TW: China thinks it can defeat America in battle - (and why we don't think so)

[JMS]

 
 

If at 10:30 PM local Taiwanese time, China started dropping sonar buoys through out the Taiwan Strait, we'd be forced with a decision:

1. Leave the subs on site and risk them being identified.
2. Engage the forces dropping them.
3. Withdraw from the area.

 

Again.. it's a pretty vast area a submarine could be hiding in and still be effective. I looked it up variants of the navy's Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of 900 nautical miles...up to 3.2 million square miles it could be hiding in best case ( for the sub)... Your planes dropping boyee's would really need to know aproximately where the submarine was in order to be effective... That's probable not going to come even from radar... It's probable going to come from the heat signature of the launch, the wake of the sub when if it surfaces, perhaps the magnetic resonance of the hull. Again though the best equipment the Chinese have is cold war eara soviet subs which are formitable for what they are...

But remember, they were designed to kill aircraft cariers... they were loud, fast, and exceptionally easy to find and kill.... We know from sources like "Blind man's bluff" and exerpts from spy trials like
John Walker, and Johnathan Pollard; that when China's equipment was in it's hey day; our submarines regularly waited for them outside of their bases to go out on patrol.... then followed them few 1000 yards back for weeks at a time, then returned with them to their bases... and their submarines never knew we were even there.   We had submarines literally waiting in line for new soviet submarines to come out and play just outside the gates of their bases. The soviets only found out about it when their spys stole detailed patrol routes of their submarine forces and reports from our submarine captains on how that data was collected.   The soviets had no clue.

Now you contrast that with the Soviet's best attack submarine... the Alpha... An incredible technological achievement. It could travel 55 mph underwater which made it a formatiable threat to our aircraft cariers. If one of those things figured out where our Aircraft Carrer was it was basically unstopable as it could outrun not only our fastest submarines,  most of our surface fleet, but also our torpedos... So great at what it was designed for... Only when the Soviets were first testing this in the North Sea outside of then Leningrad; it was so noisy that we heard it at listenning stations in the caribean half way across the world..    Fast... check... stealthy... not so much..

Stealth and detecting our subs was never a priority for the soviets. Their subs were designed to kill carriers, our subs have always been built to kill their ships, and to be stealthy.
 

 

 

 

Considering the OP talks about torpedoes and not cruise missiles, I think you've missed something.  Unless the guy in the OP doesn't understand the difference between a cruise missile and a torpedo, which makes the whole piece kind of worthless.

Read the original post again pete. It speaks about both cruise missiles and torpedos. we also have harpoon missiles (25 nm range).

Virginia Class Attack Boat:  (Newest Attack Submarine)
Armament:
12 × VLS (BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile) tubes
4 × 533mm torpedo tubes (Mk-48 torpedo)
27 × torpedoes & missiles (torpedo room
 
 
Los Angelos Attack Boat ( Oldest Attack Submarine )
Armament:
4× 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes,
37x 48_torpedo or Tomahawk missiles, Harpoon anti–ship missile, Mk 67 mobile, or Mk 60 Captor mines (most boats in service as of 2011 have a 12-tube VLS


Sea Wolf Attack Board ( Baddest attack submarine in the world )
Armament:
8 × 660mm torpedo tubes (50 Tomahawk cruise missile/Harpoon/Mk-48 torpedo)


And that is just our attack boats... One of our recently modified (post cold war) Ohio Class boomers are former ballistic missile boats each packing 154 cruise missiles.. Think about a few of those sitting out in 3.2 million square miles waiting for your invasion force.
 
 

Low frequency sonar also has a pretty effective range.
 

About 10 miles... but as I said it's effectiveness is reduced by background noise in some of the most heavily traveled trade routes in teh world,   tempature gradiants of the water,  and the landscape of the ocean floor proximal to where you are looking.

 

10 miles I think give or take a few miles if your conditions are ideal.. which amounts to right on top of the submarine when you are talking about several million square miles you have to look and our submarine can track exactly where you are looking the entire time based upon your first ping... and can hear you long before you can find him even if you do get lucky and drop your boyee near him.

 

I strongly suspect we'd withdraw.  Now, if the relevant subs have cruise missiles and the Chinese don't have effective strategies for dealing with them (e.g. shooting them down), and we can hit important ships with them (where said ships are moving), then the subs are still effective at a pretty long range.

