Fun World Events Predictions

Here's a prediction of a future world event. nico will go off to college with ambitions of an advanced degree in international relations, or maybe political science. After repeated attempts to prove unsupportable conclusions, nico's thesis advisor will be forced to dismiss him/her as a student. Sadly, the potential will have once again been wasted on straw men, red herrings, and dismissals of authority.

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Lighten up nico.

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Sometimes people just simply know more about something than you do. That's the way this whole game works. You seem to be under the impression that being wrong in your assertions is somehow akin to being stupid or inadequate. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's all part of a big process called education, and it never stops. That's the beauty of the whole idea. You can constantly re-evaluate your POV based on new data, personal experiences and studies of the past, and no one will think less of you for doing so. It's when you refuse to re-evaluate despite all of these factors that you get yourself in trouble.

With regards to a CVBG, having discussed them at length with a friend that served on the Lincoln, and saw plenty of action in Gulf War I, nothing gets within 100 miles of the Carrier without the permission of the Navy. Read again. NOTHING. You might be right about one of those silkworms or sunburns slipping through the net, but it would be about as likely a golfer making a hole-in-one on a par three.

 

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Pollux, if you really believe that I've got some property to sell you. I swear it's a "can't lose" deal.

Some advice that you might heed. Don't take candy from strangers.

 

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what happened with the Yamato?

 

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why would the us need to have carriers to help taiwan coudlnt they just use the taiwan airbases ?

 

what happened with the Yamato?

The Yamato was the largest battleship ever created, it was huge. It was finished in 1941, and it was the Japanese version of the Bismark. Here is a link if you want to know more:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/japan/japsh-xz/yamato.htm

why would the us need to have carriers to help taiwan coudlnt they just use the taiwan airbases ?

That would be a possibility, but the US is rather arrogant with her carriers (as naval personnel have shown us) they believe it to be impossible for such an inferior force to challenge the great USN carrier! The US will go in with a carrier and come out with...? I think the US' role would be better to bomb Chinese targets on the mainland, with her stealth B-2 bombers. The US can do a lot of damage to the Chinese, by destroying powerplants, or docking facilities, or logistal facilities.

 

It is much harder to engage in maritime area denial ops using land-based air power alone. A CVBG can move the carrier and its various escorts anywhere, as the task requires. Airfields are static targets, thus easily targeted with long range missiles. Additionally, CVBGs completely obviate the Chinese IRBM and cruise missile threat. CVBGs are, specifically, impervious to this sort of threat.

Battlegroups don't just sit as a cluster of ships. They fan out to cover potentially thousands of square miles of ocean, and the carrier doesn't lead the way. The moment they get wind of this thing they will, quite simply, drive around it. No matter how big they build a log-net, I promise there will be more ocean available. It there was a really great choke point or some straights to Korea's advantage, then perhaps. But in the mean time, the carrier is going to be able to project its power ashore from more places than be effectively netted with logs. This is going to happen from hundreds of miles out at sea. Carriers were sustaining operations in to Afghanistan...and from the North Arabian gulf, any which way you go is the long way.

Allow me a brief moment fo your time to put a real face on a battlegroup. I think it will help if we all start to understand what we're really talking about.

Here's an image of a full CVBG (George Washington)

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Take a quick count and that's 12 ships and two subs. Rigorously, it'll consist of the following:

• 1 Carrier (nowadays almost exclusively a Nimitz)
• 1-2 Cruisers (CG-47 Ticonderoga)
• 1 DESRON (Destroyer Squadron) consisting of one each Spruance DD, Arleigh Burke DDG, and Oliver Hazzard Perry FFG, plus an additional DDG or FFG
• 1-2 Submarines (SSN-688 Los Angeles or SSN-21 Seawolf)
• 1 each Oiler/AOE plus optional Tenders, depending on BG composition

The carrier's embarked airwing will have:

• 36 F/A-18 -- Strike/Fighter
• 14 F-14 -- Fighter/Strike
• 4 EA-6B -- SEAD/Jamming
• 4 E-2C -- Airborne warning & control
• 8 S-3B -- Surface Warfare/USW/Tanker
• 6 SH/HH-60 -- Undersea/Logistics/CSAR
• 2 C-2 -- Carrier onboard delivery

In addition to normal operations, a single carrier, in the absence of her supply ships, has sufficient bunker/magazine storage to sustain up to 48 hours of constant flight operations and strikes.

She took a pounding like few other ships before she sank (save Enterprise). The two hours of bombing they mention in the above link was kinda the last straw. She was under nearly constant harassment for almost a week leading up to that. Start to finish she took something like 21 torpedo hits and was still steaming for battle. This was all acomplished by her crew's rapid and disciplined response to the damage. When a space got flooded, they rapidly sealed it and set counter flooding to keep her on an even keel. If something got broken, the cannibalized another broken something to fix it. They even got as inventive as filling the main guns with spare parts to try and turn them into a 18" shotgun to get some airplanes. It was really a heroic effort.

