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CHINA FAST GROWING NAVY Why the US is NOT afraid of the largest Navy in the world, yet PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyRo32r9aA Peter Burgess COMMENTARY This assessment of Chinese naval power was written in July 2023 ... about 18 months ago. The strength of the Chinese military is growing ... and what is described here is to some extent already out-of-date. From my perspective, most global priorities are severely compromised and are setting up for disaster. The 'great' powers all seem to have war as the solution to the future ... which is insanity on steroids! There is good news, but it is not driving the international agenda ... nor much of any agenda. There is amazing technology that has the potential to provide more goods and services that can improve quality of life ... for everyone, and not just a rather small elite. To have this happen requires considerable change in the way resources are managed and deployed. Almost everything has to change ... and done badly will likely make things a lot worse rather than better. Sadly ... the USA is unlikely to be a power for 'good' under a Trump led administration. Peter Burgess
Why the US is NOT afraid of the largest Navy in the world, yet Not What You Think 3.14M subscribers ... 3,240,633 views ... 35K likes Jul 7, 2023 (accessed December 2024) #NotWhatYouThink #longs #NWYT Go to https://ground.news/nwyt to get all sides of every story and compare coverage. Subscribe through our link before August 1, 2023 for 30% off unlimited access for as little as $5 a month. How do the Chinese carriers stack up against their American counterparts? What will happen if China invades Taiwan, and why the United States is not afraid of the Chinses aircraft carriers, is #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #longs 00:00 The World's Largest Navy 02:05 Chinese Three Aircraft Carriers Explained 04:47 How Chinese Carriers Compare to American Supercarriers 07:18 The True Purpose of Chinese Aircraft Carriers 12:45 What Does China Want 15:11 Chinese Carrier Killer Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles 16:12 Why China Built Artificial Islands & Fake Aircraft Carriers in Desert 18:08 Why US Always Looses Two Aircraft Carriers During This Wargame 21:20 China's Increasing Navy Threat Music: Great Wall of China - Sight of Wonders The Bloom of Cherry Blossoms - Sight of Wonders On the Trail - Tigerblood Jewel Funky Rock Dawg - Def Lev What Do You Know - Enigmanic Thyone - Ben Elson Covert Affairs - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen Sweet Talk (Instrumental Version) - Tyra Chantey There Is No Sequel - Philip Ayers Sights of the Tokyo Tower - Sight of Wonders Checked In - Jay Varton Serious Development - Blackout Memories Pacific Graveyard - Christian Andersen Particle Emission - Silver Maple Footage: Select images/videos from Getty Images Shutterstock Russian Ministry of Defense People Liberation Army Navy US Department of Defense Note: 'The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.' Select References: https://www.usni.org/magazines/procee... https://www.usni.org/magazines/procee... https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe... https://news.usni.org/2021/11/07/chin... https://www.usni.org/magazines/procee... https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/... https://news.usni.org/2022/06/17/chin... 2023 Taiwan Invasion Wargame PDF https://t.co/WnSfBzQoh8 2022 Report on China to US Congress PDF https://navyleaguehonolulu.org/mariti... Transcript 0:00 The World's Largest Navy Just over a decade ago China had zero aircraft carriers, but today it has three in the water. China now possesses the largest Navy in the world with over 340 warships that include cutting edge destroyers and cruisers. In contrast, the US Navy has just over 280 ships ready to deploy. On top of that, the People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, is on track to add another 70 warships by 2030, compared to the US Navy’s best case scenario of adding just 42. The scale of Chinese military build up is Enormous. For reference, just one Jiangnan Changxing Shipyard in Shanghai is larger than all 7 US Naval Shipyards combined. Here’s a smaller Dalian Shipyard in China which is building five destroyers at the same time. Compare that to the United States, which can barely build two Arleigh Burke destroyers per year. But here’s the caveat, it’s not all gloom and doom… for now! 1:02 Yes, China has more warships, but they are much smaller. In fact the median US Navy Ship, the Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer, displaces up to 9,500 tons, while the median PLAN ship which is a type 045 Frigate displaces about 4,000 tons. Combined, the US Navy fleet weighs about 4.5 million tons while the Chinese mighty fleet weighs just over 2 million tons. But bigger is not always better, it sometimes is! Similarly, when it comes to these aircraft carriers, they are not as scary as you might think… which makes you wonder; what is the real purpose of the three Chinese aircraft carriers, why is China building fake American aircraft carriers in the middle of a desert and creating artificial islands in the middle of a sea? And more importantly, why during a Chinese invasion of Taiwan wargame, the United States always loses its two aircraft carriers is not what you think! 2:05 Chinese Three Aircraft Carriers Explained China’s aircraft carrier fleet currently consists of two active carriers, one under construction and at least one more planned. The 60,000 ton Type 1 Chinese aircraft carrier, Liaoning is actually the ex-soviet aircraft carrier, Varyag, which China bought from Ukraine under the pretext of converting it into an amusement park. To be fair, China did indeed buy an older Kiev-class aircraft cruiser which it did use as a theme park between 2000 and 2016. Nevertheless, when it comes to Varyag, after a decade of refurbishments, China commissioned her in 2012 with an air wing of up to 34 aircraft. 