"The Chinese Navy Wants Aircraft Carrier Battlegroups" Topic

"Battlegroups to also be deployed in East and South China seas, admiral tells state media

China is building aircraft carrier battlegroups and plans to deploy them not only in the disputed East and South China seas, but also to protect the country's overseas ­interests.

Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo, who served as a national political adviser and sits on the navy's advisory board on cybersecurity, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency that building aircraft carriers served to "defend China's sovereignty of the islands and reefs, maritime rights and overseas ­interests".

The defence ministry confirmed this year that China was building its second aircraft carrier, its first wholly home-made one…"

Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Does China have the wherewithal to build multiple CBG's like we do? A full-fledged CBG requires numerous escorts like anti-air missile and ASW warfare ships.

Sorry but I'm a tad skeptical.

Wait….I thought carriers were obsolete?

China has a new cruiser design they are working on and some fairly good destroyers with decent AAW and ASW abilities. I suspect the cruiser is the missing piece for the battle group. They still are woefully behind in SSN's…..but for how long?

Give them 10 years and their naval forces will be near parity with USA.

Add the projected power of man-made islands…

They seem to need lots of projects to keep their people employed, so I can see this happening.

Perhaps we need to modify some of our ballistic missiles to have area/sea denial capabilities as well.

Then again, we could just seed the South China Sea with CAPTOR mines, so they'd never see them coming.

They can build all the ships they want but a trained and experienced force of sailors to man those ships will take decades. China has no blue water naval tradition and they are not a sea faring people except in coastal waters. Japan took nearly forty years to create the IJN that defeated the Russians at Tsushima but the Chinese will never match the intensity of the Japanese effort and the USN is anything but the ramshackle unprofessional Imperial Russian Navy.

Good looking boats.

hochlermp5,
never underestimate. The Japanese did that, so did the Germans and a podunk backwards country named the USA smashed them both using farmboys and city workers against their vaunted professional warriors… took 2-3 years IIRC… In 4 years, the USA went from isolationism to the greatest military power the world has ever seen.

The Chinese are moving with a unified momentum comparable to the "can do" attitude of the USA during the "manifest destiny" era. The USA has, sadly, lost that feeling of a united purpose that China has.

They now have a educated and trained population, unbelievable manufacturing capabilities, wealth and strategic access to vital commodities. A lot of the world likes China better than the USA.

"China has no blue water naval tradition and they are not a sea faring people except in coastal waters."

You might want to look a bit further back in history to check that out…..

The last blue water navy of any size China had was in the 15th Century near as I can recall.

The USN vast expansion in WWII built up from a solid base of experienced sailors as well as a history of rapid expansion during WWI. We have been at the business of modern naval warfare for the past 70 years since 1945. Give China 40 to 70 years of training and operational experience, at great distance from the homeland, providing there is no economic collapse or rebellion, or defeat in war against the formidable forces of Japan, Korea, and the USA, and China might become a great naval power. Both Japan and Korea are in the midst of expanding their naval forces to counter China's build up. We truly live in interesting times.

Is it me or does the pic in the OP look photoshopped? The frigates appear to be moving at a fairly good rate of speed given their wakes and bow waves but the carrier appears to be barely moving.

Interesting observation. Perhaps the deeper draft of the carrier causes less propeller churn?

"The Chinese are moving with a unified momentum comparable to the "can do" attitude of the USA during the "manifest destiny" era. The USA has, sadly, lost that feeling of a united purpose that China has. "

Its an attitude that never seems to last more than a century or so- Britain had it, then USA, now China, most nations get it for a bit every now and then. But it always winds down for a little while…after a bit I suppose its just a good idea to put your feet up and let someone else do the hard work for a while.

We've recently had a season of programmes on the BBC about Chinese history – very good if you can catch it.

In it, a Chinese historian wryly says the Chinese are very good at keeping everything ticking over for about 150 years…. then either a natural disaster or a political cataclysm makes everything pear-shaped again.

So… the current mandate of heaven has around 80-90 years left to run…

Could be interesting, but one decent tsunami is doing to do a lot of damage to those islands.

Wow, let's hold our breath for 80-90 years and hope China does not instigate anything. Chamberlin did the same thing and Poland and France got steamrolled.

The problem is that even when China *had* a blue-water navy, it lasted less than a century. The UK RN has lasted more than 400 years, the USN more than 200.

No real institutional memory of how to do things onboard ship. And it's not like you can build up a navy quickly without that institutional memory.

and a podunk backwards country named the USA smashed them both using farmboys and city workers against their vaunted professional warriors
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though in the case of Europe that does kind of omit the contribution of a little place called the USSR – and yes of course LL was very important