By stark contrast, her sister ship, Shinano, was sunk in November of 44 after taking 4 torpodeo hit along the waterline. A rather inexperinced and poorly trained crew did little to contain the damage (despite the rumors of lacking DC equipment being the prominent factor). 5 hours later she rolled over and sank nearly intact.

Same ship class, two very different degrees of damage. Yamato lasted longer only because of efforts of her crew. Same conclusion can be reached when comparaing the Enterprise and Forrestal fires. Nearly identical situations, two very different results. All because of Damage Control efforts of the crew.

 

http://taiwansecurity.org/IS/IS-012000-Nolt.htm

just to play devils advocate cuz i somewhat agree with nico, heres a complete argument against everything he says

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i am skeptical about every person's claims so I dont necessarily agree with anyone in particulars point of view

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and against stokes: one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day, particularly against a CVBG..nuclear torpedoes are tough to interdict, however unlikely. im just saying

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Imagine shall we the reality of Chinese policy. I see Stokes tries his best to present one side of the argument while dismissing the Chinese threat because the Chinese are inferior. The modern carrier battle group was envisioned to play a role that is not tailored to a battle in the straits of Formosa. The modern American battle group is the most powerful unit of any nations military. But that was to confront the massive Soviet forces in the GIUK gap in the North Atlantic. If you want to see what the carriers intended purpose is, look at the battle of midway, or look at the Pearl Harbour attack, or look at the policy of the USN in the 80's with the Soviets in the North Atlantic. The thing there is that you would have both sides committing huge amounts of sophisticated hardware, for the Soviet Oscar class ships to the massive Kirov class ships. The Carrier served two major roles, that of anti-submarine warfare and land attack. Air defense was not its purpose otherwise it would serve no purpose. In the Chinese theatre of action you are dealing with a force that is not conventional, and not Soviet. Firstly and most importantly most of the Chinese boats are not going to go in to the straits if the carrier is there. They will be hugging the coast of Fujian province. A huge carrier or battle group cannot possibly penetrate into those waters. Thus this leaves the carrier dependant solely on air power (and to an extent Harpoons from Spruance, or Aegis class ships). But the Chinese have hundreds of these boats:

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China could field up to 79 of these ships; they carry 4 Silkworm missiles each. Imagine shall we that the Chinese co-ordinate their missile launches? Obviously the ships cannot fire all missiles at once; rather they do it in quickly succeeding waves. China could fire up to 79 Silkworms at once against one target (in one way) if we were to add all the potential firepower the US could be facing up to 316 silkworms in 4 waves. There is no way that the Aegis class ships can deal with that. I think simple logic dictates as such. The Chinese don't care about those boats they can be very easily manufactured. The picture Stokes showed is impressive isn't it? But it nothing more then that, a picture. The Americans have not been able to solve this issue of a en masse attack, and I suspect they never will. Now I know some will argue, "but wait look at the carriers of the US, never has one been destroyed since WWII". That is true, but never since WWII has the US ever met a country that could theoricatally beat it. Also consider I have not even included China's super silent Kilo subs, which are suspected to carry the Shkval torpedo which can go up to 200km/h underneath the water! The Russians say it is so deadly that it doesn't even need a warhead. The Chinese have these torpedoes, and it should be interesting to say the least. I am not saying definitively that the US would lose, far from. But what I am saying is that don't expect to win.

 

Tiawan will eventually merge with China. That is of course if China continues its path towards capitalism which is the path that it is on now.

 

im presuming not all 79 ships are located in one strait, they are spread over the large coastal areas of China on other duties such as smuggling/drug interdiction patrols.

kilos are only silent during their Limited battery runs, which they are still vulnerable to active pulses and magnom readings from ASW and helos.

 

Putting a CVBG inside the straits of Formosa is tactically stupid. It will just put the whole TF under the firing range of Chinese long range land weapons. There is no need for Chinese to use small boats or planes to attack. A large salvo of long range rockets armed with smart sub munitions covering 30 square miles can pretty much disable the whole fleet. There is nowhere to run or hide.

 

im presuming not all 79 ships are located in one strait, they are spread over the large coastal areas of China on other duties such as smuggling/drug interdiction patrols.


You are right in one sense and not the other.

- Yes the Ships are spread out over the Chinese coast, but during a invasion of Taiwan, China will obviously focus her military assets to that region. So I don't see why this would be a problem.
- These boats do not serve as patrol boats, that is what simple gunning boats to do. These carry missiles like the Silkworm; they are too large and too powerful to be mere patrol boats. So no their main purpose is to offer a large en masse attack against the American/Taiwanese forces.

I agree with daktaklakpak putting a carrier in the straits is tactically the stupidest waste of resources that the US could do. The Chinese can very easily overwhelm all American defenses.

kilos are only silent during their Limited battery runs

That is true, but when do you think they will be on that run? Thustly making it difficult for the Americans to predict their positions.

 

I see we're back to playing numbers and leeching images from globalsecurity.org again.

