks like you should study what i wrote more carefully, instead of putting words in my mouth.

No, I don't even mean that.

Let me give you an example. You have 50 ships, your enemy have 100 ships, let say you are allow to fight 3 battles and that would decide the outcome of a war. How do you execute your battle plan?

Okay, screw Navy, am a Army guy, let's talk about in an area I am more familiar with. You have 50 Tanks, your enemy have 100 tanks. You are allow 3 battles and that would decide the outcome of a war, how do you execute your battle plan?

Would you apply that to a 1 on 1 fight, otherwise known as set piece and you completely engage your enemy head on, that's your assumption because if we do that, you are going to lose, because like you said, given the same tech, given the same efficiency, 100 tanks is easier to kill 50 tanks. But is this the only way? No.

In Strategic planning, there is a thing called Defeat in Detail. Which is what the German did to Roman back in Teutoburg forest in 9AD. Essentially Roman have 3 Legions and a few allied cohort come up against loose Germanic Troop that number less than 15000 in the Northern Expansion campaign. By all account Roman should have won, you are talking about 10,000 more trained troop than the German Tribe. But no. What the German did is they virtually dangle some of their own troop, fast scout, and set into a few pieces of losing skirmishes. First, that give the Roman a false sense of security thinking this is going to be easy, but more importantly, the German did that to just make one thing out. That's to separate the 3 legions.

Once that 3 legion is no longer mutually supporting each other, you are instead of getting one single 25000 force, you are talking about 3 x 8000 sized force, that would be a problem because you will have to pass thru the Forrest (hence the name) to fight a set piece, and you are taking hit left and right going into the forest and when you come out, you are less of a force you went in, and also disorganised, and now you are facing the 10,000 or so German in 3 block of anything less than 8000. That's how Roman lose that battle, and the entire campaign of Northern Expansion. That's 3. battle help controlling the Roman, the German lose the first one to break up the Roman Formation, then attack the Roman when they traverse thru the Forest, and finally set up the last decisive battle toward the separated and disoriented Roman and win the war that way.

On the other hand, at Tactical Level, there are something called Oblique Flank, unit aren't create equal, a Destroyer have different capability than a cruiser, than a carrier than a frigate and so on, The concept of Oblique Flank is to stack one of your flank with the most massive firepower as possible and corrode that flank and leave the weaker unit to buy time on the other side. It was used in the war in Ukraine, when they left 3 Brigade Behind to defend Mariupol and reinforce both Kyiv and Kharkiv, if the Ukrainian try to hold on to all 3 cities and applies their troop equally, they will lose all 3, and most likely the war. This would have an impact on Strategic Level because unit size does not define a defensive operation, but rather it is factor like how you hold on to the defensive line and how you blunt the enemy attacks. That is what we call "Defensive/Offensive Mechanic" You have a push-pull style mechanic where you stack up against one flank and that would pull the dynamic toward that, and thus pulling the center of gravity of defence toward it. In Ukrainian war case, it's Kyiv at the early stage of the war.

On a side note, YOU are arguing number matter, which mean Ukrainian example applies even the war had not yet over, because if number do matter, how or why Russia did not win the war by sheer number of Tanks, Troops, Aircraft and ship already?

And finally the Operational Level, as I explained before, it really didn't matter much how many troop you've got, it always matter HOW MANY YOU CAN SEND TO THE FRONTLINE and support it, and it's not just about logistic. A very good Air Force example my brother use (He was USMC flyer) and probably @gambit have heard about it is. It didn't matter how many bogey you are facing, there can always ONLY BE ONE at your six, that's the only one that count and that's the only one you need to care about. That also applies to Naval Battle and Ground Warfare.

For example, During D-Day in Normandy, you can only have a number of ship supporting the beachhead or it would have been too crowded. Your gunnery lane are going to cross, so you aren't going to fire at something without hitting your own people, simply because the entire beachhead is littered with your troop, your ship and so on. Another factor is larger ship cannot be closer to shore, which mean their land attack capability are neglectable and in case of shore party duty, I don't care if you stack 30 Aircraft Carrier and 50 Cruiser along the entire English Channel, it's ALWAYS only the destroyer close to the shore that counts, for the ground troop that landed in the beaches, those Aircraft Carrier and Crusier or whatever is not really a point. Becuase those asset CANNOT be brought to bear in that circumstance.

This is the Tactical-Strategical-Operational dynamic I am talking about, I doubt you understand any of this and just come back and say "You should have say US have allies"......Well, at least I tried.