Thread: The Four Decommissioned U.S. Aircraft Carriers Are

Scuttling Plan for USS Radford Renews Reef Dispute

Monday, 18 Jul 2011 04:50 PM
By Henry J. Reske

Contractors are preparing to scuttle the USS Arthur W. Radford 20 miles east of Fenwick Island off the coast of Delaware. The 563-foot destroyer will be yet another addition to an artificial reef program that has drawn fire from environmentalists and others, The Washington Post reported.

The goals of the sinking include creating a new ocean habitat and a tourist destination, while also discarding outdated Navy ships. However, with artificial reefs expanding up and down the nation’s sea coasts, environmentalists and federal and independent scientists are questioning the presumed ecological benefits.

“They’re throwing debris down there and saying it’s an economic opportunity, but they’re not looking into the environmental impacts,” Colby Self, who co-authored a report on the Navy’s sinking program, told the Post.

Only a few studies have examined the impact of artificial reefs. State and federal officials are particularly concerned about whether traces of toxic chemicals that remain on the scrubbed ships pose a hazard and whether the ships end up concentrating fish, thereby making it easier to catch them.

The question of whether artificial reefs provide ecological benefits has “been out there for 50 years or more,” said Jeff Tinsman, of Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. “If that was any easy question, it would have been answered long ago.”

Donald Schregardus, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for the environment, told the Post that the Navy simply responded to states’ requests. “We let them decide what they want and if they have an interest in these ships,” Schregardus said. “We are not the experts on whether they are increasing [fish] populations or whether they are the attraction for divers and fishermen. But we want to make sure they’re safe.”

Jon Dodrill of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told the Post that PCB levels in reef fish near the site of the USS Oriskany spiked a year after the aircraft carrier was sunk in 2006 but have since dropped below advisory levels.

The Radford, scheduled to be sunk in late July or early August, participated in the Persian Gulf War as well as the Navy’s bombardment of Beirut in the early 1980s. The ship was decommissioned in 2003, the Post reported.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/Radford-sc...7/18/id/404051

REPORT: China building electromagnetic pulse weapons for use against U.S. carriers...

Beijing develops radiation weapons


Chinese paramilitary policemen stand guard near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Chinas capital. (Associated Press)

By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Comments (414)

China's military is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons that Beijing plans to use against U.S. aircraft carriers in any future conflict over Taiwan, according to an intelligence report made public on Thursday.

Portions of a National Ground Intelligence Centerstudy on the lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons revealed that the arms are part of China’s so-called “assassin’s mace” arsenal - weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to defeat U.S. military forces.

EMP weapons mimic the gamma-ray pulse caused by a nuclear blast that knocks out all electronics, including computers and automobiles, over wide areas. The phenomenon was discovered in 1962 after an aboveground nuclear test in the Pacific disabled electronics in Hawaii.

The declassified intelligence report, obtained by the private National Security Archive, provides details on China’s EMP weapons and plans for their use. Annual Pentagon reports on China's military in the past made only passing references to the arms.

“For use against Taiwan, China could detonate at a much lower altitude (30 to 40 kilometers) … to confine the EMP effects to Taiwan and its immediate vicinity and minimize damage to electronics on the mainland,” the report said.

The report, produced in 2005 and once labeled “secret,” stated that Chinese military writings have discussed building low-yield EMP warheads, but “it is not known whether [the Chinese] have actually done so.”

The report said that in addition to EMP weapons, “any low-yield strategic nuclear warhead (or tactical nuclear warheads) could be used with similar effects.”

“The DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile has been mentioned as a platform for the EMP attack against Taiwan,” the report said.

According to the report, China’s electronic weapons are part of what are called “trump card” or “assassin’s mace” weapons that “are based on new technology that has been developed in high secrecy.”

“Trump card would be applicable if the Chinese have developed new low-yield, possibly enhanced, EMP warheads, while assassin’s mace would apply if older warheads are employed,” the report said.

According to the report, China conducted EMP tests on mice, rats, rabbits, dogs and monkeys that produced eye, brain, bone marrow and other organ injuries. It stated that “it is clear the real purpose of the Chinese medical experiments is to learn the potential human effects of exposure to powerful EMP and [high-powered microwave] radiation.”
The tests did not appear designed for “anti-personnel [radio frequency] weapons” because of the limited amounts of radiation used.

However, the report said another explanation is that the Chinese tests may have been research “intended primarily for torturing prisoners,” or the tests may have been conducted to determine safety or shielding standards for military personnel or weapons.

