China has built the largest naval fleet in the world. What for?

Victor Kuzovkov

Thus, the country, which in the middle of the last century did not have a navy at all, now surpasses the recognized leader, who had a powerful fleet for nearly a hundred years and was not going to give up his primacy, apparently. Moreover, now the Chinese Navy boasts a full range of warships, from combat boats and corvettes of the near sea zone to aircraft carriers, from diesel submarines to strategic nuclear submarine missile carriers.

The Pentagon, which assessed the development of China's armed forces in 2020, recognized that in terms of the pace of development of the fleet, China is ahead of all other countries, including the United States. And yet, many experts believe that it is still too early to list Beijing as the undisputed leader in the overall state of the Navy. The number of pennants and leadership in this indicator is a serious claim for future dominance in the World Ocean. But the quality of the ships and, most importantly, the quality of the weapons that are placed on them is of almost greater importance. Therefore, for the time being, it is better not to rush to make loud statements, but to try to figure out whether it is worth calling China the master of the seas right now, or not in a hurry with it.

So, the number of pennants. Yes, today it is already a fait accompli - Beijing has overtaken the US Navy in this indicator. Now the Chinese Navy has about 360 warships, while the Americans have 293. Just in case, let's make a small clarification - it's quite difficult to talk about the exact number of Chinese ships, since, on the one hand, new ships are commissioned as often as if they were being printed on a photocopier, and on the other hand, outdated ships built in the second half of the last century are often removed from the fleet. Moreover, often they are not completely withdrawn, but turn into training ships or are simply temporarily mothballed, so it can be difficult to understand whether we should consider this ship an active combat unit of the Chinese Navy, or still need to delete it from the list. Open sources often simply do not have time to update information, which introduces some confusion when trying to quantify the Chinese naval power.

Nevertheless, it is already safe to say that China has caught up with Russia in the number of submarines and is second only to the Americans in this indicator. An approximate estimate for 2018 is 62 Chinese submarines of various types against 68 American ones. True, here we must immediately make a reservation - the Chinese submarine fleet includes 53 diesel submarines, while the United States does not have such boats at all, all of their submarines are nuclear powered. Hence the corresponding conclusion about the quality and power of the submarine forces - for the Americans they are still much more powerful, which is due to both the total tonnage and the number of weapons carried by submarines.

It is not yet possible to talk about parity in the most important and largest surface ships, such as aircraft carriers. The United States has 11 of them, moreover, we are talking about full-fledged ships of this type, differing not only in quantity, but also in the quality of the wing. First of all, we are talking about the fact that thanks to the large flight deck and launch catapults, aircraft carriers of the "Nimitz" and "Gerald R. Ford" types carry a fairly wide range of combat aircraft, including early warning aircraft Grumman E-2C "Hawkeye", electronic warfare aircraft Grumman EA-6 "Prowler", transport aircraft, anti-submarine and transport helicopters.

At the moment, the Chinese have two combat-ready aircraft carriers, the combat power of which, with all due respect, cannot be compared with their American counterparts. The aircraft carrier Liaoning is nothing more than the former unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag, purchased from Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR. This is the brother of our "Admiral Kuznetsov", with all the childhood diseases of this type of ships, conceptual errors dictated by the permanent insanity of the late Soviet Politburo, constructive and technological flaws dictated by the weakness of the Soviet shipbuilding of those years. The second Chinese aircraft carrier, Shandong, is a twin of the first, with minor Chinese modifications. The third aircraft carrier is under construction, already of its own design, which is expected to be much closer to the Americans in terms of displacement and the concept of combat use. In this case, it will probably already be possible to talk about the first Chinese aircraft carrier. But let's leave the question of his air wing outside the brackets...

The Chinese are inferior, and very seriously, and in the number of cruisers and destroyers - the largest types of non-aircraft-carrying warships today. According to this indicator, China, with its 28 ships, is inferior even to Japan, which has 32. Beijing, in principle, cannot reach the United States, which only has 64 destroyers. At the same time, the United States has another 22 Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers, which the Chinese simply did not have for a long time. True, in recent years, destroyers of the 055 project began to be built at the shipyards of the PRC - giants with a displacement of about 11 thousand tons, in size slightly exceeding the mentioned American cruisers. This gives the Americans a reason to take them into account in their calculations, as cruisers, although the Chinese comrades themselves modestly call them destroyers, and it seems they are not going to give up this designation.

To understand the situation, let's say that the Project 055 destroyers are second only to the American destroyer Zumvalt in displacement, which, due to its incredible complexity and high cost, never went into production. The Russian project of the "super destroyer" "Leader" assumed approximately the same dimension. But, unlike the PRC, in Russia the construction of such ships somehow did not work out, but in China, at the Dzyannan-Changxing shipyard, two such giants are riveted a year, and by now they have already launched 8 pieces.

China is quite actively building various types of landing ships, such as large landing ships, the prototypes of which are still Soviet large landing ships, and more modern UDC (universal landing ships), more characteristic of the western school of shipbuilding. But this type of ships is still unlikely to be able to reinforce China's oceanic ambitions, since their main purpose is to land troops in Taiwan or some disputed islands. Over time, the situation may change, but until the Taiwan problem is resolved, China is unlikely to dare to seriously expand in the World Ocean.

That is, even quantitatively, the Chinese fleet is a very conditional leader - they have not yet succeeded in surpassing at least only the Americans in the most important areas of military shipbuilding, and with all the Chinese industrial power, this will take decades. But there is still the question of quality superiority. More precisely, in this case it is too early to talk about superiority - here at least to achieve relative equality ...

As mentioned above, the Chinese fleet is seriously inferior to the American in the number of aircraft carriers. It is no less seriously inferior as an air wing - the basis of the PRC carrier-based aviation is currently the J-15 fighter, which is nothing more than a copy of the Soviet Su-27K carrier-based fighter. Yes, there is no doubt that Beijing will be able to "xerox" at least a dozen more aircraft carriers, and even in a relatively short time. Probably, the PRC will be able to create a more advanced carrier-based fighter. But there is not even a smell of modern AWACS aircraft there yet. There are no specialized electronic warfare aircraft, modern anti-submarine aviation. Yes, a lot of things are not yet. And in the event of a hypothetical conflict between the United States and China at sea, only the latter's lack of AWACS aircraft will already be a critical factor, reducing the chances of Chinese AUGs to practically zero.

Not everything is smooth with submarines either. No, they can launch missiles, and these missiles have a good chance of reaching US territory. But the noise of the Chinese nuclear submarines, even the latest projects 094 and 093, is much higher than even that of the Soviet nuclear submarines of the previous generation. And if so, a hypothetical dueling situation under water with a high probability will end in favor of the American submarine. And it will be almost impossible for Chinese submariners to slip past US or Japanese surface ships.

So far, we can say with full confidence that the power achieved by the Chinese fleet can only be realized at a relatively small distance from its own shores. There is nothing wrong with that - the Russian Navy, for example, is doing even worse. And yet, so far (we emphasize this word), China has built, so to speak, "a huge fleet of local importance."

Another thing is that offshore platforms, as a rule, have a very long life. And during their life cycle, they manage to undergo several serious modernizations, each of which, perhaps, will bring the Chinese fleet closer to the American or any other, if we suddenly change the leader. Therefore, it is not worth treating the Chinese Navy condescendingly in any case - one day the quantity can still grow into quality, and then it will not seem enough to anyone...