The Chinese Navy Can’t Grow Forever—The Slowdown Might Start Soon

[Globenim]

Dont understand the logic behind this article. China's GDP is almost equal to US, assuming she allocate the same percentage for military expenditure, then why can't China expand her military/naval power at least equal to US navy?

Because considering any other option would make it harder to jump to wrong conclusions.

 

[Viva_Viet]

David AxeContributor
Aerospace & Defense

The Chinese navy's first aircraft carrier 'Liaoning.'

CHINESE NAVY
Don’t look now, but China’s breakneck naval expansion might start slowing down—and for one simple reason.

It takes a lot of time, money and manpower to maintain a big fleet. And even in China, those resources are finite.

That, for American planners, is the reassuring conclusion of a new analysis from Christopher Carlson, writing for the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute.

Carlson’s report is doubly reassuring for American officials because the U.S. Navy is struggling to define, and fund, its own plans for a bigger fleet.

It’s indisputable that the Chinese navy has gotten bigger and better—and fast. After more than a decade of major investment, the Chinese fleet now is the biggest in the world in terms of hulls.


The People’s Liberation Army Navy boasts 360 front-line warships. That’s 63 more ships than the U.S. Navy operates. Hull numbers aren’t the only metric of naval power, of course. American ships on average are much bigger, more heavily armed and more sophisticated than Chinese ships are, even if the U.S. vessels are less numerous.

Still, “for the last 11 years, China has racked up an impressive ship construction and maintenance effort totaling nearly 211 million man-hours,” Carlson wrote. “This is approximately a five-fold increase over the preceding 11-year period, with significant jumps in 2011, due to the Type 052C/D and Type 056 series production, and in 2015 with the lay-down of the Type 002 aircraft carrier, Shandong.”


But it’s wrong to assume this level of shipbuilding will continue much longer, as some experts have done. Perhaps most notably, The Diplomat’s Rick Joe last year projected that the PLAN by the early 2030s would have four aircraft carriers (up from two today), as many as 20 Type 055 cruisers (up from eight), 40 or so Type 052D/E destroyers (25 today) and perhaps 50 Type 054A/B frigates (31 today).

Don’t count on it, Carlson wrote. “To achieve the force structure proposed by Mr. Joe, China would have to increase the number of man-hours by 93 percent, essentially doubling the resource allocation from 2008 to ‘18.”

Chinese navy Type 022 missile boats exercising in the East China Sea in 2018.

“This is a very significant increase, one that would require an equally significant increase in funding—a capital investment that would have to be provided from a Chinese economy that is growing at a far slower rate than earlier periods even as labor costs continue to rise.”

And that’s not counting the maintenance burden this bigger fleet would impose on shipyards and budgets. “The maintenance burden becomes quite substantial beginning in 2028 as many of the Type 052C, 054A and 056 ships come due for their mid-life overhauls.”

“Given the fiscal challenges facing China today and in the near future, this very robust force structure projection is questionable.”

Sober-minded analysts for years have been predicting this slow-down. After all, the same dynamics that could constrain Chinese naval expansion have for decades weighed on the United States’ own fleet-planning.

Despite consensus across American presidential administrations and political parties that the fleet needs to grow, the U.S. Navy has managed to add only around 25 large warships since the fleet bottomed out at around 270 front-line vessels in the early 2000s.

“The economic model that propelled China through three decades of meteoric growth appears unsustainable,” Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College analyst, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission a few years ago.

What Erickson described as China’s “pent-up national potential” could begin expiring as early as 2030, by which point “China will have world’s highest proportion of people over 65,” he predicted. “An aging society with rising expectations, burdened with rates of chronic diseases exacerbated by sedentary lifestyles, will probably divert spending from both military development and the economic growth that sustains it.”

If Carlson and Erickson are right, the combination of an aging Chinese population, slowing economic growth and rising fleet costs could combine to put a cap on the Chinese navy.

That’s not to say the Chinese navy won’t still be one of the powerful in the world by many measures. It’s just not likely to easily overtake the U.S. Navy in the metrics that matter most.

The Chinese Navy Can’t Grow Forever—The Slowdown Might Start Soon

It takes a lot of time, money and manpower to maintain a big fleet. And even in China, those resources are finite.

www.forbes.com

CN navy is pathetic like Soviet, trying to "grow fast" while the economy is too bad with so many banks,companies ( coal- aluminum - chip - hikvision- evergrande etc) r in big deb will only lead to the total collapse like Soviet

 

[shi12jun]

The strength of the Chinese Navy and Air Force Rocket Force will double in the next 5-10 years. More high-tech advanced weapons will continue to be installed in the land, sea, air and rocket forces. It is impossible for anti-China forces to try to defeat China.