24 of those aircraft are J-15s, which are basically reverse engineered clones of the Russian SU-33. Just like her Russian half-sister, the Admiral Kuznetsov, Liaoning relies on short take-off 3:03 barrier-arrested recovery, known as STOBAR, to perform rolling launches of its J-15 fighters from a ski-jump. That's in contrast to the catapults used by the US Navy. The Type 2 Shandong Aircraft carrier is a domestically produced copy of the Kuznetsov-class carrier, and she incorporates lessons learned from the Liaoning experience. Shandong is slightly larger than Liaoning, up to 10,000 tons heavier, and she can handle up to 40 aircraft, including 36 J-15s. The third aircraft carrier, The Type 3 Fujian was laid down in 2016 and launched in the summer of 2022. She is even larger than Shandong with a displacement of 80,000 tons. But more importantly, Fujian would be the first Chinese flat top with catapults. 4:00 And not just regular catapults, but three electromagnetic catapults, similar to the ones pioneered on the American Ford-class aircraft carriers. The ship is expected to be operational as early as 2024, and will carry a new catapult capable version of the J-15 fighter and a new stealthy J-31, which is often referred to as J-35. Moreover, Chinese are rumoured to be developing the Type 4 aircraft carrier design which would be as big as the American super carriers with a displacement of 100,000 tons, featuring nuclear propulsion. In total, it is believed that the Chinese are planning to procure as many as six aircraft carriers in the near future. How Chinese Carriers Compare to American Supercarriers But how do the Chinese carriers stack up against the American super carriers? The currently commissioned Liaoning and Shandong carriers are almost half the size of the American 5:00 Nimitz and Ford Class supercarriers and can carry only half as many aircraft that are routinely embarked on the American flattops. Even Fujian would be 20% smaller. When it comes to an aircraft carrier, bigger is better. Only Nimitz or Ford-class carriers have sufficient deck space and support facilities to operate aircraft 24/7 over a target area. Moreover, because Lianoning and Shandong use a ski jump to launch aircraft, those fighters are severely limited by their take-off weight. This means they can carry less fuel and less weapons which reduces their range and makes them significantly less lethal compared to their American counterparts. Another current limitation of the Chinese aircraft carriers is that they are conventionally powered. This means that they cannot operate independently of their slow moving fleet of oilers. Being nuclear-powered would free up space on the deck and hangar for more airplanes, 6:02 because they don’t need bulky air intakes and exhausts. But maybe the biggest limitation of the current Chinese carriers is that they cannot launch heavier airplanes, like an E-2 Hawkeye. Early warning aircraft like the E-2 are extremely important because when flying at altitude, their radar can see at least three times farther than the Aegis radar on a cruiser or destroyer. This is due to the curvature of the Earth, which limits the range of ship-based radars when attempting to detect low altitude or surface targets beyond the horizon. Oh, we lost 2 subscribers. Must have been Flat Earthers! The advantage of looking down on the battlespace greatly improves situational awareness, especially when it comes to early detection of airborne threats. As a result, the Chinese have to instead rely on land-based airplanes for surveillance or Z-18 helicopters equipped with a 360 degree airborne radar. 7:05 That said, the Z-18s cannot operate for long periods of time or at high altitudes, which reduces their radar range and that severely degrades battlespace awareness. Nevertheless, Fujian and the future nuclear carriers are steadily on the course to match The True Purpose of Chinese Aircraft Carriers American supercarrier capabilities. Catapults would allow Fujian to launch heavy aircraft such as KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft. It looks awfully similar to the American E-2 Hawkeye, doesn’t it? But realistically, to match American capabilities, it would still take China many many years. Just the electromagnetic catapults alone, which took the Americans over a decade to perfect, will be a big challenge for the Chinese. But you have to go beyond the number of ships, number of aircraft and weapon ranges to understand 8:01 the potential threats, because what really matters is operational capability and geometry, in other words, expertise. Carrier operations is no easy task and China has to figure out all of it by itself, and do it fast. The US Navy has operated aircraft carriers for over a century, and China … for just over a decade. China knows that they know little, and they are extremely risk averse when it comes to carrier operations. In fact China is yet to suffer a major flight deck incident. They know that American mastery of carrier operations came at the high cost of aircraft and lives. Even though China won’t admit it, Reuters reviewed dozens of articles published in state-linked journals, which reveal awareness among Chinese military analysts about shortcomings in the country's carrier capability. 