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> they also are building capital ships, like Aircraft Carriers, and also producing ship killing Hypersonic Missiles. The Chinese need a full compliment of carr

> they also are building capital ships, like Aircraft Carriers, and also producing ship killing Hypersonic Missiles. The Chinese need a full compliment of carriers to enforce a total blockade of the island and effective hypersonic anti-ship missiles to fend off US capital ships. The launch platform (H-6N) for the hypersonics is already in their arsenal. When the carriers and missiles are available it's all over for Taiwan. This is less than 4-5 years out as China is urgently working on both. Meanwhile the US is developing LRASM, Rapid Dragon and others specifically for this scenario. The missing piece is a really long range anti-aircraft missile to threaten the H-6 fleet without exposing nuclear powered US capital ships to Chinese weapons. The F-14 would have been an ideal platform for this. Ultimately though, unless the US is willing to go all-out kinetic with China over Taiwan there is no hope. It's a small island 100 miles off the coast of an enormous, powerful, wealthy enemy with an epic chip on its shoulder, and its key ally is on the wrong side of the Pacific. Smart money can see this so advanced fabs are popping up all over the West.

dragontamer 4y ago
No one knows if those Hypersonics actually can kill a carrier though. That's what I mean by "bluster". China is publicly saying they can, but... what if they just miss the carriers in practice? What if USA can actually shoot them down and protect our carriers? It very well could be that China is just pretending that their missiles work to extract concessions during peacetime, and never actually plans to go to war. Etc. etc. There's too many futures, and the particular knowledge (ie: How good the missiles really are) is going to be top secret on both sides. No reason for China to want to let USA know how good the missiles are... no reason for USA to want to let China know how good the AEGIS Missile shield is.
- topspin 4y ago
  > No one knows if those Hypersonics actually can kill a carrier though. No one needs to. Just damaging a nuclear powered, nuclear armed carrier would be more than sufficient. Probably just making a splash near one. The design premise of these assets is fighting WW3 where the stakes are high enough to tolerate the risk, not a skirmish over a foreign island. Where they have been deployed since WW2 there was little to no risk or loss to enemy action. That is not operative with China.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    Latest wargame IIRC says USA loses 2 carriers in the defense of Taiwan. If the USA decides to defend Taiwan, it means that risking carriers becomes an acceptable risk. Remember that Taiwan controls over 60% of the world's chip production, including every single iPhone, iPad, Nintendo Switch, PS5, XBox, AMD, and NVidia chip ever made (as well as a couple of Intel Xe GPUs)... and most of those car chips also come from Taiwan. It has been identified as a critical infrastructure for even US Weapons, which rely upon some of these chips. If Taiwan is lost, that means for a few years (or more), USA can't get new military equipment... at least not with any of the fancy high tech computer parts. US Factories of all kinds, consumer electronics, car manufacturing (especially electronic critical safety equipment: antilock brakes, airbags, tire pressure monitors), most servers (AMD EPYC and NVidia A100s are Taiwan made) and even weapon manufacturing shuts down. The supply chain risk is astronomical. Two carriers would be cheap compared to the loss of Taiwan.
    - topspin 4y ago
      > Latest wargame A sincere question; what is "latest wargame?" Does "latest wargame" compute the political equivalent of an extinction level bolide impact when a US Navy nuclear aircraft carrier gets destroyed, leaving propulsion reactors and nuclear warheads on the bottom of the Pacific, not to mention a few thousand men? I'm thinking you and I have different concepts of the stakes involved here. I believe the Western establishment will need far more at stake than a couple (more) years of supply chain troubles before it will put its capital military assets in the way of the Chinese military. I suppose we'll find out. China will assert itself at some point and Taiwan is #1 on that bucket list.
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        > I believe the Western establishment will need far more at stake than a couple (more) years of supply chain troubles before it will put its capital military assets in the way of the Chinese military. You're severely underestimating the importance of Taiwan. 60% of every chip in the world, and 100% of the most advanced chips (ie: Apple iPhone, AMD EPYC, NVidia A100) comes from that island, and no one else in the world knows how to make those chips. I don't know how the economy will reorganized if Taiwan is neutralized, but it won't be pretty. It'd be an extinction level event for entire industries. ------------ USA isn't even economically tied to Ukraine, and you can see our response to that. Taiwan on the other hand, has deep ties that underpin the largest sectors of the USA's economic wellbeing. The chip issue over the past few years is nothing compared to what would happen if Taiwan were successfully blockaded by China.
- topspin 4y ago
  > what if they just miss the carriers in practice? I look to history for this question. Time and time again the navies of advanced nations have been caught off guard by anti-ship missiles. The US, UK, Israel and Russia have all had ships hit by anti-ship missiles, despite their supposed defenses. Some of those missiles were Chinese in origin. Two of those ships sank (Moskva and HMS Sheffield.) Given the record I'll take China at its word. Their missiles will likely work.

