Author Topic: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War  (Read 392341 times)

Crafty_Dog

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My Day of LARPing in Pineland
« Reply #1000 on: February 22, 2022, 01:16:34 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: We need 500 ships
« Reply #1001 on: February 24, 2022, 04:02:03 AM »
I have questions about the vulnerabilities of ships e.g. an aircraft carrier and its support ships can be taken out by Chinese land based missiles, etc. but this article deserves consideration nonetheless:

America Needs a Bigger Navy
The disconnect between U.S. commitments and the current fleet is huge.
By The Editorial Board
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Feb. 23, 2022 6:48 pm ET
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U.S. Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex during routine operations with the 5th Fleet in the Gulf of Oman, Nov. 9, 2021.
PHOTO: MC2 JOHN MCGOVERN/U.S. NAVY/ZUMA PRESS

Storm clouds are gathering as authoritarians reach for global power, and the U.S. is going to have to decide if it wants to spend what it takes to defend itself. On that score it is good to see fresh focus on the need for a larger, more lethal Navy—which is more urgent and will be more costly than the public understands.

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WSJ Opinion Potomac Watch
Russian Tanks Roll into Ukraine


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At a conference last week the Navy’s top officer, Admiral Mike Gilday, said the country needs “a naval force of over 500 ships,” a figure informed by exercises and Pentagon analysis. The Navy, Adm. Gilday said, is “thinking about how would we fight differently” across “a wide vast ocean like the Pacific?”

The ship count includes a more diversified mix of expensive and cheaper stuff: 70 attack submarines that can operate undetected and take out targets; 150 unmanned or lightly manned vessels; 12 aircraft carriers; 60 workhorse destroyers; 50 frigates, and so on.

One certainty is that today’s 296-ship Navy is listing even under peacetime demands. Last summer the Navy had to divert its only Pacific aircraft carrier to deal with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Congress made the goal of a 355-ship Navy—in the rough ballpark of Adm. Gilday’s sketch when excluding unmanned vessels—official policy in the 2018 defense authorization, but the Navy hasn’t grown.

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Force plans are no more real than a Battleship board game without money. The Biden Administrationhas been leaking that its 2023 budget request will focus on shipbuilding, but last year’s pathetic budget proposal trimmed the account and would have put the fleet on track to shrink had Congress not intervened.

The truth is the Navy will need tens of billions of dollars a year to expand and maintain the force. Only roughly 30% of a ship’s lifetime cost is acquisition; the rest is operations and sustainment. More pricey than ships are proficient sailors, and the Navy is short more than 5,000 for crucial billets at sea. The possible return of land wars in Europe should disabuse policy makers of the fiction that this money can be sucked out of the U.S. Army.

The Navy deals in shipbuilding plans over 30-year time horizons, and Adm. Gilday is describing a force for the 2040s. But China may strike Taiwan in the near term, before Beijing must cope with demographic problems in the mid-2030s.

This combustible decade arrives as many Navy assets are reaching their expiration date without replacements. Congress has forced the Navy to keep two of seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers it asked to retire—a compromise to retain some of the fleet’s missile power while conceding that some of these antiques struggle to get off the pier.

Adm. Gilday nonetheless deserves some credit for pressing the issue, and too few flag officers are educating Americans on the threat of Russia and China. Tedious argot like “distributed maritime operations” has been a substitute for clear articulation of a strategy.

It’s up to the Biden Administration to devote the money and political capital to protect the country, and so far it has been willing to spend on every priority except defense. Americans born since World War II have no frame of reference for the magnitude of casualties and damage that would accompany a Pacific conflict with a peer military like China. The way to avoid this is to prepare for it without delay.

G M

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ccp

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1003 on: March 03, 2022, 05:21:53 AM »
we have a choice in my work
F M or O

"O" for "other"

Sometimes I have to look hard to determine if I am speaking to a genetic male or female
I am not even sure if it is a microagression if I ask.

I think it ok to ask , "how would you like to be addressed?"

if the ) says as the Empire State Building I then wonder if it is polite and ok to ask "can I call you ESB for short.

 :-o

Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: March 06, 2022, 11:09:03 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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George Friedman: Russian tanks
« Reply #1005 on: March 11, 2022, 07:05:30 AM »
March 11, 2022
View On Website
Open as PDF

    
The Tank and I
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
In 1972, I was wandering aimlessly around a U.S. Army facility in Pennsylvania called Fort Indiantown Gap. Eventually, I passed two M-60 armored fighting vehicles – the Army’s longhand for tanks. The sounds they made nearly tore my head off. An NCO, whose rank I couldn’t make out, arrived to complete the job on my head. Had I been able to think, I would have pointed out I outranked him (a meaningless rank given to civilians and held in utter contempt by anyone who was actually a soldier).

It was a pivotal moment in my life. I heard the voice of God as the 105 reverberated between tanks. I learned that I had used up my quarter of His mercy, and I learned what Gen. George Patton knew – that the armored warrior now sat in a tank and ruled the battlefield.

Thus began my love of tanks. I have since traveled often to Aberdeen Proving Ground, which had a superb armor museum, including Soviet T-34s and 54s, German Panthers and a Cromwell French AMX. I taught myself about anti-tank weapons. Many years later, I returned to Fort Indiantown Gap with my not-yet wife. She brought a picnic. Two A-10s came in low and fast. A-10s were tank killers. They carried armor-piercing rounds, and they were built to kill. I told my future wife to watch one jink to the right and release a flare, designed to deflect infrared-guided missiles. I thought my knowledge would impress her, but alas I was offered mustard instead.

In the late 1970s, I went to the SHAPE Technical Center in The Hague, where advanced lunacy was funded by NATO. I was there to help design an early computerized wargame for the central front of NATO. What we had to model above all else was the tank. Tank formations were to be the Russian spearhead, we learned from their exercises. A-10s were to slow them down, but sadly, they were not, as it was put, survivable. So we had to model an armor-on-armor wargame. The idea was to move tanks forward into blocking positions. We discovered the obvious: Tanks need fuel, and the battle of the central gap was going to be won not by killing tanks but by hitting fuel dumps. This was not my discovery, but I learned to repeat the obvious as if it were my own.

