Sintra,
Thats AAR for a fully weighted strike package to loiter indefinitely halfway to Hawaii is it?. The carrier puts the airpower where it needs to be simple as.
Yes, thats about it. Look at the choke points in wich Japanese commercial shipping passes, then look at a map and notice where Japanese, US, Australian and Singapour airbases are, even if by some miracle a Chinese Carrier could pass the island chains without being tagged by a horde of sensors, even if it picked a fight only after being in the “midle of the pacific”, up north there´s Elmendorf, on the east there´s Hickam, southeast there´s Guam and South there´s an helluva lot of airbases in wich American and/or Japanese aircrafts would be welcomed in case a Chinese fleet went beserk nearby.
To have any serious effect a Chinese fleet would always be in range of land based airpower,
Whether it is implausible or not is irrelevant. The question was asked as a hypothetical what kind of carrier would the Japanese need.
If the scenario is “The Chinese are coming” the answer is, well, none.
ISTAR, Submarines and land based air power and the entire Chinese surface fleet is botled in their coastal waters (protected by their own land based air power. The Chinese surface fleet is not survivable (and wont be for foreseable future) in open waters versus the kind of adversaries that it would face in a “Sino-Japanese” face down.
As for a carrier being a poor choice to oppose US sea power I think its quite the reverse – if you limit your definition as to what you want the carrier to deliver. If you look at a Midway carrier-on-carrier scenario then you are probably correct that trying to fight that battle with a design like the Chinese flat top is a losing proposition. That is not the way that the Chinese will use the ship though. She’s a surviveable surveillance and cueing asset used to support their entry denial strategy…and in that role she’s very dangerous and entirely a wise addition. Could use a Sea Avenger type UAV to offload the Flanker clones though.
On that i have to disagree, there´s absolutely nothing “survivable” in a 60,000 ton Chinese aircraft carrier in blue water when facing the likes of the US Navy and/or the Japanese Self Defense Forces, its a coffin.
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