British carrier leads international fleet into waters claimed by China

Would they need carriers for it, they have a number of air base in the region across the islands, I just don’t know what the ranges are Vs land based bombers/fighters.

I get the meaniful influence point, but the US economy is so heavily reliant on cheap Chinese factories/labor and not something that could be reversed in decades, and so the pain involved in taking on China probably would prevent the US taking any action other than words.

Additionally is Taiwan worth it. The west generally only goes to war when there is something in it for them.

Saying that it would be a massive gamble by China, as if the US did get involved along with the various allies, it would get very messy and probably go nuclear.

That is why a new SEATO is needed, with major military commitment and a first use of nuclear weapons policy. Based on a modified NATO framework.

I don’t think the UK should be getting involved with any military treaties in Asia. We should not be getting our hands tied to help out in a region that has no direct secruity implications to the UK.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t get involved defending allies but we should also have the option not to, should things get messy.

With all due respect Steve, I must disagree on every point. We have tight ties and interests with Asia. Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea for example. A silly percentage of world trade passes through choke points in that region. Some of it heading to and from GB. That is why the CCP want a stranglehold on the South China Sea.

Whilst I don’t disagree, any treaty needs to be mutual and our interests would not always be impacted, no remaining colonies in the region of note. We don’t want or need to be dragged into regional wars, if it’s not in our interest to do so and there for sure will be ones in the medium term. NATO is different it is mutual defense, and was equally formed to defend the UK as any NATO member.

If we decide to enter the wsr, that is a different matter but shouldn’t be a treaty issue.

Our future interests lie with the Anglosphere, not our regional neighbours. In other words the Five Eyes. I would add India to that group too as a vitally important future partner. The worlds largest democracy and constantly threatened by the CCP chi-coms. South East Asia is therefore just as important to us as the North Atlantic and Europe.
Make no mistake, in the modern world the CCP are the biggest threat to our way of life since the Axis of WWII. A binding treaty such as NATO, with guaranteed mutual defence – including first use of nuclear weapons. Is the only way to oppose and then defeat them. Ridding the world of communism.

I get the need to pull back China but let’s face it, we can’t do it without destroying our economy and the same applies for all of the west.

Unlike the cold war with Russia or Iran/north Korea etc, the wests ecomony is fully interwined with China and not really the rest of South east Asia (the full region combined doesn’t come close to the trade we do with China).

Is this right, clearly not, but we need to solve the economic problem (build factories/accept massive price increases for everything/etc) before we can seriously push back China and realistically when I say we I mean the US / EU as the UK can’t act alone as it hadn’t got the economic power to make changes (the EU at least trying to protect it members economically), but it won’t happen without short/medium term serious pain which the west can’t afford right now.

Think of the shortages we are going through right now over food/medicine/fuel caused by brexit /covid and amplify it many many times, since pretty much everything we buy has Chinese parts, including a lot of our food which is processed there. Can you see any gov making the decision to damage the economy so seriously and realistically for decades, to remove the Chinese influence? Combine that with considering how small the Russian influence is and yet huge amount of money seems to be trading hands between our policticans and Russia preventing any serious sanctions after multiple attacks that happened without our borders, meaning we can’t even deal with Russia let alone China.

It’s a hard topic, I don’t have a solution and haven’t read of any realistic ones. Hence my trump completely failed trying to get a better deal with china.

Steve, what you say makes perfect sense.
You are correct to emphasise that the economies of the world are intertwined with that of CCP China, by design. US started it in the hope that westernising mainland China would end communism. That failed but it did show some initial promise.

Our integrated economies can be viewed as the CCP’s greatest strength (See your points, very well presented.) However, it can also be viewed as their greatest weakness if handled correctly. Therein lies the key.

The USSR fell after being placed under great pressure from all sides. From it’s own long suffering people and from it’s inability to compete in a very high tech. high cost arms race. The strategy works.

It is going to take a huge effort to sink the Chi-Coms and that must start with a change in attitude. When people are told ad nauseum what the CCP are actually doing: Blatant theft of technology and intellectual property: Cyber crime and cyber warfare: Human rights abuses: Harvesting organs to order from political prisoners: Persecuting and exterminating religious people. To name only a few. – There will be an outrage! Incentive to knuckle down and address the issues in the open. That will not happen while our governments are protecting the CCP as equal trading partners.

