• Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    If their Coast Guard is any indication I fully expect them to be a nuisance to everyone in the area.

    • remotelove@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Simple fix. Start airdropping booze to the Chinese ships.

      Their navy hasn’t had nearly enough experience with what happens when you give sailors mass quantities of alcohol. Half their fleet will end up at the bottom of the ocean and their prison system and brigs will promptly overflow.

      I can say from experience, that the US Navy has mastered the art of wrangling intoxicated sailors to the point of it almost being an exotic art form. (No. Not “erotic” art form. You gotta go to the showers for that after a long period of shore leave.)

      • rivermonster@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        You could have stopped with “hasn’t had nearly enough experience…” lmao.

        I am constantly amazed that China seems to really want an actual engagement. I might guess some of it is Xi has yes men all around him like Putin, scared to tell the truth, and helping him severely overestimate their capabilities.

        Also the wrangling intoxicated sailors stuff made me do a spit take laughing, thank you!

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          If there was ever a military encounter ever so one sided it would be against the U.S. Navy. I think it’s something insane too, like bigger than the next 13 navies combined.

          And they’re the second largest air force in the world.

          • Stanard@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            I was curious if this was still the case and upon doing some research it seems that the stats regarding the “largest” Navies and Air Forces have changed in recent years. According to the Wikipedia page on US armed forces, it seems that the largest Air Force in the world is still the US Air Force, followed by the US Army Aviation Branch. The US Navy has fallen to the fourth largest Air Force in the world, while continuing to be the largest naval Air Force in the world.

            Regarding Navy sizes, it seems that the US Navy has dropped to the fourth largest Navy in the world behind China, Russia, and North Korea (this one was rather surprising to me).

            That said, the world’s two largest Air Forces still apparently belong to the US military. Furthermore, size does not necessarily equal power. Countries could inflate their numbers, or even presumably count vessels that aren’t what we would consider military vessels; e.g. pad their naval numbers by counting unrelated fishing boats as part of a Navy. When you factor in technology, training, and modernization of “old” equipment, it seems agreed that each branch of the US military is still the most powerful in the world compared to other countries respective military branches. And judging by the fact that the US military still has three (!!!) of the top 5 largest Air Forces in the world, as well as having each respective branch of its military in the world’s top 10 largest, I would hazard a guess that the power gap is quite large.

            • flying_monkies@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              Depends on how you count “size”. US Navy is 4th in ship count, 1st in tonnage at 3.5m tons.

              Russia is second at 800,000 tons

              China is third at 700,000 tons

              Japan is fourth at 400,000 tons

              • Stanard@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                That is a fair point. I only skimmed a page of search results and a couple of articles, but I didn’t see any mention of weight measurements. That really could be a better way to measure “size” though. Assuming extra weight means more/better armaments, thicker hulls, more munitions, more sailors (and all of the supplies that go with them), etc. Not to mention how much weight a top-tier Air Force would add to a Navy’s weight. It’s quite staggering to think about and I’m sure I’m still not fully able to comprehend the sheer scale of it all.

                I suppose a few trillion dollars per year will do that though 😅

                • Womble@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Yep tonnage is a far better metric than number of hulls (while still not perfect obviously) If one country has 10 speedboats with machine-guns on the front and the other has an aircraft carrier it is slightly misleading to say the first countries navy is ten times larger.

                • flying_monkies@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Don’t think that value includes “items in the ship” (like aircraft) as part of the weight. This article seems to lay out what some of the differences are. Seems to boil down to “not evey Navy counts every canoe that they own”.

                  I suppose a few trillion dollars per year will do that though

                  Yep, American Un-Healthcare at its finest 😁

          • Nighed@sffa.community
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            I always remember it as throw them in the cabin with the captain’s daughter.

            …early in the morn-ing

            Either way, probably not PC any more…

    • CluelessLemmyng@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      They have a patrol fleet there, just like other Navies, to ensure freedom of operations. Speculation is that these vessels are meant to takeover the existing patrol fleets duties, but because of the absence of American vessels, due to Israel, the new Chinese vessels will linger longer, or more permanently.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    China’s navy has deployed “six highly capable vessels” to the Middle East, a feat that “a lot of countries in the world could not manage,” says Bryden Spurling, a researcher with the RAND think tank.

    “Though they’ve never been tested in conflict, these ships have significant capability and reflect the rapid growth in the sophistication of the Chinese Navy,” Spurling, a former civil servant with Australia’s Department of Defence, told Newsweek in a report published on Wednesday.

    On October 7, Hamas launched attacks on Israel by land, air, and sea, killing hundreds of people in Israeli towns, military bases, and at a music festival.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday that these deployments “further increase our force posture and strengthen our capabilities and ability to respond to a range of contingencies.”

    Then US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said at a RAND Corporation event in 2020 that ship numbers do not reflect the US Navy’s true capabilities.

    “They do not address the types of ships and the capabilities of the vessels being counted; the skill of the crews that operate them; the prowess of the officers that lead them; or the ways in which we fight and sustain them,” said Esper.


    The original article contains 516 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Wow, 6 ships in the USA’s waters? The waters which are owned by the USA?! (I’m doing that thing china does where it claims to own territory it doesn’t to highlight their hypocrisy. Fuck china, fuck the ccp)