01-27-2017, 12:00 PM
(01-26-2017, 10:11 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:Quote:China's artificial islands are only a couple miles long. A reasonable size nuke would disperse most of the sand back into the waves.
Would it? All of it? To what depth? Disperse it where, into the atmosphere saturated with radiation? I don't think you've thought this through.
Disperse it where? Read my last few words, please. As I said, "back into the waves". The sand would sink back to the bottom where it was dredged up from in the first place.
With respect to radiation, a bomb has a few kilograms of fissionable material, while a power reactor has a few metric tons - several orders of magnitude more. If we could live with Fukushima without shutting down all the nuclear reactors in the world, the military will be able to live with a few bombs. That's assuming the decision makers will have "thought this through", which isn't something to be counted on once you get into a shooting war.
Note that I'm not advocating using nukes, just pointing out how it could happen. Keep in mind it's going to be Boomers making the ultiimate decision, not Silents who tend to think things through to the point of indecision.
Quote:Quote:A US supercarrier won't sink from a single conventional hit - even some WWII carriers took multiple kamikaze hits and survived - plus it has an entire task force and air wing to protect it. In a conventional sea battle, the Chinese navy wouldn't get close.
Claim not borne by wargames run by the Navy under all but the most restrictive (read: unrealistic) circumstances. Nor by experience during WWII. It's not like the Chinese Navy would have to close in and fire broadsides, it's all about missiles (launched from subs, small attack craft, destroyers, planes, and land-based launchers, etc.) these days, and subject to the salvo combat model derivation of Lanchester's Square Law.
This is not to say that the Chinese are invincible either, just that one has to consider the reality of modern weapons, industrial capacity, and local geography (Chinese are unlikely to fight out in the open Pacific vs staying largely within the first island chain where they can rely on mainland-based air and missile assets) when talking about gaming out naval conflict.
Nothing is invincible. A single Exocet missile sunk a British destroyer during the Falklands, an aircraft carrier is made of the same things on a larger scale, and missiles are much cheaper than aircraft carriers, you can afford to waste many to sink one.
That's why the US Military doesn't talk about sending carriers INTO the Taiwan Strait like they did back in '96 in the event of a crisis. And the carrier wing doesn't have the range it used to, either.
We're talking about the South China Sea, not the Taiwan Strait. The Exocet's range is about 100 miles, which doesn't buy you much in a sea that's about 1000 miles across. That's why China is building the artificial islands.
As for the fuzzy wuzzy formula - excuse me, the "Lanchester's Square Law" as it seems to be called nowadays - try applying it to the fact that the US Navy is about 10 times the size of the Chinese Navy. I think you'll quickly see how it supports my point that China loses any conventional naval conflict.
The artificial islands do have the potential for making the South China Sea a no go zone for the US Navy, though, which is why they are such an issue.
Quote:Quote:The laws of supply and demand apply to currency exchange rates along with everything else. If China dumps a massive supply of dollars onto the market by selling them, they become cheaper relative to other currencies and relative to goods. That means everything else becomes more expensive in terms of dollars - inflation.
Depends on buyers as well as sellers, dude. The Chinese have been offloading Treasuries for a couple of years now, their holdings are down to $1.12 trillion, less than half that of the Federal Reserve. They're not even the largest FOREIGN holder of US debt now, the Japanese are.
Interesting - thanks. I knew China was supporting their currency, but I hadn't realized they'd spent that much on it since I last checked a few years ago.