5 ms·

China builds mockups of U.S. Navy ships in the desert

36 points by agomez314 5y ago

rich_sasha 5y ago
Is this so surprising, or particularly sinister? Armies practice shooting at “the other guys”. They won’t be training on pigeons or wooden carts.
- agomez314 5y ago
  I would say the ingenuity and scale is surprising.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  Mostly it's that the USA has been obsessed with Russian even since the end of the Cold War, with literally no one in DOD thinking seriously about China as a threat. Very much like 1930s Japan to be honest.
  - Jansen312 5y ago
    Had Nazi Germany coordinated with Japan to focus on Russia, we would have lost. Japanese stretch too thin across Asia Pacific islands. They would have done much better had they establish their empire on eastern Russia while Germans chomping the west side. Russians wouldn't have the manpower to mount against Germans. Affectively resulting in Germans and Japanese having a huge contigous defensible territory shielded from even nuclear bombs. Then within 5 years, they would have build enough atomic bombs and V2 rockets to wipe USA. Essentially alternate universe that Philip written in The Man in the High Castle. I'm glad I am in this universe, not Philip's. So Russia basically saved USA indirectly. The irony we treat them as the worst bad guy ever.
newaccount2021 5y ago
If it were a realistic mockup of the Ford, there would need to be a drydock included as the vessel is still two+ years away from deployment despite being accepted into the fleet nearly a decade ago.
yread 5y ago
They have all kinds of interesting models there: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33591/chinas-biggest-base-has-huge-replicas-of-taiwans-presidential-building-and-the-eiffel-tower https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33591/chinas-biggest-b...
mattlondon 5y ago
This is interesting - do modern missiles need visual facsimiles of warships for targeting? What is the value of making it look like a real ship (from above)?
- woeirua 5y ago
  Making a to-scale mockup and then targeting it with ballistic missiles would help them understand the actual accuracy of their missiles under ideal conditions. Of course, hitting a moving carrier with active defenses would be much harder, but if you can't even hit a static carrier under ideal circumstances then you have no chance of hitting a mobile one.
  - daveslash 5y ago
    Pictures 2 and 3 of the slideshow show a moving target - a ship model on rails.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  I suspect with how far AI image recognition has improved in recent years, there's going to be a lot of work with optical targetting at terminal phase. Kill chain will probably be less vunerable to electronic warfare measures.
jjk166 5y ago
I guess this means their DF21 uses some onboard optical system for terminal guidance, otherwise there would be no need for a physical mockup that visually resembles the intended target (it would otherwise be much easier to just designate a target region and measure afterwards if it landed in the region). Interestingly this might mean the DF21 is vulnerable to countermeasures that would interfere with the optics like a laser dazzler.
- woeirua 5y ago
  Not sure I would expect an optical guidance system... Would be pretty much useless >50% of the time (during night, or cloudy periods). More likely to be infrared. Carrier's are big and probably have an obvious thermal contrast against the ocean.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    IR is still optical
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  According to Wikipedia: "The DF-21D has a range estimated between 1,035 to 1,726 mi (899 to 1,500 nmi; 1,666 to 2,778 km)," So, anyway, to me this sounds like Taiwan invasion scenarios where the US might send aircraft carriers off the coast of China. If so, they would be in range for so many attack scenarios so that they'd be toast sooner than later anyway. So far since WWII the US have successfully deployed aircraft carriers because they always have control of both air and sea so their carriers are relatively safe. But that's academic since the overwhelming probability is that the US would not engage China directly and that China would not engage the US directly either because that would be catastrophic for both sides. If anything all those latest developments is China sending that message again, if needed be.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    That assumes that China just keeps firing an infinite number of missiles. In reality, there is some ratio where the tradeoff no longer makes sense. If one cheap missile can sink a multibillion dollar aircraft carrier, that's a good deal. If it takes hundreds of these missiles, that's significantly less useful. Further, carriers aren't wimps. These ships were designed to survive nuclear war, with modern damage control actually sinking a ship with a conventional explosive is incredibly difficult. More likely a hit would just result in minor damage that could be repaired at nearby bases. China stands to gain little from invading taiwan - a small province full of disloyal people whose only economic value is in advanced industry which would be destroyed in a war. America, on the other hand, stands to lose everything if it does not defend Taiwan. The moment America can't be trusted to defend its allies, its hegemony is over. No country has the means to touch America in a conventional war, any victory any other power could possibly hope for would be completely pyrrhic. The only unknown is exactly how much of the other nation would be left standing when the Americans decide to go home. There is no logical reason for America to back down first in a game of geopolitical chicken, and everyone knows it. The only winning move for China is not to play.
WalterGR 5y ago
Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29141891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29141891 (yesterday, 20 comments)
morninglight 5y ago
The U.S. Navy anticipated this form of warfare. We are prepared. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment
- throwoutway 5y ago
  I read that page. I don’t understand