The armor war would be won by intelligence – on the location of Soviet fuel storage facilities, for example – and by fighter planes able to deliver missiles and explosives to destroy them. I’m proud to say I discovered that if NATO did nothing, the Soviets would bog down near Hanover, Germany, due to road problems and limits on fuel deliveries. In this scenario, we did not need fighters, we did not need intelligence, we didn’t even have to be there. The Soviets would screw themselves. I added this point: If the Soviets could attack, they would. That argument was dismissed by my superiors. In retrospect, the likelihood of anyone listening to a 25-year-old was, understandably, zero. Here was a man too stupid not to wander on an armored firing range. And they were right. But none of it diminished my love of tanks.

In 1973, my love was challenged, as loves always are. I had forgiven the A-10 for killing tanks because it was such a fine aircraft. But that year, Egypt crossed the Suez Canal armed with a Soviet weapon called the AT-3 Sagger (a NATO designation). It was a mobile, crew-operated, optically guided anti-tank missile. One guy mounted the weapon, one guy squatted at a sight and guided the missile almost unerringly to its target, with the ability to penetrate existing armor, or at least make the tank crew's ears bleed. It devastated the Israeli armor force, the pride of Israel. Armored forces now needed infantrymen to sweep an area for Sagger crews before the tank could move forward. And just like that, the tank went from the knight of the battlefield, the shield of the infantry, to a pathetic has-been.

It was an instructive moment in the history of warfare: The tank could be destroyed by some infantrymen hiding in the bushes. It could be saved only by our own infantry sweeping the bushes to get rid of them. It was a lesson that the advocates of armor had trouble believing. They kept trying to find armor that could not be penetrated. Their enemies kept finding new explosives to penetrate it. What the A-10 started, the AT-3 Saggar finished. Armor was heavy, guzzled staggering amounts of fuel, had to be loaded with incredibly heavy munitions, and had to constantly be modified at great expense – only for new kinds of anti-tank systems to follow in kind.

The British and Americans have sent Ukraine Javelin missile systems to fend off the Russian invasion. This nasty thing is a tank killer that when fired pops up, finds the thinnest part of the armor on top of the tank, and destroys it. Almost anyone can use it so long as they learn some basic tactics. When I see the sights of Russian T-72s stalled on the road to Kyiv, I am pretty sure a Javelin took out the first few tanks and last few. It’s ironic that in Egypt the Soviets introduced the first infantry-delivered precision-guided anti-tank weapon, and the Russians chose to structure their invasion of Ukraine with three tank groups to fight infantry. For God's sake, they introduced the weapon to the battlefield. Did they forget?

For Russia, the only solution is to go find the infantry that is killing their tanks, and until then, not use tanks. That seems to be their choice, and strategically I can’t blame them. President Vladimir Putin and I are about the same age. He was a KGB agent stationed in Germany. I was a sad loser on the other side of the divide. But both of us grew up getting ready for the war we knew was coming, and we both grew up hearing about Patton and Zhukov. Of course, we had heard of precision-guided munitions and infantry-mounted anti-tank missiles. We heard of top attack drones and satellite-based sighting. But in the end, I think he couldn’t imagine a war in which the spearhead was something other than a tank. It is to the greatness of my country that no one would let me plan a war. It is the pity of Russia that Putin still thought of war as he had been taught to think of it, and apparently no one told him things had changed.

Then again, I understand how hard it is to outgrow the awe of seeing 50 tons of sheer power moving and shooting on two treads. In that sense, I envy Putin's power to order three battlegroups of T-72s to button up and move out. I guess we are both crazy, but I can’t cause any damage with my fantasies. Putin can. He is fighting the war our generation always expected, hundreds of tanks rolling forward to engage. It’s like using the cavalry to win World War I. Nostalgia can be dangerous.


G M

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Re: 87 potential new names for Confederate named Army posts
« Reply #1007 on: March 17, 2022, 09:46:30 PM »

ccp

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1008 on: March 18, 2022, 05:19:28 AM »
chelsea manning

and any of these :

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/list-police-related-deaths-usa-1.4438618

or any prominent Democrat.  or Democrat general .....

do even but a few people even know who the Civil War generals after whom these bases are named are?

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Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: America's declining military
« Reply #1010 on: March 30, 2022, 12:28:16 AM »
America’s Declining Military
Biden’s budget widens a window of vulnerability for at least a decade.
By The Editorial Board
Follow
March 29, 2022 6:42 pm ET


Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has alerted most Americans that the world is becoming a far more dangerous place. Count it as a befuddling failure, then, that the military budget President Biden unveiled Monday doesn’t meet the moment. It treads water amid inflation and invites autocrats to exploit a widening window of American weakness.

The Pentagon is seeking $773 billion for fiscal 2023, and spending on national defense reaches $813 billion when other accounts are included. This sounds large, and Mr. Biden is pitching it as a big increase over his request last year. But even defense officials say the Pentagon would see only a 1.5% real increase over last year’s funding after inflation. Defense spending will still be about 3.1% of the economy, close to post-Cold War lows and heading lower over the next decade. (See the nearby chart.)

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The Administration calls China a “pacing challenge,” and Russia an “acute threat,” and it touts $130 billion for research and development, including crucial efforts on artificial intelligence and 5G applications. Also welcome is $24.7 billion for missile defense, including a badly needed $892 million to defend Guam from Chinese missiles, and $27.6 billion for space capabilities. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative would get $6.1 billion.

But the overall budget picture is that the Biden team is betting on weapons that don’t yet exist for a war they hope arrives on someone else’s watch. They want to save money now in order to spend on what they say will be a more modern force in a decade.


To this end, the 298-ship U.S. Navy would buy only nine ships next year while retiring 24. The fleet would shrink to 280 ships in 2027, even as the Navy says it needs a fleet of 500 to defeat China in a conflict. That trend won’t impress Xi Jinping as he eyes Taiwan.

As for the Army, Mr. Putin’s revanchism will require more forward deployments by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The alliance will need more troops and hardware in the Baltics, and much of this will have to come from the land branch. But the Army is seeking $177.5 billion, barely up from $174.7 billion last year and a cut after inflation.

End strength would fall to 473,000 from the 485,000 authorized last year. The Army shrugs because it hasn’t been able to fill all its spots in a hot labor market. This may relieve a recruiting headache for some general, but it won’t reduce the threats the Army may have to address in multiple theaters.