All of our subs have cruise missiles.   Except maybe our Nuclear Boomers, which are pretty much separate and wouldn't be used for any such conventional action.   They just hide.

 

And the most effective strategies I believe would be to have a submarine sitting on one of our submarines so you could sink it when it openned it's missile doors.. but failing that the next most effective strategy would allow the submarine to get several shots off before it was forced to relocate to fire again. which isn't very effective when you are trying to protect what amounts to a handful of ships necessary for a sucessful invasion.
 

But I'm stuck by the OP talked about torpedoing boats and gave an example where a British ship used a torpedo, which makes we wonder whether depending on cruise missiles in that sort of situation is in fact an effective strategy.

Against Argintina which was using US military surplus from WWII..
General Belgrano was a 1940's era Brooklyn Class Light Cruiser which Argintina aquired in the 1950's. It's really not comparable... I mean to rougly quote
English Bob from Unforgiven... "Why not torpedo a General Belgrano".

[DaGoonie55]

These Tomahawks are sexy:

 

 

However, the PLA has a good toy of their own:

 

http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/cruise-missiles-chinas-real-carrier-killer/

 

Apples to apples, I'd say we have the better, and proven, weapon system. 

[PeterMP]

 

 

 

Again.. it's a pretty vast area a submarine could be hiding in and still be effective. I looked it up variants of the navy's Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of 900 nautical miles...up to 3.2 million square miles it could be hiding in best case ( for the sub)... Your planes dropping boyee's would really need to know aproximately where the submarine was in order to be effective... That's probable not going to come even from radar... It's probable going to come from the heat signature of the launch, the wake of the sub when if it surfaces, perhaps the magnetic resonance of the hull. Again though the best equipment the Chinese have is cold war eara soviet subs which are formitable for what they are...

But remember, they were designed to kill aircraft cariers... they were loud, fast, and exceptionally easy to find and kill.... We know from sources like "Blind man's bluff" and exerpts from spy trials like

John Walker, and Johnathan Pollard; that when China's equipment was in it's hey day; our submarines regularly waited for them outside of their bases to go out on patrol.... then followed them few 1000 yards back for weeks at a time, then returned with them to their bases... and their submarines never knew we were even there.   We had submarines literally waiting in line for new soviet submarines to come out and play just outside the gates of their bases. The soviets only found out about it when their spys stole detailed patrol routes of their submarine forces and reports from our submarine captains on how that data was collected.   The soviets had no clue.

Now you contrast that with the Soviet's best attack submarine... the Alpha... An incredible technological achievement. It could travel 55 mph underwater which made it a formatiable threat to our aircraft cariers. If one of those things figured out where our Aircraft Carrer was it was basically unstopable as it could outrun not only our fastest submarines,  most of our surface fleet, but also our torpedos... So great at what it was designed for... Only when the Soviets were first testing this in the North Sea outside of then Leningrad; it was so noisy that we heard it at listenning stations in the caribean half way across the world..    Fast... check... stealthy... not so much..

Stealth and detecting our subs was never a priority for the soviets. Their subs were designed to kill carriers, our subs have always been built to kill their ships, and to be stealthy.

 

 

 

 

Read the original post again pete. It speaks about both cruise missiles and torpedos. we also have harpoon missiles (25 nm range).

Virginia Class Attack Boat:  (Newest Attack Submarine)

Armament:

12 × VLS (BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile) tubes

4 × 533mm torpedo tubes (Mk-48 torpedo)

27 × torpedoes & missiles (torpedo room

 

 

Los Angelos Attack Boat ( Oldest Attack Submarine )

Armament:

4× 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes,

37x 48_torpedo or Tomahawk missiles, Harpoon anti–ship missile, Mk 67 mobile, or Mk 60 Captor mines (most boats in service as of 2011 have a 12-tube VLS

Sea Wolf Attack Board ( Baddest attack submarine in the world )

Armament:

8 × 660mm torpedo tubes (50 Tomahawk cruise missile/Harpoon/Mk-48 torpedo)

And that is just our attack boats... One of our recently modified (post cold war) Ohio Class boomers are former ballistic missile boats each packing 154 cruise missiles.. Think about a few of those sitting out in 3.2 million square miles waiting for your invasion force.

 

 

About 10 miles... but as I said it's effectiveness is reduced by background noise in some of the most heavily traveled trade routes in teh world,   tempature gradiants of the water,  and the landscape of the ocean floor proximal to where you are looking.