The medical research also appeared useful for China's military in making sure that EMP weapons used against Taiwan and “any vulnerable U.S. [aircraft carrier] would not push the U.S. across the nuclear-response threshold,” the report said.

“China’s [high-altitude] EMP capability could be used in two different ways: as a surprise measure after China’s initial strike against Taiwan and other U.S. [aircraft carrier strike group] assets have moved into a vulnerable position, and as a bluff intended to dissuade the United States from defending Taiwan with a CVBG,” the Pentagon acronym for carrier strike groups.

The bluff scenario would include China’s announcement of a resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing and warn of tests during a specified period and then attacking Taiwan’s infrastructure with conventional forces.

China then would wait and see whether the U.S. carriers were deployed to defend Taiwan.

The report concluded that China could consider using EMP weapons against Taiwan’s electronic infrastructure or against U.S. carriers if a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait.
“The minimization of military casualties on CVBG assets is calculated to lessen the likelihood of a U.S. nuclear response to a Taiwan strike employing nuclear EMP,” the report said. “The minimization of casualties on Taiwan is calculated to lessen the animosity among Taiwan’s population over forced reunification.”

Taiwan broke with mainland China after nationalist forces fled to the island when communists seized power in 1949.

The United States is bound by a 1979 law to prevent the forcible reunification of the island with the mainland, and China has said it is prepared to use force to claim the island.
Peter Pry, a former congressional aide who helped direct a commission on EMP several years ago, said the commission found that China plans for nuclear EMP strikes against the United States, as well as Taiwan and carrier forces, are part of its military doctrine and exercises.

“There is also evidence that China is developing, or has already developed, super-EMP nuclear weapons that generate extraordinarily powerful EMP fields, based partly on design information stolen from the United States,” Mr. Pry, president of the group EMPact America, said in an email.

Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon specialist on China's military, said the report’s details on high-powered microwave are new.

The same state-run institute, the China Academy of Engineering Physics, that makes China’s nuclear warheads is also a center of microwave weapons research, he said.
Microwave weapons would be used to shut down enemy radar, communications, computers and other electronics in an opening salvo. The weapons also could jam electronics of attacking aircraft and anti-radiation missiles, and as an anti-satellite weapon, degrade sensitive satellite electronic systems, he said.

Richard Fisher, a China military analyst, said EMP warheads are likely to be an option for China’s new DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile for the purpose of attacking large U.S. Navy ships without inflicting immediate massive casualties.

“Less is known about the longer-term effects on personnel of this kind of radiation attack,” said Mr. Fisher, who is with the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “The more powerful nuclear-propelled neutron bomb was designed specifically for killing personnel without a massive blast.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...pons/?page=all

OUTSOURCING COMES IN - > NATIONAL PROSPERITY GOES OUT

Great post. Thanks for this info.

Chinese EMP Weapons Program Confirmed by Intelligence Agencies; Designed to Attack US Carrier Fleets, Taiwan

Mac Slavo
July 22nd, 2011
SHTFplan.com
161 Comments

Reports from organizations like the Center for Security Policy have confirmed that Electromagnetic Pulse, or EMP, weapons could potentially wipe out the entire infrastructure of the United States in a matter of seconds, the consequences of which may be the death of 9 out of 10 Americans within a period of one year after the blast. Many Senators, Congressman, and terrorism experts have said that EMP is the single biggest security threat the United States faces from foreign powers and terrorist organizations. Research by EMPact America indicates that a properly deployed EM pulse weapon, or weapons, has the capability of wiping out and disabling the power grid across the lower 48 states.
The threat is serious, and it just got a whole lot worse.

According to a declassified report obtained by The Washington Times the Chinese have been building and testing EMP weapons in an effort to offset their inferior technological capabilities, and are prepared to use those weapons in the event of conflict over the island of Taiwan (and likely other potential theaters of war):

China’s military is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons that Beijing plans to use against U.S. aircraft carriers in any future conflict over Taiwan, according to an intelligence report made public on Thursday.

Portions of a National Ground Intelligence Center study on the lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons revealed that the arms are part of China’s so-called “assassin’s mace” arsenal – weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to defeat U.S. military forces.
…
The declassified intelligence report, obtained by the private National Security Archive, provides details on China’s EMP weapons and plans for their use. Annual Pentagon reports on China’s military in the past made only passing references to the arms.