The Air Force “is now the smallest, oldest, and least ready it has ever been in its 75-year history,” as the Air Force Association put it this week, but the Pentagon plans to cut its buy of F-35 fighter jets this year.

The Air Force wants 33 F-35s, down from 48 requested in years past, which was still too few to upgrade the fleet in any reasonable time. In a future conflict, the U.S. will need these advanced aircraft to survive against sophisticated air defenses. Reducing purchases will put pressure on the supply chain and raise the per copy cost of the aircraft.

These hard-power priorities were squeezed in order to request, with great self-congratulation, $3.1 billion for climate change. This is consistent with a White House that wants to create a Civilian Climate Corps with more personnel than the Marine Corps. This $3.1 billion could be spent on weapons. The Navy’s ship retirements save $3.6 billion over five years, and the country needs that offensive power more than it does electric vans.

A couple more questionable decisions: The Administration appears to have canceled a program to develop a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, precisely the kind of weapon designed to deter Mr. Putin from using tactical nukes in Europe. The Air Force also wants to retire much of its aging airborne warning and control fleet (Awacs) without a replacement in hand, but this capability is essential to air dominance in any conflict.

***
A decades-long decline in American military power is an under-appreciated reason the world’s authoritarians are on the march. We never thought we’d write this given its penchant for military pork, but Congress can do a lot to improve the Pentagon request, which should be a baseline. Republicans are suggesting the military budget needs to grow 5% in real terms. Congress should set a goal of returning the U.S. to its deterrent strength of the Cold War years, when defense spending was 5% or more of the economy.

If lawmakers don’t intervene, the U.S. might not be ready for the next war until a decade after we lose it.

G M

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Re: WSJ: America's declining military
« Reply #1011 on: March 30, 2022, 07:43:17 AM »
It’s almost like the people running things are paid off by China.

America’s Declining Military
Biden’s budget widens a window of vulnerability for at least a decade.
By The Editorial Board
Follow
March 29, 2022 6:42 pm ET


Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has alerted most Americans that the world is becoming a far more dangerous place. Count it as a befuddling failure, then, that the military budget President Biden unveiled Monday doesn’t meet the moment. It treads water amid inflation and invites autocrats to exploit a widening window of American weakness.

The Pentagon is seeking $773 billion for fiscal 2023, and spending on national defense reaches $813 billion when other accounts are included. This sounds large, and Mr. Biden is pitching it as a big increase over his request last year. But even defense officials say the Pentagon would see only a 1.5% real increase over last year’s funding after inflation. Defense spending will still be about 3.1% of the economy, close to post-Cold War lows and heading lower over the next decade. (See the nearby chart.)

'05
'10
'15
'20
'25
'30
1980
'85
'90
'95
2000
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
%
The Administration calls China a “pacing challenge,” and Russia an “acute threat,” and it touts $130 billion for research and development, including crucial efforts on artificial intelligence and 5G applications. Also welcome is $24.7 billion for missile defense, including a badly needed $892 million to defend Guam from Chinese missiles, and $27.6 billion for space capabilities. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative would get $6.1 billion.

But the overall budget picture is that the Biden team is betting on weapons that don’t yet exist for a war they hope arrives on someone else’s watch. They want to save money now in order to spend on what they say will be a more modern force in a decade.


To this end, the 298-ship U.S. Navy would buy only nine ships next year while retiring 24. The fleet would shrink to 280 ships in 2027, even as the Navy says it needs a fleet of 500 to defeat China in a conflict. That trend won’t impress Xi Jinping as he eyes Taiwan.

As for the Army, Mr. Putin’s revanchism will require more forward deployments by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The alliance will need more troops and hardware in the Baltics, and much of this will have to come from the land branch. But the Army is seeking $177.5 billion, barely up from $174.7 billion last year and a cut after inflation.

End strength would fall to 473,000 from the 485,000 authorized last year. The Army shrugs because it hasn’t been able to fill all its spots in a hot labor market. This may relieve a recruiting headache for some general, but it won’t reduce the threats the Army may have to address in multiple theaters.

The Air Force “is now the smallest, oldest, and least ready it has ever been in its 75-year history,” as the Air Force Association put it this week, but the Pentagon plans to cut its buy of F-35 fighter jets this year.

The Air Force wants 33 F-35s, down from 48 requested in years past, which was still too few to upgrade the fleet in any reasonable time. In a future conflict, the U.S. will need these advanced aircraft to survive against sophisticated air defenses. Reducing purchases will put pressure on the supply chain and raise the per copy cost of the aircraft.

These hard-power priorities were squeezed in order to request, with great self-congratulation, $3.1 billion for climate change. This is consistent with a White House that wants to create a Civilian Climate Corps with more personnel than the Marine Corps. This $3.1 billion could be spent on weapons. The Navy’s ship retirements save $3.6 billion over five years, and the country needs that offensive power more than it does electric vans.

A couple more questionable decisions: The Administration appears to have canceled a program to develop a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, precisely the kind of weapon designed to deter Mr. Putin from using tactical nukes in Europe. The Air Force also wants to retire much of its aging airborne warning and control fleet (Awacs) without a replacement in hand, but this capability is essential to air dominance in any conflict.

***
A decades-long decline in American military power is an under-appreciated reason the world’s authoritarians are on the march. We never thought we’d write this given its penchant for military pork, but Congress can do a lot to improve the Pentagon request, which should be a baseline. Republicans are suggesting the military budget needs to grow 5% in real terms. Congress should set a goal of returning the U.S. to its deterrent strength of the Cold War years, when defense spending was 5% or more of the economy.

If lawmakers don’t intervene, the U.S. might not be ready for the next war until a decade after we lose it.

ccp

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Crafty_Dog

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US Army Transgender
« Reply #1013 on: April 01, 2022, 02:30:17 AM »

ccp

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news favorite war photographer contracts with defense department
« Reply #1014 on: April 01, 2022, 04:29:33 AM »
https://newrepublic.com/article/165910/maxar-ukraine-russia-satellite-images-war-propaganda

funny
we keep hearing how people would not trust anything Putin says

but I also don't trust anything our own government or big tech says just the same.

