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Motivating the PLAN

By lex, on August 31st, 2011

As the PRC’s naval aviation arm gets going, Eugene Ely has a little helpful context (courtesy of Poco).

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August 31st, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Flying, Navy

30 comments to Motivating the PLAN

  • virgil xenophon
    August 31, 2011 at 7:11 am

    Sorry, not helpful, Lex. Reminds me of all the pre-Pearl Harbor cartoons of the Japanese depicting them as buck-toothed runts with coke-bottle glasses who couldn’t learn to fly an airplane. I remember one poster of a Navy Gob flexing his biceps with the heading; “We can whip the Japs before breakfast!” Or the comment made by a British diplomata on the veranda of the Raffels hotel in Singapore when informed of the landing of the Japanese at the cricket pitch: “Go over there and shoo the little brown people away.” NOT GOOD to underestimate one’s opponent. Not good AT ALL..

    • Edward
      August 31, 2011 at 9:36 am

      VX,

      I think Lex was pointing out in his abbreviated cryptic manner that it takes time to build a functional carrier task force — building the inventory of well-trained and experienced personnel is the hardest part. Once that capability is in place, then the knowledge can be passed on to the succeeding generations. It is the initial build-up that is long, costly and deadly.

      • Steeljaw Scribe
        August 31, 2011 at 10:12 am

        See, here’s my beef with that argument and that is it turns on what kind of CVOPS capabilty you want to have. Put it in the context of the larger mission of the PLA and PLAN CONOPS. I think the learning curve, while expectantly steep as the ship/air wing put to sea and conduct actual CVOPS, it won’t be as long as there is much that we were inventing/borrowing/learning on the fly in our run-up to today’s capabilities (cf steam cats and angle decks – NIH). Second – who’s to say the PLAN CV CONOPS will or even have to mirror ours? Do the French and Brits fly at night? Will the PLAN fly at night? What was the zero-to-Pearl-Harbor-takedown for the IJN? The key here is to see what the next generation of CVs (indigenous in design and construction and allegedly getting ready to cut metal) look like…

        Don’t underestimate or over-match — but make sure you are looking at the whole picture when conducting analysis, not just the artist’s signature in the corner.
        w/rm SJS

        • Byron
          August 31, 2011 at 7:00 pm

          SJS, it all depends on how much the PLAN intends to put on the table in terms of men and equipment (aircraft and other sundries). If they want to boot strap 20 years of institutional knowledge its going to be expensive. Not saying it can’t be done; I am saying it won’t be cheap.

  • robert
    August 31, 2011 at 7:21 am

    I agree with Virgil in underestimating an enemy. Especially an enemy with almost unlimited human resources, massive capital and the ability and willingness to steal all the technical means neccessary to defeat us. As we fund them with our dollars.

  • Grandpa Bluewater
    August 31, 2011 at 7:24 am

    Actually, hanging on to it is a lot more work than getting it. For most everything:

    Marriage
    Money
    Industry
    Agricultural adequacy.
    Rank
    Power
    Position
    Maritime supremacy

    They all tend to be a sine curve. The x axis can be short. The y axis can vary a lot too.

    Especially when the “deciders” have no idea what is actually going on, and are convinced of their own genius.

    Let’s not throw our arm out of joint patting ourselves on the back.

  • byrdman
    August 31, 2011 at 7:32 am

    I’m thinking they go the software route. We have an age where the culture of liberty can produce peerless and just warriors at great cost and effort… or the borg can assimilate what it needs and make facsimilies in great number. Hope we left a few sneaky bugs in the code for character building…

  • UltimaRatioRegis
    August 31, 2011 at 7:42 am

    Industrial/military espionage and US open source information on lessons learned will turn those 100 years into ten. Varyag is hardly Langley.

    • Byron
      August 31, 2011 at 7:01 pm

      Neither is she CVN-65…

      • UltimaRatioRegis
        September 1, 2011 at 5:13 am

        Does she need to be CVN-65? Especially if we are down to 6 or 7 CVNs when they stir the pot, say ten years from now, with three or four of their own in service? We won’t send all of our CVNs to WESTPAC, maybe 2 of those 6/7. Against 3 or 4 of their CVs. Those odds are a hell of a lot shorter than any they’ve had before.

        Don’t fool yourself. They will learn the power projection game.

