Five Chinese Weapons of War America Should Fear

a reply to: crazyewok

Absolutely. Asymmetric counter insurgency warfare can largely negate any technological advantage as in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Attempting to invade and occupy another country is very difficult and bloody as the history of warfare shows. Ground combat in urban or jungle terrain is frequently a complete bloodbath. As the saying goes planes can't hold ground. You need boots on the ground.

a reply to: KawRider9

two technically (well three if you count pancho via)

Canada in the war of 1812 when they burned our white house to the ground

japan in ww2 who invaded i think it was dutch harbor Alaska and then for some ungodly reason decided to jump off from that point and invade Canada.....with no support so they were crushed pretty quickly

we have lost territory's(Philippine,islands in pacific) to invasion but the only person/nation to occupy a us city (main land usa to boot) was chief Pontiac when he took and occupied Detroit for a bit.

more on topic with ops post ,the problem with their fancy pants anti carrier weapon(the df 21d) tends to look like well an icbm and those tend to have different responses then say a sunburn anti shipping missile for example and could lead to who ever launched it getting hit by a full on nuke due to thinking the DF21D was a nuclear tipped ballistic missile. and that would be a nasty surprise hence the problem with conventional ballistic missiles. and just in my opinion id have to assume that if they did take out a carrier or full battle group that the consequences of such and endeavor would not end well what with removing what amounts to an American zip code disappearing.

on the anti satellite weaponry well those are nothing new and if memory serves me when china did their land based attack against a old satellite our response was to shoot one down from our naval vessels having already shot down a satellite some time around the 70's (i think could be wrong on the date but i know us and Russia/ussr did it way before the Chinese)but most of space war is an unknown and untested field

the chinese new transport ships(amphibious assault ships) present more of a growing asset for china as the one thing they have been lacking for decades is their own power projection force capable of doing amphibious assaults ,at this stage they are more a threat to the Chinese neighbors in the region then us its self at least at this stage of the game.so until they get them in higher numbers not to much of a threat to the usa

cyber weapons are probably their most effective weapon as it allows them espionage options as well as a force multiplier in potential conflicts but as i know next to nothing on this ill leave it for the experts to explain this kind of thing

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: BASSPLYR

*Cough* vietnam *cough*

Again people confuse polical choices for military defeats. If you read Giaps books you will North Vietnam was on the verge of defeat on more than one occasion during US bombing campaigns but, do to politlcal choices back in the US they would suddenly stop. All a military can do is provide victoy in battles which the US military did every single time. The military can not dictate foriegn policy, fights between politcal parties, a weak and corrupt allied goverment etc. So do not confuse politcal defeats for millitary defeats.

a reply to: neversaynever
RAND said I was going die in Gulf War 1 ,I was deployed to Saudi Arabia in Sept 90 and Rand said the way the Russians had established their training and defenses the US forces would be decimated by the 4th largest standing army on the planet.
We scared the S##T out of Russia and THAT was a HIGHLY restrained action as have been MOST of our wars,the scortched earth thing is a bit rude....
www.faqs.org...:-INITIAL-MILITARY-REACTION-TO-DESERT-STORM-(U).html
I told S-2 if we didn't occupy ,I doubted it would take a week.If they escalate to WMDs maybe a day.
Of course all the countries of the world have military power as well but in a CONVENTIONAL fight we don't lose We have elected officials to do that.
The prisoners WANTED us to go after Saddam but they didn't do it. Plan,objective and our purpose didn't support that.
YOU sir may not have your facts straight,and thusly your guesses are in error.

a reply to: Ebumping

no wars are fought by young men. (and now young women) they are started by lawmakers and politicians and despots but the young do the fighting

a reply to: crazyewok

I'm NOT with him we are superior because of applied free thinking,anyone can do all they have to do is be free to do ...Oh wait,China isn't big on that so...NOT so much.
BUT as long as we keep talking ...even INSULTING THE hell out of one another WE ARE STILL TALKING,hopefully THAT will kill war.


YOU idiots.

originally posted by: johnb
a reply to: KawRider9

Actually america is probably more vulnerable than any other nation due to its reliance on technology.

Hack a cple satellites detonate an emp or 2 and the most advanced military complex in the world wouldn't know what was happening anywhere and most of it's hardware would be inoperable.

Remember what happened in Vietnam with all the USA's technological superiority and what has been happening in Afghan and Iraq against relatively unorganised and untrained volunteers.

'pride comes before a fall' happened again and again throughout history to the dominating cultures of their time usually through internal corruption to start then all those countries/groups/tribes..... see the weakness and take their revenge.