Crafty_Dog

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D1: What lessons is China taking from the Uke War?
« Reply #1015 on: April 03, 2022, 05:35:43 AM »
What Lessons is China Taking from the Ukraine War?
From battlefield concepts to geopolitics, Beijing is sure to be watching with avid interest—and some chagrin.
By THOMAS CORBETT, MA XIU and PETER W. SINGER
APRIL 3, 2022 08:00 AM ET
COMMENTARY
THE CHINA INTELLIGENCE
CHINA
EUROPE
STRATEGY
Operation Desert Storm was a turning point in modern Chinese military history. As military planners with the People’s Liberation Army watched U.S. and allied forces make short work of the world’s fourth-largest military (on paper), equipped with many of the same systems as the PLA, it became obvious that China’s quantitatively superior but qualitatively lacking massed infantry would stand no chance against the combination of modern weaponry, C4ISR, and joint operations seen in Iraq. The result was new military concepts and over two decades of often-difficult reforms, which produced the modern, far more capable, “informationized” PLA of today.

Today, the PLA is no doubt closely observing its Russian contemporaries in Ukraine as they under-perform in multiple areas, from failing to take key targets or claim air supremacy to running low on fuel and supplies and possibly experiencing morale collapse, and surely taking away lessons that will shape its own future. Of note, Russia’s experience appears to have confirmed many of China’s recent assumptions behind its investments, such as the utility of unmanned aerial systems in high-intensity conflict, as well as the necessity for the PLA’s 2015 reforms, which aim to fix many of the issues driving Russian failure that the PLA recognizes in itself.

Of the many issues that have contributed to Russia’s physical battlefield woes in Ukraine, one of the most important has been the lack of effective joint or combined arms operations, widely considered essential to any effective modern fighting force. Russia’s poor level of coordination between its various services and branches can only be generously described as incompetent. For example, it has repeatedly failed to provide effective air support to its ground forces or deconflict its air and air-defense forces to avoid friendly fire.

The PLA has long had its own serious issues with joint operations. Traditionally dominated by the Army, the PLA had little success developing a truly joint force until a series of sweeping reforms in 2015 that replaced the former Army-dominated system with a series of joint theater commands. The PLA is thus aware of its own shortcomings and taking steps to fix it, but likely remains far off from being able to conduct truly effective, seamless joint operations. Efforts to conduct joint exercises are becoming more common, but most senior PLA leaders are still relatively inexperienced with joint operations, and even new officers typically do not receive joint education below the corps level. Further, it remains to be seen how far these reforms will go or to what extent they will “stick;” indeed, one reason the PLA did not attempt these reforms until 2015 was because of strong institutional pushback from the Army, whose leaders wished to retain their dominant status.


To China, the Ukraine invasion will reinforce the importance of joint and combined arms operations, while also making clear that such operations are highly difficult to conduct in practice. Russia’s stumbles may give the PLA pause as to whether it is truly ready for all the joint elements that a successful Taiwan seizure would require, including close coordination between sea, air, and land forces.

Another issue which has contributed to Russia’s military woes is the low quality of its conscript force. Indeed, Ukraine has even turned images of Russian POW conscripts being allowed to call their mothers into a weapon in its information warfare. While some militaries, such as Israel, have managed to maintain a high-quality conscript force, a full-time professional force is generally considered to hold numerous substantial advantages, which is why most of the Western world now uses a voluntary recruitment model. Despite the copious hyper-masculine recruiting videos which so excited certain Western politicians, Russia has struggled to attract enough voluntary recruits to move away from its current system of 12-month conscription.

Despite some recent success in recruiting a higher-quality, more-educated voluntary force, the PLA has likewise failed to move away from conscription. It presently requires about 660,000 two-year conscripts, many lacking even partial high-school education, to fill out its ranks. While this does not bode well for the PLA’s ability to conduct complex operations, one area where the PLA may have an advantage over its Russian counterparts is in the area of motivation. The Russian conscripts are not just poorly trained, but also suffer from low morale. Many among the invasion force did not know why they were going to Ukraine, or even that they were going to Ukraine at all. By contrast, the PLA places heavy emphasis on personnel political education, and Chinese conscripts have been raised from an early age to believe in the necessity of “liberating” Taiwan. Still, the PLA is surely watching with concern as a conscript force with at least some similarities to its own fares so poorly, and will likely redouble their campaign to attract more, and preferably higher-quality, voluntary recruits.

Russia also allowed its adversary to dominate the information environment. Due to a combination of overly optimistic assumptions about the political weakness of its foe and logistical reliance on its target’s own communications networks, Russia never launched the long-feared effort to take down Ukrainian communications networks. Putin’s strategists wrongly believed that its own messaging and rapid military advances would go viral across these networks and aid in collapsing the Ukrainian state. As well, many of Russia’s units turned out to need access to Ukrainian civilian networks for their own operations.

Instead, the Zelenskyy regime turned the tables on Russia, winning the information war inside both Ukraine and the West, and in so doing, transforming the greater war. Deft Ukrainian government messaging and a mobilized civilian populace created a new sense of domestic unity, as well as mobilizing essential military aid and historic economic sanctions from a widened network of global allies. In turn, Russian use of civilian networks made it susceptible to intercepts and geolocated targeting of its units. The PLA has streamlined coordination between its cyber, electronic warfare, space, and information warfare efforts through the recent creation of the Strategic Support Force, indicating it recognizes the importance of information dominance. It can be expected to redouble its efforts at cyber/information warfare, as well as encrypted communications, to ensure its own operations don’t suffer the same flaws.

Another ongoing issue has been Russia’s serious problems with poor logistics. The sight of broken-down or abandoned vehicles has become common as Russian forces run out of fuel and other vital supplies. To its credit, the PLA has also been rapidly reforming and modernizing its logistical system as part of the same broad set of 2015 reforms. As part of these reforms, the PLA has emphasized its logistics organizations and created the Joint Logistics Support Force. This force’s training has focused on cooperation with other branches of the PLA, and it has cut its teeth training to establish supply lines during natural disasters. In 2018, the JLSF launched its first major exercise, dubbed “Joint Logistics Support Mission 2018,” featuring medical drones, helicopter-dropped refueling depots, and operations in harsh and remote terrain.

