Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Zukiff t1_ixgf06r wrote

Reply to comment by the_other_brand in TSMC Racing to 1nm, Investing $32 Billion for Fab: Report by brohymn80

Not sure what universe you live in. Back in the 90s, the Americans can scare off the Chinese with 2 aircraft carriers. Today, the Americans have already assess they are unable to defeat the Chinese in the Taiwan straits.

>In 2018 and 2020, two other war games showed the same results with China targeting Guam. The 2018 war game revealed that the US military will lose fast if it doesn’t change course considering the Chinese advancement in military technology and missiles.

>“After the 2018 war game, I distinctly remember one of our gurus of war gaming standing in front of the Air Force secretary and chief of staff and telling them that we should never play this war game scenario [of a Chinese attack on Taiwan] again because we know what is going to happen,” Lieutenant General S Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, United States Air Force (USAF), told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview in March 2021.

https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/china-to-strike-us-bases-in-indo-pacific-aircraft-carriers-in-war-over-taiwan-10812481.html

In some cases the Chinese military are far more affable than the Americans. If that's not swiftly catching up I don't know what is.

>The head of defence contractor Raytheon has said the US is years behind China in its pursuit of hypersonic weapons which can bob and weave through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3153830/us-years-behind-china-hypersonic-weapons-raytheon-head-says

There's a reason why they are pulling most of their more advanced unit back to Guam

0

[deleted] t1_ixghauo wrote

[deleted]

24

Zukiff t1_ixgjwgl wrote

The difference here is not just fancy toys. Numbers alone are overwhelming. The Chinese Navy is already bigger in terms of number of ships vs the US navy. Since the Americans cannot bring their entire navy to Asia just to defend Taiwan due to global obligation on top of that most of the Chinese ships are modern ones while the Americans are close to obsolete having to replace most of their fleet in the next few years and the Chinese have an extremely large advantage in the region. The worst part is the Chinese are outbuilding the Americans by more than 4:1 ships. Almost Half their navy was built from 2018. The Chinese realize the Americans wants to seek conflict with them when Trump started his trade war and started crazy increase in naval built up. Now they are doing the same with the airforce. Even if they somehow loss round 1 to the Americans, they will win the next one

The Chinese missile system which is generally considered more advanced than what the american currently have basically means the aircraft carriers are pretty much useless making it even harder for them to fight the Chinese.

There is general consensus now that the Americans won't be joining any sort of conflict in the Taiwan straits especially after seeing how they abandoned Ukraine. Anyone who still thinks the Americans will defend Taiwan is probably living in a different reality. Its even more apparently when they are switching to telling Taiwan to buy weapons for urban warfare and stopped selling/transferring weapons that would prevent Chinese from landing a force in Taiwan.

−18

[deleted] t1_ixgltjy wrote

[deleted]

15

Zukiff t1_ixh3k2s wrote

Those numbers from the US are totally out of context. Yes the Chinese have far fewer missiles compared to the US overall but they have far more in Asia. If the US can summon the full might of their entire forces to fight China in Asia, yes they will probably win. In reality they can't, in the real world the US have global obligations and can only send a portion to a single theatre at any one time and that's not accounting for ships that are under maintenence which at any one time almost half their carriers are under servicing. That's why the US war games keep coming up with a result of US losing

Finally on the defence Treaty its no longer in effect because the Americans no longer recognize Taiwan as a country and the most ironic part, its a Treaty with China not Taiwan, might want to remember that, the country of Taiwan doesn't exist. The Republic of China does and its constitution states that mainland China is part of its territory

−8

Sip_py t1_ixh7p3w wrote

It's funny you pose this as purely US v China when all of our allies would likely take up the fight seeing the strategic technological importance of Taiwan to the entire world.

7

Zukiff t1_ixh9st3 wrote

Which ally? I'm from Singapore, my govt already told you to go F off we're not taking sides. As far as we're concern this is a civil war and you clowns should stop causing trouble in the region. And we are one of you biggest "ally" in the region. All of Southeast Asia is pretty much doing the same. Most of them are actually more pro China than American.

That leaves Korea and Japan. Korea isn't going to fight its biggest trading partner especially when North Korea is waiting. The Japanese aren't keen on helping either. 74% of Japanese are against their govt taking actions over Taiwan and Japanese constitution does not allow them to do so. So they would actually need to literally change their constitution first.

Who else Mongolia? They are not American ally and they don't even have a navy. Australia? They are too far away and have no means to project power all the way to Taiwan. There's no one else in the region that will help you fight China.

