"The U.S. Military Made a Big Mistake When It Came to..." Topic

… Russia's Cold War Navy (And Might Repeat It with China).

"Back in the 1980s, a war with the Soviet Union seemed like a naval nightmare.

Fiction writers like Tom Clancy and John Hackett painted a future where Western navies faced hordes of Red bombers, cruise missiles, submarines and surface warships. Naturally, in these novels the Good Guys won, but only at tremendous cost

In hindsight, some of this looks silly. We know now—and some suspected back then—that the Soviet Navy was undercut by major deficiencies in technology and training. It was no paper tiger, but neither was it some aquatic beast that would have devoured Western fleets…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I disagree.

All of those SSMs, air-launched cruise missiles, and even torpedoes could have put a major hurt on our fleets and vessels, especially if launched from close range, in a surprise attack, as was feared, back in the day.

Just look at how much damage a third-rate country, and air force did to the modern British navy during the Falklands Conflict, at the height of the Cold War, in 1982, with dumb bombs (fortunately, many were duds, or the carnage and loss of life would have been much worse), and a handful of Exocet missiles.

Fortunately, due to concerns about the Royal Navy's nuke boats, and the loss of their cruiser, the General Belgrano, most of Argentina's navy stayed in port.

I think you are being unfair to the Argentinian airforce in that assessment.
They were regarded pretty higly during the conflict.
Many issues were highlighted during the Falklands including the use of flammable materials for comfort in RN vessels.

Certainly more would have been lost if the fuses armed correctly but the Argentinian airforce was also operating at the higher end of their operational range.

Fortunately there is little if any chance of a repeat of that conflict.

The Chinese would be less restrained I believe, its all about perceived past grievances and that funny thing called "
Face"

In looking at these comments, I believe that training is the key factor here. Is the PLAN trained up to the standards of its likely opponents? I don't believe that it is. Mako makes good points about the effectiveness of the Argentine weapons against the British surface vessels in the Falklands. I may be incorrect but my memory is that NATO ships like the British destroyers in the Falklands were not as robust in their air defense suites as US Navy ships. I believe that the UK destroyers in particular were optimized to anti-submarine roles, with reliance for air defense on US Navy ships that would have been operating with them in a conflict with the Soviet Navy. The Exocet used against the Royal Navy did pack a heavy punch and coupled with the large amount of aluminum used in several of the ships hit made secondary fires the fatal damage.

Against the US Navy SSM and air launched attack missiles would be pitted against the Aegis air defense system, and CIWS. ALCM would have all those surface based defenses plus those provided by the CAP with advanced anti air missiles. No doubt some missiles will penetrate the defenses and damage to US ships would occur, but the US Navy has learned a lot about damage control in its extensive combat operations. Damaged ships in the South China Sea would have access to repairs facilities in Japan and would not have to sail across the Pacific to reach repair facilities. PLAN surface ships are most likely not going to survive getting close enough to fire and then doing so. PLAN submarines are not a match for US submarines. In a shooting war I do not believe many of them will last long, being hunted by the anti-submarine forces of the US and its allies.

Finally in mentioning Japan. No future conflict in the South China Sea area would be fought in isolation. The US Navy would undoubtedly be supported by the Japanese navy, if not that of Australia and Taiwan. My belief is that the PLAN would have a very hard time against the Japanese navy by itself. A shooting war between the PLAN and the US will be costly to both sides but in the end I believe China will have no navy.

Yust to remember… the dump thing about the Argentine Air Force bombs was that no one took into account that in the ammunition factory worked Chileans (40% of the personal) committed sabotage in the assembly of the bombs and even in the torpedoes of the submarines … that was discovered in 1984 after an exhaustive investigation and 14 Chileans were imprisoned by And then expelled from the country …

A good example of the Latin American "brotherhood"! (Smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting. Would China attack the repair/basing facilities in Japan, I wonder? If Japan was actively involved in support of US naval operations, why would they not? Suddenly a much broader war ensues.

From memory Chile was rewarded by the British for their assistance post-Falklands.

In any case the Argies did well enough given their limited resources. They managed to sink 4 destroyers/frigates and several other ships.

Imagine if they had more than 5 Exocets or better tankers (or correctly fused bombs).

The Chinese scenario involves a far greater threat due to proliferation of AShMs.

The U.S. Military Made a Big Mistake

Only one !?!?!?

Interesting, Armand. Thanks for sharing that.

I hadn't heard about that before, but have read that the torpedo wiring was installed backwards. I always figured that was an Argentinian crew mistake, and not sabotage, so that is good to have clarified.

I cast no aspersions on the Argentine pilots, who were no doubt very brave, and some quite skilled.

However, they were flying 20 year old jets, and dropping dumb bombs using nothing more sophisticated than simple ring sights in many cases. No sophisticated HUDs, etc., etc..

Fortunately, they only had a handful of more modern Exocets.

All that, against the best the Royal Navy and RAF could throw at them.

My main point is, with much more modern, sophisticated, and up to date weaponry, China, Russia, and others can, and could do far more damage than Argentina did to the British 35 years ago.