However, while the outward manifestation of many of the issues faced by the Russian military appear to be logistical in nature, the true heart of the issue may be corruption. There are reports that before the invasion Russian military officers sold off their fuel and food supplies, and that these corrupt practices may be responsible for the stalling of a Russian tank column outside Kyiv. In this regard, the PLA has much to fear. Corruption has plagued the PLA for decades, with some PLA officers bluntly stating in 2015 that it could undermine China’s ability to wage war. Reportedly, more than 13,000 PLA officers have been punished in some capacity for corruption since Xi Jinping took power, including more than a hundred generals. This was a particular problem in the logistics sector, where there are more opportunities for corruption and links to the civilian economy.

Yet, despite the reorganization of the PLA and widespread prosecution of corruption cases, it still appears to be a major issue. Anti-corruption efforts are ongoing, with Chinese Gen. Zhang Youxia recently calling for innovative measures to keep up the fight. But the fact that Fu Zhenghua, the man brought in to take down the corrupt former security chief Zhou Yongkang, is himself now under investigation for corruption does not bode well for the long-term effectiveness of China’s efforts. The troubled invasion of Ukraine provides a stark real-world example to Xi, the CCP, and PLA about the impact corruption can have on military effectiveness, and will no doubt cause them to redouble their anti-corruption efforts with a newfound urgency. However given its similar authoritarian system and emphasis on career advancement through patronage, systemic corruption may be baked into the system.

Finally, there is the strategic issue of Beijing’s reaction to the global sanctions that have hit the Russian ruble and economy. The swift and severe economic retaliation of the U.S., EU, and others took Moscow by surprise. Even more unexpected was the rapid withdrawal of almost 500 global corporations, pushed on by an effective effort at naming and shaming them into acting to protect their own brands. A longer-term effort targeting essential elements of Russia’s defense industry will hamstring it for years.

While China will benefit from Russia’s increasing reliance on its goods and services, Beijing can be expected to retool its geo-economic strategy to reduce its vulnerability to a similar nightmare scenario. For example, it will likely redouble its efforts to promote its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System—an alternative to the SWIFT international banking system—among its strategic partners and foreign aid recipients in the developing world. 

Likewise, China’s recent “Dual Circulation” economic strategy appears to be aimed at countering a decoupling from China’s trade partners. Further, Beijing has surely observed how easy it was for corporations to withdraw from Moscow. If China is to be exposed to the risk of global sanctions and corporate withdrawal, so too are countries and corporations exposed to dependence on the world’s second-largest economy, and thus the government will likely take efforts to make any sanctions or corporate turn against China as painful a prospect as possible. Either way, policymakers in Washington need to understand that the sanctions being used today against Russia are unlikely be as effective the next time around, as China is not just a different economy, but also will learn from the current conflict and adjust accordingly.

For all these valuable lessons, there is little doubt that China has been watching the ongoing conflict with no small amount of chagrin. Chinese leaders are reportedly surprised and unsettled by the poor military performance of its Russian partners, Ukraine’s resistance, and the level of solidarity from the international community. The image of a much smaller state, against all odds, successfully resisting a larger neighbor surely sits uneasily in the psyches of CCP apparatchiks and PLA officials. It also counters the narrative of overwhelming force and grim inevitability Beijing has sought to instill in the psyches of the Taiwanese people. It is notable that early attempts by Chinese state media to capitalize on the Ukraine invasion in precisely this fashion, illustrating how the United States will surely abandon Taiwan when the chips are down, quietly ceased after the initial days of the war, when it became apparent that the U.S. was not, in fact, abandoning Ukraine. Beyond purely psychological factors, Ukraine also offers a blueprint for successful resistance via asymmetric warfare very similar to Taiwan’s proposed Overall Defense Concept, perhaps giving a jolt to a plan that most analysts agree offers Taiwan its best chance of success against the PLA but has stalled out in the face of bureaucratic resistance.

While China and the PLA will surely watch Ukraine closely and try to take away the correct lessons, there is one uncomfortable parallel which China may be unable to avoid by the very nature of its authoritarian system. The runup to the Ukraine invasion featured multiple strategic miscalculations by Putin, driven at least in part by him surrounding himself with the yes-men who inevitably cling to authoritarian leaders, eager to please and afraid to speak truth to power. This was obvious in the visibly uncomfortable reaction of Russia’s SVR (foreign intelligence) chief as he was publicly pressured to agree with Putin in the days leading up to the war, as well as in the sackings and arrests of multiple military and intelligence officials after the war turned poorly. Authoritarian leaders have systemic problems in gaining reliable intelligence, oftentimes magnified by their overconfidence in their own singular understanding of a situation. As China continues its slide away from a system of intra-Party consensus toward a one-man cult of personality in which dissenting views are increasingly unwelcome, Xi is bound to encounter the same problem. It is unclear whether Xi will learn this lesson from Putin, or make his own similar miscalculations in the future towards China’s own neighbors.

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Re: D1: What lessons is China taking from the Uke War?
« Reply #1016 on: April 03, 2022, 08:11:32 AM »
Likewise, what lessons is Taiwan taking from the Ukraine defense.

On the first part, I would say China can ill-afford to either have the world isolate it economically or to have a billion and a half people turn against the handful that brutally rule them.

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WSJ: Our shrinking navy
« Reply #1017 on: April 05, 2022, 01:33:51 AM »
The Shrinking U.S. Navy
The Biden budget would build nine ships next year but retire 24.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
Updated April 4, 2022 7:16 pm ET


President Biden says he’ll boost defense spending next year because the world is more dangerous. But the budget details don’t match his rhetoric, and Exhibit A is the bleak outlook for the Navy. The bill for decades of complacency and neglect is coming due at a dangerous moment, as China ramps up its fleet.

The Navy’s 2023 budget released last week asks to purchase nine ships while retiring 24, and you don’t need an advanced math degree to understand that will shrink the 298-ship fleet. The Navy’s estimates show the fleet contracting to 280 ships in 2027. A congressional aide tells us the Navy is essentially double-counting a ship Congress already authorized, so at eight new ships the Navy adds one for every three it would scrap.

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Meanwhile, the Navy’s top officer has said that a Navy capable of defeating peer adversaries like China needs about 350 ships and another 150 unmanned or lightly manned vessels, for a total of 500. A reasonable observer may wonder how the Navy plans to grow by getting smaller.