−3

dudeedud4 t1_ixhp725 wrote

Not Asian countries, we're talking western allies like Europe...

3

Zukiff t1_ixjey3r wrote

So you mean to tell me that NATO which is right next to Ukraine and has refused to help them fight Russia which is by all measure a weaker nation than China will somehow sail halfway around the world to defend Taiwan? I want to know what you're smoking right now

−1

dudeedud4 t1_ixjgpi7 wrote

At no point did I say NATO...

1

Zukiff t1_ixjrcz7 wrote

Which one of their Western Allies in Europe isn't part of NATO? LOL. I really want to know that because NATO has more members than EU

0

dudeedud4 t1_ixjrmk8 wrote

You do realize that being in NATO doesn't mean they'll automatically attack if one NATO country attacks, right? Only if someone attacks a NATO country specifically.

2

Zukiff t1_ixk2452 wrote

Yes I know but you're the one telling me western Allies will come halfway around the world to fight China. I'm asking which one? Like I said, NATO don't even dare fight Russia which by all measure is a weaker nation than China, in Ukraine, which is literally right next to NATO nations. What makes you think members from that same group will sail halfway around the world to confront an even more powerful nation? I really want to understand the logic behind that

1

dudeedud4 t1_ixk2cd4 wrote

???? NATO is literally just making this a proxy war right now, and it's working. Why do YOU think this wouldn't happen?

1

Sip_py t1_ixl3fjl wrote

I guess Australia doesn't exist at all. And yeah not all NATO countries will participate but do you really believe all European countries wouldn't side with the US and defend Taiwan? You think Germany or the UK is going to be okay with China invading Taiwan?

1

Zukiff t1_ixl68sw wrote

Do you even know how far Australia is from Taiwan? Australia also doesn't have power projection last I check they don't have any aircraft carrier and their ships will need to be resupplied somewhere. Southeast Asia have been pretty clear about not taking sides, they won't be able to resupply from there. And finally the current australian govt is trying to mend ties with China. Give it 2-3 months and you will see them making very different stance on the issue

China is Germany's biggest trading partner, their chancellor is the first European leader to visit China to improve ties immediately after Xi confirm his 3rd term. Even if they disagree, they aren't going to disagree hard. Besides, Germany has no power projection. To take part in a recent military exercise in Australia their fighters needed to refuel 5 times just to fly here. You really think they will fight China?

As for the UK, since they are nothing but US lackey I expect them to follow whatever US is doing. Which is nothing. The US dare not fight Russia what makes you think they will fight China which by their own assessment, they will lose. Furthermore to reinforce this point, the US have already moved most of their more advanced hardware like F35 out of the 1st island chain to the 2nd island chain defence to avoid Chinese missile system. They have no capacity to defend Taiwan in asia.

While I'm sure they will try to do something. Like I stated in my last post what are they able to do? Economic sanctions doesn't work and no one even their European Allies are going to support this, direct military means likelihood of losing and providing military support is next to impossible because of Chinese missile system and Taiwan being an island.

1

this_barb t1_ixhbqax wrote

It would be China vs the eastern world. Nearly every country wants to see the status quo maintained and they will assist in the effort to keep it that way.

5

arkwald t1_ixibwpn wrote

You seem to forget that belligerent pompous assholes who can lie to themselves without consequence have extremely poor track records. CCP are just humans, same as you and I. They are not supermen or superior to anyone else when it comes down to it. Sure they may have lots and lots of manpower, but as we have seen in Ukraine manpower means very little when arrogance and pride overshadow basic reason.

China may indeed try to cross the Taiwan strait. They may attempt to seize the island of Taiwan. They may even succeed. However, the very fact they do so almost guarantees the arrogant pride that will break the people of China. It will expensive and bloody and will be for very little in the end. Expect millions of Chinese mothers to weep as their family lines end because of the feebleminded greed of a man resembling a character in a child's book.

3

Unlikely_Plankton_11 t1_ixgsngz wrote

> Numbers alone are overwhelming.

This isn’t WW2. Ask the Desert Storm era Iraqi army how useful their overwhelming numbers were.

13

slowslownotbad t1_ixgu127 wrote

China will probably make the same mistakes as Iraq and Russia.

Soviet doctrine dies hard.

6

Zukiff t1_ixh315a wrote

Overwhelming numbers and more technologically advance equipment. The Chinese Navy are state of the art while most of US existing flight is obsolete and they are unable to replace them in time. Youre comparing apples to rotten oranges here

−1

erosram t1_ixiaje5 wrote

Apples to rotten oranges? Sounds like a one of those Chinese bot accounts.

