Military Thread: Humanity Hanging from a Cross of Iron

[kanisatha]

8 hours ago, 213374U said:

The Spanish media landscape is... depressing, to put it mildly. Comparatively very little attention is given to international matters and there's a hyperfocus on the domestic crises of the day, on which they will keep on reporting, even if there have been no substantial developments.

It's a bit of a feedback loop -- readers generally aren't very interested in learning much about foreign affairs, so not much effort is put into making in-depth and well researched reports. Which in turn fails to spark much interest in international stuff. It's easy to check too, the foreign affairs news pieces may have a few dozen comments if that, while the president trading barbs with the opposition in parliament will have hundreds.

So to answer your question, yeah. Probably only political elites (and defense industry bigwigs) really care, and personally I would have paid good money to see Macron's face when he found out. I have no idea what the average Frenchman's thoughts are on the matter, but I imagine they have bigger things to worry about.

Hehe. Nice. This is *exactly* how things are here in the US now too, both what you said about the news media and what you said about average people. Completely agree. But imagine my plight in having to try and teach international relations classes to such a population of 18-22 year-olds.

And yeah, the French in particular have long operated in exactly this way, so this is a bit of comeuppance for them.

[Gorth]

JuiceMedia ("Honest Government Ads") just released their Patreon supporters preview of their upcoming video about the subject - Aukus, Submarines, how it was handled etc. I'll share a link once it gets a public release on youtube. Agree or not with their political views, they are usually funny enough to be worth watching.

[Gorth]

On 10/1/2021 at 10:01 PM, Gorth said:

JuiceMedia ("Honest Government Ads") just released their Patreon supporters preview of their upcoming video about the subject - Aukus, Submarines, how it was handled etc. I'll share a link once it gets a public release on youtube. Agree or not with their political views, they are usually funny enough to be worth watching.

 

[Guard Dog]

US Marines and Navy to test computerized rifle sights

[kanisatha]

On 10/5/2021 at 7:39 PM, Guard Dog said:

US Marines and Navy to test computerized rifle sights

We're just a short ways off from not needing the soldier altogether.

[Malcador]

On 10/5/2021 at 7:39 PM, Guard Dog said:

US Marines and Navy to test computerized rifle sights

Wonder how long until they dust off the OICW.

[Guard Dog]

Well I will say one thing about computerized rifle sites, they will prevent any marine from ever having to suffer the shame and stigma of having to wear a pizza box again LOL!

@ShadySandswill know what I’m talking about.

[Gorth]

Slightly larger than a rifle... looks like Japan is finally starting to move out of the shadows of the past. A bit about the first two Japanese built aircraft carriers since WWII

 

[kanisatha]

15 hours ago, Gorth said:

Slightly larger than a rifle... looks like Japan is finally starting to move out of the shadows of the past. A bit about the first two Japanese built aircraft carriers since WWII

 

And the second Izumo is named Kaga!

Japan is returning to great power politics, and I for one am perfectly happy about it. Soon RoK, and possibly even Australia and Indonesia, will have carriers. And China gets to reap what it has sowed.

[Guard Dog]

48 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

And the second Izumo is named Kaga!

Japan is returning to great power politics, and I for one am perfectly happy about it. Soon RoK, and possibly even Australia and Indonesia, will have carriers. And China gets to reap what it has sowed.

Completely agree.

[Sarex]

I don't see what carriers bring to the table in any possible conflict between Japan and China.

[Guard Dog]

8 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I don't see what carriers bring to the table in any possible conflict between Japan and China.

Taiwan is too far from Okinawa (the closest JDF airbase) for Japanese air interdiction 

[ShadySands]

Different attack vectors and/or shorter distances?

[Malcador]

22 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I don't see what carriers bring to the table in any possible conflict between Japan and China.

May be useful towards Taiwan.  Thread title very relevant to military buildup

Edited October 8, 2021 by Malcador

[Sarex]

13 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Different attack vectors and/or shorter distances?

13 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Taiwan is too far from Okinawa (the closest JDF airbase) for Japanese air interdiction 

Such an amount of missiles would be launched in that scenario that I don't think any carrier/land base would survive.

