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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 j

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
        I really wish you had answered my question about war games. > USA isn't even economically tied to Ukraine, and you can see our response to that. There aren't any US nuclear assets at stake in Ukraine. No flag ships or other sovereign symbols. No body count of US servicemen. That's not a strong analogy.
        dragontamer 4y ago
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.

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
      I really wish you had answered my question about war games. > USA isn't even economically tied to Ukraine, and you can see our response to that. There aren't any US nuclear assets at stake in Ukraine. No flag ships or other sovereign symbols. No body count of US servicemen. That's not a strong analogy.
      - dragontamer 4y ago

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.