First step is to demonise and give the Chi-Coms the label of sworn enemy. As NATO did to the USSR. The CCP and the PLA are a beast that must be devoured one step at a time. Nuclear deterrent preventing the new Chi-Com Cold War from turning hot, while it is being dismembered.

It starts with SEATO and the defence of Taiwan. As it did with Berlin and West Germany. I wish you well Steve.

For us it’s dangerous, the more the US demonised China, the more it pushes China and Russia into bed together and that can’t be good for European peace.

Don’t forget the famous quote.
Peace in our time.

Just noted your above. This may help:
https://youtu.be/0pP29LikO4M
Trust so

‘The west generally only goes to war when there is something in it for them’
Is that why the US and its NATO partners went into war in Yugoslavia to stop Milosovic? What was the ‘something’ that led them to that war?

Why do they need the carriers/SMs to invade Taiwan? China is only 100 miles from Taiwan, well within the range of both shore based land attack cruise missiles and aircraft! You don’t launch an invasion force from SM’s either, their SSN’s might be several generations behind those of the West, but their SSK’s are highly capable of conducting area denial ops.
What the Chinese lack is a amphibious capability to conduct such a large scale invasion, hence why they have been trying various RoRo type ferries during recent exercises.

I’m not sure they’d need carriers to invade Taiwan but they might need them to try and intercept US and other nations carrier strike groups that are en route to try and reinforce Taiwan. They would need to blockade the island from reinforcement/resupply by air and sea for as long as the invasion lasts.

I don’t think that that is the main purpose of the PRC building carriers, although that is certainly one of the tasks for a carrier. I think that they are being built to project power across the globe just like those in the West – building up towards a true blue water navy.
Agree that they would have to blockade Taiwan, but, I think that a combination of their Navy and AF will achieve that along with Land based missile systems. After all, they don’t have to win any sea battles, just stop the West getting into a range where they can effect any battle.
In a war of attrition, its not the side with the best kit that wins, its the side with the most kit that wins – WW2 has shown us that.

They would need carriers and a capable fleet to hold at bay and enforce area denial to a counter attacking/ intervening fleet.
That said i think US sub surface strength is such that China will be hard pushed containing the USN nuclear submarine fleet.

Agree totally that the USN would win the underwater war eventually, however, would still disagree ref your point about their need for the carriers to counter the US. Great if they have the capabilities I’m sure, but still tend to think that they can keep a US fleet at arms length using their longer ranged aircraft and long range ASM along with any SSKs the US miss. Just hope that we don’t find out the hard way!!!!

We probably couldn’t stop China now, they have enough land based assets and submarines, landing craft ect

“Currently US and allies underwater capabilities far exceed China’s.” 

Not at the moment!

South China Sea: US submarine collides with unknown object
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58838332

I prefer to read Janes defence website or Warships IFR. They tend to be better informed than the BBC on defence issues. The US navy and allies submarine fleet is much much more powerful than Chinas now and into 2030s. China has large numbers of submarines but they are loud/ noisey and therefore easily detected, tracked and could be sunk. The QE carrier strike group showed this by easily tracking 3 to 4 reported PLAN submarines that were positioned ahead and to its flanks.
You can bet the Astute class with the group had firing solutions on the lot of them.

If the US navy launched an unrestricted submarine warfare vs China the Chinese would rapidly run out of merchant shipping, escorts, and their imports/ exports would be severly curtailed except from overland from Russia.

Isn’t the most sensible option to continue surging Taiwan with fighter aircraft, SAMS, ASMs, radar and anti-tank weapons? They could become such a prickly opponent that the Chinese consider it just isn’t worth it? By all accounts the mountainous terrain would make it impossible to subjugate anyway. No need for direct western involvement.

I think we’re basically on the same page, Julian. The first instances of aggression would need to be overt, whilst surging western submarine capability subsequent to that would remain essentially covert right up to China crossing the Rubicon i.e. she can back off before any surface manoeuvres are necessary. Not sure lack of Allied moves or terrain issues could replace robust potential/counter.
Just my take, of course.

To be fair the west isn’t surging them, the west and specifically US defence companies are making huge amount of money selling them gear and so are enjoying the uncertainty.

Agree arm Taiwanese defence forces so any invasion becomes a very bloody mess with high casualties for Chinese armed forces.
The Taiwanese are perfectly determined and focussed enough to defend their sovereignty and democratic freedoms.
I think they should declare independence and soverignty.

Vietnam’s quit strong, over 10 million soldiers, amazingly 5 million more than China on paper. Granted that’s millitary and paramilitary.