The truth is the Navy finds itself without the resources to expand its fleet or sustain its current ships, and some of its inventory is ill-suited for the next fight. The Navy wants to retire nine littoral combat ships, arguably the service’s biggest acquisition failure of all time in a crowded field. As usual with these Pentagon disasters, the admirals and civilians responsible have long since left the building.


The littoral ship designed to operate in shallow waters has struggled to carry out any useful mission. One marked for retirement was commissioned less than two years ago. The USS Detroit and USS Little Rock, slated for early retirement, “both experienced major propulsion issues to their engines in 2020, which rendered both ships inoperable,” the Government Accountability Office reported in February. “The Navy terminated both deployments early to perform repairs on these ships.”

It is tempting to stop throwing money down this hole, but the Navy’s replacement, a new frigate, is still in development and years away from entering the fleet. Meanwhile, the Navy wants to retire five cruisers that each pack more than 120 missile tubes—serious offensive firepower—arguing that the 30-plus-year-old ships are so rundown they’re unsafe.

As the U.S. debates its least-bad options for managed decline, China is laying hulls. The chart nearby illustrates how China’s fleet will soon dwarf the U.S. Navy. No matter, some say, since U.S. ships are more capable. But quantity is underrated in preventing wars and surviving them if they start. The Pacific isn’t the world’s only water to police. The U.S. Navy has been spending less time in the Black Sea in recent years, according to one analysis, and Vladimir Putin may have priced that into his Ukraine invasion calculation.

Congress last year intervened to buy more ships, and it will need to come to the rescue again. Promising ideas for making the most out of ships in the water: Outfitting the littoral combat ships with the long-range Naval Strike Missile, or tying up the poor old cruisers to do air defense over Guam.

But the Navy’s proposal to retire two dozen ships to save $3.6 billion over five years—a tiny fraction of the service’s budget, as Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria has pointed out—suggests the institution lacks a strategy as well as money. Americans have grown accustomed to peaceful seas over the past 70 years, but that luxury will fade if the U.S. Navy does.

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WSJ: American logistics for Taiwan
« Reply #1018 on: April 07, 2022, 07:27:55 AM »
Russia’s Military Troubles in Ukraine Could Be America’s in the Pacific
If the U.S. doesn’t improve its logistics, a defense of Taiwan against China is likely to fail.
By Seth Cropsey
April 6, 2022 12:32 pm ET


Western observers of Russia’s failure in Ukraine likely will soon begin arguing that Moscow’s inefficiencies diminish Washington’s need to rebuild the U.S. military. But Russian failure has stemmed from logistical issues, and the U.S. military’s capabilities, like Russia’s, aren’t prepared for major combat with a global power.


The Russian military didn’t invest enough in logistics, despite spending lavishly on the polished hardware that appears in military parades. The Russian military, like its Soviet predecessor, remains a conscript force and has neither enough professional noncommissioned officers to maintain equipment nor enough officers trained in logistics. In combat, there is a major difference between a military driver with three years of training and an 18-year-old conscript with a driver’s license. The Russians expected a Ukrainian collapse, but logistical incompetence prevented Russia from supporting multiple fronts simultaneously. Russia has now withdrawn its bloodied units from northeastern Ukraine toward the Donbas region and has abandoned a significant amount of armor and artillery in the process.

It is tempting to ascribe this failure to authoritarian conditions and assume that American and allied armed forces would be immune to such incompetence. But the U.S. military may encounter logistical problems at a similar scale to Russia if the U.S. defends Taiwan against an assault by China. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) isn’t the Russian military, nor does it face the same operational difficulties.

The U.S. has one crucial advantage over Russia: American forces designated for immediate engagement have more resources and are more capable than their Russian counterparts. The U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups and submarines operate constantly in the Indo-Pacific, with two strike groups and some two dozen submarines deployed. These forces could defend Taiwan during a week of intense combat around the Taiwan Strait and West Philippine Sea. But after a week American advantages would decline.

Unlike Russia, China wouldn’t need to operate at a major scale in enemy territory. Taiwan is 14,000 square miles, compared with Ukraine at 233,000 square miles. The Taiwan Strait is about 110 miles wide. The PLA’s current difficulty is on land. It doesn’t have the amphibious capacity to sustain a beachhead from which ground operations on Taiwan can be launched. But it has built a navy capable of high-end combat, with a large, diverse missile arsenal that can bombard any target within the First Island Chain and provide cover for warships moving into the West Philippine Sea.

Because of Taiwan’s limited antiship missile arsenal and restricted naval capabilities, Chinese aircraft and warships could return to the mainland to rearm, defended by a comprehensive ground-based antiair network. China would need to project power only 300 miles from its coast using long-range missiles and submarines to keep U.S. forces at arm’s length as it assaults Taiwan after disabling the island’s air defenses.

In contrast, the U.S. would need to sustain forces across thousands of miles of open ocean sparsely dotted with islands. The most important is Guam, America’s crucial Indo-Pacific logistics hub, which is vulnerable to Chinese missile attack. Improved missile defenses, and a permanent offensive U.S. military presence on Guam and throughout the Marianas archipelago, would improve the island’s defensibility. Currently, Joint Region Marianas has five home-ported submarines, no permanent fighters or bombers, and a seasonally rotated surveillance drone unit. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has yet to deploy a permanent missile defense system on the island.

U.S. military equipment and support would need to be transported to Guam or further to U.S. forces operating in theater. American warships have more experience than any other nation’s with the refuel and resupply of warships at sea. But replenishment in an active combat theater is dramatically different than in peacetime, and the U.S. has had few logistical obstacles in conflicts since World War II.

The U.S. can’t sustain the flow of men and materiel to a combat zone for longer than a few months. The U.S. Military Sealift Command is designed for peacetime sustainment, not wartime support. The Chinese military would target MSC ships with missiles and perhaps with submarines. There are far too few American-flagged tankers to fill the logistical gap, and the U.S. can’t depend on foreign-flagged shipping.

Even if a vessel is “friendly” flagged, international maritime transport is a fluid business, and actors fair and foul often use shell companies to maximize transport consistency and flexibility. An allied-flagged merchant vessel could be under indirect Chinese or Russian ownership and refuse to transport American goods or be compromised for intelligence purposes. Of the U.S.-flagged fleet, a significant portion would need to remain dedicated to domestic transport between American ports during wartime.

