This is a transcript, for the video found here:
Bullets:
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Western naval doctrine relies heavily on the aircraft carrier battle group as the primary instrument of power projection.
China’s military planners, however, developed a strategy that incorporates thousands of inexpensive, unmanned drone aircraft.
China recently launched the first of many drone carriers, capable of carrying a hundred drones, including kamikaze drones.
But a new breakthrough in VTOL (Vertical Take-Off-And-Landing) drones may make even the drone carrier concept obsolete. VTOL drones can be launched from any large warship, even in rough weather.
Now, any Chinese warship can serve as an aircraft carrier, and control over vast areas of ocean are now possible.
Perhaps even more ominous are recent developments in the Ukraine War. In Operation Spiderweb, Ukrainian operators used commercial trucks, driven by Russian drivers unawares, to deploy drones deep inside Russian territory. Possibly assisted by Western satellite imagery, Ukrainians then launched those drones in deadly offensive strikes, from civilian assets.
That may open the door to new military applications for naval drones.
Report:
Good morning.
The aircraft carrier is probably the most important tool Western militaries have, to project combat power outside their borders. The US Navy has eleven aircraft carriers, which is more than anyone else. Aircraft carriers obviously cost a fortune to build, and then to operate. Then, all the planes parked on their decks cost tens of millions of dollars apiece, and usually hundreds of millions of dollars. On top of that, carriers need a large group of smaller ships, for support and defense.
Planners for the Chinese Navy decided to go another way, and began development of drone carriers in the last decade. Drones are far less expensive, and they don’t need human beings in the cockpit to fly them, and China at the time was already locking down the supply chains to build drones of all kinds. So this was an industry that China already enjoyed big advantages in, for commercial drones. And because the supply chains for drones ran through China anyhow, then whatever China did on the military side would be unchallenged by other countries unless they developed the entire drone industry, from scratch.
China’s breakthroughs in drone technologies are upending the logic that underpins the US Navy’s reliance on aircraft carriers as an instrument of power projection. The Chinese Navy is building its drone fleets, and they will have a lot more of them, at far lower cost, and that translates to more combat power than what the US Navy can move around in aircraft carrier battle groups. Last year, China launched the world’s first drone carrier. It’s designed to carry up to a hundred drones, including kamikaze drones. Right away, this is a radical departure, a huge difference, between the tactics of the American and Chinese navies. The loss of any aircraft sitting on the deck of the Gerald Ford, for example, also represents the loss of a highly trained flight crew. By contrast, the loss of a Chinese kamikaze drone means a successful engagement, from the perspective of their navy. And it requires a new way of looking at any conflict on the sea from now on.
So that was already a game-changer, having a bunch of these drone carriers operating on the open oceans. But new technology may have just rendered even those obsolete. Chinese engineers from Beihang University in Beijing have built a powerful, vertical takeoff and landing jet drone. It requires no crew, and can be launched by ordinary ships, even on rough seas. They potentially transform every Chinese destroyer, frigate or amphibious vessel into a small aircraft carrier.
The engineering challenges were high. Vertical take-off aircraft sacrifice some efficiencies that regular drones and planes have when they have a long runway to use, and they can’t get around some of those. Here is a feature hat explain how the new drones work. In flight, you can’t tell the difference between these drones and a drone that takes off with a runway.
It was designed expressly for the new strategy by the Chinese navy, to build aircraft for non-carrier ships. They want to carefully coordinate groups of drones, taking off from multiple ships, and conducting operations remotely. They are affordable—low cost—and use the advanced composite materials and technologies that China has a hard export ban on.
Here’s what it all means: Drones used by Chinese naval forces can be launched from anywhere. That allows for 24/7 coverage of huge areas of ocean. “Every surface combatant is a forward-operating base. The enemy can’t predict where the next strike will come from.”
Developments in the Ukraine War complicate the situation in more ominous ways. Namely, that these Chinese drones would not necessarily be limited to major surface combat ships. The Ukrainians recently launched Operation Spiderweb, using civilian trucks to haul drones close to targets in Russia, and then launched them. That operation was celebrated in the West, and likely was even assisted by Western intelligence agencies providing satellite imagery and real-time ground assessments.
So that is a line that is already crossed: If civilian commercial assets can be used to transport drones, which then conduct offensive wartime missions, then these Chinese drones don’t need the deck of a destroyer or a frigate—any really big ship will do, and China has a lot of really big ships, and they already go everywhere. All these Chinese drone carriers, and now the drones launched from any Chinese ship from hundreds of miles away—all that news is bad enough for NATO and allied navies across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
But we have kicked down the door in international law, and in the rules of war, with respect to where military drones can be launched from. So these technologies extend China’s reach to anywhere any Chinese ship goes.
Be good.
Resources and links:
Operation Spider Web – What have we learned (in the West) – AT ALL ?
https://www.circlescope.dk/articles/operation-spider-web/
China’s Thriving Drone Industry
https://arc-group.com/china-thriving-drone-industry/
Nuclear Aircraft Carriers in the U.S Navy: Most Expensive Warships Ever
China has developed the largest drone carrier in the world — and it’s getting ready for takeoff
China Builds World’s First Dedicated Drone Carrier
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/05/china-builds-worlds-first-dedicated-drone-carrier/
China unveils first high-speed VTOL jet drone that makes every warship an aircraft carrier
China unveils ‘world’s first’ jet-powered vertical landing drone for warships
https://interestingengineering.com/military/chinas-new-jet-powered-vtol-drone
Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web is a game-changer for modern drone warfare. NATO should pay attention
The World’s Biggest Sea-Trading Countries
https://www.statista.com/chart/32882/countries-with-highest-throughput-of-containers-at-seaports/
Trump is targeting China-made containerships in new flank of global economic war on the oceans
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