China is about to buy a six pack of heavily-armed hovercraft, Defense News reports. Sino-hawks here are already starting to freak out over the sale.
“A few years ago, the ‘dont worry, be happy’ school of analysis of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] said that we should all be reassured that the PLA couldnt attack Taiwan because it didnt have enough hovercraft. Clearly, this is changing,” University of Miami’s June Teufel Dreyer tells the military trade.
The 540-ton Zubr LCAC, the worlds largest amphibious assault hovercraft, can reach speeds in excess of 60 knots, can travel 300 nautical miles and can shoulder various large loads: 130 tons of cargo, 500 troops, three 50-ton medium battle tanks, 10 BTR-70 armored personnel vehicles or eight BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles.
“The Zubr will greatly enhance the PLA Navys capability to launch a large scale amphibious assault operation,” Sinodefence.com observes.
At the moment the PLA has to rely on conventional landing ships for such an operation. The slow process for the troops and vehicles to swim from their carrier ships to the beachhead makes them highly vulnerable to enemy firepower. The LCACs ability to deliver troops, vehicles and cargos directly to the beach makes a huge advantage. China has developed several models of its own indigenous LCACs, but most of these are unarmed small designs carrying no more than 20 soldiers.
The deal to buy the hovercraft from Russia’s Almaz Shipbuilding has been in the works for five years. And the initial order is teeny: just six ships. But “there are signs that China plans to build its own version of the Zubr-class craft,” Defense News says.
“It could be that the Chinese want to test the vehicles or purchase a few and then begin… produc[ing] them in the PRC [Peoples Republic of China],” Dreyer observes. “The amount ordered here, six, wont be enough to mount an invasion. But its a start.”
Its kind of sad when the PLAN has to duplicate a 20-year old foreign weapons platform because development at home went so poorly.
I don’t see how this is news though. It would take hundreds or thousands of landing craft to move an invasion force to Taiwan. When you get into numbers like that, does the type of craft really matter?
Can’t argue with their interest though, sealift hovercrafts are pretty sweet. I’d say it is money well spent.
Good Morning Folks,
Once again I can find no fault in the Robot Economists argurments. All that I can add is that if history is an indicatorof China’s intent it is to try and reverse engineer the LCAT’s the result as usual, well all of us have seen how well they can do in copying Russian weapons, not very.
Congress is about to tackle the budget for 2006/2007 and with 9/11 still fresh, well a China story is due, I guess this is just another reason why we need the F-22.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
It is another pro vs. anti China discussion.
Why every time China buys a military system, people assume China is going to invade Taiwan tomorrow? They are not. LCAC
BT
“Peace at any cost” nice.
So I guess by that scale we can pretty much justify sacrificing most of our Democratic allies in Asia. Japan, S Korea, Philippines, hell then maybe when China actually achieves their sought after polarity with our forces we can give some real sacrifices like Australia followed immediately by the EU using your brilliant scale to sacrifice US/Guam, Wake, Hawaii, Aleutians.
Why not if it buys a couple more years of peace before the next sacrifice is due it
C-Low,
I don’t make blanket statements. In this particular instance, a sacrifice is needed. Giving this small rogue republic the ability to start a war between the US and China is absurd, short-sighted and is dangerous to human race. Taiwan is going to merge back to the mainland anyway. Think about Hong Kong.
In my opinion economics is the pathway to positive change, not isolation. Democracy is not that important to most people in the developing world, but economics is.
I present my perspective in order to illicit a response from the anti-China crowd and their Cold War communist paranoia. People really need to visit; China is less Communist than say, San Francisco. LOL!
I love the China topics, because it splits the Republicans and Democratic constituents into pro vs. anti-China groups. It
BT,
Clearly, economic interest is not be all, end all as far as US foreign policy goes. If that was a case, why in the world would we support Israel, at great cost, agaist the Arab nations in the region? There are 6 milion or so Israelies that GET billions of dollars from us. There are over 100 million Arabs who control the vast majority of the much-needed oil. From the population and economic standpoint, we should have “sacrificed” Israel long time ago.
One thing we’re all missing here is that these Zubrs are very different from the American LCACs. The American LCACs are supposed to be a bridge, a transportation link between the ships and the beach. They are short-ranged affairs to fit inside the dry dock of a ship.
The Soviets designed their hovercrafts differently. My understanding is that their hovercrafts are designed for independent operations. That’s why they are so big and bristling with weapons. They need to survive the trip across the Baltic sea to open up the Northern Front of World War III.
If the PLA were to manufacture Zubr-esque hovercrafts, then it portends a significant shift in their amphibious doctrine. Right now, it is probably an experiment, to wargame the Zubrs against other amphib tactics.
