4 ms·

Many possible futures, but IMO for short/medium term projections one can narrow down if extrapolating from can be feasibly procured in time frame and limits of

• trashtester 4y ago
  Ok, I think much of what you write are high likelihood possibilities, though I think it also depends on a lot of assumptions: > ike I don't see existing fleets being overhulled for enough power generation for sustained DE use. Ford class carriers have two A1B reactors, each capable of delivering 125MW of electricity. I believe that should be enough to power quite capable DE weapons (or railguns) when/if such reach maturity. A task force of 4 carriers would have 1GW+ between them. > Only realistic answer to saturation missile strikes is advanced interceptors... Any place where you can cut the kill chain will do:- Prevent them from seeing you - Stay out of reach - Shoot down incoming missiles - Cause them to miss - Survive being hit. > IMO fighter design ... I agree with most of what you write about fighters/aircraft. > Space infra is heading starlink Satellites are relatively easy to shoot down, though. In a war where carriers are sunk, I think satellites would be fair game too. And with eyes in space, spotting ships can be hard, especially if the ships are stealthy (vs radar). > long range bombers like B21/H20 and prompt global strike Even these rely on in-flight refueling. While better missiles may make them capable of self defence over oceans, they are vulnerable over land, where adversaries may hide using the terrain. > going strait for strategic targets on adversaries home front Here I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Chaina and the US will not be able to knock out each other's infra with conventional weapons with any kind of speed, especially across continents. Air defences are too effective for that, and the targets too many and too resilient. Only after a very prolonged campaign of SEAD/DEAD followed by large scale systematic bombing could that be done. History shows that this is extremely difficult, though. (Before WW2, a lot of people were saying exactly what you say here, that strategic bombing would be MAD, but that was far from the case.) I simply don't see such a war go on for that long without nukes. As it looks now, the next great war may be over Taiwan. The first stage of such a war would be the invasion itself (possibly after some period of SEAD). During the invasion, the US (+UK/Australia) would use carriers, subs and land based air (Japanese islands) to try to help Taiwan. Most combat would occur over the oceans. I'm sure the US navy is quite busy wargaming this already, including how close to Taiwan they could risk placing their carriers. If the invasion fails, naval warfare would be less relevant. Taiwan would turn into a long term unsinkable US carrier. If Taiwan falls, and the war doesn't end, there would be a period of naval warfare. The US would seek to force China to it's knees by blocking all trade. China would have to break such a blockade to defend their superpower status (they're highly dependent on ocean-going trade for almost everything). The US might still have access to bases in Japan, the Philipines and/or some other friendly nations in the area. In this case, it would be China (and Japan) that would depend on being able to have their surface ships survive. Eventually, i believe China would be able to retain Taiwan, but if there is a multi year blockade followed by multi decade sanctions, China might well go back to being a 3rd world country. And if China should be able to break US control over the open oceans, maybe they would become the new hegemon. Or, given their recent aggressive tendencies, maybe it would unite a large coalition against them.