 

10 miles I think give or take a few miles if your conditions are ideal.. which amounts to right on top of the submarine when you are talking about several million square miles you have to look and our submarine can track exactly where you are looking the entire time based upon your first ping... and can hear you long before you can find him even if you do get lucky and drop your boyee near him.

 

All of our subs have cruise missiles.   Except maybe our Nuclear Boomers, which are pretty much separate and wouldn't be used for any such conventional action.   They just hide.

 

And the most effective strategies I believe would be to have a submarine sitting on one of our submarines so you could sink it when it openned it's missile doors.. but failing that the next most effective strategy would allow the submarine to get several shots off before it was forced to relocate to fire again. which isn't very effective when you are trying to protect what amounts to a handful of ships necessary for a sucessful invasion.

 

Against Argintina which was using US military surplus from WWII..

General Belgrano was a 1940's era Brooklyn Class Light Cruiser which Argintina aquired in the 1950's. It's really not comparable... I mean to rougly quote

English Bob from Unforgiven... "Why not torpedo a General Belgrano".

 

1.  Okay, they talk about cruise missiles once, but don't at all mention how they are important in the context of the conversation and/or how they affect our ability to prevent China from attacking Twain.

 

2.  That's the comparison the piece YOU posted is using- not me, but it is my point.  The comparison between what the Britain was able to do with respect to the Argentinian Navy and the Falkland islands essentially has no relevance with respect to US and China today in a battle over Taiwan.

 

 3.  The subs CAN carry cruise missiles, but I don't know on any given voyage how many have missiles and how many missiles they have, and I doubt you do either.

 

4.  LF sonar is better than 10 of miles.  It gets into 100s of km, which is over 50 miles.

http://www.acousticecology.org/sractivesonars.html

 

5.  Given that they've also had plenty of time to get to know the waters and the bottom, I have no problem believing that the Chinese would be able to force US subs out of the Taiwanese straits or identify the location of those subs.  At that point in time, torpedeos, which is what the piece you posted in the OP spends 99% of the time talking about and essentially only mentions with respect to actually affecting the battle become irrelevant.

 

In terms of actually stopping a Chinese invasion with subs, it would come down to how many subs we have on station, how many cruise missiles they have, and what their effectiveness is (especially if we limit ourselves to only attacking elements of the invasion where you are essentially talking about hitting moving ships).

 

5.  I think the biggest deterrent we have with respect to China is our ability to hit them multiple places at a time, which would come down to political will.  Are we willing to attack the Chinese main land against facilities that are not directly involved in the invasion?  Are we willing to use resources in Japan to attack other targets on the main land of China?  I don't think China currently has the ability to mount an effective invasion of somewhere like Taiwan and hold back US forces (including cruise missiles against stationary land based targets).

[Larry]

3.  The subs CAN carry cruise missiles, but I don't know on any given voyage how many have missiles and how many missiles they have, and I doubt you do either.

True, neither of us know. But I'd bet you $100, right now, that the answer is "all of them".

(Even the boomers, who aren't supposed to ever engage, well, anybody.)

[JMS]

Those Chinese carriers look high tech and cutting edge, but they still use chinee micro parts that are bound to be missing that one screw when it is really needed. Probably made by Ryobi. 

 

 

Yeah I'm old enough to remeber when Made in Japan meant it was cheap and broke easy....   Where it was the punch line for anything and everything which broke quickly....

[PeterMP]

True, neither of us know. But I'd bet you $100, right now, that the answer is "all of them".

(Even the boomers, who aren't supposed to ever engage, well, anybody.)

 

I'd take that bet.

 

I'd bet all of the ones that are on regular patrol against China are probably carrying tomahawks, but you do have a boat in the water with an explosive device on it, and even an expensive limited explosive device.

 

I'd be shocked from a safety, guarding technology (i.e. limiting the number of people that come into contact with them), costs, and availability (i.e. if I have cruise missiles on a sub doing research on sonar on arctic sea it isn't available for other theaters in the case of an emergency) that there isn't a mission limited sensitivity if a sub is carrying a cruise missile or not).

[JMS]

However, the PLA has a good toy of their own:

 

Apples to apples, I'd say we have the better, and proven, weapon system.

Yeah I think the PLA has invested in some pretty significant toys to locate and target our Carriers...

I think that's why they wouldn't be a factor in any confrontation. Because if we used them, we might loose them.

[Larry]

I'd take that bet.