“For use against Taiwan, China could detonate at a much lower altitude (30 to 40 kilometers) … to confine the EMP effects to Taiwan and its immediate vicinity and minimize damage to electronics on the mainland,” the report said.

The report, produced in 2005 and once labeled “secret,” stated that Chinese military writings have discussed building low-yield EMP warheads, but “it is not known whether [the Chinese] have actually done so.”

The report said that in addition to EMP weapons, “any low-yield strategic nuclear warhead (or tactical nuclear warheads) could be used with similar effects.”
…
“China’s [high-altitude] EMP capability could be used in two different ways: as a surprise measure after China’s initial strike against Taiwan and other U.S. [aircraft carrier strike group] assets have moved into a vulnerable position, and as a bluff intended to dissuade the United States from defending Taiwan with a CVBG,” the Pentagon acronym for carrier strike groups.
…
Peter Pry, a former congressional aide who helped direct a commission on EMP several years ago, said the commission found that China plans for nuclear EMP strikes against the United States, as well as Taiwan and carrier forces, are part of its military doctrine and exercises.

“There is also evidence that China is developing, or has already developed, super-EMP nuclear weapons that generate extraordinarily powerful EMP fields, based partly on design information stolen from the United States,” Mr. Pry, president of the group EMPact America, said in an email.

If the United States is ever embroiled in a military conflict with another large nation – say Russia or China – we can fully expect that the first strike would be EMP-based weapons.

Taking down the power grid would lead to almost immediate chaos on the streets of America, affecting everything from food transportation systems and gas pumps to phone communication and essential utility services like water.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-new...-mace_07222011

Chinese Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and High-Powered Microwave (HPM) Weapons vs. U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups: Can the U.S. Military Effectively Counter Assassins Mace

Saturday, July 23, 2011
By David Crane, Defense Review

DefenseReview (DR) started covering the ballistic threats to U.S. aircraft carriers several years ago. We’ve known for some time, now, that China is capable of sinking our carriers through the use of anti-ship missiles and torpedoes, or a combination of both. Fast forward to yesterday, when the Washington Times published a piece on Chinese military “electromagnetic pulse weapons”, or “EMP weapons” that are currently under development, and that can potentially be used to disable U.S. aircraft carriers in a future conflict, including, for example, China’s desired retaking of Taiwan.

According to National Ground Intelligence Center study on the issue, China is apparently also working on high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons, and the EMP/HPM weapons double-whammy directed energy weapon (DEW) combo is part of China’s “trump card” or “assassin’s mace” weapons arsenal, which are designed to level the technological playing field against the the U.S. military. There’s actually a declassified intelligence report on the bio-effects of Chinese EMP and HPM weapons and plans for their use that was obtained by the private National Security Archive. “For use against Taiwan, China could detonate at a much lower altitude (30 to 40 kilometers) … to confine the EMP effects to Taiwan and its immediate vicinity and minimize damage to electronics on the mainland,” the 2005 report said. The report went on to say that any low-yield strategic nuclear warhead (or tactical nuclear warheads) could be used with similar efficacy, and that the Chinese DF-21D medium-range anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), which Defense Review has already reported on, can be used as an EMP weapons platform in an attack on Taiwan. The National Security Archive is currently also running their own story on that de-classified report.

Electromagnetic pulse weapons mimic the nuclear gamma ray pulse of a nuclear blast/explosion, and are capable of knocking out all electronics-dependent devices, including computers, ground vehicles and aircraft, within the effective range of the weapon.


http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/38752

China refitting aircraft carrier body for research, training

English.news.cn 2011-07-27 15:37:33

In pictures: aircraft carrier body refitted for research, training http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/p ... 013252.htm

FACTBOX: The world's active-service aircraft carriers http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 013327.htm

Backgrounder: In-service aircraft carriers worldwide http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 013451.htm

Backgrounder: Aircraft carriers http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 013437.htm



Spokesman of China's Defense Ministry Geng Yansheng speaks on a press conference in Beijing, capital of China, July 27, 2011. China's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the country is making use of an imported aircraft carrier body for refitting to be used for scientific research, experiment and training. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, July 27 (Xinhua) -- China's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the country is refitting an imported aircraft carrier body for the purposes of scientific research and training.

"China is making use of an old aircraft carrier platform for scientific research, experiment and training," said Geng Yansheng, a ministry spokesman, at a regular press conference.

The project marks the first official confirmation that China is pursuing an aircraft carrier program of its own.