John, I remember well what happened in Vietnam...I was there! We were not beaten militarily but defeated in Washington. They imposed rule of engagement (ROE) and bombing halts that allowed the NVA to have safe havens in Cambodia and Laos where we were not allowed to go. The US military had broken the VC and NVA operations in the south by 1969 and they didn't show their heads until after the 1970 bombing halts imposed by politicians in Washington.

Any military action today will not be successful with the present administration. If the US generals and admirals are permitted to do their jobs unimpeded there's no problem with Russia or China. However, if Washington shows it's ego and arrogance then we are fu@K'd.

a reply to: pavil

it's not like they are the Soviets of the Cold War, we both have immense trade relations with each other.

Comrade Colonel Vladamir Putin retired from intelligence service with the K.G.B. as second in command to the East Berlin Station as the wall was falling.

The man is the modern embodiment of the Cold War thinking, as he's a product of it. Literally from his youth and recruitment in the mid 70's to his retirement to move into formal Government through a post in St Petersburg.

Putin Official Biography - From Kremlin

a reply to: crazyewok

eh to be fair since the end of ww2 we have not fought wars for "land", sure we will occupy and eventually leave but we tend to fight our wars in percentage of enemy population killed. (hence the body count system during nam) With the population of north Vietnam being somewhere around 15 million(at the time) give or take and taking some of the estimates for casualties (they vary greatly depending on source ) but lets go with the wiki standard(low estimate) 1.1 million that means in the time we were there we killed about 1/15th of their military population and that is with out even touching what happened to their civilian population (about 3-4 million dead) so add those up some where around 4-5 million people or one third of the north's population. compare that to allied death tolls and it seems that the kill ratio was far skewed in our favor 56,000(unsure if this is all allied deaths or just usa) vs 4-5 million looks more like a Pyrrhic victory if anything

www.psywarrior.com... link contains a map showing all all allied nations involved in Vietnam
www.history.army.mil...
and hey as it was not just us fighting the (North)Vietnamese . considering that most nato nations sent troops (UK,France,Australia,new Zealand,Korea,Philippines,Thailand(the only unconquered nation on the planet),Spain etc) and that does not even touch the non military aid that came from middle east(Iran) as well as other sources so if it as truly lost we had a lot of partners in the endeavor.

www.vhfcn.org... this link appears to try to dispel myths about the Vietnam war and this quote seems to imply that it was not a loss for us as much as it was a failure of the south Vietnamese(after we stopped funding supplying them)

THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID after the U.S. Congress cut off funding. The South Vietnamese ran out of fuel, ammunition and other supplies because of a lack of support from Congress while the North Vietnamese were very well supplied by China and the Soviet Union. Facts about the end of the war: The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973. How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification. [1996 Information Please Almanac] The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives. [1996 Information Please Almanac] There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. [1996 Information Please Almanac]

so there is that for what its worth but i have no experience with the source so for all i know it could be hogwash but hey its ats so if its legit or not it will be debunked/proven quickly with all the smart members here

originally posted by: MrSpad

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: BASSPLYR

*Cough* vietnam *cough*

Again people confuse polical choices for military defeats. If you read Giaps books you will North Vietnam was on the verge of defeat on more than one occasion during US bombing campaigns but, do to politlcal choices back in the US they would suddenly stop. All a military can do is provide victoy in battles which the US military did every single time. The military can not dictate foriegn policy, fights between politcal parties, a weak and corrupt allied goverment etc. So do not confuse politcal defeats for millitary defeats.

A defeat is still a defeat.

a reply to: RalagaNarHallas
UK never send forces to vietnam. We were to busy haveing our own arses kicked in Eygpt at the time.

a reply to: crazyewok
Funny ,I heard from a Recondo guy that Brits were there with Aussies. His job would have been D-Notice of course.but then again THAT is why we use you guys as a wet asset ay? It gets done and nobody knows a thing,at least the SAS has decent SECURITY your country doesn't often undermine...

a reply to: johnb

The US is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the France, but that's just peanuts to America.

--Paraphrasing Douglas Adams.

What most people, even a lot of fantasy prone Americans don't understand, is just how big the USA actually is.

For starters, lets assume the incredibly offensive scenario where every Muslim in America suddenly starts obeying orders from some Jihad jackoff overseas, shall we?

3-5 million people is less than 1% of our population. Sure, they might do some damage, but they'd be fairly easy to isolate, identify and eliminate. And then we would turn the entire region where the order came from into a nuclear wasteland.

