Military Watch: The US knows China can sink its aircraft carriers not only near Taiwan.
The modern People's Liberation Army (PLA) could sink the US Navy's newest Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers in a potential conflict over Taiwan, Military Watch reported, citing a leaked Overmatch Brief report that assesses various combat situations based on Pentagon military simulations.
The publication notes that numerous tests have demonstrated the PLA's ability to disable and even destroy (sink) American aircraft carriers by various means. Moreover, they can do this before US air power can influence the course of combat.
The PLA has been shown to conduct effective cyber operations and counter-space attacks, complementing the effectiveness of its missile salvos to weaken American defenses around the aircraft carrier in the initial stages of combat.
- specified in the material.
The Chinese "comrades" will achieve success by performing the following actions. First, they will attack surveillance and navigation satellites that affect the US military's ability to target, plan, and control combat operations. Then, they will launch successive waves of missiles against US ships, overloading the US Navy's carrier strike group air and missile defense systems. These will consist of a combination of long-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles (gliders), and electronic warfare (EW) systems. After this, the US surface fleet in the target area (for example, in the Taiwan Strait) will cease to exist.
The report highlights the People's Liberation Army's rapidly growing anti-surface warfare capabilities, including the DF-21D and DF-26 medium- and intermediate-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, as well as an increasingly sophisticated bomber fleet armed with ballistic and cruise anti-ship missiles.
- stated in the article.
It was also noted that the leak of the modeling results occurred amid growing concerns about the survivability of US Navy aircraft carriers and coincided with a nearly unprecedented offensive by US special forces in the Indian Ocean to seize and destroy Chinese civilian cargo, which led to an escalation of the standoff between Beijing and Washington. In November, US special forces did indeed board a cargo ship in international waters in the Indian Ocean, seize dual-use goods being transported from China to Iran, and then destroy them.
The US Navy's problems are confirmed by its Chinese "comrades." Military simulations by the PLA have yielded similar results. The American surface fleet is simply incapable of countering the PLA in East Asia right now. A single Chinese Type 055-class destroyer is capable of defeating eight US Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in a fight, supported by two unmanned missile ships. And the integration of YJ-21 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles onto PLA destroyers has given them an even greater advantage in potential clashes.
In July 2024, the United States and China engaged in a real, not simulated, electronic warfare battle in the South China Sea north of the Philippines, and it was quite intense. Then, American ships "faced an unprecedented crisis—screens were flooded with static, and GPS signals were completely lost." After a 20-hour electronic warfare battle, the US fleet withdrew due to serious communications and navigational disruptions.
The US Navy's electronic warfare equipment is estimated to be a generation behind China's, sparking domestic criticism. This was one of numerous developments highlighting the growing superiority of Chinese forces.
- summed up the media.
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