Unlike the west, I doubt China cares about the deaths to its own forces and/or civi deaths to Taiwan, especially as it controls the media/internet. In that respect it has a huge advantage.

Know you don’t mean to infer, but hope we view the Taiwanese as a little than ‘chinese chequer pieces’. 🙂

More than

For sure not. It’s the same as falklands, Argentina will retake the islands the moment it feels like it has enough international support and miltiary might to do so.

I’m not so sure about that, maybe 15 – 20 years ago that would be true, now that we’re in the age of the Internet and Social Media people are more aware of what’s going on in the world. Even Russia with it’s Operations in Ukraine found increasing resistance to Military Casualties, with stories of Secret Burials in hidden Cemeteries being reported.

China is better prepared for it than Russia. They have been working on an internet kill switch for years, a way to totally isolate the country from the outside world. The Chinese gov know that sooner or later they will have their own spring, so many people living in poverty with a country ruled by an ‘in club’, is going to explode into revolution at some point. Hence the great firewall.

Cheers for the correction.👍

I would suspect that a lot of the components in the products you buy are made in China, even if the product itself says made in the UK,USA,Germany or wherever (and there are a number of rules that cover saying were something is made that mean only some very minor work need to be done to say it was made somewhere) The company that I work for is the same, we manufacture our product in the UK, but some of the components are made in China and some of the components we buy have process involved in the manufacture carried out in China

I thought Astute was different to the others with some tech.

Depends on what you mean by ‘some tech’. The vast majority of systems will be the same, perhaps with minor differences in software, but that is easily fixed. It is possible that one might have a standalone system that the others don’t have (Talent has a NAS fit), which would be for evaluation purposes. If said fit was found to be beneficial, then it would probably be retrofitted to the others in due course.
If any of them are ‘special fit’ boats, which is a totally separate programme, then they will have some extra tech(sensors) for their specific role. Outside of that, then no, not with what is being implied here.

Any first of class SSN (Astute) will be the trials boat for that class. She may have some kit initially, but that will be trials kit for the boffins to ‘measure/record data’. It generally gets removed once complete.

Ahh HMS Astute did get a major capability upgrade in 2014ish bringing it in line with the newer astutes I presume. I remember reading years ago it had some different gear compared to the second Astute, but I can’t find the paper or what it was that was different.

will early boats be reconfigured as per the later boats at refit or is it too much work?

It is entirely possible, it will ultimately depend on how much any constraints are impacting on OC. The first three boats will have accepted ‘work arounds’ to deal with any significant shortcomings, with the worst being dealt with as and when it can be accomplished.
If any remedial work requires a significant amount of time to sort, then it will be done in one of their docking periods if at all possible, only because that is when contractors will have the most time to sort any issues. Again it will depend on the work package and money.
The A boats are not scheduled to have a refit, with their core expected to last the duration of their commission. I suspect that these boats will have an extra one or two docking periods to compensate for the lack of a refit. It should mean that there is more availability of units over their life time if they don’t have a refit.

Hard to believe HMS Astute is more than half way through her life already!! Just 10 years left in her.

Yes, her core life is expected to last some 25 years, which from commission will take her to 2035 give or take. Long before we reach this point (2030ish) we will either have started construction of SSN(R) hull 1, or will be looking at a refit for her if we want to keep numbers at 7.
The only current way to get more then 7 SSNs is to build more of these replacements for the A boats.
To me, we should start construction earlier then what will be planned, between Dreadnought hull 2-3 instead of 3-4. It may well happen like that, but at a slow build rate, who knows……

We should get at least 12 SSNR, hopefully 14, ideally 16. That would allow us to guarantee a sub simultaneously in 4 places permanently. Or we could get a mix of SSNs and SSKs… but we definitely need more than 7.

Well that is the conundrum for numbers WRT SSN(R). How many do we build/need, two different questions? A more difficult question to answer is is directly linked to this numbers question is ‘what comes after SSN(R)’?
Dreadnought hull 1 should be in commission by 2030ish, her core life is expected to last some 35-40 years, so she won’t need replacing until 2065 at the earliest. If SSN(R) hill 1 is in commission by say 2035, that’s 30 years of building the MOD has to find for Barrow if it wants to keep the workforce going!
Obviously we don’t know what the technology will be like then, or indeed if SMs will have been replaced entirely by AXLUUVs.
I would like to think that we might get 12 A boat replacements, but seriously doubt it, we have missed the boat on SSN construction so to speak, by not ordering enough to start with, with China set to become a threat for the number one superpower slot in the next decade or so. A resurgent Russia will also add to our problems, so we need to start looking at other areas where we can increase our ASW forces more quickly – ships, aircraft and possibly something like the cold war Surtass/Tagos ships to fill the gaps. Things like UUVs will help when technology catches up, but will only be a small part of the equation.
SSKs, agree, we needed about 6, but that ship has also sailed, unfortunately.

