
China’s Island Missiles Can Effectively Shut Out the U.S. Air Force - smacktoward
http://warisboring.com/articles/chinas-island-missiles-can-effectively-shut-out-the-u-s-air-force/
======
floppydisk
It's the same strategy the Japanese tried using in WWII to turn islands into
stationary aircraft carriers. So long as you can keep them resupplied, it
works to a certain degree. The moment the supply line gets into trouble, the
island starts losing its ability to project power. Replacement parts, supplies
for the ground crews, etc. all start disappearing. As a deterrent, they make a
great show piece, as a practical matter, it's possible to either exhaust their
supplies and bypass or take them out via other means.

Realistically, in the event of hostilities, we wouldn't send in the air force
to take the islands out. We'd launch a bunch of sea skimming cruise missiles
from a submarine or a special forces raid onto the island to punch a hole in
the air defense grid then let the planes through. We did something similar in
Gulf War I & Gulf War II. Planes only went in after other forces ensured the
air defense grid wouldn't be defending much.

~~~
Someone
So, what's your opinion on Diego Garcia
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia))?
Waste of effort, too?

~~~
dsp1234
_Waste of effort, too?_

As an air defense base, yes. As a FOB for non-wartime activities, no. As a
defensible base in an all out war, yes.

That said, I can't imagine Diego Garcia's primary role is to act as a
buffer/barrier so the two aren't really comparable in that way. After all, it
has:

"two parallel 12,000-foot-long (3,700 m) runways, expansive parking aprons for
heavy bombers, 20 new anchorages in the lagoon, a deep-water pier, port
facilities for the largest naval vessels in the American or British fleet,
aircraft hangars, maintenance buildings and an air terminal, a 1,340,000
barrels (213,000 m3) fuel storage area, and billeting and messing facilities
for thousands of sailors and support personnel."

Is this comparable to what the is being done by the Chinese?

~~~
Someone
The comment I reacted to mentioned the strategy of the Japanese in World War
Two. They had islands with lots of infrastructure (for the time), too.

I think the problem for the Japanese was that they didn't have enough ships.
Knowing that, they went for the island approach. Doing that, they gave up
mobility in exchange for size and robustness. The mobility of the US navy
allowed the US to concentrate firepower and take an island at a time. If
distances between islands were smaller the Japanese might have been able to
better defend against the US by rapidly moving planes and infantry between
islands.

~~~
hga
They also didn't have enough planes, the ability to make significantly better
ones due to the engines, and not enough pilots (they didn't change to war
tempo pilot instruction until way too late). They really had no business
getting into a war with a mature and robust industrial power like us, their
only hope was breaking our will and that, at best, would have only happened
when we started invading the home islands.

The war was all but over after the South Pacific campaign which started with
our landing in Guadalcanal. Neither of us did anything particularly clever
there, besides our only neutralizing vs. taking Rabaul, it was just a brutal
slugfest where, for example, in one night action we lost two rear admirals (2
stars). By the end of it, IJN airpower, land and carrier based, was broken,
and most of that was done by US land based aviation. For a really in depth
look this book is highly recommended:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813338697](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813338697)

You do have a point about our tactic of defeat in detail, when we were willing
to expend enough lives and material we could and did take islands as we
needed. I guess one of their big mistakes was thinking they could stop that
for any particularly island with their air and naval forces in the region.