  • T.G. McCoy
    August 31, 2011 at 8:13 am

    Yes but Varyag is hardly Enterprise. The Russians never got
    (as I recall) Steam Catapult right. Their SU-33 flew off their
    Carriers at a reduced load, Not exactly a loaded F/A18 or
    even an A-6. Also China (and I think this is important)
    Does not have a naval tradition. Like Say Japan. I see a learning curve here.
    I say this from a Layman’s perspective. Being student of
    Military history, but hardly an expert..
    Oh, and Watch the Japanese when China gets a real blue water
    Navy…

    • Steeljaw Scribe
      August 31, 2011 at 9:27 am

      So all you do is launch with a reduced fuel load, tank off your land-based tankers and supported by land-based AEW, all flying from a sanctuary (e.g., Hainan island) protected by triple-digit SAMs (like, oh say the HQ-9) and equivalent naval SAMs, screened by direct- or associated support SSPs or SSNs and you can raise quite a ruckus in the SCS…just offering up one potential CONOPS.

      @VX and @Sarge: +1, in spades…
      w/r, SJS

    • Grandpa Bluewater
      August 31, 2011 at 5:03 pm

      Err…Japan did not have a naval tradition in 1880, in any meaningful sense.

      Tsu Shima, 1905.

      None the less.

      Jes sayin.

    • RonF
      September 1, 2011 at 8:08 am

      The Japanese are going to have to look at someone like President Obama and consider how it was that he became President and how likely it is that someone like him might become President again. Then they will have to determine how much longer and in what regard they will continue to depend on us for national defense and what they will have to do to become more self-sufficient in that regard. I would imagine that the national consiousness over there still has horrific memories of what it’s like to be subjugated by China.

  • Sarge
    August 31, 2011 at 8:17 am

    The caliber of the weapon is not nearly as important as the will to pull the trigger.

  • Jeff Gauch
    August 31, 2011 at 8:42 am

    Any war with China would last about 45 minutes and end with glowing craters in place of Beiging, D.C., Shanghai, New York, etc.

    As long as we have the will to risk nuclear annihilation to support our allies and interests China’s conventional forces are no threat to us. If we don’t have that will then China already posseses sufficient military force to take over the region.

    • angus
      August 31, 2011 at 4:45 pm

      +1

      The Chinese carrier is not going to be effective fighting the USA.

      But the willingness of America to undertake such a war is questionable. The Chinese will use the carrier in the way the USA has against Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia and Somalia against enemies that cannot compete. How much willingness does the USA really have to protect Egypt or Saudi or Yemen?

  • Quartermaster
    August 31, 2011 at 10:51 am

    If the deciders act wisely (a big assumption) then we will have the SSN force we need to deny them access to the ocean. We need to be able to put at least 50 boats into WestPac and Indian Oceans to do that.

    • Grandpa Bluewater
      August 31, 2011 at 5:08 pm

      QM:

      That would be 150 first line SSN’s for a campaign, and a hundred for a short term surge.

      Takes 3 in hand to put one on patrol.

      We’ll to well to have 30 in a decade.
      20 if Obama gets a second term.

  • Casey
    August 31, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    Lessee, here; We have 43 LA-class attack subs, 7 Virginia-class attack subs, and 18 Ohio-class missile boats. That’s 68 for our entire fleet. Meh.

    We’re not building any more Los Angeles boats; ditto for the Ohios. So we must be talking about more Virginias. Problem is even 10 new boats per year is $18 billion, which is well over 10% of all Navy spending for the 2010 budget. That’s assuming we’re aiming for 100-150.

    If we stay on the current budget, 30 in a decade might work. At least I presume the $5.4 billion allocated to “Virginia class submarine” is getting us 3 boats for FY 2010.

    I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively lower cost of the Virginias, compared a Nimitz or Ford carrier.

    …Of course, we could have all the goodies in the world, and it wouldn’t do much good when run by bureaus who worry more about audibly flatulent Marines in Afghanistan than strategic concerns.

  • Justthisguy
    August 31, 2011 at 8:25 pm

    Funny how they got the arresting gear right the first time, and had to wait another 15-20 years to get back to a hook and some transverse ropes with some drag on them. Owhell, I reckon they had to try all of the silly Navy gizmos first… (Fore ‘n aft wires, well, umm…)

  • So?
    August 31, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    IMHO, modern carriers are meant for bludgeoning natives, not fight each other. Nuke subs are the real capital ships.

    Tradition is overrated. Jews had no martial tradition before 1948.

  • RonF
    September 1, 2011 at 8:05 am

    I can’t comment on this from a logistical viewpoint. But from a philosophical viewpoint, it seems to me that how quickly the PRC can get up to speed in carrier operations is going to be a function of how much money and how many lives they are willing to spend.

    1) They’ve got lots of our money to spend, and don’t have to worry about taking it from social spending to do so, since they don’t have to account to an electorate.

    2) They’ve got lots more lives than we do to spend – and from all indications in other examples, a lot more will to spend them. Again, note that they’re not nearly as accountable to the public in this regard as we are.
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