I'd bet all of the ones that are on regular patrol against China are probably carrying tomahawks, but you do have a boat in the water with an explosive device on it, and even an expensive limited explosive device.

I'd be shocked from a safety, guarding technology (i.e. limiting the number of people that come into contact with them), costs, and availability (i.e. if I have cruise missiles on a sub doing research on sonar on arctic sea it isn't available for other theaters in the case of an emergency) that there isn't a mission limited sensitivity if a sub is carrying a cruise missile or not).

Using the "it's dangerous to carry explosives" reasoning, our subs shouldn't be carrying torpedoes, either.

-OT-

Remembering an old Humor In Uniform article.

The author is reporting on his first day at Armor School, at Fort Knox. He reports to his first class, where a grizzled old Sergeant begins the class by announcing that "if you have a tank that can move, and it can shoot, but it can't talk, then that tank is useless. It can't respond to cries for help. It can't find out where the enemy is. It cannot know that there's a superior force, waiting for it, over that hill. It can't even communicate with the other tanks in its unit. Therefore, your tanks communication gear is the most important part of your tank. And in this class, I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about the communication system in your tank."

He then goes to a second class, where an equally grizzled sergeant begins the class by announcing that "if you have a tank that can talk, and it can shoot, but it can't move, then that tank is useless. Even though it can receive requests for aid, and information about enemy locations, it can't get to where the fighting is. It can only attack enemies who blunder in front if it. And it's a stationary target for the enemy. Therefore, the power package for your tank is the most important part of your tank. And in this class, I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about the most important part of your tank."

He then goes to a third class, where a REALLY grizzled sergeant announces that "if you have a tank that can move, and it can talk, but it can't shoot, then what you've got is a 63 ton walkie talkie."

[JMS]

1.  Okay, they talk about cruise missiles once, but don't at all mention how they are important in the context of the conversation and/or how they affect our ability to prevent China from attacking Twain.

I think they did... missiles are just much more capable than torpedo's for fighting surface ships, which is why all of our attack boats have them. Missiles have a much longer range. (see bellow)..

 

Able to lurk silently under the waves and strike suddenly with torpedoes and missiles, submarines have tactical and strategic effect greatly disproportionate to their relatively small numbers.

2. That's the comparison the piece YOU posted is using- not me, but it is my point. The comparison between what the Britain was able to do with respect to the Argentinian Navy and the Falkland islands essentially has no relevance with respect to US and China today in a battle over Taiwan.

Context Pete context.... In the faulkland island war Argintina was using a lot of WWII and Korean war surplus American equipment. There corvette and their aircraft career both of which were sunk were both 1940's era equipment for instance... They didn't have submarines which shot surface to surface missiles. The only missiles they had to use against the British fleet was a pathetic French Exocet. Pathetic because the Exocet had about half the range and half the payload of the US Harpoon which we were using at the time. Also Argintina only had a handful of one variant of the Exocets. The air to sea variant. At least that's the variant which made the Exocet a household name and recallable to me now 35 years after the fact. Anyway Argintina used that Exocet to great affect against the Brits. It was their best weapon system. The Argintines hit and sank the British Destroyer Sheffield, and hit the merghant ship Atlantic Conveyer. I don't know if you remember or if you are old enough to remember, but the Exocet was the star of that war. It's what kept Margaret Thatcheer up at night and what was the headline of every news program and paper globally.

I remember a talk show where some talking head or congressmen was lamenting the poor US equipment and asking a navy rep why we don't buy Exocets from the French. The Navy rep politely explained to him the American munition which fills the same role for us was the Harpon and it was a much more capable munition. Argintina was using the Exocet cause we wouldn't sell them the Harpon.

Britian moved ships out of the theatre which they deemed too suseptable to Exocet attacks. I think the QE II fell into that catagory. Britain feared agintina scoring a propaganda victory if they could sink a capital ship like the QEII which they were using as a troop carrier.

The Argintines would shoot off the exocet's from over the horizon and strike at the vulnerable British fleet. It was really only the shortage of the missiles which allowed the Brits to persevere as the Exocet proved to be a very capable threat.

Anti ship missiles were proven very effective, to strike surface ships from distance.

 

 

3. The subs CAN carry cruise missiles, but I don't know on any given voyage how many have missiles and how many missiles they have, and I doubt you do either.