9:00 There’s still a huge gap between sailor training levels and combat requirements. The article elaborates by highlighting that the Chinese carriers do not routinely conduct flight deck operations at night or in adverse weather like the Americans do. And as far as news reporting goes, multiple other center-leaning news agencies have echoed Reuters, and we can see this effortlessly using Ground News. Liaoning and Shandong are just training carriers. So will be Fujian. That is their true purpose. It’s interesting to see that this story isn’t being covered by Chinese or even American sources, and that’s why I’m a huge fan of using Ground News. In one place, we’re able to get international perspectives on stories like this that otherwise would not even be on our radar. For example, I’ve been following news on aircrafts and drones, to get notifications on the latest breaking stories from all around the world. In a world where algorithms drive the information available to us, Ground News goes out of their 10:04 way to show all sides of every story. So go to https://ground.news/nwyt and sign up for free, or get 30% off when you subscribe and for full access. Support a small team of media outsiders working to make the news more transparent for you. While domestic Chinese news agencies proclaim that their aircraft carriers “intensive aircraft sorties” are evidence of a “high combat capability”, a close examination of the recent exercises reveals a different picture. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force provides excellent public reporting on how the Chinese Navy is operating in the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea. According to these reports, Chinese aircraft carriers always operate in the range of diversion airfields, as backups as opposed to blue water operations. Blue water ops means that aircraft can only take off from the carrier and land back on 11:03 the same carrier as it would be outside the range of diversion airfield or aerial refueling. True blue water ops are a high risk endeavor, because the only option is 100% onboard recovery, or losing an aircraft. According to the Japanese data, in 2021 and 2022, Liaoning conducted fixed wing flight operations between 300 to 740 nautical miles from the a diversion airfield. The J-15 has a high altitude transit range of more than 1,600 nautical miles, which allows it to safely make it back to an airfield, even with 50% fuel remaining. Furthermore, most of the time, the J-15 would fly “clean”, or with very few light air-to-air missiles in order to maximize its fuel reserves in case of a diversion and reduce overall risk to carrier operations. 12:03 In May 2022, Liaoning conducted 300 aircraft sorties during its deployment. It averaged fewer than 20 fighter sorties per day. China declared it as a “decent number” of sorties for training. For reference, around the same time, USS Gerald R. Ford set a record of completing 170 sorties in eight and a half hours of training. Only in December 2022, the Chinese carrier Liaoning finally conducted its first true blue water operations as they were conducting flight operations just west of Guam. At the time, the carrier was 1,300 nautical miles away from any diversion airfield. What Does China Want But what does China want? Well, the short story is that besides getting Taiwan, they want to be a true superpower. The long story is that the Chinese have outlined a series of goals with the main one being 13:00 to achieve a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and modern socialist country” by 2049, to celebrate the centenary of the founding of People’s Republic of China. Furthermore, China has outlined specific goals for its military which should become “world-class” by 2049. China has not defined what it means by “world-class”. But it is likely that the Chinese will seek to develop a military equal to—or in some cases superior to—the American military. Chinese leadership view a divided China as a weak China, they argue that “full reunification”—including the resolution of the “Taiwan question” and completing Hong Kong’s and Macau’s integration by the end of 2049—is one of the fundamental conditions of national rejuvenation. China aims to attain national rejuvenation between 2035 and 2049. 14:02 President Xi Jinping is pushing his military to increase the realism of training so they can prepare to “fight and win wars”. During March 2023, the Chinese president gave four speeches saying he is preparing for war. The question is if China is ready to invade Taiwan. The most probable answer will soon be, Yes. Note that experts agree that it's doubtful that China is actively seeking conflict with the west, but they continue to push the envelope to the point of confrontation without crossing the line to war. China understands that the United States has established itself as a global maritime superpower. As China aims for a superpower status, it must be able to challenge America’s dominance at sea. As a result, the PLAN’s overall battle force is expected to grow to 400 ships by 2025 and 15:02 440 ships by 2030. Much of this growth will be in major surface combatants. Chinese Carrier Killer Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles China is expanding its naval capabilities, but not in the same way as the US Navy. They are not trying to replicate it. Instead, they are emphasizing naval capabilities for long range supersonic maritime attack and nuclear-powered submarines to neutralize American supercarriers. As a result, they are seeking the ultimate naval weapon; anti-ship ballistic missiles or ASBM. The most important requirement for ASBM is to have accuracy to make a direct hit on a moving target at a prescribed angle of impact to penetrate the carrier's armor. The precise angle of impact is essential for the effectiveness of the ASBM warhead. 