[Zoraptor]

Meh, if Taiwan is invaded it's taken. Just plain and simple too close to China. No one should have any illusions about that. It isn't the difficulty in taking Taiwan that stops China, it's the consequences for doing so.

The classic role of the carrier in any conflict involving close to parity powers (largely forgotten when they've been consistently used against 'weak' powers over the past 70 years) is to sink the other side's carriers- and provide local air superiority outside the range of your land bases. Difficult to sink the enemy carrier known as Fujian province, and the entirety of Taiwan would be under an AA umbrella situated there let alone the mainland airbases. Good luck getting air superiority there using carriers alone within a realistic timeframe to save Taiwan.

OTOH, if you want to enforce a retaliatory blockade, or shoot up some small airbases illegally stuck out in the ocean or whatever...

Edited October 8, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Sarex]

This is a much bigger thing compared to japan getting aircraft carriers.

At least as far as China is concerned. Although I do not understand how this is anything but short term thinking on India's part, even if such a conflict doesn't end by some miracle with the mutual destruction of all parties involved, for sure India would be next on the chopping block.

[Guard Dog]

58 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Meh, if Taiwan is invaded it's taken. Just plain and simple too close to China. No one should have any illusions about that. It isn't the difficulty in taking Taiwan that stops China, it's the consequences for doing so.

The classic role of the carrier in any conflict involving close to parity powers (largely forgotten when they've been consistently used against 'weak' powers over the past 70 years) is to sink the other side's carriers- and provide local air superiority outside the range of your land bases. Difficult to sink the enemy carrier known as Fujian province, and the entirety of Taiwan would be under an AA umbrella situated there let alone the mainland airbases. Good luck getting air superiority there using carriers alone within a realistic timeframe to save Taiwan.

OTOH, if you want to enforce a retaliatory blockade, or shoot up some small airbases illegally stuck out in the ocean or whatever...

That’s true. The only way to actually stop and invasion would be to stop the transit of troops from the mainland. They would be extraordinarily vulnerable well on the water.

[Zoraptor]

They would be, but you'd have to balance the need for air superiority vs being able to sink the boats on the water. Every plane attacking the landing craft is one that isn't concentrating on AA or enemy planes, or on defending carriers from attack, and every plane lost in those attacks can't be replaced in the short term. Too many losses and the carriers can't even defend themselves properly, and the Chinese can replace landing craft (and resupply aircraft, AA etc) a lot quicker than anyone can replace carriers.

[Gromnir]

On 10/4/2021 at 8:31 PM, Gorth said:

we were on board... until the 2:20 mark, at which point it took us a moment to realize she were being serious. if all australians is equal naïve and gullible, is no wonder they got bamboozled by the french and now the US on their sub deal. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorth]

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

we were on board... until the 2:20 mark, at which point it took us a moment to realize she were being serious. if all australians is equal naïve and gullible, is no wonder they got bamboozled by the french and now the US on their sub deal. 

HA! Good Fun!

Australia is in many ways a third world country with a first world economy (not kidding)

 

[kanisatha]

Taiwan is eminently defendable. It just comes down to the will of the Taiwanese to stand and fight. That is where I have my questions. I think the greatest weakness Taiwan faces is that a considerable number of people in Taiwan may have pro-PRC sympathies, and many of them will undoubtably be PRC sleepers who get activated prior to an invasion to sow chaos within critical military and civilian sectors of Taiwan. How will the Taiwanese govt and people react to this?

As for more specific military issues, yes, fending off PRC air superiority over the straits will be rather difficult initially. But in time it can be reversed, because I don't at all buy the Chinese J-series fighters as being the tech marvels the Chinese claim they are. Nor do I have much respect for the combat prowess of Chinese fighter pilots. Taiwan is doing the correct thing here by not relying entirely on their own aircraft to counter PRC air power. That would be a losing proposition. Instead, Taiwan is acquiring SAMs to make China's air ops over Taiwan and the straits very costly to them. That's the correct way to go, and we ought to be selling them even more SAMs and a greater variety of those systems. Then, after Taiwan's SAMs have taken their toll, multiple US carriers operating in the area will be able to regain local air superiority.