BT
You don
“Its kind of sad when the PLAN has to duplicate a 20-year old foreign weapons platform because development at home went so poorly.
I don’t see how this is news though. It would take hundreds or thousands of landing craft to move an invasion force to Taiwan. When you get into numbers like that, does the type of craft really matter?“
Damn your black soul for bringing insight and perspective to the discussion. I was getting all revved up for some by-the-numbers wailing about Munich and Chamberlain and, maybe best of all, Operation Sea Lion — EAST. Oh, wait, C-Low’s meeting quota.…
“Moose, Robot.Economist said “hundreds or thousands”, not “hundreds of thousands”.“
Humble apologies. Small screen + 20–500 vision, I should have paid more attention.
I don’t want to get off the subject, but sacrificing Israel for the greater good has crossed my mind. Nevertheless, Arabs will still be pissed off and dangerous and will try to kill Americans. That makes them my enemy, not China. Therefore anyone who wants to help us kill Arabs is an ally worthy of keeping, for now. Now let
Yeah BT it IS abig deal..fear of a rising china is a generational thing I guess, for those who do more than worry about israel, jews the second coming, etc etc..the chinese are modernizing their armed forces because they can and should
the key is to look at how..they have budgets and priorties too..it is obvious that they are thinking about the taiwan scenario..they have a buildup in airborne forces and equipment, sealift, airlift, planes that can operate from rough unprepared strips.
thye have hundreds of short range missiles on the coast pointing at taiwan..they are building i believe dozens of new subs a year..some ideally suited for littoral operaations..thye have a long range plan, which taiwan and the US figure in to, as well as korea japan..
Denial of the seas, control of sea lanes, chokepoints to prevent our resupply either of korea japan..subs off guam..mrbms to hit guam pearl,etc..
They are like our military they gotta wargame something..and taiwan is most likely scenario..
they are securing fueling rights and increasing aid programs all thru micronesia, marshalls etc.
they ultimately want to bust out the taiwan straits, and become more bluewater..primarliy i believe to control key terrain to affect mvtment of us forces to taiwan,japan..
hey all power to them and us for preventing them
ahh chaps the great game begins again..tallyho
China is not going to take over the world militarily. They are however on the move for resources. Could I call them free-market Communists? Think about Clyde Prestowitz
what would it take to sink one of these? an atgm seems to small.
Well im all for alternative weapon platform,I love those quirky Russian thangs! Mind you, everyone got apoint about China’s copying quality, sur given enough time you can do it right, but the Chinese always seem to leave out the good bits, unlike the Russians stuff, which always have the good points. All well, if it has to take China to make my fatasy of a Armoured Assault Hovercraft Fighting Vehicle, then bring it on. I hope they spit on everyone, when they get going, next up should be the copying of the Ka-52 and the ekranoplanes Wing-In-Ground Effect transporters! GET IN THERE!
BT lives in a dream world.
While I hope to hell I am wrong I really believe China WILL invade Taiwan and China WILL use military force to get the raw materials it needs from Sibera.
And the U.S. WILL be in a war in China within the next 20 years, if not within the next 5 to 10 years!
In my view, after China kicks the worlds tail in the next Olympic’s, (like Hiter wanted to do when Germany hosted the Olympics) Taiwan can kiss it’s freedom good by.
China attacks Taiwan and the odds are WWIV is under way.
(We are already in WWIII with the Moslem fanatics who intend to take over the entire world and install a Taliban form of government, only most people are too clueless to know it.)
The US has the means and power to settle the Taiwan issue. If it favours China it will be considered loss of face. On the other hand helping Taiwan could lead to war which frankly is not in the basic interest of the Bush gang.But you never know.
If Bush were intent on preventing China ever challenging the US in the future,now is a good time for CSB(US agent) to declare independence and let China attack which would galavanise the US to act with its military superiority.
Howewer the US would have to pay a heavy price with at least tow carriers destroyed and possibly ten major US cities reduced to ashes if it were to undertake the surgical dismemberment of China.
Of course China would not tbe around to haunt the US.The price for US victory goes up each day because the Chinese will getting stronger day by day unless the US has a secret weapon that can destroy China with too heavy a price.
But as the saying goes you never know .
Major threat any SEAL Ops alone & for aiding Pirates.
Cant US back engineer one of these Hoverships for Use???
If China can, why cant we?
Now imagine Cuba having these?
No Korea.
Major threat to amphib forces.
No More IwoJimas or Normandy style assults.
i’m trying to find out if the navy is testing a locking nut and bolt system from tinslok.com.my request is for investment purposes only.
hi i am looking forward to assemble hovercraft in iran beciuse of the hight amount custom and can,nt sale it and it is,nt afforedable. if you intrest pls contect me..
thanhs
salian