  • dirtyid 4y ago
    >DE + Carriers Carrier escorts do the defense. Escorts won't be nuclear, they'll have power plants for DE, but again that's replacing current DDGs with DDGX, which is decades a way. You can plop some DE on carriers themselves, but the issue is fires generation, the virtue of interceptors / missiles is you can engage multiple targets, i.e counter salvo with salvo. I'm doubtful entire CSG will have enough DE to engage 100s of incomings. A task force of 4 carriers operating together is... very risky/unlikely. I don't think DE is dead end, I just don't think it's a panacea in a naval environment. >cut the kill chain will do Context dependent, I can only evaluate with respect to PRC scenario within 1st/2nd island chain. - Prevent from seeing, unlikely. Prior point about space infra is constellations trending towards 1,000s with persistent coverage, impossible to shoot them all down. The answer to ASAT vulnerability going forward is to spam them until it becomes infeasible / not economical to shoot down entire network before they can be used to counter strike. - Stay out of reach unlikely, projected future naval air operation ranges are more or less locked in (inclusive of tanking), IRBMs will out range them, i.e. they can either stay away and maybe be safe but useless, or engage and be in danger. - Shoot down, yes but matter of magazine depth/saturation, PRC will have more firepower bandwidth than multiple carrier groups can intercept. EW/missing is a big unknown though. - Survive, IMO redundant, I think mostly assumed modern naval hulls will survive / keep floating due to advances in damage control, but being hit will likely end in mission kill. There’s also considerations like PRC systems destruction warfare that targets US weak points like replenishment fleets that supply carrier groups, or tankers or AWACs. Just taking out a handful of fast combat support ships basically turns entire navy into single deployment assets - carrier groups have just days of endurance operating at high tempo, carriers can still sail on nuke power, but unlikely without escorts. > long range bombers They're also not panacea, but in lieu of regional basing, i.e. PRC doesn't have access near the US, and US basing near PRC is not survivable, they're decent platforms to penetrate and systematically take out enemy defense networks from more survivable homelands. Especially with a fleet of 100+. Mainly "cheap" global strike options, and probably largely something the US can exploit with a good pacific tanking network... assuming survivable. PRC H20 is mainly good for up to Hawaii, but there’s a lot of US mil infra in that range (i.e. all the shit in AU) that will substantially cripple US presence. For CONUS there’s ICBM/hypersonic for…. > home front strikes Both sides are currently pursuing prompt/precise global strikes with ICBMs for a reason - 30 minutes to take out any global strategic infra that can be hit with 100M CEP. Which includes basically all power generation infra, refineries etc that are resilient, nor are ABM/defense currently feasible, especially at scale. No one has resources to ABM thousands of strategic nodes. WW2 strategic bombing failed at forcing capitulation but succeeded in breaking the war machine. No one thought it would be MAD, which was conceived post WW2 for nuclear brinkmanship. Besides DE/JP never had a chance to strategically bomb the US - it wasn't mutual. Modern global strikes are MAD, because it's mutual, and basically the escalation rung before going nuclear. It's good not to "see" such war as possible, because that's the point, mutual vulnerability = mutual deterrence. Question who is deterred more. In TW scenario, I would argue favours PRC, since they're willing to escalate further for TW. On TW: island would never turn into an unsinkable US carrier because US assets are not survivable that close to PRC, or JP, or SKR in shooting war. PH and west AU are increasingly vulnerable as well. That’s both a PRC perk and curse of geography, anyone close enough to try to contain the PRC during peacetime is close enough to be turned into glass during war by foremost industrial power. Regardless, whatever happens in Taiwan theatre, I think a US blockade is also increasingly unlikely, due to aforementioned homeland vulnerability. Blockading (act of war) PRC energy/calories is going to be met with PRC running blockade, or countering with hitting US energy/calorie infra - US sustains 130 refineries for fossil + derivatives like fertilizer. The blockade only works when the US can unilaterally enforce with impunity, which is true for all adversaries for the last 100+ years due to geography, hence why I think global strike that opens CONUS vulnerability is the MOST tectonic and LIKELY strategic development. PRC doesn't need to build military to match US like for like, which would take decades, it needs to credibly threaten US homeland to deter fight in first place. When the US can't unilaterally threaten PRC existentially without being threatened existentially back, they lose a lot of leverage and deterrence. Large factor in the US being able to intervene abroad is homeland impunity. Conventional global strike removes that. Something the US didn't have to contend with for any of her adversaries since the revolutionary war, and even then the threat wasn't existential. As for the PRC reverting to 3rd world country or coalition uniting against them. Not really possible, PRC export to the west bloc likely to sanction is like 10%... it's not nothing, but survivable. The fundamental reality is that PRC is not that trade dependent on the west anymore. Sanctioning PRC will hurt most sanctioners as much, it’s not nothing, but survivable. And as the RU/UKR war demonstrated, energy producers aren't siding with the west, they'll continue flowing oil and gas into the PRC, and PRC has enough domestic merchant shipping to be sanction proof. Meanwhile PRC calorie secure (including fertilizer that can be made by domestic coal gasification) with lots of other neutral ag producers for PRC to shift to - part of reason PRC imports stupid amounts of US is trade deal after all - while western ag will end up getting transhipped with a premium.