some of those subs look like old russian subs...

Why should US Navy send only 1-2 subs per carrier strike group? There are more than 50 attacksubs in US Navy service (including 3 Seawolfs) and the Virginias will come soon.

Originally posted by Echo4Mike
some of those subs look like old russian subs...

Type-31 romeo class are based on russian designs and the Kilo's are actually russian

Everything else is indigenious I believe, though they probably incorporate a degree of russian technology depending on their year

[edit on 16-4-2005 by Lucretius]

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo

The Pacific Fleet is obviously what they would use to defend Taiwan. That's why it's called the Pacific Fleet. LOL More specifically, they would use the Seventh Fleet since they handle WESTPAC and Asia.

I doubt China would go nuclear, not on a carrier no less. But if they did, let's just say you better do whatever you want to do and prepare for the End of the World As We Know It.

I also doubt we would lose all four. At the most, we'd lose just one. But even if it was just one, the affects of that loss would be drastic. That's about 70 fewer aircraft to liberate and defend Taiwan. Not to mention the aircraft carrier, the most powerful and formidable weapon ever in history, get's destroyed. That would be a huge blow to America's ego and a horrible blow to the moral of Taiwan's citizens, the ROC military, and definitely our own troops. It'll be a huge momentum swing for the Chinese. It may also force the U.S. to start going "outside the box" with politics and diplomacy to try to resolve the mess.

Still, China's gonna need to go a long way before it can actively challenge the U.S. Navy on the seas. So for now, China's threat to U.S. naval vessels is through land and air.

The U.S. Navy is much smaller than it's late Cold War days, but one thing it has a lot of is submarines. Close to 100 of them.

IMO the only way the chinese can effectively sink a carrier is by nuking it..
Any other conventional means please relay onto me, for I find it difficult to fathom the sink of a carrier, forget a USN nuclear carrier..

Yes, to incapacitate a carrier so that it can't move about.. (well placed shots at the propeller) is possible with much lesser amts of firepower..
But again I am told that all carriers have an awareness/strikable radius of 1000kms.. So any raiding(surface) party should be detected once they breach that radius or at least at say 500 km..
I doubt (going through the vessel list on the 1st page) any PLAN surface vessel(s) will be able to reach striking distance of the carrier in order to maime it...

Esp. if the carrier(s) are say 500 to 750 km of the nearest chinese/taiwanese coast...

Thats blue water territory and IMO only subs and destroyers can go out that far (that too with strong supply lines/comm for the surface ships..)
All the chinese subs(including the SSBNs) are far too noisy to slip through.. and hence IMHO the only way the PLAN can effectively maime a carrier is by assembling a small/highly trained kilo sub strike force..
Only the kilos will probably have a good chance of slipping through undetected..

The US obv. aware of this will look to pre-emptively take out the kilos first..

Summary: Pretty tough to even maime a carrier..esp. if you're a brown water
navy and the carrier's way out to sea..

Carriers are awesome strike weapons

EDIT: How many kilos does the PLAN have??


[edit on 16-4-2005 by Daedalus3]

They have 5 Kilos, I think. However, the Kilos are too slow(in quiet submerged mode) to be effective in ofensive operations against carriers.

[edit on 16-4-2005 by longbow]

China will have 12 Kilos all delivered by 2008. China is also building Songs and Yuans which are excellent subs, especially the Yuan but information is limited. 2 Yuans are already finished and 2 Yuans are underconstruction from the latest paparazzi pic.

PLAN has a bulk of old obsolete vessels. Romeo class might not do any ASW warfare ever but they are good for mine laying and stationary blockade as we have a few dozens of them at our disposal.

PLAN is no match for USN at the moment, everyone agrees with that. But with our quick modernization, in twenty years it might be a whole another story.

[edit on 16-4-2005 by COWlan]

Originally posted by longbow
Why should US Navy send only 1-2 subs per carrier strike group? There are more than 50 attacksubs in US Navy service (including 3 Seawolfs) and the Virginias will come soon.

It has nothing to do with the arsenal. It has to do with irganization. Currently, the two Seawolf-class SSNs in service are both operating with the Atlantic Fleet. The U.S. will not have a Seawolf in the Pacific Fleet until this July.

It looks like from the original post that the PLAN can count on 13 x Song class SSK [missile capable] and 12 x Kilo class SSK [soon to be missile capable] plus 8-9 Long March SSNs.

Thats a significant sub capability. Do the Long March SSN carry missiles or are the to be modified to carry missiles?

What is mean't by "Bright Level" and "R Level"?

[edit on 16-4-2005 by psteel]

If the USN brings its carriers close to the Chinese coast then china might be able to damage them, but when the US carriers ore out in blue water territory its going to be difficult for the Chinese to sneak through and try to damage them.
They wont be able to destroy a US carrier by air and they wont be able to do it with surface ships the only option they have is subs, the U.S. knows this and will be prepared for such an event.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
If the USN brings its carriers close to the Chinese coast then china might be able to damage them, but when the US carriers ore out in blue water territory its going to be difficult for the Chinese to sneak through and try to damage them.
They wont be able to destroy a US carrier by air and they wont be able to do it with surface ships the only option they have is subs, the U.S. knows this and will be prepared for such an event.