We know their standard published armaments. And all of our subs carry cruise missiles and most have other surface to surface missiles too as the cruise missile is fairly large, slow long range munition. The Harpoon for example carries a much smaller warhead goes twice as fast but only has a reported range of 70 miles.

 

 

4. LF sonar is better than 10 of miles. It gets into 100s of km, which is over 50 miles.

http://www.acousticecology.org/sractivesonars.html

You cannot detect an american submarine submerged from 50 miles away, nobody can... As I said at the height of the cold war our submarines were consistantly following a few 1000 yards behind the Soviet submarine forces as they went on patrol, thoughout their entire patrols; and the soviets could not detect them even though they were within rock throwing distance from them.. The chinese best equipemnt is that era soviet equipment. The only way the Chinese would know a Sub is near is when their ships start exploding.

 

 

5. Given that they've also had plenty of time to get to know the waters and the bottom, I have no problem believing that the Chinese would be able to force US subs out of the Taiwanese straits or identify the location of those subs. At that point in time, torpedeos, which is what the piece you posted in the OP spends 99% of the time talking about and essentially only mentions with respect to actually affecting the battle become irrelevant.

Well then it's a matter of faith for you; because the evidence certainly doesn't agree with you.

Ha, we probable know the topology of those sea beads better than the Chinese.. we've probable been using them for the last 80 years when the chinese navy was still using row boats... And today, it's not like the Chinese submarine force is comparable to ours.. most of their subs are diesiles.

 

In terms of actually stopping a Chinese invasion with subs, it would come down to how many subs we have on station, how many cruise missiles they have, and what their effectiveness is (especially if we limit ourselves to only attacking elements of the invasion where you are essentially talking about hitting moving ships).

Hitting moving ships is not a problem. In order to stop the invasion we would have to use our subs like scaples to analyze an invasion force; and selectively destroy the ships it was most dependent upon. Key would be china's 3 or 4 large troop transports... after that any capital ships we could find... after that the logistical suppy ships. We would look and see what they had, then we would see what we could take away which hurt that invasion force the most.. we would have a minimum of 8 subs on station at any given time and would have a minimum of what 120 missiles in that force which could hit them from long range. If one of our subs was an ohio class boomer converted for conventional warfare... you could more than double that offensive capability.

So of China's 470 ship navy.. what would be cruise missile worthy..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_People's_Liberation_Army_Navy_ships

1 aircraft carrier

 

3 amphibious transport docks

26 landing ship tanks

8 attack submarines (SSN)

51 attack submarines (SSK)

6 ballistic missile submarines (SSBN)

2 experimental submarines

25 destroyers

42 frigates

13 corvettes

105 missile boats

131 gunboats

67 mine countermeasures vessels

7 replenishment oilers

178 auxiliaries (various) *

5. I think the biggest deterrent we have with respect to China is our ability to hit them multiple places at a time, which would come down to political will. Are we willing to attack the Chinese main land against facilities that are not directly involved in the invasion? Are we willing to use resources in Japan to attack other targets on the main land of China? I don't think China currently has the ability to mount an effective invasion of somewhere like Taiwan and hold back US forces (including cruise missiles against stationary land based targets).

I think that would be true if we were talking about a full blown war. But this entire strategy is to avoid a full blown war. We would not hit the Chinese mainland, as then we would invite a strike on our mainland. We would target their invasion force and render it impotent.. and then we would seek to cease hostilities.... or we would blockade them into submisssion.

The OP specifically says we would not attack mainland china becasue to do that would mean a much larger and less manageable war. Which is what our stragegy is designed to avoid.

 

True, neither of us know. But I'd bet you $100, right now, that the answer is "all of them".

(Even the boomers, who aren't supposed to ever engage, well, anybody.)

It's not either or. Our submarines standard armaments which are published call for both...

[PeterMP]

1.  It isn't my fault that the OP that you posted used the "wrong" analogy with respect to the Falkand war's and decided to talk about what SUBS did instead of what PLANES and GROUND STATIONS did using air to sea missiles.

 

2.  With respect to LF sonar, just admit you were wrong.  Instead, you've just dug yourself into a deeper whole by comparing ACTIVE SONAR and ACTIVE LF SONAR equipment to what was almost certainly PASSIVE SONAR.  Unless you want to claim that the Soviets were dropping active sonar buyos on their own subs patrols, which you don't really want to do.  It is possible that LF is not that effective (at 100s of km) specifically against US subs, but your 10 mile number was just wrong and is supported by ZERO evidence.