Why would you say the boat 😉 has sailed on SSKs? It would be, most likely, an off the shelf purchase.

We build our own warships/submarines, we have no spare capacity to build any more, neither do we have enough qualified workers to set up a production facility at another yard in the UK , it would take years to get started. It will be interesting to see how we end up helping Aus get their nuclear project up and running too, as they are going to need a huge amount of assistance and personal to achieve their aims.
Yes. I agree the only way to get some SSKs would be to buy off the shelf from another country -Sweden, Germany or Japan say, but at about £500 mill a pop,are we going to let someone else build their them for us – I doubt it!

I’m Right in thinking Hms Astute only has 10 years left in service?, if we don’t want to refuel her like she was designed not to be. And that means we will barely ever actually have 7 SSNs active at once…

That is correct, by the time HMS Agincourt enters service HMS Astute won’t have that many Operational years left in her – hopefully the replacement Class will be a more seamless transition when it starts Production.

So the original boats had shortcomings which Anson will be the first to be updated/upgraded hence will have different capabilities whatever they may be otherwise they wouldnt have been upgraded.

Morning James, the shortcomings are not specifically equipment related, but more to do with the internal layout of the original design, specifically the front end where the accommodation/messing and command/control areas reside.
The A boats are larger then the T boats so have more internal volume, however, the front section has been designed differently. Whereas in earlier classes, the round tube had decks built in with equipment raft mounted, Astutes essentially had a square peg inserted into a round hole and the square box rafted instead. This method has vastly reduced the amount of internal space available for everything that is needed. One of the major flaws was that messes were a lot smaller, instead of getting your crew through meal times in two sittings it effectively took three. On a ship where space isn’t at a premium it isn’t a problem, on a SM it is. Storage space was also much reduced creating difficult working conditions, adding to a long list of issues that affect OC.
A near total redesign of the front end was required, this is essentially what has happened with Anson, why it took so long to get her into the water, and has nothing really to do with new capabilities in terms of hot new equipment, which is what I think you are alluding too.

Really interesting, thanks Deep. Do we know how Astute would be refuelled should she need life extension?

She has the same reactor as the Vanguard class SSBNs, currently Vanguard is in Devonport having her reactor re-fuelled to extend her life until the Dreadnoughts come into commission. They are having difficulties with the refit as they weren’t designed to be re-fuelled. I believe that she is currently some 6-8 months behind schedule and counting.
Hopefully it will be sorted soon, any lesson learnt could be applied to Astute should she need to be re-fuelled.
I think a much simpler solution would be to bring forward the build of SSN(R) if at all possible, thereby not having to go down this route. It is a hugely expensive business re-fuelling a nuclear SM, lots can and does go wrong, hence the time frame.

Yes having the SSN(R) following straight on is the best solution. Good news that that project has started. Hopefully the Government has learned the danger of leaving SSN design and build skills to go fallow.

Surely Taiwan’s move ought only to a chess-block, to show broader ‘origin’ of any considered legal claims by PRC. Taiwan herself has more immediate issues of survival to worry about, and would hardly solely end up with those areas under any circumstances i.e. on her own she’d come to an agreement with all other claimants about resources, or sacrifice the goodwill of everyone.
Either way, it’s clear the issue is not going away any time soon, which, baring a Damascene Conversion on the part of PRC, looks regrettably military in outcome. But where to political relations after that from China’s perspective? Everyone will retrench.
Regards

Agree. I cant imagine Taiwan would ever seek control of SCS itself and the hostility that would come with that. …., but if western marine law academics are talking about it it may influence any further international rulings and would spook the PRC. Interesting days

Ah so, the only certainty is uncertainty.

I’ve read it somewhere, I’ll try to find the link.

I’ve also heard about that. Can’t find the link though either. Anyway, I can’t imagine where PoW would “visit” NZ? They don’t have anywhere big enough for it to go alongside. At best, it would be one of their two frigates sailing out for exercises.