The U.S. could turn to its National Defense Reserve Fleet, a group of mothballed merchant and transport ships kept floating for reactivation in a crisis. Allegedly, this fleet’s Ready Reserve Force of 41 ships could be activated within five to 10 days, and ideally in under 48 hours. During a 2019 test, however, only 60% of these ships were seaworthy within that time, and only 40% could leave port.


Ready Reserve Force ships would need to be manned by merchant mariners. But the U.S. Merchant Marine is shrinking: Poor pay, long hours, low funding, and outsourcing have created an aging workforce. This restricted labor pool would be exhausted in months. Then the U.S. would face a logistical crisis on par with Russia’s, though likely without the collapse of morale and command that have occurred in Ukraine.

A long war carries obvious risks for China, but Russia’s experience in Ukraine provides reasons for Chinese strategists to consider a long war and its costs if they try to seize Taiwan. Given America’s logistical issues, a long war may be China’s best bet. A year of economic brutality and sustained combat might wear the U.S. down and force capitulation.

Americans shouldn’t feel encouraged by Russian missteps in Ukraine. But Moscow’s mistakes should cause the U.S. to consider its own difficulties in defending its interests and values in the Pacific.

Mr. Cropsey is founder and president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy. His books include “Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Supremacy” and “Seablindness: How Political Neglect Is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It.”

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Israeli laser
« Reply #1019 on: April 15, 2022, 04:34:06 AM »







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YEARS to replace the Stingers?!?
« Reply #1028 on: April 29, 2022, 10:04:34 AM »

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what is the take away for us with regards to tanks ships
« Reply #1031 on: May 08, 2022, 10:06:29 AM »
if a Ukrainian can knock out advance tanks
and navy vessels

with a missile
what is the take away for our spending trillions on such technology?

I tried a search but do not see anything come up.

should not our own military be looking at this with fecal urgency?

presumable they are  :|


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Navy pulls some of the racist books from the reading list
« Reply #1032 on: May 09, 2022, 09:44:50 AM »


Navy pulls racist "antiracist" books from reading list: Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday recently released an updated list of books for the U.S. Navy's Professional Reading Program. The latest list is noteworthy not for what it includes but rather for what has been omitted. Last year's list sparked controversy over the inclusion of leftist books that several Republican lawmakers rightly contended were "explicitly anti-American." Gone are several of these books including How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and Sexual Minorities and Politics by Jason Pierceson. Last year, Gilday defended the controversial list and specifically the inclusion of Kendi's book by arguing that "it evokes the author's own personal journal in understanding barriers to true inclusion, the deep nuances of racism and racial inequalities." Regarding this year's less controversial list, Gilday stated: "We are driving a fleet-wide campaign of self-improvement. We must foster an organization that supports and empowers Sailors to have an independent quest for knowledge through reading and information sharing."

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Re: what is the take away for us with regards to tanks ships
« Reply #1033 on: May 09, 2022, 06:34:57 PM »
Russia and China are planning on destroying our carrier groups (Among other things) with hypersonic missiles.

if a Ukrainian can knock out advance tanks
and navy vessels

with a missile
what is the take away for our spending trillions on such technology?

I tried a search but do not see anything come up.

should not our own military be looking at this with fecal urgency?

presumable they are  :|

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1034 on: May 09, 2022, 07:51:52 PM »
Hence if we don't arm Taiwan BEFORE the Chinese bust a move it will be too late.

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1035 on: May 09, 2022, 07:56:39 PM »
Hence if we don't arm Taiwan BEFORE the Chinese bust a move it will be too late.

Taiwan can become a nuclear power all on it's own.

That's when we will know they are serious about remaining free.

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1036 on: May 10, 2022, 08:49:02 AM »
Not enough time for that-- indeed the effort would likely accelerate Chinese invasion.

But agree they need to show serious intent. 

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1037 on: May 10, 2022, 09:21:28 AM »
Not enough time for that-- indeed the effort would likely accelerate Chinese invasion.

But agree they need to show serious intent.

They have nuclear power plants. It would take them a week.

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1038 on: May 10, 2022, 09:26:17 AM »
My understanding is that it would be far more complicated than that:

Making the bomb
Testing the bomb-- where?
Making the bomb small enough to fit on a missile
Making the missiles to carry it
From where would the missiles be fired?
Extreme disparity of nuke force

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1039 on: May 10, 2022, 09:33:34 AM »
My understanding is that it would be far more complicated than that:

Making the bomb
Testing the bomb-- where?
Making the bomb small enough to fit on a missile
Making the missiles to carry it
From where would the missiles be fired?
Extreme disparity of nuke force

We have many more nukes the the NorKs, but them having any seriously impairs our ability to act against them, the same applies to the PRC and Taiwan.


I'd borrow from what SA and Israel did decades ago.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-south-africa-built-nuclear-weapons-and-then-gave-them-27066

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Taiwan and nuclear capability
« Reply #1041 on: May 10, 2022, 05:34:43 PM »
Interesting points made.  If Taiwan could develop nuclear weapons in a week, figuratively, that would mean they already have the know-how, and the materials.  Possible.  But still, Crafty's point, that wouldn't give them the numbers they need and the delivery systems - unless they already secretly have them.

The only way Taiwan can order a nuclear strike right now on Chinese targets is to call on the United States to do it.  The only situation where that comes into play is if China strikes first.  At that point, isn't it too late? 

With Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we showed a capability the enemy didn't have.  How does Taiwan build an arsenal, or Navy, or air force China can't match?

Taiwan can never make a first strike on China.  Crafty pointed out, they can't even conduct testing. 

And a secret weapon isn't a deterrent. 
« Last Edit: May 10, 2022, 05:42:47 PM by DougMacG »

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Re: Taiwan and nuclear capability
« Reply #1042 on: May 10, 2022, 06:30:09 PM »
If the NorKs, who can’t manage to feed their population, and Pakistan, who doesn’t have a single city with a functioning sewer system have nukes, it’s not a challenge for Taiwan.

They don’t need 50,000, they just need a few.

Once the test one, they send Beijing the footage.




Interesting points made.  If Taiwan could develop nuclear weapons in a week, figuratively, that would mean they already have the know-how, and the materials.  Possible.  But still, Crafty's point, that wouldn't give them the numbers they need and the delivery systems - unless they already secretly have them.