And invasion by any conventional force is straight up off the table for the same reason. We'd actually see the troop transports being manufactured YEARS before they ever launched from their home ports, and it would take tens of thousands of the biggest ones ever made to deliver 3-5 million people across the sea. The logistics of loadout on such an operation boggles the mind. The biggest deep water ports in the world can't service more than 25 of these ships at a time. By the time you loaded boat 100, you'd have to report the first 25 and resupply. Now, lets assume you did get them all underway, perhaps assembly line style. There are only a handful of ports in the US that can receive a ship this size in any traditional sense. You would be lining up 1000 enemy soldiers at a time in front of millions of gun-toting Americans for target practice. The blood would turn the seas red, and very little would be ours.

Movies and video games aren't real. There are no such thing as "Stargates." The logistics of a ground invasion of the US are so far outside the current realm of reality, it would require an actual alien invasion to accomplish.

EMP's work in both directions, though if you unleash one over a tiny portion of the US, the signature of the attacking nation or group would be obvious and would be met with a full scale retaliation from our Nuclear arsenal. It will never happen because no one in charge of anything substantial can figure a way to make the numbers work.

Anyone who believes differently doesn't know a single thing about how armies are formed, trained, supplied, or transported.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: crazyewok
Funny ,I heard from a Recondo guy that Brits were there with Aussies. His job would have been D-Notice of course.but then again THAT is why we use you guys as a wet asset ay? It gets done and nobody knows a thing,at least the SAS has decent SECURITY your country doesn't often undermine...

I wouldnt be suprised if he SAS were there somewhere. In a unofficial way.

a reply to: crazyewok

yeah all the sources id read said that they were limited to training of the south Vietnamese(advisers) and did a lot of acts and things from their embassy in Saigon but as others have posted above i would not be surprised to some day find out that the vaunted SAS had its hand in a few pies.....but that is the advantage to being in an organization that is not caught as easily as others and one who operates with such clandestine skill as other groups

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

While what you say is true, it has no bearing on this thread, which is about China.

In the Cold War Years, there was little bilateral trade going on between the USSR and US. My point is that China and the US are in a economic tango, that neither can get out of without tripping up badly.

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
Anyone who believes differently doesn't know a single thing about how armies are formed, trained, supplied, or transported.

Please, logistics and reality have no place in the "Red Dawn is Real Cause EMP's will only impact the Big Bad USA" crowd here.

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: MrSpad

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: BASSPLYR

*Cough* vietnam *cough*

Again people confuse polical choices for military defeats. If you read Giaps books you will North Vietnam was on the verge of defeat on more than one occasion during US bombing campaigns but, do to politlcal choices back in the US they would suddenly stop. All a military can do is provide victoy in battles which the US military did every single time. The military can not dictate foriegn policy, fights between politcal parties, a weak and corrupt allied goverment etc. So do not confuse politcal defeats for millitary defeats.

A defeat is still a defeat.

Vietnam was one part of an much larger conflict called the Cold War. This was fought though a series of proxies over 40 years. Through out these conflicts at time US or Soviet forces would be engaded in a limited fashion. To avoid expanding different conflicts and turning the Cold War hot both the Soviets and US would bring only a limited amount of power and limit the areas of a conflict. For example full scale airstrikes in Vietnam were short and limited despite the fact they could cause a collapse of Nothern regime, the same limitations kept the US from invading the North ending the war. In Afganistan the Soviets did much the same. To avoid escation they stayed away from the nations that were allowing suppies to pour in. These are politcal decisions made in a series of fronts in the Cold War. The goal of the Cold War was to defeat your enemy without allowing the conflict to go hot and lead to nuclear destruction. They things like Vietnam, the Cuban Missle crisis etc. were handled were not as seperate wars that were fully entered and engaged for victory. They were treated as parts of a greater conflict where cost and attrition and a battle for the globes support were more important the making a full effort to win a local conflict.

a reply to: pavil

Oh I got your point, loud and clear. You believe China needs us as much as we need them. I think that's a profound and fundamental flaw in thinking and a terminal one for misunderstanding the relationship as I firmly believe China sees it.

We'll see how the future plays out but China's long term moves are not U.S. based in focus...and so much so, I tend to notice they don't give much for us being the players we have been up to even this point. So, I really don't believe China sees anything about this as a partnership. We just can't seem to accept everyone out there isn't precisely what they seem and that they don't all, in the end, want to be friends.

Some of the wishful thinking and unrealistic appraisal I see these days scares the hell out of me.

originally posted by: crazyewok
Must be why you won Vietnam then?
O WAIT YOU DIDNT!

Lol ok, and why didn't we win? The reason had nothing to do with actual fighting, but that was also 1960s and we just spent 13 or so years in the greatest war college on earth getting our little diplomas. When you look at our gear of 10 plus years ago and compare it to today there is a world of difference.