------
smacktoward
If you're interested in this subject, here's a post I wrote two years ago
about how bad the U.S.'s strategic position in the South China Sea vis-á-vis
China was even before these new missiles were deployed:
[http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/08/stovl-the-f-35-and-how-
wer...](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/08/stovl-the-f-35-and-how-were-even-
more-fed-than-david-axe-suggests/)

~~~
fweespeech
Fair enough but one thing you are ignoring is:

> Technology failures. The American strategy for air superiority, not just
> with the F-35 but also with the F-22 and other modern aircraft, is based on
> two fundamental technologies. The first is “stealth“: using technology to
> help our planes to evade detection by radar. The second is “BVR”: using
> long-range missiles to shoot down enemy planes before the pilot can ever
> even see them. (The acronym stands for “beyond visual range.“) These
> technologies are the key to the plan for how a smaller, more high-tech force
> like ours can defeat a more numerous but lower-tech one like China’s.

This also holds true for China and BVR strikes against US naval assets
[particular Aircraft Carriers] are critical to China's ability to actually
invade Taiwan.

The truth is we simply don't know what the real outcome of a battle/war would
be but things like the OP are pretty much useless unless China can hit us BVR
because they are slow enough BVR strikes against them would be viable.

US's BVR problem for is it is really limited to aircraft and they need to be
able to stop China in the air/water because a protracted land war is
untenable.

China's BVR problem is the fact they can't stop us throwing as many missiles
as we can afford/manufacture at them while maintaining a supply line.

I know which problem I'd rather have and it sure as hell isn't supplying an
invasion force while my opponent can throw effectively unlimited missiles from
BVR at me. Sure, I might be able to stop 80% of them but the US can build
basically unlimited quantities of them in a serious war.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Sure, I might be able to stop 80% of them but the US can build basically
unlimited quantities of them in a serious war._

I'm not sure a U.S./Chinese war that came down to raw industrial production
capacity would be as favorable a scenario for the U.S. in (say) 2020 as it
would have been in 1990...

~~~
fweespeech
Missiles are ~$1.5-2 million for the top end for this role.

They are substantially cheaper than even China can build amphibious transport
ships for, let alone the munitions & troops they'd carry.

Even China's manufacturing capacity isn't enough to handle the massive cost
difference of a transport vs. sinking it.

------
ufmace
This is a bit concerning, though the title of "Shut out the USAF" is kinda
clickbait-y exaggeration. It's certainly an escalation in the little island
"cold wars" of the pacific. Many countries have competing claims on the island
and play a little military "chicken" every now and then, usually with minor
ships or handfuls of troops. This is the first I've read of any country
putting major semi-fixed military hardware on any of these contested islands,
though.

Clearly missiles like this are a concern for the USAF, but the technology and
tactics are in place to deal with them. They certainly do limit the kind of
operations that any opposing AF would be willing to undertake without carrying
out a strike against the missiles. Like sure, we could probably take them out
with the latest fighters and missiles on a well-planned mission, but how
willing would we be to send transport or recon aircraft or lone fighters
wandering around where they might be in range of these things? What might we,
or any other nation, be willing to do around them without attacking them and
thus possibly triggering a much larger war? That's the level they're operating
at here.

I wonder if any other nations will start basing their own high-end hardware on
contested islands, or ask the US to do it?

------
willvarfar
I should think the batteries would be themselves targeted by stand-off
missiles as soon as any situation deteriorated to a shooting match.

> the very fact that the HQ-9 could compete for an international missile
> tender against American, Russian and European systems — and win — is an
> indication of just how capable the Chinese weapon is.

The odd-one-out in that list is Russia. Turkey might be very reluctant to
deploy a Russian system, however cheap it might be up-front. Although
relations were much warmer back in 2015, Turkey even then would not want to be
dependent on Russia's good-will to keep a missile system running.

So shouldn't that quote read "cheap" rather than "capable"? Almost all defence
acquisitions are really about backhanders and trade deals etc.

~~~
gozur88
>I should think the batteries would be themselves targeted by stand-off
missiles as soon as any situation deteriorated to a shooting match.

Yep. As usual, warisboring is wrong. These kinds of bases will be ignored in
peacetime and quickly destroyed in wartime.

------
matt_wulfeck
The hard part about reading these kinds of things is that China is doing
essentially what the United States has been doing since WWII. We put missiles
everywhere... Right in China's doorstep even.

I just pray that as China grows in military strength they'll also grow in a
desire for peace. Right now they are behaving like someone that has something
to prove.

~~~
CamperBob2
Right now China faces an interesting social problem -- their population
includes millions of military-age men who are demographically doomed to remain
single.

Unfortunately, from their leadership's perspective, that means that the lives
of those young men are cheap disposable resources. If the Chinese want to
become belligerent, expansionistic players on the world stage, right now's the
best shot at it they'll ever have.

------
sandstrom
The original article is here: [http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/look-
out-america-c...](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/look-out-america-
chinas-missile-deployment-only-the-15236)

(great if an admin would like to update the url)

------
1stop
I'm wondering if it has been reported everytime the US has deployed some
defensive missile batteries around the world... Pretty much US aircraft
carriers have more fire power then these batteries. Do we report their
movement as hard as this?

