Well look at that, the Chinese navy has got itself a Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC). More photos of new additions to China’s growing fleet at Information Dissemination. If China is serious about building an amphibious warfare capability, I’d be curious to know what their answer is to the anti-access challenge. My guess is they don’t have one. Precision guided weapons work both ways, of course, and our battle networks are pretty good at long-range targeting.
When RAND recently wargamed a Chinese invasion of Taiwan they found that a Chinese amphibious assault could become a “bloody fiasco” in the face of determined Taiwanese resistance. Still, I’m sure there is some Chinese think tank working vigorously on an AirSea Battle concept that envisions the PLA navy using their new LCACs.
– Greg Grant
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Cute. Where'd they get it, Russia?
I guess we'd better ship Taiwan a few thousand Javelins or TOWs; or let some schematics fall into the hands of Taiwanese spies so we can feign innocence. Pity Chiang couldn't hold the country together…
Good luck about that, their separatists would've prefer Uncle Sam do all the heavy lifting and they can enjoy "independence" without shedding their own blood, not a drop. And even among those separatists, no surprise many of them have Green Cards…
And not to mention Taiwan independence is more of a joke, they certainly know in their heart because mainland China already its largest trading partner, and what'd happen if your largest trading partner, the largest concentration of investment, start taking away all those carrots? Just the announcement is all you need to crash Taiwan's stock market, and is Uncle Sam got the dough to save them? Hmmm, not lately that's for certain
As for China, well, 10 years ago Taiwan is indeed the benchmark, but the yardstick already moved beyond now. China is making a comeback, after being old and fallen for the last 2 centuries, and it's a matter of time their path of resurgence will challenge US dominance. Superpowers come and go throughout history and always with wars as a result.
LCAC got a lot of usages, other than assaulting Taiwan shores (which, the western coast actually no longer ideal, way too eroded).
And a foot note, China's LPD (loose copy of the USN Austin class) and the LCAC are embark for Somalia as part of the latest navel taskforce…Chinese navy is using the Somalia piracy as the opportunity to give their fleet the never-before constant long-range, overseas deployment. Given that one of the previous taskforce made a stopover at Hong Kong on their return trip, kinda hoping that the LPD will do the same.
you watch 10 yrs and they go for it
LCACs are 25 years old and made of aluminum. It's not a front line weapon and do not confuse hardware with capability. Just because you can do it…doesn't really mean you know how to use it. Last time I check China doesn't have any type of amphibious doctrine that has been tried, forged, and proven in combat.
The "Chinese LCAC" is actually called the Yuyi class. PLAN has also ordered some Zubrs from the Soviet Union. Info on the Yuyis is a little sparse, though the Chinese have a smaller LCAC type craft called Type 724 Air Cushion Landing Craft.
sinodefence.com has info on Chinese fleet units, but info on the Yuyi comes from the China Defense Blog.
Re: China doesn't have any type of amphibious doctrine that has been tried, forged, and proven in combat.
When was the last time that US amphibious doctrine was forged and proven in combat? Oh yes, that would be the embarrassing and completely unopposed amphibious assault on Somalia in 1995 complete with international news cameramen waiting for them on the beach, completely ruining their attempted machismo.
LOL, though it did make for a nice demonstration. as far as china goes, theyve proven time and again that they have little respect for international borders, and its really just a matter of time before whatever amphib doctrine they have is based on (hopefully bitter) experience.
also werent US forces invoved in a landing on the Al-Faw peninsula in 2003 against iraqi forces?
The only use for the Navy at this point is to be a mobile operating base. Beach assaults are practically useless at this point given cruise missiles and such
So they've been saying for decades now, and they've said the same thing about tanks too. So far the only thing that's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be practically useless was the battleship and even then it was only as a capital, it still proved to be useful as a shore bombardment platform. The beach assault will always be there since so much of the world is accessible from the ocean and we're not going to always have the luxury of a friendly nation to stage from like we did in Kuwait when we invaded Iraq. What happens then, how are we supposed to land troops & supplies if not from the beach? Helicopters alone can't do it, they can't carry enough heavy equipment and would be vulnerable to SAMs as would any transport aircraft like a C-5 or C-17 not to mention that they'd need an airport to land at and I don't think that you could launch an invasion from a captured airport in the middle of a hostile country, that would be tantamount to suicide.
If we're talking combat then try looking up a little place called Inchon; that was the last time our amphibious doctrine had been tried and proven in combat.
Need to review your military history, amphibious assaults were were used in MEB size during Vietnam and MEU size in Grenada. Also, as previously noted, in Iraq in 2003 in MEF size, although to be fair, that was somewhat non-standard in that it was largely launched from land and not ships.
Maybe if you sailed a BB in a disputed area you wouldn't have such a tough landing. As I recall, the Iraqi's ashore didn't want to have anything to do with the Iowa's on station in their neighborhood.
Airborne landings are probably more likely to be successful since there's a finite number of beaches compared to the number of possible airborne landing zones. Of course, if we had proper airborne divisions with real light armor (like the Soviet airborne) it would be a realistic option. As it is, paratroops are light infantry that jump out of the back of a plane.
"Maybe if you sailed a BB in a disputed area you wouldn't have such a tough landing. As I recall, the Iraqi's ashore didn't want to have anything to do with the Iowa's on station in their neighborhood.
"
That was 20 years ago at this point. The proliferation of russian and chinese anti-shipping missiles makes this very risky. Parking a dinosaur BB near a coast could result in several hundred casualties.
The BBs were built to take hits from 16" shells weighing over a ton. Most antiship missiles wouldn't even dent the sides. Kamikazes with bombs on board bounced off their sides, decks, and turrets. Modern frigates and destroyers that have been damaged by missiles were unarmored by comparison.
I'm sure the Navy wants a 65+ year old ship taking multiple missile hits. Why on earth are we talking about kamikazes? What is with this fascination with battleships? Also, just because the ships could take hits doesn't mean there wouldn't be a ton of casualties and irreparable damage.
In the old days, massive battle damage was accepted as "normal". I imagine modern systems aren't nearly as robust by comparison due to complexity.
I would like to comment that based on battleship armoring schemes, that the superstructure is probably not that well-armored, at least compared to the deck or the belt, which were important in WW2. Underwater protection would be focused on torpedoes, and battleships have survived torpedo and mine damage before.
Cruise missile warheads appear to be mostly of the HE variety, probably would do damage against the superstructure quite nicely, and if you wanted to penetrate the more heavily armored belt or deck armor maybe designing a shaped-charge warhead (if they don't have them already) is an option.
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