16:01 In April 2022, a video emerged of a YJ-21 ship-launched ballistic missile, which is the ultimate anti-ship weapon since it is the most difficult to intercept. Why China Built Artificial Islands & Fake Aircraft Carriers in Desert The Chinese have even built fake American aircraft carriers in the middle of a desert, one of them on a rail line, which are believed to be practice targets for the Chinese DF-21 ASBMs. China claims sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel Islands and other land features within its ambiguous self-proclaimed “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea. These Chinese claims are disputed in whole or part by Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The South China Sea plays an important role in security considerations across East Asia because Northeast Asia relies heavily on the flow of oil and commerce through South China 17:00 Sea shipping lanes, including more than 80 percent of the crude oil to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Besides building three aircraft carriers that China says will defend its sea routes, China has also built at least three artificial islands in the South China Sea which are fully militarized with anti-air and anti-ship weapons, fighter jets and jamming equipment. In the past, the Chinese had assured that they will not transform artificial islands in contested waters into military bases. Clearly this video footage shows a different story. The American strategy with regards to Taiwan … is deterrence. Conflicts should be avoided at any cost as they can result in a nuclear exchange. This deterrence can only be achieved through having a large force of supercarriers in sufficient numbers to achieve air superiority in theater maritime, with squadrons of the most advanced 18:02 fighter attack aircraft. But would this deterrence work? Why US Always Looses Two Aircraft Carriers During This Wargame In January 2023, the Center for Strategic And International Studies conducted a wargame for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan and ran it 24 times for a variety of scenarios. In most cases, the United States along with Taiwan and Japan managed to defeat the Chinese, but it came at the tremendous cost of losing dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of service members. It is worth noting that even under a pessimistic scenario, the United States was able to protect Taiwan. China achieved total victory only if the United States did not intervene. Here’s what’s interesting. In all iterations of the base case scenario, the United States lost two supercarriers. That happened when the carrier strike groups exhausted their magazines of interceptors 19:03 after multiple large salvos of modern Chinese anti-ship missiles targeted them. The Wargame analysis acknowledges that carrier losses were partially an artifact of the US Navy forward-deploying them to vulnerable positions off Okinawa, in order to deter China. Besides supercarriers, the US would typically lose anywhere between 7 to 20 major warships such as destroyers and cruisers. In contrast, China would lose on average 138 ships, of which 86 were amphibious and 52 were major surface warships. Interestingly, the wargame analysis concluded that the relative strength of US and Chinese air-to-air capability was unimportant because 90% of all lost aircraft were destroyed on the ground as a result of Chinese missile attacks on Okinawa and Guam. 20:03 One striking revelation was that until China exhausted all its Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles, it would be too dangerous for US and Japanese ships to approach Taiwan. Essentially it would be a long-range missile war. Whoever has the most missiles wins. According to the results of the wargame, the US should prioritize bombers with long range missiles over fighter aircraft, shift to smaller, more survivable ships and prioritize submarines and hypersonic weapons. The wargame said nothing about Chinese aircraft carriers. Of course if a Chinese carrier Strike Group operates east of Taiwan during the start of the attack, they face multiple risks such as coordinated multi axis attack which they may not survive. This means that in a crisis, one side may want to shoot first in order to retain their advantage. In fact, as recently as mid April 2023, the Chinese conducted a war game on their own, 21:05 where they positioned their aircraft carrier Shandong east of Taiwan and conducted a mock-up attack to see how Taiwan would respond when faced with threats approaching from both east and west sides. China’s Navy is developing at a very fast pace, which is alarming for the Americans. China's Increasing Navy Threat What is equally alarming is the modern anti ship ballistic missiles such as DF-21. Chinese aircraft carriers are still in their infancy while they get more comfortable with their aircraft carrier operations, be it flight deck operations, corrosion control or firefighting protocols. Arguably, the most limiting factor is personnel. So Chinese aircraft carriers are not really a threat… for now, but they are in it for the long game. It won’t be until the next generation of carriers, that China really settles down on 22:01 carrier capabilities. As tensions continue to rise in the South China Sea and the surrounding regions, the balance of power between China and the United States will play a crucial role in determining the future dynamics of global security. The evolving naval capabilities of both countries and their approaches to deterrence will shape the trajectory of potential conflicts, but the question of how effective deterrence will be in maintaining peace and stability in the region remains to be seen.

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