China's navy is only part of the equation. China has thousands of anti-air, anti-ship, cruise and ballistic missiles dispersed in China, both fixed and mobile, that have to be destroyed or neutralized before American ships can operate without incurring unacceptable losses in the region.

Plus, a battle will be fought in space (both outer and cyber) as each side attempts to effectively blind and degrade the C3I capabilities of the other. Winning the battlespace will be key to victory.

There won't be the generational gap in technology and doctrine that we've seen in the First Gulf War.

The one missing asset which all the esteem (and mostly, uninformed) comments fail to mention is AEW. The RN had NO AEW assets. Intercepting the Argentine attacks well short of the islands would have tipped the balance massively in favor of the British. Hitting bomb ladened A-4s with Sea Harriers optimized for air to air wouldn't have been pretty (especially for the Argentines).

Thanks my friend… yes… the Chilean Navy was refited before the war… they never forgive us since the Pacific War… (smile).

Event that… the big mistake was made by the authorities of the Ammo Fabric… who ended all very bad too…

There were also an incident in Tierra del Fuego with a team of British Commandos who save their lives thanks of the Chilean boys…

They also provided intelligence data about our Air Force fields…

Well… it was eons ago!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Even if the Chinese do manage to get to what the US feared the Soviet Navy was, do remember that the USN built ships to handle incoming raids by multiple Bomber Regiments, where each bird is launching 2-6 missiles.

In fact, the USN has 3 major types of warships in service anymore: Carriers, Submarines, and Aegis ships. A single carrier has 2-4 Aegis ships assigned to defend it. Each Aegis ship can carry 90+ surface-to-air missiles, plus the point defenses. (And submarines don't care about anti-ship missiles)

So in order to successfully overwhelm the defenses of a single, minimally-defended carrier, you'd need to fire about 200 anti-ship missiles (if not more, depends on ESSM, RAM, and CIWS effectiveness). That's roughly 50 bomber-loads. The Chinese have 120 H6 (aka Tu16) in service. Assuming a 50% availability rate, it would take the entire PLAAF's bomber force to strike a single US carrier.

Or, a bunch of islands in the SCS, packed with SSMs.

I get what you're saying though.

Hope it doesn't come to that, but I suspect the Chinese just might be willing to sacrifice that many bombers and crews if they can take out a carrier, and embarrass the USN and USA on the world stage in a fight.

My guess is they wouldn't bat an eye over that, and the decision has already been made long ago to give that a try, should we get into a shooting war with them.

One factor that I think should be brought up – are we talking conventional warheads on these missiles, or nuclear? One conventional A/SSM would hurt a carrier. One nuke kills the entire CVBG (…I think?)

In the gaming out of this scenario, does the naval use of nukes carry the same weight and fear of escalation as land use? What were/are Soviet/Russian doctrine/plans?

Even if the Chinese do manage to get to what the US feared the Soviet Navy was, do remember that the USN built ships to handle incoming raids by multiple Bomber Regiments, where each bird is launching 2-6 missiles.

In fact, the USN has 3 major types of warships in service anymore: Carriers, Submarines, and Aegis ships. A single carrier has 2-4 Aegis ships assigned to defend it. Each Aegis ship can carry 90+ surface-to-air missiles, plus the point defenses. (And submarines don't care about anti-ship missiles)

So in order to successfully overwhelm the defenses of a single, minimally-defended carrier, you'd need to fire about 200 anti-ship missiles (if not more, depends on ESSM, RAM, and CIWS effectiveness). That's roughly 50 bomber-loads. The Chinese have 120 H6 (aka Tu16) in service. Assuming a 50% availability rate, it would take the entire PLAAF's bomber force to strike a single US carrier.

But that was in the Atlantic where the US held home ground advantage.

In a war in the South or East China Sea, the Chinese have hone ground advantage. There's no long range flights across the North Sea whilst being tracked by radar stations in Norway, Iceland and UK.

Chinese surface ships also have land based air cover and aren't hamstrung by range issues.

Instead it's all within range of Chinese bases. So it's not just 120 H-6s. It's a ton of PLA ships, shore based aircraft (long range Sukhois and JH-7s) and short range diesel subs.

There's not much room for a carrier group to manoeuvre compared to Atlantic thus making target tracking easier.

And then there's those anti-ship ballistic missiles. I don't believe they work but then who knows.

Not saying a US carrier group is dead meat. Instead I am saying what worked in 1987 in the Atlantic might not necessarily work in 2017 in a South/East China Sea scenario.

Granted, the Chinese do have a pretty significant advantage over the Russians in that sense. But all the ships packing SSMs are submarine-bait. (sad but true) 10 US subs would eat the PLAN's surface fleet alive.

If a single one of those anti-ship missiles is nuclear-tipped, it's going to be on like Donkey Kong. A single SSBN packs more firepower than the entire Chinese nuclear arsenal. If I was POTUS, within 5 minutes of a nuclear detonation, I'd be on the phone with the Chinese President, saying "you have 30 minutes to bring me the individual who ordered the nuclear attack on my carrier. Alive. Or else you will preside over the utter annihilation of your country."