The Oil Drum

70 comments on This Week in Petroleum 11-28-07

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integrator on November 29, 2007 - 1:18am

Their submarines cannot be detected by the American, Russian or any other tin can Navy in this world. And they proved it recently against the USS Kitty Hawk.

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myndlessconsumption on November 30, 2007 - 8:54am

chinese subs undetectable?

huh?

if by navy you mean a flotilla of wooden junks- then yes, certainly. 'paper' navy is a more apt term.

boy we are in for interesting times if policy makers in the world's most populous nation think anything like the above statement.

I think what you mean was 'delectable'. I'm sure the U.S navy would more than happily correct you. When I was learning english I sometimes made mistakes too. It happens.

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LarryCO on November 30, 2007 - 1:53pm

You have no idea what you are talking about.

The subs that China has are complete targets. They are loud, the crew are poorly trained, and they suffer from crap target processing software.

A submarine is absolutely made by its crew. The US Navy is so far in front everyone else on crew quality it isn't even funny. The Australians are quiet good, they and the Norse are about the only ones close to US Navy quality. There is a reason for that. Those two nations are utterly devoted to having a top flight submarine force..... They are the premier arm of those two countries Navys.

The 2nd tier can be dangerous but a LA/Virginia class is going to sweep them from the sea 75-90% of the time. (Usually because someone drops a wrench or lets the toliet seat fall.... I'm NOT kidding. Good friend of mine was a Sonar man on an Improved LA boat)

2nd Tier:
Royal Navy
USSR (some officers were as good or better than the USA, their boats simply don't get out enough anymore for their crew to be sharp)
Kriegsmarine
France (good at sinking Green Peace... untested against people that shoot back)

Pretty much anyone in Nato that operates boats does so at an acceptable level. Can they kill a CVN? Sure they can. Can they kill a CVN out at sea during General Quarters? I'm not betting on it if the CVBG has an Improved LA/Seawolf/Virginia escorting it. But hey, even a blind pig finds an acorn sometime. The 3rd tier may have some dangerous boats but unless some Admiral decides to do donuts in Shanghai harbor the odds of a Kilo or Tango sinking a CVN are about 1000-1.

You could give the Chinese a AIP boat from Germany and I still wouldn't bet on them nailing a CVN. They simply don't have the crews...... yet.

If China WANTED a real blue water sub force, they could do it. They have a long way to go though. It is unlikely they could make the structural changes in their naval program that would be required to train the crews in the expertise and flexibility that is needed. The problems are in many ways political.

No more talking about things you have no clue about. You are on probation from the ignorance patrol.

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Pitt the Elder on November 30, 2007 - 2:04pm

Their submarines cannot be detected by the American, Russian or any other tin can Navy in this world.

And neither can the Russian or American subs be detected by others. It's not that hard to hide a sub, especially during peacetime, and it's kind of silly to say that's what defines "the most powerful navy in the world". Fact of the matter is that China has very little blue-water (long-range) navy, and the subs are pretty much defensive assets against the US's overwhelming naval superiority, especially in terms of force projection.

Regardless of whether people like it or not, the US's navy gives it utterly unmatched force projection ability. As incompetently as its Iraq endeavour is being handled, few other countries would even be able to attempt it, and none would have had a hope of conducting the original bombing campaign that destroyed Iraq's military and military infrastructure. Of the world's carrier-borne aircraft, the US has twice as many has every other nation combined. No navy in the world can match the US's.

None of that is America-boosting; it's just fact. That no military in the world is anywhere near the US's should hardly be surprising, though - no military spending in the world is anywhere near the US's; the next-highest country spends about 10% of what the US does.