Australia’s Property Bubble & Pandemic Economics: Friendlyjordies Podcast.
Added 2021-03-03 10:49:05 +0000 UTC
Comments
Yes they could invade Vietnam with very high confidence. Philippines I thinknwould be harder, for the same reaso Malaysia and Indonesia have. They are an awful lot of islands so have potential to carry out harrasing tactics instead of frontal assaults. China has a very impressive army, in the classic sense of impressive. They very much seem to copy old school Soviet/Russian military theory of using massed artillery and attaching support units to infantry instead of have a more mobile Corps that can call on extra resources. It does make them slower to organise and change their momentum. If not for the Himalayas they would be a SERIOUS problem for India. But naval, eh I think they could take Philippines but they'll get get good bloody.nose doing it. Same with the other big island compilation nations.
Matthew Ray
2021-03-11 04:51:17 +0000 UTCWhat would the Chinese Military be good at? Defending it's mainland and nearby interests? Could they invade Vietnam or Philippines?
Daniel Greblo
2021-03-11 02:43:36 +0000 UTCJust to touch on something of a logic hole that all the "China will invade us" crowd. They can't. Ok they can try but there's a thing called "force composition" in military planning and strategy. You can discern a lot about your opponents goals and capabilities before any shots are exchanged simply by looking at what he equips his forces with. Now the PLAN, is the considered the largest navy by number of ships, but not by tonnage or average tonnage. Most the PLAN is made up of relatively short range combat ships, like frigates and missile boats and diesel electric submarines. Their amphibious assault force is relatively light. To carry our a long range invasion you nit only need lots of heavy fleet assault ships (they kind that carry all your tanks, troops, artillery etc) but you need resupply ships as almost all of the PLAN is conventionally powered (ie not nuclear) and very few of their ships have long endurance (difference for range and endurance is one is simply focusing on the engines supply needs so fuel and ouls and the other is about human supply food and water). Now they have only 2 fast fleet supply ships, they have a fairly large number of older slower supply and oiler ships but ill touch on why that's limiting in a moment. These fast supply ships are exactly what you would have a lot of if you wanted to be able to invade a large, far away nation. Because supply ships don't STAY with a strike force or fleet, they rendezvous with it, deliver their stores to the ships that need it in the force and then turn around to go get more. Now this means you not only need escorts for your fleet but escorts for those supply ships going back and forth. The kind of ship ideally suited for heavy escorts are carriers, not fleet carriers though. Usually you'd pair a carrier up with some frigates or destroyers. The PLAN only have 2 carriers and honestly they are shit. They can't launch their premier naval fighter the J-15 with a full combat load out. They have to compromise on either fuel load or payload or air of both to get off the deck. This means that as a force projection platform, their carriers are kind of failures, as the J-15 with a full load out and piloted by a well trained and drilled pilot IS a real threat to any other naval fighter. But it won't have the teeth or range to escorts strikes or chase away incoming attackers from a fleet, so purely a defensive asset. Back to the supply ships, their older ships have a top speed of 20 knots, but they will be unlikely to do that as its insanely wasteful of fuel. As any invasion would have to somehow either come through all the nations between us and China or the long way around, this leaves them slow and vulnerable to the biggest hunter of slow cumbersome ships, submarines and planes. So have to be escorted, a fleet usually plods along at somewhere between 14-20knots depending on its mission and the slowest ship in it. Let's just assume 16 knots. The main fleet supply ships would only have a 4 knot advantage if they ran flat out, at their best cruise speed of 14 they never catch the fleet. Thus the fast supply ships are the only ones that could catch the fleet and keep it fed, watered and fuelled and there are only 2. 2 ships would not supply a very big force and they know our navy alone is capable of harrasing a strike force, our Collins class subs are aged but still perform outstandingly against USN and other allied forces in war games like RIMPAC. So they would need a strong anti submarine escorts for those supply ships and the fleet. That would seriously weaken their forces in the south and east China seas. Ontop of this the Chinese have a very small amount of airbourne army forces like paratroopers, in air refuelling trankers and long range bombers. So they can't do what was so effective to all other naval invasions, parachute and bomb the enemy's rear lines and disrupt supply lines and communications. They just wouldn't be able to get enough, if ANY of those.slow transport planes through our air defences, the JORN system would see them coming with hours of notice which is more than enough to not only get 75 sqns Hornets up fully loaded with anti-air loads but also to get tankers, AEWAC and fighters rolling from nos. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 33 squadrons heading north to reinforce 75. Any Chinese airbourne units that manage to make it through that would be isolated and heavily out numbered and unable to achieve their targets. So, looking at their force structure tells me that of they are planning an invasion, its on somewhere close, where the speed and protection of their supply ships would be nonfactors, where they can counter submarines with theirs, where they are in range of land based aircraft to support their bombers and transports, somewhere with minimal coast line to assault and that their carriers would pose a real threat to. Really only 2 countries that fit that set, Republic of China (no secret there) and Japan. Also possibly as a big stick to keep the 2 Korean nations from getting to carried away. Hell they would have a difficult time using their navy against India if a conflict sparked there. But ultimately they don't need any of this to castrate Australia as a military aggressor, because they do have 1 asset that we cannot counter, nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines. If I was the Chinese I'd deploy 2-3 of them around Australia, at least one deep in the Indian Ocean (we couldn't find a 777 in that ocean and its not trying to hide, a submarine is) one in the Southern Ocean (bit more dangerous as thats a long trip down there, short endurance on station) or one in the south Pacific but less places to hide. And I'd be planning to use them just once, with a low yield warhead, on Pine Gap. That is a base with lots of US personnel but its OUR base and we don't have nukes. Worst case they get 1 or 2 nukes in retaliation from USA and thats probably something they'll accept in return for us not being an aggressor and taking out the single biggest intelligence facility in the hemisphere. So yeah. China ain't invading us anything soon but those pesky subs, well I just don't see why we are antagonising them so much when they have that capability and I dont care how good the yanks were at finding Russian subs in the cold war, it was the GIUK gap that got them. And their ballistic subs were still a nightmare for NATO to keep track of. In the Indian, fuck I dont see how we'd ever find one.
Matthew Ray
2021-03-08 05:57:58 +0000 UTC
