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Melissia wrote:In ship to ship combat yeah, but they'll be invaluable for air to precision ground strikes and troop deployments.

*long range drones
*say again?

It won't invalidate them, but it will relegate them to a support role. Unless the Carrier's themselves will mount them as well, which will probably be the case.

Given the maintainance issues, ships probably won't mount more then a handful of Railguns. Maybe 1 on light cruisers, 2-3 on medium ships, and 5-10 on Carriers. Then they might bring back the battleship as well. have it mount a dozen or so in addition to the normal battleship weaponry.

Drones aren't usually as well equipped as a good CAS craft...

In a true combat situation(2 well equipped armed forces fighting a proper war) drones just don't have the sustained firepower to be practical. They really are a precision tool.

Good for killing commanders and hidden bunkers. Not so great against a massive army.

Melissia wrote:Drones aren't usually as well equipped as a good CAS craft...

A drone gets shot down...meh. A multibillion $ carrier with several thousand crew on it? We care.




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Grey Templar wrote:In a true combat situation(2 well equipped armed forces fighting a proper war) drones just don't have the sustained firepower to be practical. They really are a precision tool.

Good for killing commanders and hidden bunkers. Not so great against a massive army.

Neither is an aircraft carrier.

Yes, but most of the time if we're landing ground troops we have naval domination anyway.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Drones aren't usually as well equipped as a good CAS craft...

A drone gets shot down...meh. A multibillion $ carrier with several thousand crew on it? We care.




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Grey Templar wrote:In a true combat situation(2 well equipped armed forces fighting a proper war) drones just don't have the sustained firepower to be practical. They really are a precision tool.

Good for killing commanders and hidden bunkers. Not so great against a massive army.

Neither is an aircraft carrier.

I disagree. The carriers planes can decimate an army, killing thousands with the damage caused by the air power.

You guys with all your tactics and weaponry stats seem to be forgetting the number one aspect of winning in modern warfare.

Will to fight.

Everything else is utterly, utterly irrelevant. You could lose one man per 1000 enemy and STILL fething lose in this day and age. Its why the US lost in Vietnam, despite winning every single major battle.. all of them! And killing 1 million VC, compared with what.. 66,000 Americans?

And have you seen the state of Afghanistan?! All the British and American public do is whine about it, and we have lost pretty much feth all. I guarantee when they were tossing figures around in 1999 US/UK command would have been over the moon with less than 3000 dead soldiers 13 years down the line. 3000 soldiers really is nothing to the guys in charge, Its not even one Brigade. And all we do is cry about it because we feel every single loss.. you think China has that problem?

The Chinese are fething lethal because more than anyone else, they give less of a feth when they lose men. Add in that awesome commie propaganda and a better ability to juke the stats, and that's why the mother fethers are scary, I don't care how much better everyone else is.

Only China could lose a 10,000 men and pretty much get away with it.. they would just toss around a figure ten times lower and blame it on some ridiculous gak.

Frankly chaps, as much as I hate to admit it, if we go up against the Chinese for anything other than them actually invading our mainland (thus forcing our hand and giving the public the will to fight) we will lose, and lose hard.

Still, the good side is we all have ice cream and cookies and Lazy Boys, and they don't.

How can you expect us to be as hungry anyway!?

No carrier flight commander wants to even get near China land based air units. I'm sure China willing to throw at least 2 air division at a carrier grp in a chance to knock them off

Melissia wrote:Yes, but most of the time if we're landing ground troops we have naval domination anyway.

So why do we need the carriers then?

Assault carriers cool. Fast attack carriers? the Navy is fighting WWII.

Jihadin wrote:No carrier flight commander wants to even get near China land based air units. I'm sure China willing to throw at least 2 air division at a carrier grp in a chance to knock them off

Which is why railguns would be pretty dang useful.

Cannot do a land invasion on China. Like Matty said they have the numbers to outlast the invading forces ammo

We could do an invasion and probably have tremendous success. China's military is smaller than the US in absolute numbers, and many of their most populated and valuable areas are right there along the coast.

It's the active occupation where we'd be doomed to failure. The food bill for the civilian population would be on our heads, and that'd be horrendous.

sourclams wrote:We could do an invasion and probably have tremendous success. China's military is smaller than the US in absolute numbers, and many of their most populated and valuable areas are right there along the coast.

It's the active occupation where we'd be doomed to failure. The food bill for the civilian population would be on our heads, and that'd be horrendous.

Mate, seriously.. you must be off your tits.

Modern weaponry have made invasions immensely costly. We could possibly go in, achieve an objective, and then feth off pronto, but a proper invasion!?

And also their quality of life is way worse.. they would sell their lives far more cheaply. I bet the fethers could rustle up more suicide bombers than Al Queda as well.

All China would have to do it open all the armouries, dish every gun and bomb they had out and then let the people crack on, it would be a total fething nightmare. You think we see plenty of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan!? Well they at least have to smuggle the complicated ones in from Iran and Pakistan and Syria and such. Imagine China!

Even the toilet roll would explode when you were taking a dump.

