"China Deploys Armed J-11 Fighters to South China Sea" Topic

The Chinese have just deployed some armed, Sukhoi, J-11 fighters to one of their man-made islands in the northern section of the South China Sea:

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No doubt, more will be deployed to other islands further south, as construction of them, and runways are completed in the future.

Well, they didn't go to all that trouble and expense building those islands for nothing.

Wondr if any lessons have been learned from WW2 about island hopping. Could game out some raids by US Army Rangers, as they're heavily trained for this sort of thing.

Militarily these islands would be easily neutralized by cruise missiles armed with conventional or fuel air explosives.

The aircraft are a threat to the neigbours – but not in sufficient numbers to menace a USN task force. They could maybe trouble a lone ship – maybe. I'm not really up to date on the balance of stand off weaponry and countermeasures.

I'm guessing future US cruise bys would need to be better supported just in case the Chinese lost their cool.

This is traditional Chinese military strategy. Think of the islands as a "Maritime" Great Wall. It delineates the limits of Chinese territory . The military forces stationed there provide protection against local bandit incursions and as a tripwire for major invasions.Their message is very simple and straight forward :"This is our Border- If you cross it you are invading China"

If an enemy does attack they are still far enough away not to endanger the major territories with the distance providing time for China to muster a counter force.

Won't the island sink with the extra weight of the fighters?
YouTube link

A half dozen 2000lbers and the runways will be underwater again.

jdg

While the Army Rangers specialize in seizing airports. Seems like it would be a better job for the USMC. Ala WW2.

Or, raids by Seals, from subs stationed just offshore, to create mayhem on such small targets, kind of like the SBS and/or SAS did on that Argentinian airfield during the Falklands Conflict.

Following the attack on the Chinese islands by Seals and cruise missiles . China launches a series of conventional anti ship missiles against US bases in Okinawa and Diego Garcia. Civilian casualties in Okinawa are very high prompting Japan to engage in open warfare with China.

US DEFCON level raised to 2 Reserves and National Guards mobilized- USS nuclear subs including boomers sortie. Russia announces its solidarity with China and begins mobilization on the Polish Border EU calls for calm

Next move MAKO Ready for WWIII?

I really doubt the Russians would be silly enough to get in a war with us, despite some rhetoric to the contrary, especially in support of China.

Better, if there is a war between the US and China, to sit back and let both sides wear one another down, Toronto.

The Russians and Chinese may occasionally side with one another against us, but they're really not "allies" in the true sense of the word.

Ignore Russia then how do you respond to the Chinese attacks on Okinawa and Diego Garcia? What about Japan ?

Do you have any idea how many cruise missiles our newest attack subs carry?

Perhaps you should look that up.

Recently, three of our US subs surfaced near China to send that message home, loud and clear, Toronto48.

China can't win a war against us, but might be able to win a small skirmish or two, far from our shores. I suspect they are painfully well aware of that.

They're also aware that Japan could produced hundreds, if not thousands of nuke warheads from their nuclear powerplant stockpiles, starting in as little as six months from the word go, so they have that to contemplate as well.