 

[ILC]

It will be done 5 years earlier.

 

[zartosht]

once the Chinese Navy passes the US Navy, It will become official.

The US will at a minimum lose its world hegemon power, and even be considered the 2nd best military in the world.

he who controls the waters, controls the war. The germans learned this lesson in the 2 world wars. where allied naval blockades devastated them and played a huge role in their defeat.

the US is getting very nervous, and for good reason

 

[Viva_Viet]

he who controls the waters, controls the war. The germans learned this lesson in the 2 world wars. where allied naval blockades devastated them and played a huge role in their defeat.

the US is getting very nervous, and for good reason

CN only control 12 % water in SCS ( east sea) if u dont know. Too small to even become a regional threat yet.

----

Spratly islands map showing occupied features marked with the flags of countries occupying them.
Philippines
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Vietnam
Malaysia
China

 

[Aasimkhan]

CN navy is pathetic like Soviet, trying to "grow fast" while the economy is too bad with so many banks,companies ( coal- aluminum - chip - hikvision- evergrande etc) r in big deb will only lead to the total collapse like Soviet

Wake up my son. Ground realities are different from what you are saying. Only an idiot will compare China with Russia

 

[Viva_Viet]

Wake up my son. Ground realities are different from what you are saying. Only an idiot will compare China with Russia

You just try to believe CN is raising for your own purpose while most of Cnese realize that CN is falling.

That's why CN birth rate is declining fast like Russia bcs Cnese felling hopeless due to economic failures while suicide rate is among the highest in the world.

 

[antonius123]

CN navy is pathetic like Soviet, trying to "grow fast" while the economy is too bad with so many banks,companies ( coal- aluminum - chip - hikvision- evergrande etc) r in big deb will only lead to the total collapse like Soviet

Why keep lying and being delusional.

Wake up!

China has built the world's largest navy. Now what's Beijing going to do with it? | CNN

At some point between 2015 and today, China has assembled the world's largest naval force. And now it's working to make it formidable far from its shores.

edition.cnn.com

 

[Aasimkhan]

You just try to believe CN is raising for your own purpose while most of Cnese realize that CN is falling.

That's why CN birth rate is declining fast like Russia bcs Cnese felling hopeless due to economic failures while suicide rate is among the highest in the world.

So you think China is falling ? and you think CN birth rate is declining fast like Russia bcs Cnese felling hopeless due to economic failures ? R u crazy or blind or both ?

 

[casual]

You just try to believe CN is raising for your own purpose while most of Cnese realize that CN is falling.

That's why CN birth rate is declining fast like Russia bcs Cnese felling hopeless due to economic failures while suicide rate is among the highest in the world.

let's all ignore this tin foil hat man

 

[CAPRICORN-88]

US Navy proposes decommissioning first 4 LCS more than a decade early
By: David B. Larter   December 24, 2019
233

The U.S. Navy littoral combat ships Independence, left, and Coronado are shown underway in the Pacific Ocean. Both ships are slated to decommission in 2021 under a money-saving proposal. (MCC Keith DeVinney/U.S. Navy)

ELMER, N.J. — The U.S. Navy has put forward a proposal to decommission the first four littoral combat ships in 2021 as part of a cost-savings measure, according to a memorandum from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to the Defense Department.
The memo obtained by Defense News outlines plans to decommission the littoral combat ships Freedom, Independence, Fort Worth and Coronado, part of an overall plan to shrink the size of the force to deal with a flat budget. The ships all have between 12 and 17 years of planned hull life remaining.
The memo also outlines plans to decommission three dock landing ships — Whidbey Island, Germantown and Gunston Hall — between eight and 14 years early, as well as accelerating the decommissioning of four cruisers.


Pentagon proposes cuts to US Navy destroyer construction, retiring 13 cruisers
A Pentagon proposal sent to the White House would cut five destroyers out of the budget over the next five years.
By: David Larter
In the same document, the Department of Defense outlined plans to slash construction of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, cutting five out of 12 of the Burkes planned over the five-year Future Years Defense Program.
The memo amounts to a back-and-forth between the DoD and OMB on areas of disagreement inside the Pentagon’s 2021 budget request, which has yet to be finalized. Bloomberg News and Breaking Defense previously reported on aspects of the memo

The plan, which an administration source told Defense News was driven by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, was not greeted warmly by OMB, which directed the DoD to come back with a plan that would get the Navy to 355 ships as per the original program.