"The warship is still seaworthy, as it has been docked at sea for some time. The time for its first sea trial will depend on the refitting schedule," said Geng.

"As an important part of the research and training program, training for aircraft pilots is also in progress," he said.

The spokesman said that the pursuit of an aircraft carrier program will not change the navy's inshore defense strategy.

The vessel is an empty aircraft carrier shell purchased from Ukraine. Ukraine disarmed it and removed its engines before selling it to China.

The craft was originally built by the former Soviet Union, which failed to complete the ship's construction before collapsing in 1991.

The research and training project embodies the capability of China's defense technology and will promote the modernization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the spokesman said.

Geng said the necessity of acquiring an aircraft carrier for China came from the fact that the country has a very long coastline and a large amount of territorial waters.

The still-unnamed warship is scheduled to receive final adjustments at a shipyard in the port city of Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province before embarking on its maiden voyage.

Video footage and pictures acquired by Xinhua showed construction facilities on the carrier's deck. The ship's rusty hull has been repainted with the navy blue shade used by the PLA.

The reconstruction of the aircraft carrier is a long-term project and will have a long way to go before the warship can become operational, Geng said.

"Both overestimation and underestimation of China's future aircraft carrier have been wrong," Geng said.

Wednesday's official confirmation ended years of speculation, doubt and dreams regarding China's acquirement of an aircraft carrier.

Once the refitting is completed, the aircraft carrier will make China the last of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to own a carrier.

The spokesman did not give further details about the carrier. However, Chinese military experts have provided a more detailed picture of the ship and its capabilities.

The carrier has a displacement of nearly 60,000 metric tons, putting it in the same class as Russia's commissioned carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, said Cao Weidong, a researcher with the PLA Navy's Academic Research Institute.

It is a conventionally-powered medium-sized carrier that will be equipped with indigenous Chinese engines, ship-borne aircraft, radar and other hardware, Cao said.

Fixed-wing aircraft on the carrier will use a ski-jump to take off of the vessel, instead of a catapult system, after the refitting is completed, Cao said.


Spokesman of China's Defense Ministry Geng Yansheng speaks on a press conference in Beijing, capital of China, July 27, 2011. China's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the country is making use of an imported aircraft carrier body for refitting to be used for scientific research, experiment and training. (Xinhua/Li Gang)


Spokesman of China's Defense Ministry Geng Yansheng speaks on a press conference in Beijing, capital of China, July 27, 2011. China's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the country is making use of an imported aircraft carrier body for refitting to be used for scientific research, experiment and training. (Xinhua/Li Gang)


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 013222.htm

China Building Two Aircraft Carriers

China boosts naval presence with carrier programme

By Ben Blanchard and Benjamin Lim
BEIJING | Wed Jul 27, 2011 11:21am BST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is building two indigenous aircraft carriers as part of a broad modernisation programme that has rattled nerves regionally, sources said on Wednesday, as the government confirmed it was refitting an old Soviet carrier for training.

China is ramping up military spending as the United States discusses cutting its defence budget, though the U.S. still far outspends China on security and is much more technologically advanced.

President Hu Jintao has made the navy a keystone of China's military ramp-up, and the carriers will be among the most visible signs of the country's rising military prowess.

"Two aircraft carriers are being built at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai," one source with ties to China's Communist Party leadership told Reuters, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to talk about the programme.

The Defence Ministry has only officially confirmed the existence of one carrier, which was bought from Ukraine in 1998 and was once destined to become a floating casino.

That will be used for training and research purposes, ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said, seeking to reassure other countries that China would stick to its defensive military policy.

But he said China it had a right to protect its extensive maritime territory and coast.

"This is the sacred responsibility of China's armed forces," Geng said, in a statement carrier on the ministry's website (www.mod.gov.cn).

"Building a carrier is extremely complex. We are currently refitting an old aircraft carrier, to be used for research and testing," Geng said.

"An aircraft carrier is a weapons platform; it can be used for offensive or defensive purposes. It can also be used to maintain global peace and for rescue and relief work," he added.

While Geng gave no timetable for starting sea trials, he said pilots were being trained to operate from the carrier.

Sources with ties to the Communist Party and the military said that ship would likely be based in the southern island province of Hainan, which sits atop of the vital trade lanes of the sensitive South China Sea.

The news comes as China has been flexing its muscles more aggressively in those waters, where a territorial dispute with Taiwan and several nearby countries including Vietnam and the Philippines has festered for years.

Geng said the timing "had nothing to do" with the tension there.

