You know as well as I do that it is entirely possible for the CSF to go completely silent. In the last few years alone there have been a series of exercises where the fleet was unable to be found. To all intents and purposes they had disappeared - and that was with the OPFOR having a notional comprehension of which part of the ocean they were in. I assume that you also know that the capacity for sats to real time track a CSF is almost impossible - and certainly lies outside of the scope of China, They don't have enough sats and if they did, they're all not in a position to be symbiotic and track a fleet without losing huge holes in coverage elsewhere. Yes you can track surface assets, but to track a CSF mid ocean in real time and where it hadn't shut down is going to be an exercise in absolute frustration. get within 1500km of the australian coast and you'll come up as exposed as a nun in a whorehouse - but where does China have a similar capability?? It doesn't - period. It's aslo the reason why the US wants to get access to the technology and has signed a partnering agreement, it does things that no other US system can currently do. Give me a clear example of how China can profile and to a meaningful depth - US surface assets in the pacific? they can't - period. They would struggle to meaningfully engage 2 CSF's - they certainly can't successfully prosecute against 7. You're applying a credibility level to them that just does not exist - there is no infrastructure that supports it, there is insufficient space based infrastructure that supports it, there are insufficient credible assets to tag, hold and prosecute a series of credible solutions. Maybe in 25 years - but not today - and not tomorrow. You are either deliberately understating what is able to be achieved - or you are being mischievous.

Cool stuff, thanks elcid. I wasn't aware the RN had non-nuke tips on them, but it does offer an interesting long range strike ability (unless they group them together in the same round, but that seems a bit foolish). I was aware of the old Nike Hercs in Taiwan's service being given the surface attack ability, and heard limited "rumors" of a newer system. I was at Redstone Arsenal, AL in 1990 when they started "demilitarizing" some of our intermediate range systems, also in the same timeframe the TOW 2 B and AAWS-M (early Javelin) were undergoing trials..

Regarding the debate between you guys... We all can fairly assume "enemy" is referring ti china. I won't argue PLA numbers, won't argue your EW knowledge, cid, and won't argue your fleet ops knowledge, gf. My point: PLA doctrine sounds feasible, but it seems they are more considering a one-on-one (or one-on-two) conflict. Consuming such a large supply of missiles and skilled pilots in some all-out, most-at-once offensive lines them up perfectly for a swarm of other nations who may not take kindly to such an assault on their buddies, not to mention anyone who gets their commercial shipping smacked in the process. Just because the US and her allies may have shut down various production facilities and cut the ranks of the skilled laborers, I personally do not believe the asian bully has the industrial mobilization capabilities of the US, UK, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, and any other "allies" whose shipping catches a few Silkworms in the Strait and surrounding area. I personally don't see china only facing off against just Taiwan and the US, because those other Pacific powers realize that if those two take serious crippling losses, they may well be next. So I'm asking, would all the PLA's first strike and contingent (conventional) assets be capable of absorbing all the various systems and tactics of the "allies" fleets? Going up against 2 or 3 US carrier groups with all their escorts and 250 odd aircraft is one thing: add in a few hundred more air and sea platforms from different directions, it may prove a much less favorable scenario..

Lets assume that the balloon goes up today. There is very little that China could do against 7 x CSF's with 2 on alert and sitting @ 30 days. That doesn't include an SSGN response, a manned intercontinental response, TLAM-N's etc... Any strike will be overwhelming and concentric, the defence, by association will be centrifugal - much harder to deploy, and harder to make singular "strike" statements. A concentric series of strikes from multiple platforms and multiple dimensions will be more than distracting. You don't have to sink assets or drop enemy aircraft from the sky to start to overwhelm them. and I do believe that if things go "west", then there are a few other nations ready to get a few free hits in, a region dominated by China will make the Spratlys a foregone conclusion - and that will change the attitude of more than a few navies in the region with a submarine capability and with demographic/geographic disputes in train. I don't believe that the battle can be localised to just the straits, I think it will snowball and escalate rather rapidly into something considerably broader in scope.

Yes, it is impossible to track a CG in real-time using a satellite in general term. The normal operation is to locate the area where a CG sails by satellite, then assign ships/subs to track it. Howerer, regarding to a specific war zone, it is quite possible to track a CG in real time fashion, for example, Taiwan. Taiwan is just about a 100 miles away from Chinese mainland. When a satellite flies above it, the satellite can communicate with the mainland in real time already while looking the situation around Taiwan. Since it only makes sense from military point of view that a CG sails within 1000 km distance from Taiwan, the satellite just needs to foucs this area, and ignoring others. In average, a satellite can monitor a spot of earth for about 7 minutes when flying over it, enough time to precisely locate a CG and report its direction/location and get missle fired. It takes about an hour for a satellite to cycle the earth. If you have 3-4 satellites and run them in turn to fly over one place, then almost for sure you can monitor the place in real time. A CG can travel at about 30 knots speed only, and a satellite can monitor far more than 1000 kms around a spot at one time.

I accept that, what I was looking at was the premise of a cold search. If so inclined, you could preposition you satelllites to sit and view a given area - and that does assume that you have a notional idea of what is about to pass through a viewing point - but for you to do that you also need to show your hand - and one would think, that as soon as you know the racetrack, you will either change the way you are about to do business - or you will seek to remove the viewing platform in some form or fashion. The US is the only country that has the luxury of being able to slot platforms virtually in "at will", the other countries (ie China) don't have the numbers, and/or flexibility to pull it off. Their surveillance is fundamentally going to have to be more immediate - and as such, they are then losing part of the race.

Pretty wrong conclusion. Us never fights a war just by using CGs since WWII, not even with Kosov. How many battle airplanes can a CG sends out? Among them how many are bombers? How many needed to cover/pretect the CG itself? How long can a CG sustain its battle state? Equipment maintainence, pilot stress, logistics problem, anti-sub operations, anti-air operations? 7 CGs, for a small country is a huge force for sure. But for countries like Russia or China, far less enough force to start a war. Without absolute air-advantage, you can't send out bombers, it is not the Iraq or Kosov situation.

forgot to add, that one hour separating a pass is still sufficient for a fleet to travel a minimum of 30k's. Without decent terminal guidance, and that means that it can bypass the "lamb" or any emulators that are active, then it will struggle to make an effective strike. A carrier would need substantial hits, and on a 30k variation with no EW defence - probably a city killer - or something with a (eg) 15K area effect. The assumption being made is that the CSF is absolutely benign and that no vessels are spoofing signals, it ignores the role of the sacrificial lamb (and that means 1 and maybe up to 4 vessels who can take the "bullet"). The environment is not benign at all, it's active and there are a number of measures in place that a sunburn/club/yakhont will need to get through to do their work. Add up 7 sets of layered screens, and its not an easy task.

I've read some stories about how China monitors the Iraq situation using their satellites. It's totally possible to watch a specific area using satellites in real-time.

[Pretty wrong conclusion. Us never fights a war just by using CGs since WWII, not even with Kosov.] What was Charles de Gaulle doing off Afghanistan? The CV is part of a delivery matrix - it is not the sole vehicle of mercy, repentance and/or revenge in the region. What is the purpose of standoffs? It's designed to strike long distance without exposing your platform or delivery vehicle to immediate harm. If you are going to deliver a concentric strike, it's NOT at the same target - it will be at a series of targets that are interdependant and linked. People are looking at this like a game of chess when it's actually more like the japanese game of "go" ("othello" for some) a battle is multi-dimensional, it's a series of interactive and concurrent responses all acting in relative synch to overwhelm links of a chain. contain, isolate, decapitate, and the process continues on concurrently.