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0 pointsmaxglute2y ago0 comments

US doesn't remotely have the fires to take out PRC MIC industry, they don't even have enough to scratch PRC coastal military installations, we're talking about potentially 1,000,000s of aim points to try to crack a lot of concrete, with a lot of ability to eat attrition / regenerate. Something US projection is not equipped to deal with especially with crippled delivery rates at standoff range. PRC has entire chain of advanced indigenous tooling inudstry. They also have massive capital stock. PRC capital stock have magnitude more installed robots than US has smart munitions.

For reference 3 week Iraqi air campaign had favourable land basing, 5 carriers, doing uncontested runs. Napkin math extrapolate to PRC size and you're looking at 5 years if US can sustain unsustainable tempo and PRC barely shoots back. Double that if US has to operate at standoff range where most of sorties goes to tanking/defensive air. The scale of PRC is massive.

PRC MIC industry is in the EAST far inland, specifically to account for US standoff range, i.e. rapid dragon with even JASSER would have to launch over mainland soil to hit. Can do even more extended AGM156Bs with 1900km range, but still has to be launched within PRC A2D2 1IC bubble, and they weight 5x more, i.e. can only fit lol10 in C17... all of a sudden you have a vunerable platform + missiles worth 400-500m trying to drop ordinances in area PL17 is designed to defeat. This is without mentioning PRC likely has / at least demonstrated to have capability to move MIC underground, see third front.

PRC has enough domestic oil production 4+ million barrels to run military AND industry with transport rationing.

But really what you're missing is if US starts hitting mainland targets, PRC will hit CONUS targets - they're pursuing conventional global strike. Their rocketforce platforms are increasingly dual use for reason. Reality is US is a net oil exporter in the same way Saudi is - i.e. it doesn't matter having resource autarky because extractive infra can be hit by Houthi drones. Era Fortress America is ending/over. PRC hitting 300 refineries and LNG plants cripples US homefront as much as much US trying to blockade PRC energy. And if we get to that point, then it's a matter of who has more distributed energy infra (i.e. renewables), and capital stock, excess construction capacity to survive the attrition game.

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_DeadFred_2y ago· 1 in thread

'pursuing conventional global strike' AKA they don't have it, I.E. what 'I'm really missing' doesn't exist.

China is massive, but their 'strength' of mass production (what is being discussed here, converting a countries capabilities to war time production, and being claimed as uncounterable by the USA) is concentrated in the coastal areas and associated river shipping lanes. USA industry is spread throughout the country.

Again you completely ignore what I said. It wouldn't be 5 carriers of F-18s over five years, it would be our current fleet plus an additional 1500 stand off attack bombers, allowing those F-18s to focus solely on softening air defense sites, etc. China's installed robots have zero to do with any of this. They don't have automated factories 'spawning' units.

China's oil production just hit a record lows even with them putting their 'limitless resources' into it. China's western oil fields and offshore oil fields (like their billion dollar oil platform) would be scrap.

China's current MIC industry doesn't matter, it's converting domestic production to a war footing that is being discussed here. The claim is conversion of their current civilian capacity would overwhelm the USA. Again, China's civil capacity is concentrated in the coastal areas and associated waterways which make it not valuable as a war production capacity, while the USA is spread throughout the country. You don't need to take out every factory, just enough associated infra. But keep moving goal posts, change the subject to try and get a gotcha.

Edit: I have to add I hope none of this happens. I love China. My dad was a communist hippie and our house was filled all kinds of books on China from historical to modern Chinese thinking. My ex was an acupuncturist so we often talked about ancient Chinese thoughts as well. While I understand it's completely different now, 2010's Shanghai was one of my favorite cities. I'm also old enough to have been friends with a lot of students stranded in the USA after the Tiananmen Square massacre so my heart breaks for the Chinese people and I understand that their government is not them and does not care about their interests.

maxgluteOP2y ago

PRC existing MiC being in land matters because PRC MiC is scaled to operate at war time rates already, hence priority targets. PRC having capex stock (i.e. 300k robots per year) and lots of bodies and history of third front = PRC can move entire industrial base from coastal to interior (and underground) to reconstitute, they've done it before. Hence it is a whole of country / energy mix attrition and resilience game. Same for US, whose potentially going to make 0 oil and 0 lng when PRC hits her 300 refineries and lng plants (that also feeds NATO). Then it's matter of who has most survivable distributed power, most prexisting industrial stocks, human capita to reconstitute and etc to keep going.

US MiC distribution doesn't matter since stand off range of ICBM global strike basically = other side of world, i.e. existing PLARF icbms can already be conventionally tipped can hit any large infra target in US. That's PLA strategy for CONUS attacks, instead of 100m of munitions on 400m (cargo plane) or (13b carrier) delivery platform which needs vunerable/expensive logistics to operate, they're going for more expensive munitions, because they never committed to expensive force projection platforms, which US has to fulfill global commitments.

VS. US strategy for mainland attacks which is hoping very expensive, legacy, sunk cost platforms like carriers can deliver some standoff sorties, against PLA systems destruction warfare specifically designed to cripple logistics system that sustains them. This doubly true for jerry rigged transport bomb trucks, i.e. rapid dragon - there isn't enough airstrips in/around theatre, tanking to make it work at scale. PRC has host of supersonic drones and long range AA that can spam 1IC and take out lumbering rapid dragon cargo planes before they even have chance to deliver, which is going to be within 1IC, where US carrier defensive air won't have persistent coverage. Hence it's not seriously discussed in strategy writings, because anyone can look at the logistics behind it and realize it's not viable. Not like rushing new capability like B21s to do runs from CONUS/AU, recognizing what PRC recognizes as it builds out launchers and 1000s of tunnels, the only supply chain you can depend on is homeland supply chain.