The carrier will add to regional concerns about China's military modernisation and arms build-up. Defence spending is rising fast, and Beijing continues to test new high-tech equipment, including a stealth fighter.

"China's next moves have to be watched carefully, or there eventually could be a negative impact on maritime safety in Asia," said Yoshihiko Yamada, a professor at Japan's Tokai University.

Xinhua news agency said it was the first time the government had confirmed it was pursuing a carrier programme.

WORST KEPT SECRET

The old Soviet carrier's refitting has been one of China's worst-kept military secrets. Pictures of it sitting in Dalian harbour have circulated on Chinese websites for months, and it has been widely discussed in state media.

China would be the third Asian country to have a carrier after India and Thailand, but it will take time before it can go to sea in Asian waters that have largely been the domain of the U.S. navy since World War Two.

"It will be a long while before China develops a fully-fledged carrier capability, it will take a long time to train the necessary crews ... it may be up to decade until China has carrier capability," said Tim Huxley, director for defence and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

For Beijing, the rationale of an aircraft carrier is more than just about modernising a navy whose most notable engagements of the past few years have been skirmishes in the South China Sea with some of the other claimant nations.

Sending naval vessels further afield, to the waters off Somalia to fight pirates, and through the southern Japanese islands, has also partly been about ensuring trade routes are protected.

Yet China frets about the powerful U.S. military presence close to its shores, in particular U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea, and Washington's close but unofficial ties with Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

"Aircraft carriers are essential for China primarily to defend its territory and territorial waters and bring a semblance of parity among the world's big powers," Wang Baokun, a defence studies professor at Beijing's Renmin University, wrote in the China Daily earlier this month.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Magnowski in Singapore and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/2 ... YT20110727

Related: US in 'denial' over China's Pacific strategy http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-245330-.html

China launches largest dock landing ship

by Staff Writers
Beijing (UPI) Jul 22, 2011

China has launched its largest amphibious dock landing warship, the 19,000 metric ton Jinggangshan, in Shanghai.

The 689-foot-long warship can carry 1,000 soldiers, helicopters, armored fighting vehicles, boats and landing craft, a report in the China Daily said.

The vessel is the second Type 071 dock landing ship built by Shanghai's Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding.

The first Type 071 dock landing ship, Kunlunshan, which has no helicopter capacity, was launched in December 2006 and commissioned into the Chinese navy in 2007.

By definition, the U.S. Navy says, an amphibious dock landing ship has a well deck and a ballast system that raises and lowers the vessel in the water. This allows small ships to move into the well and be dry-docked within the ship's well when the vessel is raised in the water.

Analysts said the introduction of both ships gives the Chinese navy a global reach that it hasn't had before. The ships can handle large troop accommodation as well as maintain smaller vessels in far off seas away from China's traditional closer-to-home waters.

In particular, a large helicopter flight deck at the stern of the Jinggangshan is enough to support the operation of two medium-size helicopters such as Z-8/AS-321 Super Frelon, analysts at GlobalSecurity.org said.

A vessel such as the Jinggangshan can be very useful in the South China Sea where China has been flexing its naval muscles this year over its territorial claims to the Spratly Island group.

The Spratly Islands -- the largest group -- lie off the southwestern coast of the Philippines as well as near the coasts of Brunei and Malaysia. China is one of the claimants, which include Vietnam and Taiwan. Philippines and Vietnam in recent months have complained of Chinese vessels encroaching upon their territorial waters near disputed islands.

The belief that the Jinggangshan might be used in the South China Sea is based on the fact that the home port of the first ship, the Kunlunshan, is at China's South Sea Fleet's headquarters at Zhanjiang Naval Base in Guangdong Province, GlobalSecurity.org said.

Analysts also have said the Jinggangshan looks similar to the U.S. San Antonio-class landing platform dock vessel. The Jinggangshan's cargo capacity is possibly as large of the U.S. Navy's Austin-class LPD.

"If this estimation was correct, the Type 071 LPD can carry a marine corps battalion, including 400-800 troops, 15-20 amphibious armored vehicles and their associated logistic supplies," GlobalSecurity.org said.

The consortium China State Shipbuilding and Trading Corp. reportedly has offered to build a modified version of the 071 LPD for the Malaysian navy.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_l ... p_999.html

Chinas Plan to Beat U.S.: Missiles, Missiles and More Missiles

By David Axe
July 27, 2011 7:00 am




China is militarily weaker than many people think, especially compared to the United States. This, despite lots of showy jet prototypes and plenty of other factory-fresh equipment.