As for the PRC invasion force, there also the Taiwanese are doing things correctly in not counting on air power to go after Chinese landing craft and supply ships. Instead, they are acquiring a lot of ground-based short-range anti-ship missiles, small and versatile systems that can be mounted on small boats and trucks. That's how you saturate and overwhelm China's naval defenses, and sink their rather vulnerable invasion force. Having anti-ship capable submarine dominance in the area would also help in this tremendously, but that is the one area where thus far Taiwan has not been able to get much capability for itself, and will have to count on US subs dominating the area for them. And the US has been doing its part on this issue, now having over 60% of its submarine force based in the Pacific including all of its best subs, and with an ever-growing number of them forward-based in Guam and Hawa'ii. US subs are now also reorienting their focus away from land-attack and back to traditional anti-sub and anti-ship warfare capabilities, precisely for Taiwan operations.

China's power has peaked (see a recent article by Brands and Beckley in Foreign Affairs), and it is going to be entering a long phase of power decline in the next few decades. And China (and Xi) know this themselves. But this is also what makes China even more dangerous, because as international relations theory teaches us, a major power whose power capabilities are flat or declining but whose geopolitical ambitions continue to increase and expand is the most likely to start a war. This is because they are so committed to their vision of themselves in a position of dominance, at least regionally, but while also realizing that their window for action is rapidly closing. And so they are very strongly compelled to act, and act now, before that window closes.

The supreme irony here is that another great power faced this exact same dilemma about 85 years ago. And we all know how that turned out. When a great power's ambitions know no bounds but its power has peaked and is now potentially facing decline, that is the most dangerous combination of factors of all.

War is coming in the WestPac. The chairman of the JCS, in Senate testimony recently, predicted a PRC invasion of Taiwan by 2027. I predict the invasion happening by 2024 if not sooner.

Edited October 10, 2021 by kanisatha

[HoonDing]

KMT will win next presidential election in a landslide, cross strait relations will improve again, Han Chinese will voluntarily migrate back to the mainland and Formosa will be returned to the Bunun and Atayal.

[Zoraptor]

Personally, I don't think China will invade Taiwan. Not because of any military deterrent though. The ultimate problem that Taiwan has is that while the Chinese have air superiority they'll be able to degrade AA and anti ship capabilities pretty cheaply using Artsakh like tactics. Sure, you can fire off missiles, but you'll lose the launcher and won't be able to replace them. You may also have to shoot at very low value targets- the Armenians shot down literally dozens of ancient biplanes; in the end they had the choice of not using their AA, in which case it might as well not exist, or using it and having it blown up.

Chinese leadership is risk averse, and the risks of invading Taiwan is one thing that could get Xi outright removed in the medium term and tarnish his legacy permanently. The legitimacy of the CCP is almost completely based on sustained economic improvement, and the results of a Taiwan invasion would see the Chinese economy implode. It wouldn't be great for near everyone else either, but a lot of societal domestic issues are ratcheted down by ~10% growth (even if nominal) within China and a whole generation+ has known nothing but such growth*. The counter balance to that is Xi wanting to leave a permanent legacy, and the big short term nationalist boost that a successful 'reunification' would garner. But in that Erdogan makes a good comparison- nationalist boosts to popularity wear out pretty quickly, and you need more and more of them more and more quickly to get the same effect. They aren't an answer to potential longer term economic woes.

*It also has to be said, we've heard that China has peaked about as long as that too. That will be true at some point, inevitably, but it's been the geopol equivalent of working nuclear fusion for the past twenty years; always coming, never arriving. To be fair, plenty of people talk up US government debt as a similar ticking time bomb, and it hasn't gone off yet either.

[Sarex]

25 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

*It also has to be said, we've heard that China has peaked about as long as that too. That will be true at some point, inevitably, but it's been the geopol equivalent of working nuclear fusion for the past twenty years; always coming, never arriving. To be fair, plenty of people talk up US government debt as a similar ticking time bomb, and it hasn't gone off yet either.

Same thing with the 2014 sanctions ruining Russia...