The only way Taiwan can order a nuclear strike right now on Chinese targets is to call on the United States to do it.  The only situation where that comes into play is if China strikes first.  At that point, isn't it too late? 

With Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we showed a capability the enemy didn't have.  How does Taiwan build an arsenal, or Navy, or air force China can't match?

Taiwan can never make a first strike on China.  Crafty pointed out, they can't even conduct testing. 

And a secret weapon isn't a deterrent.

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1043 on: May 14, 2022, 07:12:30 PM »
While we empty our inventory arming the Ukes to fight the Russians for the Obama-Clinton Cabal in order to persuade the Chinese to not take Taiwan, the Chinese prepare to take out the supply chain that would need to sail the Pacific to supply Taiwan and allies in the region:ds
=============================================================


China Testing Missiles to Strike Ships in Port, New Images Reveal
By Andrew Thornebrooke May 12, 2022 Updated: May 12, 2022biggersmaller Print

Analysis of new satellite images suggests that the Chinese military is testing its ability to target ships in port with long-range ballistic missiles. The discovery may shed light on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to develop a military capable of decapitating U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific.

The new images, taken by a Maxar Technologies satellite and first reported by the U.S. Naval Institute, document a “great wall” of missile testing facilities, some of which were previously used to test missiles on elaborate replicas of U.S. naval vessels.

Likely constructed in 2018, the newly discovered missile test site is located some 190 miles away from where mock-ups of a U.S. aircraft carrier and destroyer were discovered last year, before being destroyed by missile tests in February.

USNI described the test sites as “a string of large-scale target ranges” located in western China’s Takmalakan Desert, and suggested that their usage was the testing of new hypersonic missiles for use in an early military strike.

“The nature, location and strikes on these sites all suggest the targets are meant for testing ballistic missiles,” USNI reported. “These hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) are an increasingly significant threat to warships.”

China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has been developing both its ASBM and nuclear missile capabilities across the triad of its land, sea, and air forces for the last several years. Notably, however, the complexity of the newly revealed test site may suggest that the PLA is developing advanced ASBM capable of making precision strikes by changing their trajectory in flight.

USNI reported that the new site was nearly identical to one destroyed in February, and made of a number of differing materials apparently intended to distinguish target ships from target piers, possibly highlighting the complexity with which China is gathering heat and radar information

Traditional ballistic missiles are often considered ill-suited to attacking harbors, as they can easily stray off target and do not achieve the intended effect if they strike in the water. The PLA’s gathering of such targeting information could help them to construct much more accurate weapons systems, worthy of being used in an opening salvo against an enemy port.

“ASBMs, if they are able to discern a ship from a pier, could inflict a killer opening blow against an enemy navy,” USNI reported. “The fear is fleets could be decapitated before they can escape to open water or disperse.”

U.S. intelligence leaders have described the risk of China initiating a war over Taiwan before 2030 as “acute,” and the United States would likely be drawn into such a conflict. To that end, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said earlier in May that the PLA was explicitly researching and developing weapons capable of overcoming the United States’ military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

“They are studying how we fight… and designing systems that are intended to defeat us,” Kendall said.

“They’re not waiting to see what we do.”

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1044 on: May 14, 2022, 09:23:11 PM »
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/05/14/western-weapons-in-ukraine-being-sold-on-via-encrypted-messaging-app-report/



While we empty our inventory arming the Ukes to fight the Russians for the Obama-Clinton Cabal in order to persuade the Chinese to not take Taiwan, the Chinese prepare to take out the supply chain that would need to sail the Pacific to supply Taiwan and allies in the region:ds
=============================================================


China Testing Missiles to Strike Ships in Port, New Images Reveal
By Andrew Thornebrooke May 12, 2022 Updated: May 12, 2022biggersmaller Print

Analysis of new satellite images suggests that the Chinese military is testing its ability to target ships in port with long-range ballistic missiles. The discovery may shed light on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to develop a military capable of decapitating U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific.

The new images, taken by a Maxar Technologies satellite and first reported by the U.S. Naval Institute, document a “great wall” of missile testing facilities, some of which were previously used to test missiles on elaborate replicas of U.S. naval vessels.

Likely constructed in 2018, the newly discovered missile test site is located some 190 miles away from where mock-ups of a U.S. aircraft carrier and destroyer were discovered last year, before being destroyed by missile tests in February.

USNI described the test sites as “a string of large-scale target ranges” located in western China’s Takmalakan Desert, and suggested that their usage was the testing of new hypersonic missiles for use in an early military strike.

“The nature, location and strikes on these sites all suggest the targets are meant for testing ballistic missiles,” USNI reported. “These hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) are an increasingly significant threat to warships.”

China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has been developing both its ASBM and nuclear missile capabilities across the triad of its land, sea, and air forces for the last several years. Notably, however, the complexity of the newly revealed test site may suggest that the PLA is developing advanced ASBM capable of making precision strikes by changing their trajectory in flight.

USNI reported that the new site was nearly identical to one destroyed in February, and made of a number of differing materials apparently intended to distinguish target ships from target piers, possibly highlighting the complexity with which China is gathering heat and radar information

Traditional ballistic missiles are often considered ill-suited to attacking harbors, as they can easily stray off target and do not achieve the intended effect if they strike in the water. The PLA’s gathering of such targeting information could help them to construct much more accurate weapons systems, worthy of being used in an opening salvo against an enemy port.

“ASBMs, if they are able to discern a ship from a pier, could inflict a killer opening blow against an enemy navy,” USNI reported. “The fear is fleets could be decapitated before they can escape to open water or disperse.”

U.S. intelligence leaders have described the risk of China initiating a war over Taiwan before 2030 as “acute,” and the United States would likely be drawn into such a conflict. To that end, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said earlier in May that the PLA was explicitly researching and developing weapons capable of overcoming the United States’ military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

“They are studying how we fight… and designing systems that are intended to defeat us,” Kendall said.

“They’re not waiting to see what we do.”

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Diversity is our...
« Reply #1045 on: May 30, 2022, 06:51:00 AM »

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Schmidt
« Reply #1047 on: June 09, 2022, 07:03:48 AM »

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Re: Military Science, Military Issues, and the Nature of War
« Reply #1048 on: June 09, 2022, 09:20:09 AM »
Please post in the Corruption and/or Goolag thread.