Like is this just agg-prop to some anti China sentiment?

~~~
smacktoward
It's news because it changes the balance of power in the South China Sea,
waters that China has been gradually asserting are its own territorial waters
rather than international waters governed by the United Nations. This
assertion has China and the U.S. inching towards military confrontation,
because if China's assertions become _de facto_ reality Western sea and air
access to important regional trade partners like Taiwan, the Philippines and
Vietnam could be limited or cut off completely whenever Beijing feels like it.

There's a good timeline on how things have been playing out here:
[http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-china-sea-
time...](http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-china-sea-
timeline-20160217-htmlstory.html)

~~~
1stop
The balance of power is unchanged. China can project their power around their
borders much better than the US.

Right so the significant military assets the US have in Taiwan, Korea, and
Japan go completely unreported.

------
tomjen3
I can't see how a Chinese vs US war is in either parties interest. Surely
China knows they can never take the US mainland and the US can't take China
proper, so even if they win they get, what exactly? Other than deep hatred for
their biggest trading partner?

~~~
smacktoward
It's not unusual for rising powers to flex their new muscles by claiming new
rights and privileges at sea; the U.S. did it in the 1890s and early 1900s,
establishing its power in the eastern and central Pacific by overthrowing the
government of Hawaii, driving the Spanish out of the Philippines, establishing
bases on Midway Atoll and Wake Island, etc.

(Note that all of these locations would become key flashpoints in the war
between the U.S. and the Japanese Empire a few decades later.)

------
fweespeech
> The addition of the HQ-9 — which was first reported by Fox News on Feb. 17 —
> would greatly increase the People’s Liberation Army’s air defense
> capabilities in the region. Like the Russian-made Almaz Antey S-300 air
> defense system, the HQ-9 has the ability to render vast swaths of territory
> into virtual no-fly zones. Only the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint
> Strike Fighter and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber can safely
> operate in the vicinity of an HQ-9 for any length of time.

The title is simply wrong.

1) B-2, F-22, and F-35 can all be used to throw missiles at these sorts of
targets and then exit the area. The HQ-9 / Patriot can't track stealth
aircraft at extreme range effectively. Or you throw sea skimming / low
altitude cruise missiles with jamming to provide EW cover.

[http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-
buzz/american-f-22s-b-2...](http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-
buzz/american-f-22s-b-2-bombers-vs-russias-s-300-syria-who-wins-13905)

> The Raptors “kick down the door” using their unique combination of stealth,
> high altitude and blistering speed to target the nodes of the integrated air
> defense system so that the B-2s can proceed to their targets unmolested.
> It’s a mission the F-22s have only gotten better at with the Increment 3.1
> upgrade that allows the jet to geo-locate emitters much more precisely than
> before. And that capability will continue to improve with the Raptor’s
> forthcoming Increment 3.2B upgrade.

> The other option to take down an integrated air defense system is to use a
> combination of standoff weapons like the JASSM and JASSM-ER cruise missiles
> together with electronic attacks from a platform like the EA-18G Growler.
> The Growler can not only jam the enemy’s radar, but can generate an ellipse
> to target the missile site. The problem there is precisely updating the
> cruise missile with current track data before the enemy moves during the
> incoming weapons’ time of flight.

2) HQ-9 [if based on Patriot] is actually less effective than the modern
Russian systems. Without the ability to move substantial distances, HQ-9 isn't
a serious threat to the US. However, pretty much every US ally in the region
isn't capable of standing up to that sort of thing. Given the region is
largely divided into the US / Chinese spheres of influence at this point it
doesn't really matter because there aren't neutral parties.

3) I'm honestly more concerned about China sparking a major war than I am
about their ability to create no-fly zones.

\------

EDIT:

Since I'm rate limited:

Realistically, whether you realize or it, China is in that position and has
been for 20 years.

A missile base in Hainan would have the range to hit anything transiting to
Vietnam via the sea. Short of taking Hainan away from China, Vietnam can be
closed to ships by China at any time.

China isn't interested in provoking a military conflict but rather
guaranteeing its security and a world position equal to the US in all
theaters.

Similarly, its why Hainan has a semi-covert submarine base:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulin_Naval_Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulin_Naval_Base)

~~~
smacktoward
The problem isn't what happens after the shooting starts, it's how these
developments make the starting of shooting more likely. Nobody in the West
wants to get into a war with China, but by covering the region with
sophisticated defenses the Chinese could conceivably put the West in a
position where they either have to accept Chinese hegemony over the region, or
launch the exact war they don't want to fight in order to restore the old
status quo.

