Physical size-and thus volume-helps shipwrights escape some of the tradeoffs among those three attributes. Naval architects balance among armament, protection, and speed when designing ships of war. They lent real fighting power to the fleet. Nor were battlewagons mere diplomatic ornaments for the U.S. Why not a PLA Navy counterpart to the Iowa or Kirov? Beijing procured bulky Sovremenny-class destroyers from Russia after the Cold War and is constructing its own fleet of aircraft carriers. They too grasp the diplomatic power that radiates from major warships. PLA Navy officials were long disciples of Soviet naval practices. Navy counter backward but impressive- looking Soviet Navy behemoths such as Kirov-class battlecruisers and their predecessors. The Iowa-class dreadnoughts helped the U.S. Vintage warships festooned with massive guns exuded physical might.
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Perversely, modern naval weaponry looks unimpressive. It did so to tap their visual majesty, impressing domestic and foreign audiences with American naval prowess. Navy recommissioned four World War II-era Iowa-class fast battleships. There’s ample precedent for acquiring battleships. A latter-day battleship could fit into this amphibian strategic construct. Beijing, in short, has carried the concept of coastal defense to its utmost degree. That additional defensive layer only amplifies the logic of the fortress fleet. In the PLA Navy’s case, furthermore, the surface fleet cruises in company with “sea denial” platforms such as cruise-missile-armed patrol craft and submarines. A fortress fleet is now a free-range fleet. No longer does a strategic concept drain the spirit of enterprise out of fleet or ship commanders. No longer are limits on weapons technology overly burdensome for fleet operations. Furthermore, matters most to Beijing-Taiwan, the Senkakus, the nine-dashed line-lies within that waterspace. Swing an arc with that radius along the map of China and you encompass an enormous sea area. Their effective firing range is measured in hundreds if not thousands of miles. These are the descendants of primitive coastal gun batteries. PLA engineers have strewn airfields, anti-ship cruise missiles, and anti-ship ballistic missiles along the seacoasts of Fortress China. Dependence on external protection sapped derring-do from ship and fleet commanders.Ĭritiques of fortress-fleet strategy were spot-on, yet the ensuing century of technical ingenuity has ameliorated such qualms. It could accomplish little with its mobility fettered. Staying within the circle traced by shore gunnery’s reach confined the fleet to a cramped sea area. That range formed the radius of an arc centered on the gun’s position. Back then rudimentary guns represented the state of the art in marine weaponry, but a gun’s effective firing range was a few miles at most. A century ago eminent strategists such as Alfred Thayer Mahan sneered at the concept, pronouncing it a “radically erroneous” way of naval strategy.īut that criticism, though apt for the time, was largely a function of the crude weapons and fire-control technology of the day.
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A weaker fleet might defy a stronger using that great equalizer. Such a brawler might even make sense as a fighting ship provided commanders deployed it judiciously, as part of a “ fortress fleet.”Ī fortress fleet is a surface armada that operates within reach of shore-based fire support, supplementing its organic firepower with heavy-hitting armaments that reach out from land. A bulky surface combatant bristling with sensors and weapons might pay dividends in peacetime naval diplomacy, overawing audiences Chinese Communist grandees would like to overawe-foreign and domestic. That conceit constitutes the core of Chinese maritime strategy.Īnd it might supply a rationale for a PLA Navy battleship. They can turn that revolution to advantage by harnessing gee-whiz technology of their own. Chinese naval architects need not turn back Corbett’s marine technological revolution. Despite the apparent verdict of naval history, Beijing might see value in some sort of neo-battleship (or battlecruiser, or whatever the leadership might choose to brand it for diplomatic effect).