That might be true but the further away they deploy the less effective their contribution will be. Its all about payload range fighter figures at that point.

Below are the rages un-refueled for the USN’s current fighters, I think they have enough range to run sorties from blue water territory.
And with mid air refueling range is not a problem, the other aircraft the USN operates such as AWACS have even more rage then these fighters.

F-14 -1,600 nm

F/A-18- 1,800 nm

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Below are the rages un-refueled for the USN’s current fighters, I think they have enough range to run sorties from blue water territory.
And with mid air refueling range is not a problem, the other aircraft the USN operates such as AWACS have even more rage then these fighters.

F-14 -1,600 nm

F/A-18- 1,800 nm

OK lose 25% for reserves and combat and cut that range in 1/2 since the plane has to get back to the carrier. Then you get ....600nm & 675nm radius of action. But wait theres more, those are fighter configurations . Once you start to hang bombs under the wings, the speed drops to about 600knts tops and the range is cut down even further due to payload. That could easly be 1/2 those radius again for typical bomb load.

I've always wondered, would the Chinese pilots be willing to run a kamikazi style attack on the Carriers? And would that work? Because I think it'd be a damn good way to cripple the carriers - payload of bombs, flown right into the ship.

Anyone any ideas on if they'd do such a thing?

I agree with West Point. The carriers will always be kept within striking distance of their aircraft, but away from any naval threats. Don't forget that the carrier has not only the entire battlegroup to protect it, it has it's aircraft as well.

IHMO the carrier battle group has a HUGE offensive punch, but I feel it is even stronger in a defensive role. If you pitted two carrier battle groups against each other, I think the attacking one would lose every time.

A suface ship isn't going to get close enough to a carrier to attack it. Fight your way though five Aegis ships, some subs, and something like 75 attack aircraft? No way.

Aircraft aren't going to get anywhere near the carrier. They'd have to fight through the F-14's and 18's from the carrier, plus five Aegis ships, plus the Sea Sparrows on the carrier and frigates, plus any Air Force units in the area.

A sub would pose a threat, but lets look at what the carrier has protecting it ASW-wise:

two or three SSN's from it's battle group
any other SSN's that could be deployed to the area
frigates, cruisers, and destroyers with hull-mounted and towed array sonars
LAMPS helos from the carrier and the surface ships
P-3's from Japan and from Taiwanese airfields

All 13 songs, 12 kilos, and 9 long march subs would have to be thrown at the carrier in a coordinated attack to have a chance.

Originally posted by psteel


OK lose 25% for reserves and combat and cut that range in 1/2 since the plane has to get back to the carrier. Then you get ....600nm & 675nm radius of action. But wait theres more, those are fighter configurations . Once you start to hang bombs under the wings, the speed drops to about 600knts tops and the range is cut down even further due to payload. That could easly be 1/2 those radius again for typical bomb load.

Carriers have a strike range of 1000km..
Thats blue water for me..

And what this about all nval battles being fought not more than fifty miles off land??

Falklands..
WWII - USN vs. unterseeboats..
I'll dig up some more..

I disagree about the "end of the world" thing; if a carrier was nuked for whatever reason, I do not think the U.S. would retaliate with nukes necessarily. It just wouldn't make sense, as we could do the same damage without them, just with more bombs. One nuke does not equal the U.S. losing all sense of reasoning.

As for Chinese pilots going "kamikaze" on a carrier, good luck to them, as a carrer has machien guns that are designed soleley for defending against those types of things; they're designed to defend against incoming missiles, let alone an aircraft, and that's if the aircraft gets close enough to the carrier.

I believe without refuelling the actual attacking range of the planes will be around 350-500 nm, which is not that far away. In the event of war and that being conventional only (highly unlikely), expect plenty of Su-30MKK2 naval aviation fighter-bombers to be there. With plenty of sea-skimming Sunburns and R-77s , it is going to be a hell of a battle.

First of all... the Navy fighters would not be loaded with bombs, because the U.S. always makes sure that they have air superiority. So until we shoot down the Chinese jets and make sure that the carriers are safe the navy fighters wont have any bombs on them.
Also the Air force units from SK and Guam would also be there adding more rage to he operation.
And as good as the Su-30 is with the U.S. navy fighters and U.S. Air force units helping out equipped with AWACS , they will not get to the carrier.
The Sunburn, R-77will probably not hit the carrier because of the AEGIS radar and antimissile capabilities along the new carrier defense SeaRAM missiles.

I already know about those, but hitting a sea-skimming missle going at mach 2 isn't easy work, even with technology on the Aegis.