Like, say China keeps building up its defensive network in the region, and
then one day they announce that henceforth no freight or passenger vessels
will be allowed to pass into Vietnamese (or Philippine, or Taiwanese, or
Japanese) airports or seaports without first getting Chinese approval. Vietnam
would obviously oppose that, and so would the U.S., because they are important
trade partners with each other. But the Chinese could just say "if you don't
like it, come fight us over it." And then the only choices available to the
U.S. are to accept the new status quo, effectively abandoning Vietnam to
becoming a Chinese client state, or to launch World War III to keep the trade
routes open. That's not a position anyone in Washington wants to be maneuvered
into.

~~~
hga
An economic threat backed by military power doesn't require a military
response. We and the Vietnamese have all sorts of potential economic
responses, although of course our's are much greater, including the "nice pile
of US Treasury debt you have there, it would be a shame if we declared it
worthless to anyone who might buy it".

And the PRC's actions are already getting its neighbors to band together, even
with Japan (!).

Or there's the convoy approach, we task some ships and subs to escort convoys
of merchant ships to and from Vietnam, following our long freedom of the seas
policy. We're already sending the occasional _Arleigh Burke_ class destroyer
into the new areas of the ocean that the PRC is claiming.

~~~
smacktoward
_> the PRC's actions are already getting its neighbors to band together, even
with Japan (!)._

Yes, this is probably the best argument that can be made that the PRC's
strategy is failing -- the bluntness of it is definitely drawing the whole
region into a new anti-Chinese bloc, which (combined with the U.S.) could
present a formidable counter to Chinese regional power. A more subtle "divide
and conquer" strategy might have let them take on potential opponents one by
one, or even play them against each other.

------
skywhopper
Conveniently for defense contractors, only the F22, F35, and B2 are immune,
according to a completely unsourced assertion!

~~~
curt15
If, as the article asserts, HQ-9 incorporates Patriot missile technology given
to them by Israel, conventional aircraft would certainly not be safe.

~~~
exhilaration
Why would the Israelis do this?? Here's the line from the article:

"According to Missile Threat, the Chinese developed much of the HQ-9’s
technology from a Patriot battery Beijing acquired from Israel"

Is this true?

~~~
throwaway21816
Yes the israelis sell lots of US tech directly to China and Russia in exchange
for cash

Inb4 a bunch of downvotes

------
ck2
Makes you wonder if China maybe has a 20 year plan towards something very bad
out there.

I mean why do they even want that space?

~~~
johngalt
It allows china to press economic claims in the surrounding waters. Such as
exploitation of resources, and interfering in commercial shipping.

Overall it's a chess move. It allows China to exert pressure on the region.
Similar to Iran and the strait of Hormuz.

------
x5n1
It's a matter of time until China has total dominance of the region. It's
inevitable.

------
anon987
How the fuck does this story have 28 points?

What is happening with Hacker News?

------
pinaceae
No, it won't.

In all out conventional warfare you bring out the tactical nukes via various
deployment mechanisms.

If the batteries form a big threat, they'll get wiped.

~~~
smacktoward
The Chinese have nukes too. You bring out your nukes, they bring out THEIR
nukes, and then you're on the slippery slope towards Armageddon.

~~~
true_religion
In the case of tactical nuclear weapons, I don't see what gain there is versus
traditional bunker busters using depleted uranium warheads.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
DU is not a "nuke". It's kind of the opposite. It's the byproduct of the
process of separating the more active isotopes from the almost non-radioactive
one, U-238.

------
SEJeff
I doubt they'd shut out an A team of Navy Seals with C4 however. War is boring
is one of the better military blogs out there, but this is a silly article. If
the US really wanted the islands, a few anti-aircraft weapons will not stop
them.

~~~
alkonaut
AA/AD isn't done by one thing. They need anti ship ballistic missiles and
submarines to make sure no carrier group would ever go anywhere anywhere near
(i.e. near enough for standoff weapons that would hurt the anti air weapons)
and so on. You need all the different pieces of the puzzle to have effective
area denial.