3

Unlikely_Plankton_11 t1_ixjqw70 wrote

You’re describing an alternate reality. Don’t know what else to say to you.

2

Zukiff t1_ixjsjlg wrote

40% of the Chinese fleet are literally built over the last 4 years

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/05/china/china-world-biggest-navy-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html

Meanwhile has a lot of ships that are more than 30 years old like the ticonderoga class cruisersfacing decommissioning but doesn't have the building capacity to replace them

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/10/us-navy-shipbuilding-sea-power-failure-decline-competition-china/

I'm not the one living in an alternative reality, our reality have moved on from the time where US is far more power than everyone else combined. Sure the Chinese are still not as powerful as the US Navy overall. But they are more powerful than the Americans when they are fighting in their own backyard while the US needs to travel thousands of miles to fight them

0

Unlikely_Plankton_11 t1_ixgsidx wrote

Ah, good article. Let me summarize for those who don’t feel like reading.

If every single tiny shred of CCP propaganda is true, and every missile works perfectly, and their ballistic missiles can reliably acquire, track, and destroy moving targets hundreds to thousands of miles away, and they leapfrog the US in operational experience (because they “learned from watching closely” after all!), and the entire killchain for these super-missiles remains intact and unmolested, oh and also they bomb Japan, Guam, and the US mainland with ballistic missiles (LOL), and if the US has no countermeasures to any of this so decides to just use carriers to Zerg-rush the Chinese coastline while holding their heads in their hands and crying…

…then the US military is toast! They’ll take Taiwan without a scratch for sure. You know this is true because an MIT professor and some loosely affiliated physicists in academia said so.

The US military fretting about new threats isn’t some slam dunk admission of helplessness. It kind of works the opposite way: rival announces new terrifying technology (e.g. impenetrable Russian cyborg armor), US panics and spends billions of dollars to develop, test, and field a countermeasure (e.g. the new MegaDeath 7000 Armor Annihilator rifle). Then it turns out that the scary rival technology was vaporware, and now the US has even more of an advantage. Rinse and repeat.

China isn’t Russia and is way better at building things. Presumably far less stupid and corrupt as well. But all of this is hypothetical and far too heavily weighted on comparing stats as if they’re the final arbiter. Yeah China is pumping out ships…and yet they don’t have enough trained fighter pilots to fill a single aircraft carrier. That’s cool they have 2000 hypersonic missiles. How many satellites or other assets do they have that are capable of tracking a warship in real-time to course-correct the missile during its flight? Etc. etc.

Nevermind that they have absolutely zero modern combat experience whatsoever. They’re good at oppressing their own population though, but look how that strategy worked out for Russia. Comparing trading cards stats is not especially informative here.

And this “general consensus” you keep mentioning. According to who? A few professors and a (likely) out of context quote from a war game? Pretty sure there was a war game where a Dutch fishing boat sunk every US carrier group too. (Paraphrasing but it was something similarly absurd). Wargames are not CS:GO matches where the goal is to see who is the most better. They have specific purposes to examine specific scenarios, and cycle through various hypotheticals to see what happens, often involving unrealistic constraints because they can result in interesting outcomes. The point is to learn, not to go “USA numbah one.” They should not be taken as proof of anything. Not least of all because all of the most interesting conclusions - as well as potential counters to hypothetical rival tactics - are usually classified. Therefore unavailable to trash-tier internet news sites.

The Chinese hypersonic missiles are like the F-35 all over again, but in reverse.

11

slowslownotbad t1_ixgu50s wrote

Operating around Chinese Military Aviation during the hunt for MH-370 was underwhelming, to say the least.

I’m sure they have a long way to go.

1

muffinhead2580 t1_ixh7toc wrote

Yeah because those that benefit from increased military spending would never exaggerate, right? I would have trust what 8nsiders say about the US military might publicly. We are far ahead in technology than what the public is aware of.

2

Zukiff t1_ixhasn1 wrote

Go look up Hypersonic missiles and try to convince yourself that you are still far ahead.

−3

muffinhead2580 t1_ixhe813 wrote

The US had hypersonic aircraft and missiles long before any other country. Go look up the X43 and see what year that aircraft was flying. You really think the US just put that technology on the shelf and ignored it or do you think maybe, maybe they don't advertise the technology that has been developed.

Face it Putin, we are so far ahead of everyone else in the world in terms of technology it's not even a competition except for second place. Second place is also the place that China doesn't hold.

4