If we do a land invasion on China with current US forces the marine brigade is going to be seriously hurting within 24 hrs. If the 82nd comes in it has to seize an airfield for follow on forces. If combined then I say seven days before US forces start coming out. We cannot conduct a land invasion with current forces on China. Don't put it pass them either to use MOAB on us

Thats whats wrong with this country. We have no balls for a real fight. Or at least the people in power and the press don't, and they are what matters.

Its war, people die. Deal with it.


If we were to invade china, I for one would seriously consider tactical nuclear weapons. And I would want some anti-ICBM cover to be in place before going in.

And even then, boots on the ground only where needed and in overwhealming force. No half hearted deployments. If one regiment is sufficient, send 2.

Lead the way Templer and set the example. My platoon be right behind you following....................................."20 bucks says he makes it 50 ft...any takers?"

Templar, your still seeing things narrowly, people are people, they don't much change dependant on nationality, they change dependant on circumstance.

We are the way we are because we have a good quality of life and good passage of information. Peoples lives matter to us, and we can see every coffin on TV. This is less of an issue in China.

You can argue that its either a good or a bad thing sure, we have loads of problems of our own, more obesity, we are obsessed with reality TV, we get upset and depressed about stupid pointless gak, such is life, that's what happens when you live in a first world democracy, but I cant say which is better.

Basically, the better your quality of life, the less stomach you have for a war with a load of casualties.

Is it really that bad a thing that we give a feth when thousands of our young people die?

Grey Templar wrote:Thats whats wrong with this country. We have no balls for a real fight. Or at least the people in power and the press don't, and they are what matters.

Its war, people die. Deal with it.


If we were to invade china, I for one would seriously consider tactical nuclear weapons. And I would want some anti-ICBM cover to be in place before going in.

And even then, boots on the ground only where needed and in overwhealming force. No half hearted deployments. If one regiment is sufficient, send 2.

Sorry we have plenty. We just aren't keen on getting Americans killed in foolish crap thats not in our vital interest.

Should we care about that area? Meh.


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mattyrm wrote:Templar, your still seeing things narrowly, people are people, they don't much change dependant on nationality, they change dependant on circumstance.

We are the way we are because we have a good quality of life and good passage of information. Peoples lives matter to us, and we can see every coffin on TV. This is less of an issue in China.

You can argue that its either a good or a bad thing sure, we have loads of problems of our own, more obesity, we are obsessed with reality TV, we get upset and depressed about stupid pointless gak, such is life, that's what happens when you live in a first world democracy, but I cant say which is better.

Basically, the better your quality of life, the less stomach you have for a war with a load of casualties.

Is it really that bad a thing that we give a feth when thousands of our young people die?

In China's defense you're talking an invasion of China. If China's projecting power, well outside their immediate locale they don't get involved militarily. Sounds like epicaly smart foreign policy to me.

Oh, but we do care.

The US is the only reason, basically, that China hasn't used its size to militarily bully most of the other nations around there.

Melissia wrote:Oh, but we do care.

The US is the only reason, basically, that China hasn't used its size to militarily bully most of the other nations around there.

China has had what two wars with India. They've had artillery clashes with Vietnam and control north Korea. They seem to bully their nations as desired.

Again, why on earth should we care? Sell them all stuff, at a reasonable price.

Because we don't want China to control the vital sea routes in that region, which are very important for trade and, therefor, our economy. China will not allow free trade if it controls them.

It's the same reason we also hunt down pirates in the region.

Melissia wrote:Because we don't want China to control the vital sea routes in that region, which are very important for trade and, therefor, our economy. China will not allow free trade if it controls them.

It's the same reason we also hunt down pirates in the region.

Are you saying China is suddenly going to go pirate and raid commerce through there? (most of which is from China anyway and none of it is manufactured here)

Oh noes!!! Oh wait it all comes from China anyway. One the positive I found a US made item in Target yesterday. I was positively giddy and instantly bought it. It was tacticool!

Kovnik Obama wrote:My International politics fu might be weak, but wouldn't the next big brawl be between Pakistan vs India instead of China vs India? What does China want in India?

I think you'll find that most major conflicts between two principle nations often begin with a dispute over a tertiary nation.

Because we don't want China to control the vital sea routes in that region, which are very important for trade and, therefor, our economy. China will not allow free trade if it controls them.

I highly doubt we go to war with them over SCS. Nor can we really threaten them with military action unless we reinstitute the draft and prep for it. We go to war if they try to take over Taiwan but that be a naval engagement betweent the carrier fleet and they're air wings. Plus sending in troops to Taiwan to deter a land invasion from them which be more like a airborne invasion

War? Maybe not. But I can see skirmishes.

Anything other than blockading China and bombing would be a bad idea.

An invasion is just flat out stupid unless India was on board with it and launched one at the same time as American amphibious landings.

It's hard to really say though, massive allied casualties were expected in the Gulf War and Iraq got steamrolled. China's forces could prove to be woefully incompetent.

A US Carrier sunk during a "skirmish" is either we're in a war or not in a war with China.

Amaya off the top of your head tell me how many units can go boots on ground on a amphibous landing

More likely it'd end up as some fighters shot down or something.

At this very moment? Maybe a handful of Marine units, 20,000 Marines tops.