The Pentagon’s plan shrinks the size of the fleet from today’s fleet of 293 ships to 287 ships. The 355-ship goal was also made national policy in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.

But the plan to decommission the first four LCS will upset the Navy’s plan to use them as test ships for the still-to-be-fielded mission modules, a key part of the 2016 reorganization of the program prompted by a string of major casualties caused by system failures and operator errors.
The Navy upended the program’s signature modularity, a concept that would have seen crews attached to specific mission modules such as anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare or mine warfare, and could be switched out rapidly pierside depending on the mission. But the reorganization assigned each ship a permanent mission module, with the crews training and testing on the first four LCS.

Marines approach the amphibious dock landing ship Germantown near Camp Schwab, Okinawa, in July. Germantown is now on the chopping block to decommission early. (Lance Cpl. Hannah Hall/U.S. Marine Corps)
Decommissioning the ships will send the Navy back to the drawing board on how to get the new modules tested.

Bryan McGrath, a retired destroyer captain and analyst with defense consultancy The Ferrybridge Group, said the plan to reduce the size of the fleet is a sign that the Defense Department isn’t willing to put the resources required toward growing the fleet.
“If what you are reporting is true, this is a sign of the tension between the grand desires for a much larger fleet and the modest resources being applied to the problem,” McGrath said. “There simply is no way to grow the fleet as it is currently architected while maintaining the current fleet at a high state of readiness with the given resources."

McGrath said if 355 is still the goal, the Pentagon has to either dramatically restructure the fleet to switch out large surface combatants such as cruisers and destroyers with smaller, less expensive ships, or it has to change what’s counted as a ship — both moves that have been signaled by the Navy in recent years.
“This is why it’s so hard to grow a Navy,” McGrath said. “You have to decide it’s a national priority, you have to devote a lot of resources and you have to do it over a period of years. None of that has happened.”

 

[KAL-EL]

let's all ignore this tin foil hat man

Some people here keep saying that, but I noticed they never follow through.

 

[Viva_Viet]

So you think China is falling ? and you think CN birth rate is declining fast like Russia bcs Cnese felling hopeless due to economic failures ? R u crazy or blind or both ?

So, u belive CN suffer Nothing from Trade war ?? Haha, if they suffer Nothing and continue growing, then their birth rate should increasing, too,but its declining sharply like in Russia instead.

Thats why PM Li has to admit :China has over 600 million poor with $140 monthly income: Premier Li Keqiang. CN is only growing on Internet, not in real life

China has over 600 million poor with $140 monthly income: Premier Li Keqiang - CNBC TV18

Business News: Get the latest Business News, Live Share & Stock Market Updates, Top News from India and across world. Read Top Business News and updates on financial, economic and banking news on CNBCTV18.

www.cnbctv18.com

 

[CAPRICORN-88]

U.S. Navy Suspends Freedom-Class LCS Deliveries Pending Gearbox Fix

USS Freedom (USN file image)
BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE
01-21-2021 07:59:00

The U.S. Navy says that it will not be taking delivery of any more Freedom-class littoral combat ships (LCSs) until lead contractor Lockheed Martin has fixed a major problem with the vessel's combining gear, the transmission that marries power input from the vessel's diesel engines and gas turbines.

The Freedom-class LCS was designed in the 2000s as an ultra-fast, lightly-armed, lightly-manned platform for swappable mission packages. Those packages have still not been fully developed, and the vessels have been plagued with concerns over their survivability, lethality and maintainability.

Planned orders for both LCS variants have been trimmed back in favor of a new conventional frigate design (the FFG(X)), but the Navy has already contracted for 16 Freedom-class vessels. The first two in the series are slated for early decommissioning, eight are in service or repair, and the final six are in various stages of construction.

The Freedom-class has experienced a series of propulsion breakdowns related to its combining gears, and the Navy recently launched a fact-finding investigation with Lockheed and transmission builder RENK AG to get to the root of the problem. In a statement to defense media earlier this week, the Navy confirmed that the team has discovered a "material defect" with the gearbox's high speed clutch bearings. The Navy says that Lockheed will fix the issue, and it will not take delivery of any more Freedom-class LCS vessels until it is completed.

“A design fix has been developed and is in production, to be followed by factory and sea-based testing,” the statement said. “The fix will be installed and tested on new construction ships prior to the Navy taking deliveries of those ships. Measures have been implemented to mitigate risk to the in-service Freedom variant ships while the Navy moves swiftly to correct the deficiency and minimize operational impacts.”

Defense News reports that the temporary operating restrictions will limit the service's current LCS fleet to a top speed of 34 knots rather than the normal 40-plus knots until the retrofit process is complete