 

What happened with respect to US subs and Soviet subs based on passive sonar systems is not relevant.

 

3.  The quality of the Chinese subs is irrelevant to my point.  Clearly under conditions where there are active sonar systems operating in the Taiwan Strait the ability of Chinese subs to function in the Taiwan strait would be severely limited.

 

4.  I understand the piece is arguing that we wouldn't want to broaden the war, but that doesn't mean as long as we don't state we won't that isn't a part of the Chinese considerations.  Currently, the Chinese have to be concerned that IF they do something like attack Taiwan that it will cause a larger conflict.

 

5.  I don't know anything about China's anti-cruise missile defenses, and I doubt you do either, and I actually pretty much doubt the author of the piece does.  And that is what this really turns into.  It is very likely that using active sonar systems the Chinese would be able to clear US subs out of the immediate area.  

 

From there, it becomes a matter of how many subs do we have in the area, how many missiles do they have, and how effective our cruise missiles are against their defense systems.

 

I don't know and realistically, I doubt you or the guy that wrote the piece actually know (I actually doubt that anybody is sure, but would bet the Chinese actually have the best idea).

 

But what you are talking about is really different than what most people imagine as submarine warfare and is different than what the British used in the Falkand war.

[Larry]

2. With respect to LF sonar, just admit you were wrong. Instead, you've just dug yourself into a deeper whole by comparing ACTIVE SONAR and ACTIVE LF SONAR equipment to what was almost certainly PASSIVE SONAR. Unless you want to claim that the Soviets were dropping active sonar buyos on their own subs patrols, and we were tapping in on that. It is possible that LF is not that effective (at 100s of km) specifically against US subs, but your 10 mile number was just wrong and is supported by ZERO evidence.

What happened with respect to US subs and Soviet subs based on passive sonar systems is not relevant.

I will observe that, at least as I understand it, active sonar is essentially NEVER used. Maybe the exception is if my airplane has a passive sonar contact, and I want an even better "fix" for the torpedo that I intend to drop, 15 seconds from now.

Because the unit which is using active sonar is broadcasting it's location. And I can detect your broadcast vastly further away than you can detect my echo.

[PeterMP]

I will observe that, at least as I understand it, active sonar is essentially NEVER used. Maybe the exception is if my airplane has a passive sonar contact, and I want an even better "fix" for the torpedo that I intend to drop, 15 seconds from now.

Because the unit which is using active sonar is broadcasting it's location. And I can detect your broadcast vastly further away than you can detect my echo.

 

In terms of a larger ocean, it doesn't make sense to use a lot of active sonar because there is so much space (in the x, y, and z dimensions), but in terms of a smaller water way that isn't the case.

 

Let's even ignore the use of buoys where if you shoot at them, who really cares.

 

Even if we have GOOD intelligence that the Chinese are going to attack Taiwan, and they start dropping active sonar buoys, and even have ships start using active towed systems, but they haven't actually launched an attack on Taiwan what are we going to do (especially if it is in the context of some practice for them):

 

1.  Start shooting at the Chinese ships that are using the active sonar

2.  Leave our subs in the Strait and hope they aren't identified

3.  Move them further out to the larger/deeper ocean.

[Larry]

If I can detect you from four times as far away as you can detect me, it's not that hard for me to avoid you.

[PeterMP]

If I can detect you from four times as far away as you can detect me, it's not that hard for me to avoid you.

 

Okay, but it just isn't me.  It is me and 50 of my friends (including sonar buoys).

 

You can move to avoid me, but at some point in time, your movement to avoid me exposes you to one of my friends.

 

We did this to Iran in the Persian Gulf.  They made/bought a bunch of subs with the idea that they'd just go sit at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

 

From there, they started getting more aggressive with the rest of their Navy.

 

We simply sent them a message by flooding the Persian Gulf with active sonar (and killed a bunch of dolphins most likely in the process).

 

Even with their subs on the bottom with active sonar, we can find them, and we can flood the Gulf with active sonar.

 

Subs work well in large areas (in terms of X, Y, and Z dimensions).  In smaller areas where it is possible to know the bottom well and flood the area with active sonar against a militarily sophisticated opponent, you have problems.

[twa]

once battle is joined the US can clear and destroy like no other, the attack subs simply expand the zones.

we have a very proactive plan once things start.   

 

once hostilities begin any homefield advantage China has drops greatly

 

 

the real game is making sure they understand that