F-22 will see no more orders, VH-71 cancelled

[GePap]

And your claims are still ****.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Well, everyone else seems to agree with me. The only thing you have left are your credentials, which are less impressive than mine.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Runways are attractive targets for enemy aircraft to take out. A bomb is dropped on a runway, which creates a large crater putting the runway out of commission. If aircraft can't get off the ground, then they can't fight. Rapid runway repair is a long, tedious process that is vital to success on the battlefield and in the skies. The main focus in airfield repair is the Minimum Operating Strip (MOS), which the United States doctrinally defines as 15 by 1,525 square meters for fighter aircraft and 26 by 2,134 square meters for cargo aircraft.

Coalition attacks on runways complicated Iraqi air base operations, but there is little evidence that they hampered sortie rates. Iraqi runways were reportedly repaired in as little as four to six hours. Under ideal conditions with a motivated crew, the rapid runway repair task would take a minimum of about four hours. If reasonable allowances are made for the cold weather impacts on both the soldiers and equipment used for a snowy, windy 20°F day, the time is increased to about seven hours. In the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973, Arab repair teams typically restored damaged runways in nine to twelve hours. [source]

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense estimates that a Chinese M-family missile with a 500-kg warhead would create a crater 10 meters in depth and 20 meters in width after hitting the ground, and that it could take as many as 50 missiles to destroy a military airport. According to a RAND Corporation analysis, a 500-kg M-9 ballistic-missile warhead covers almost eight times the area when using a submunition warhead than when using a unitary warhead. The combination of increased accuracy from GPS guidance and increased warhead efficiency decreases the number of missiles required to attack airbases from hundreds to dozens.

Although more detailed modeling might produce somewhat different results, these rough order of magnitude estimates suggest that China's existing inventory of a few hundred M-9 and M-11 missiles could inflict only modest damage on Taiwan's Air Force, if steps were taken to disperse aircraft prior to an attack. It is reported that China is expected to field as many as 600 M-9 and M-11 missiles by the year 2005, roughly triple the year 2000 force. Even this substantially augmented missile arsenal would appear inadequate to the task of gaining decisive air superiority through airfield attacks.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/taiwan/facility/ab-overview.htm

As you can see, this excerpt exposes both GePap's ignorance about the vulnerability of runways and the ability to quickly repair them and Asher's ignorance about the usefulness of submunition warheads.

[TCO]

Being able to move is a significant advantage, Kitty. Hearing people here talk about the enemy having missiles or sattelites is so 1975. It's a big ocean and our enemy is not ten feet tall.

There is also the very substantial advantage of a carrier that no permission is needed from the host country for using it for whatever we want. Lots of times the AF can't enjoy the action because they don't get permission from the host country. None needed with a carrier.

[Kuciwalker]

2. Airfields are static targets whose locations are well known, You may harden bunkers but planes like the F-15 and F-22 need long, pristine runways to take off. If you know where to shoot all your missiles early on (and this is assuming you don't decide to use more serious weapons), you could probably knock out the runways. A Carrier may be vulnerable to subs, but at least they can move and ASW measures exist, while shooting down a heap of missiles is not a plausible defense posture.

CVNs are slowly moving targets whose locations are well known, and that take years to replace if destroyed. And 1 missile might not take out a CVN, but several probably could.

[Naked Gents Rut]

No one's saying that carriers don't have their uses. That being said, defending Taiwan is quickly becoming a mission U.S. carriers should want no part in.

[GePap]

And yet the RAND study you posted postulates that China would be able to deny the USAAF use of secure forward bases - particulalry if they used weaspons with submunitions.

As for credentials, I can call back history of making predicitons about wars on this very site. Last time I looked, my record is certainly better than yours.

Also, that FAS study you link to is clearly outdated, and again, assumes Chinese using single warhead missiles. Plus of course it says nothing about a combination of Chinese missile AND attacks by aircraft.

As for the rest of the peanut gallery agreeing,wow, big ****ing deal. none of you have addressed the simple question of actually moving a whole ****ing squadron and all support equipment/personel while under fire.

[TCO]

PRC ain't ****. Hanoi kicked their ass.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Hanoi kicked their ass.

Hanoi kicked our ass, too.

[SlowwHand]

Being able to move is a significant advantage, Kitty. Hearing people here talk about the enemy having missiles or sattelites is so 1975. It's a big ocean and our enemy is not ten feet tall.

There is also the very substantial advantage of a carrier that no permission is needed from the host country for using it for whatever we want. Lots of times the AF can't enjoy the action because they don't get permission from the host country. None needed with a carrier.

That's not exactly correct, at all. There is air space, and there are international boundaries at sea. Pretty much the same thing.

[Patroklos]

Isn't that why a CVBG always contains multiple defensive Subs? Isn't that like saying A tank can be easily defeated so long as it Armor plating is removed?

Yes they do, almost always two, not to mention the at least dozen others free for independant ops throughout the area.

Subs are over rated, especially in open water (which a Taiwan scenario will primarily involve) The reason you always hear about the few times they pull of a successful attack in exercises is because they are so rare. You don't hear about subs being destroyed in exercises because it happens all the time.

Well I guess I shouldn't say over rated, they are excellent weapons platforms, but rather their surface ship opponents are under rated.

Also, all a sub does to claim a kill is say they shot a torpedo. And contrary to popular belief they rarely shoot that green flare, instead they just log it and tell everyone after the fact that they killed target X at time Y. Or in other words, the exercise evaluators never get to analyze if the attack was sound or not. The key weakness of subs is their armament, despite what you might think torpedoes are not all that hard for surface ships to out maneuver or fool, missiles are far more reliable (though we can at least try and shoot those down).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLQ-25_Nixie

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/an-sqr-19.htm

Because you can find Taiwanese airfields by looking up Google Earth, and then by doing some trig, the Chinese could aims their hundreds of missiles at them. Carriers at least get the ability to MOVE. And F-22 are not the kind of planes you get to base at dirt strips.

