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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   31616 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Not particularly. Then again it's not really hard to sink military grade amphibious warfare ships either.

There are a number of reasons that some readers and analysts are likely to discount the feasibility of using civilian shipping in the manner and at the scale described above. First, some are likely to question the survivability or defensibility of civilian vessels in a high-intensity conflict when compared to dedicated amphibious assault ships. Such an assessment, however, overlooks the fact that even naval amphibious assault vessels have quite limited self-defense capability. As an example, the Department of Defense’s own director of operational test and evaluation assessed that the defenses of the San Antonio-class ships discussed above “did not demonstrate adequate capability to defend the ship against the threats it is likely to encounter.” The Chinese military is well aware that amphibious assault shipping, whether painted navy gray or some other color, is vulnerable and as such must be defended. This is why the People’s Liberation Army has long been fixated with seizing what it calls the “Three Dominances” — information dominance, air dominance, and sea dominance — as the first step in a landing campaign.

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