But Beijing has a brutally simple — if risky — plan to compensate for this relative weakness: buy missiles. And then, buy more of them. All kinds of missiles: short-range and long-range; land-based, air-launched and sea-launched; ballistic and cruise; guided and “dumb.”

Those are the two striking themes that emerge from Chinese Aerospace Power, a new collection of essays edited by Andrew Erickson, an influential China analyst with the U.S. Naval War College.

Today, the PLA possesses as many as 2,000 non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles, according to Chinese Aerospace Power. This “growing arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal conventional ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles has rapidly emerged as a cornerstone of PLA warfighting capability,” Mark Stokes and Ian Easton wrote. For every category of weaponry where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lags behind the Pentagon, there’s a Chinese missile to help make up the difference.

The need is clear. Despite introducing a wide range of new hardware in recent years, including jet fighters, helicopters, destroyers, submarines and a refurbished Russian aircraft carrier, China still lacks many of the basic systems, organizations and procedures necessary to defeat a determined, well-equipped foe.

Take, for example, aerial refueling. To deploy large numbers of effective aerial tankers requires the ability to build and support large jet engines — something China cannot yet do. In-air refueling also demands planning and coordination beyond anything the PLA has ever pulled off. As a result, “tanker aircraft are in short supply” in the PLA, Wayne Ulman explained.

That’s putting it lightly. According to Chinese Aerospace Power, the entire PLA operates just 14 H-6U tankers, each carrying 17,000 kilograms of off-loadable fuel. (The U.S. Air Force alone possesses more than 500 tankers, each off-loading around 100,000 kilograms of fuel.) So while the PLA in theory boasts more than 1,500 jet fighters, in reality it can refuel only 50 or 60 at a time, assuming all the H-6 tankers are working perfectly.

In an air war over Taiwan, hundreds of miles from most Chinese bases, only those 50 fighters would be able to spend more than a few minutes’ flight time over the battlefield. Factoring in tankers, China’s 4–1 advantage in jet fighters compared to Taiwan actually shrinks to a roughly 7&ndash1 disadvantage. The gap only grows when you add U.S. fighters to the mix.

The PLA’s solution? Missiles, of course. Up to a thousand ballistic and cruise missiles, most of them fired by land-based launchers, “would likely comprise the initial strike” against Taiwan or U.S. Pacific bases, Ulman wrote. The goal would be to take out as many of an opponent’s aircraft as possible before the dogfighting even begins.

The PLA could take a similar approach to leveling its current disadvantage at sea. Submarines have always been the most potent ship-killers in any nation’s inventory, but China’s subs are too few, too noisy and their crews too inexperienced to take on the U.S. Navy. Once the shooting started, the “Chinese submarine force would be highly vulnerable,” Jeff Hagen predicted.

And forget using jet fighters armed with short-range weapons to attack the American navy. One Chinese analyst referenced in Chinese Aerospace Power estimated it would take between 150 and 200 Su-27-class fighters to destroy one U.S. Ticonderoga-class cruiser. The entire PLA operates only around 300 Su-27s and derivatives. The U.S. Navy has 22 Ticonderoga cruisers.

Again, missiles would compensate. A “supersaturation” attack by scores or hundreds of ballistic missiles has the potential of “instantly rendering the Ticonderoga‘s air defenses useless,” Toshi Yoshihara wrote. Close to shore, China could use the older, less-precise, shorter-range missiles it already possesses in abundance. For longer-range strikes, the PLA is developing the DF-21D “carrier-killer” missile that uses satellites and aerial drones for precision targeting.

The downside to China’s missile-centric strategy is that it could represent a “single point of failure.” Over-relying on one weapon could render the PLA highly vulnerable to one kind of countermeasure. In this case, that’s the Pentagon’s anti-ballistic-missile systems, including warships carrying SM-3 missiles and land-based U.S. Army Patriot and Terminal High-Altitude Air-Defense batteries.

Plus, missiles are one-shot weapons. You don’t get to reuse them the way you would a jet fighter or a destroyer. That means, in wartime, China has to win fast — or lose.

“China’s entire inventory of conventional ballistic missiles, for example, could deliver about a thousand tons of high explosives on their targets,” Roger Cliff explained. “The U.S. Air Force’s aircraft, by comparison, could deliver several times that amount of high explosives every day for an indefinite period.”

Photo: Via Air Power Australia

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...n-to-beat-u-s/