36 points by agomez314 5y ago

Is this so surprising, or particularly sinister? Armies practice shooting at “the other guys”. They won’t be training on pigeons or wooden carts.

agomez314 5y ago
I would say the ingenuity and scale is surprising.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Mostly it's that the USA has been obsessed with Russian even since the end of the Cold War, with literally no one in DOD thinking seriously about China as a threat. Very much like 1930s Japan to be honest.
- Jansen312 5y ago
  Had Nazi Germany coordinated with Japan to focus on Russia, we would have lost. Japanese stretch too thin across Asia Pacific islands. They would have done much better had they establish their empire on eastern Russia while Germans chomping the west side. Russians wouldn't have the manpower to mount against Germans. Affectively resulting in Germans and Japanese having a huge contigous defensible territory shielded from even nuclear bombs. Then within 5 years, they would have build enough atomic bombs and V2 rockets to wipe USA. Essentially alternate universe that Philip written in The Man in the High Castle. I'm glad I am in this universe, not Philip's. So Russia basically saved USA indirectly. The irony we treat them as the worst bad guy ever.

newaccount2021 5y ago

If it were a realistic mockup of the Ford, there would need to be a drydock included as the vessel is still two+ years away from deployment despite being accepted into the fleet nearly a decade ago.

yread 5y ago

They have all kinds of interesting models there: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33591/chinas-biggest-base-has-huge-replicas-of-taiwans-presidential-building-and-the-eiffel-tower https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33591/chinas-biggest-b...

mattlondon 5y ago

This is interesting - do modern missiles need visual facsimiles of warships for targeting? What is the value of making it look like a real ship (from above)?

woeirua 5y ago
Making a to-scale mockup and then targeting it with ballistic missiles would help them understand the actual accuracy of their missiles under ideal conditions. Of course, hitting a moving carrier with active defenses would be much harder, but if you can't even hit a static carrier under ideal circumstances then you have no chance of hitting a mobile one.
- daveslash 5y ago
  Pictures 2 and 3 of the slideshow show a moving target - a ship model on rails.
dirtyid 5y ago
I suspect with how far AI image recognition has improved in recent years, there's going to be a lot of work with optical targetting at terminal phase. Kill chain will probably be less vunerable to electronic warfare measures.

jjk166 5y ago

I guess this means their DF21 uses some onboard optical system for terminal guidance, otherwise there would be no need for a physical mockup that visually resembles the intended target (it would otherwise be much easier to just designate a target region and measure afterwards if it landed in the region). Interestingly this might mean the DF21 is vulnerable to countermeasures that would interfere with the optics like a laser dazzler.

woeirua 5y ago
Not sure I would expect an optical guidance system... Would be pretty much useless >50% of the time (during night, or cloudy periods). More likely to be infrared. Carrier's are big and probably have an obvious thermal contrast against the ocean.
- jjk166 5y ago
  IR is still optical
mytailorisrich 5y ago
According to Wikipedia: "The DF-21D has a range estimated between 1,035 to 1,726 mi (899 to 1,500 nmi; 1,666 to 2,778 km)," So, anyway, to me this sounds like Taiwan invasion scenarios where the US might send aircraft carriers off the coast of China. If so, they would be in range for so many attack scenarios so that they'd be toast sooner than later anyway. So far since WWII the US have successfully deployed aircraft carriers because they always have control of both air and sea so their carriers are relatively safe. But that's academic since the overwhelming probability is that the US would not engage China directly and that China would not engage the US directly either because that would be catastrophic for both sides. If anything all those latest developments is China sending that message again, if needed be.
- jjk166 5y ago
  That assumes that China just keeps firing an infinite number of missiles. In reality, there is some ratio where the tradeoff no longer makes sense. If one cheap missile can sink a multibillion dollar aircraft carrier, that's a good deal. If it takes hundreds of these missiles, that's significantly less useful. Further, carriers aren't wimps. These ships were designed to survive nuclear war, with modern damage control actually sinking a ship with a conventional explosive is incredibly difficult. More likely a hit would just result in minor damage that could be repaired at nearby bases. China stands to gain little from invading taiwan - a small province full of disloyal people whose only economic value is in advanced industry which would be destroyed in a war. America, on the other hand, stands to lose everything if it does not defend Taiwan. The moment America can't be trusted to defend its allies, its hegemony is over. No country has the means to touch America in a conventional war, any victory any other power could possibly hope for would be completely pyrrhic. The only unknown is exactly how much of the other nation would be left standing when the Americans decide to go home. There is no logical reason for America to back down first in a game of geopolitical chicken, and everyone knows it. The only winning move for China is not to play.

WalterGR 5y ago

Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29141891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29141891 (yesterday, 20 comments)

morninglight 5y ago

The U.S. Navy anticipated this form of warfare. We are prepared. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment

throwoutway 5y ago
I read that page. I don’t understand