 

China has a theoretical chance to win in this theatre in the same way that I have a theoretical chance to beat Mike Tyson in a fight. Outside of the world of textbooks, this would be a total bloodbath for the Chinese Navy. China is trying to build a blue-water Navy, but I suspect they are at best ten years away from having anything that could be considered modern. Supercarriers ain't cheap.

 

Stokes Pennwalt

Prove me wrong!

 

^^ a giant asteroid is going to crash into Toronto tomorrow and you will be immediately atomized. Prove me wrong.

My thoughts on China and the Navy:

Now for the relevant bits on China.

As far as the Chinese current forces go, I wouldn't call them a blue water navy just yet. They've not really got the hardware or training to mount and operation into, say, the central Pacific. What to do have is a top-notch harassing fleet that can make operations in and near their coasts a real pain. It's largely a defensive force for the moment, but this may soon change.

I seem to remember them having recently purchased, or at least attempted to, a host of older Soviet submarines (Kilos and the like) and a few of the nicer surface ships (Sovremennys and maybe a Slava). This does signal a shift in their thinking to a more blue-water mind set, but before they can contend with the US fleet they have a very long way to go. In terms of sub surface warfare, they do have a few subs, and the one or two Xia class do represent a significant threat, but against the might of the Los Angeles and the tragically few Sea Wolfs, I have little or no fears of them being able to cause great havoc. They're simply outclassed and out trained.

This is what Jane's Warship Recognition Guide [1999] has to say about china:

This last paragraph is telling, most especially if China were to make a play for Taiwan. To do so they would need a robust amphibious operation, which is not necessarily beyond their ability to muster, but it is beyond their ability to defend. The US has taken the advantages of air power to heart and invested in comprehensive air defense and offense abilities. Any such operation by the Chinese with present day capabilities would be mauled by a relatively modest US task force. The decision makers on both sides are probably well aware of this, and this is probably why it's not happened yet. The last time China did any serious saber rattling over Taiwan the US responded by sending two full CVBGs to the Formosa Straights....and well that was the end of that for the time being.

Further, also not the time scale here. In 1999 the Chinese were planning their 'green-water' navy by 2002 (which in some respects did and did not happen). But to expand beyond that was going to take until 2020 or so. The point here is that a solid Navy is a large investment of time and resources, and it is slow to build positive momentum. Anything China is planning to do in terms of fleet expansion we'll see coming a long way off. By contrast, negative momentum can come to a fleet relatively quickly. In the 1950s the British went from having a substantial blue-water forces with angle-deck carriers to their current fleet levels (which I would describe as down-right profane compared to what they are really deserving of). The danger is that for some years there's been a growing belief among some policy makers that the US fleet is oversized and are already considering scaling things back (with programs such as the Arsenal Ship, SC-21, and the infinitely stupid gas-turbine CVX). By the time the Chinese threat takes shape on the seas, it will be too late to regain the ground these projects would have lost. Right now we enjoy a significant advantage at sea. What we need to do is maintain it for a time because it's going to start to shrink. Any penny we save in the next decade by drawing down the fleet will cost us a quarter to get back when crunch time comes.

 

The entire premise of your argument is incorrect, you are wrongly assuming that China wants to conduct this warfare on American terms. You don't know what you are talking about essentially. Your Amerio-centric BS is really a laugh and a half. This is why the US would lose...

 

^^ a giant asteroid is going to crash into Toronto tomorrow and you will be immediately atomized. Prove me wrong.


Thank you for conceding to me yet again...shall we play again?

 

I wonder when someone is going to create a simple little drone sub capable of avoiding detection, and a simple system for underwater target identitication.
Them put them together add a huge bomb, and a targeting sytem(proximity, back breaking, propulsion ect.), then just mass produce and release.

Alot of extra features could be add the main points are, there are many, cheap and undetected, they dont even have to be 1 shot 1 kill weapons, they could broadcast there targets location just before detonation.

 

Actually the Chinese I talk to seem to think that the central government in China likes Taiwan just as it is. It’s good for redirecting the general publics gaze away from what’s wrong with communist China and over to Taiwan. The truth is if the central government wanted to they could slowly cut off trade with Taiwan and although it would hurt China it would hurt Taiwan even more. But, as I am led to believe, the southern Chinese provinces are not under so much control of the central government – they have more money and more prestige and they are not going to allow the central government to cut off trade with Taiwan. According to my friend anyhow – but he’s from Nanjing so what does he know

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We can see how America is going down the tubes and that’s an educated, free, democracy with the most farm land the most fresh water (shared with Canada) and access to two oceans. China's deck isn't stacked that good. Sure they have a workforce but that's about it for now. And China needs to have trade and good relations with its neighbors including India, Russia. S. Korea and Japan. Heck, let’s face it, Seoul must be the only city of its size in the world not to have a China-Town. And sitting right next to China - that really says something. No I think China has other internal worries and I think having Taiwan next door is a what they really want.

So my prediction is no I don’t think China is going to jeopardize everything it’s beginning to gain over a war with Taiwan - ever.