dragontamer 4y ago

No one knows if those Hypersonics actually can kill a carrier though. That's what I mean by "bluster". China is publicly saying they can, but... what if they just miss the carriers in practice? What if USA can actually shoot them down and protect our carriers? It very well could be that China is just pretending that their missiles work to extract concessions during peacetime, and never actually plans to go to war. Etc. etc. There's too many futures, and the particular knowledge (ie: How good the missiles really are) is going to be top secret on both sides. No reason for China to want to let USA know how good the missiles are... no reason for USA to want to let China know how good the AEGIS Missile shield is.

topspin 4y ago
> No one knows if those Hypersonics actually can kill a carrier though. No one needs to. Just damaging a nuclear powered, nuclear armed carrier would be more than sufficient. Probably just making a splash near one. The design premise of these assets is fighting WW3 where the stakes are high enough to tolerate the risk, not a skirmish over a foreign island. Where they have been deployed since WW2 there was little to no risk or loss to enemy action. That is not operative with China.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Latest wargame IIRC says USA loses 2 carriers in the defense of Taiwan. If the USA decides to defend Taiwan, it means that risking carriers becomes an acceptable risk. Remember that Taiwan controls over 60% of the world's chip production, including every single iPhone, iPad, Nintendo Switch, PS5, XBox, AMD, and NVidia chip ever made (as well as a couple of Intel Xe GPUs)... and most of those car chips also come from Taiwan. It has been identified as a critical infrastructure for even US Weapons, which rely upon some of these chips. If Taiwan is lost, that means for a few years (or more), USA can't get new military equipment... at least not with any of the fancy high tech computer parts. US Factories of all kinds, consumer electronics, car manufacturing (especially electronic critical safety equipment: antilock brakes, airbags, tire pressure monitors), most servers (AMD EPYC and NVidia A100s are Taiwan made) and even weapon manufacturing shuts down. The supply chain risk is astronomical. Two carriers would be cheap compared to the loss of Taiwan.
  - topspin 4y ago
    > Latest wargame A sincere question; what is "latest wargame?" Does "latest wargame" compute the political equivalent of an extinction level bolide impact when a US Navy nuclear aircraft carrier gets destroyed, leaving propulsion reactors and nuclear warheads on the bottom of the Pacific, not to mention a few thousand men? I'm thinking you and I have different concepts of the stakes involved here. I believe the Western establishment will need far more at stake than a couple (more) years of supply chain troubles before it will put its capital military assets in the way of the Chinese military. I suppose we'll find out. China will assert itself at some point and Taiwan is #1 on that bucket list.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      > I believe the Western establishment will need far more at stake than a couple (more) years of supply chain troubles before it will put its capital military assets in the way of the Chinese military. You're severely underestimating the importance of Taiwan. 60% of every chip in the world, and 100% of the most advanced chips (ie: Apple iPhone, AMD EPYC, NVidia A100) comes from that island, and no one else in the world knows how to make those chips. I don't know how the economy will reorganized if Taiwan is neutralized, but it won't be pretty. It'd be an extinction level event for entire industries. ------------ USA isn't even economically tied to Ukraine, and you can see our response to that. Taiwan on the other hand, has deep ties that underpin the largest sectors of the USA's economic wellbeing. The chip issue over the past few years is nothing compared to what would happen if Taiwan were successfully blockaded by China.
topspin 4y ago
> what if they just miss the carriers in practice? I look to history for this question. Time and time again the navies of advanced nations have been caught off guard by anti-ship missiles. The US, UK, Israel and Russia have all had ships hit by anti-ship missiles, despite their supposed defenses. Some of those missiles were Chinese in origin. Two of those ships sank (Moskva and HMS Sheffield.) Given the record I'll take China at its word. Their missiles will likely work.