If the Chinese are relying on for all intents and purposes SCUDS to take out Taiwanese airfields they are betting on a pair of twos. I am sure they will do some damage, but they are not going to knock them out, especially since the guidance on most of their missiles have no chance of hitting specific hardened bunkers, nor are their warheads designed to penetrate them regardless. They simply carry a lot of bang, and in China's case they are just long range saturation weapons rather than pinpoint Tomahawk style cruise missiles.

The bottom line is that there is risk to having carriers operate in the area as well as having our ground based aircraft operate in the area, so what? This will be a "real" war, why do you two imagine we would be unwilling to expose our assets to manageable risk? Were we going to not operate in the GIUK gap or out of our German airfields in 1987?

And any US attacks on actual Chinese soill would be a difficult political question because once you hit back Chinese soil, well, now they have the rationale to escalate - an again, I don't think any US president at the end is willing to trade LA for Taipei.

The Chinese are not going to retaliate with nuclear arms against a conventional US airstrike on the mainland. At most they might respond with a tactical nuclear strike in theatre, but that is still a loser’s move on their part.

Now if we tried to conventionally invade the mainland, maybe they would to strategically nuclear.

This is all assumign the chinese didn't decide to terminate a place like Chan-shan with extreme measures from the beginning.

If they decide to do that the loss of a dozen F-22s will be of no consequence, we will have moved beyond such things at that point.

[Patroklos]

Google was less than forthcoming with their information concerning Chinese satellites, but it appears that besides one basic mapping satellite for getting targeting data for their ICBMs, the rest of their satellites are actually photograph type ones that require actual reentry and recovery to DEVELOPE the pictures as of right now. If someone can dig up better info I would be very curious.

I also found some rather ambitious programs such as the Huanjing program which sounds very promising, but it is not off the ground. They have some joint Brazilian/Chinese projects, but they can only monitor 100sq miles at a time, useless for maritime purposes.

Even at the height of the Cold War with the Soviets using top of the line satellite recon they still primarily relied on long range recon aircraft to locate our battle groups in the North Atlantic, and it was by no means a guaranteed thing on their part.

As for ELINT are you talking about the EJ-2000? Primarily a defensive asset, I don't think they would be of much use against Taiwan though it would be helpful in defending its naval bases.

[Patroklos]

The combination of increased accuracy from GPS guidance and increased warhead efficiency decreases the number of missiles required to attack airbases from hundreds to dozens.

Chinese missiles will have to rely on inertial guidance, GPS will be encrypted at the start of hostilities if not well prior.

CVNs are slowly moving targets whose locations are well known, and that take years to replace if destroyed. And 1 missile might not take out a CVN, but several probably could.

They know where our carriers are how?

No one's saying that carriers don't have their uses. That being said, defending Taiwan is quickly becoming a mission U.S. carriers should want no part in.

I am not quite sure why you guys assume the US fleet, many times more capable and numerous than China in every category (submarines in particular), is unable to defeat the Chinese Navy. I will most definitely not be an unopposed confrontation, I expect loses, but there is absolutely no hope of China gaining maritime superiority let alone maintaining a creditable denial ability for more than a couple weeks.

The truth is that a good bit of their fleet will die quiet deaths pier side.

And yet the RAND study you posted postulates that China would be able to deny the USAAF use of secure forward bases - particulalry if they used weaspons with submunitions.

Make difficult /= deny.

Also, that FAS study you link to is clearly outdated, and again, assumes Chinese using single warhead missiles. Plus of course it says nothing about a combination of Chinese missile AND attacks by aircraft.

I suggest you take a look at the Chinese aircraft inventory. I give them a 50/50 chance of penetrating the Taiwanese defenses themselves, no chance of penetrating them backed up with US (and lets not be naive, most of the Western world's) support.

As for the rest of the peanut gallery agreeing,wow, big ****ing deal. none of you have addressed the simple question of actually moving a whole ****ing squadron and all support equipment/personel while under fire.

Its simple, being the only power with a robust airlift capability, we load it all up in C-17s and fly them over. I just watched a marine buddy pack his entire CH-53 squadron and fly them to Okinawa in one day when I was in Hawaii, he was back for Mai Tais by happy hour.

Replace Okinawa with Taiwan. The reason we routinely deploy assets like F-22s to Okinawa is to practice this very scenario of rapid forward deployment.

[KrazyHorse]

Being able to move is a significant advantage, Kitty. Hearing people here talk about the enemy having missiles or sattelites is so 1975. It's a big ocean and our enemy is not ten feet tall

No, but China is not Iraq either.

China has the resources to know exactly where CVNs in the Western PAC are at all times. In this context, being able to move doesn't mean ****. The carriers are stationary targets for all intents and purposes (at least until their capacities are degraded enough by US strikes, including on sats; this probably takes days to weeks to accomplish). And the Chinese apparently DO have subs and crews which are good enough to **** up the flattops.

There is also the very substantial advantage of a carrier that no permission is needed from the host country for using it for whatever we want. Lots of times the AF can't enjoy the action because they don't get permission from the host country. None needed with a carrier.

This is THE advantage for carriers. Being able to have an airbase anywhere in blue water you choose.

But if we assume that Taiwan doesn't want to get invaded by China I hope you'll agree that they would allow US planes to base there.

[Asher]

Why are we even talking? What does Siro think? He's the pro, he's fought in major wars!