Comment by rich_sasha
4 months ago
> Wasting hours wearing down platforms to maintain crew proficiency is SUBSTANTIAL over lifetime of highend platforms.
That's a good point of course. But I guess that also means we have to figure out how to operate these vehicles with 0 crew - not even remote crew, because they would need training too. I guess that's something we can't do yet - if we could, the humans wouldn't be there already.
> XXLUUVs aren't cheap or lowend, they are highend but PRC shipbuilding advantage over US simply monumental, i.e. they can match capabilities and win attrition game on budget.
I don't doubt China's supermacy in either low or high end manufacturing. But how limited are they here by the ability to build lots of hills Vs to fill them with expensive sensors etc? It seems like a stretch to say that because they can make lots and lots of ships they can make lots and lots of sophisticated unmanned subs too. Either way, if China's industrial prowess is so much better than the US's, it sounds like they would beat NATO with or without drones - they are maybe an efficiency improvement, but if they put their heart into building normal subs, they would still out build the US.
I agree industrial capability appears to be key. NATO, vis a vis Russia, apparently knows they can't destroy all their tanks and kill every last soldier, and instead you need to target supply lines and command structures. AFAICT, this has basically informed th last few decades of NATO strategy. I guess the question is, what is the strategy "against" China. Because, you're right, if it's an attritional war then we're screwed.
> I guess the question is, what is the strategy "against" China.
- Eliminating their food calories and energy imports via effective/unrestricted submarine warfare (resulting in mass famine and internal insurrection)
- Strategic nuclear weapons
Autonomy is still prospective but high priority, US+PRC (even PRC) both have manning issues. Less total crew + different crew - cheaper to train mission specialists on software in office than actual exercises.
The problem is NATO subsurface barely exist outside of US, so they're not really relevant. Even surface fleet barely matters, if anything would probably drag US down because NATO would share US unrep. As for PRC industry they have AESA radars in <10k agriculture drones, their cruise missile gigafactory was CNCing turbofan blades, they expanded primary sub shipyard (bohai, huludao) to 24 bays (US has 5), which also does nuclear. When PRC smashes scale, it probably means they have unit costs down and something cooking.
>strategy "against" China
Honestly, I don't think there is one, or a sensible one. The "cope" strategy, is after distributing assets in 1IC, 2IC US+co can create survivable force structure that basically sinks all of PLANavy, which TBH was always the easy part. Somehow this translates to defeating PRC because it delays invasion. That's basically the TLDR of what most rational seems to boil down to. None of it talks about the fact that US+co can sink all of PLAN, but PRC mainland fires complex can basically dismantle US posture in 1st IC without a single ship, and basically lock down and islands (TW,JP,functionally SKR, PH) in perpituity. An umbrella of distributing assets are all the drone hellscape proposals that forgets PRC can outdrone everyone else. Or PRC medium/long range fires can hit/displace US posture 5000km around PRC, which includes CENTCOM/parts of EUCOM (no one ever looks west). Which is basically where thinking stops, i.e. all the strategy assumes because US can preposition hardware, it puts PRC at disproportion vunerability, but more and more we seek PRC capabilities will leak fighting outside of Indopac, including PRC pursuing global strikes, i.e. imagine if every US asset larger than 20 meters can be destroyed in under an hour. We're talking about all surface combatants, support ships, bombers, fuelers, awacs, fixed infra targets aka everything highend - the entire US expeditionary model. IMO is why golden dome exists, because PRC hitting CONUS is rocketry is a few years away from mainstream discussion. This without mentioning CONUS strategic targets. Or that if PRC dismantles US exquisit delivery platforms, they not only win the fires generation game (very hard to destroy sheltered launchers vs carriers, bombers that can be sheltered), or that in a both navy airforce gone scenario PRC has industrial base to reconstitute faster. Nevermind US+co has only fought vs adversaries with less than 50% US industrial output.