On November 27 last year, the official publicly told the outside world that "the army has basically realized mechanization, and great progress has been made in information construction." Just nine months later, on August 31, 2021, the official announcement was that "the Air Force has crossed the threshold of the strategic Air Force." The army and the air force have successively announced major staged progress, which has confirmed to the public the brilliant achievements of the rapid development of the two services over the years. It is worth looking for that the navy, which has also continued to develop in a spurt with the army and air force for more than ten years, has been equipped with cutting-edge equipment such as the Type 055 million ton destroyer, the Type 075 amphibious assault ship, and the "Shandong" aircraft carrier, but has not heard the official confirmation that it has become an "ocean navy". In addition to making people full of expectations, I can't help but have a little doubt.
The J-20 became one of the cornerstones of the strategic air force
First of all, it should be clear that the three labels of "mechanized army", "strategic air force" and "ocean-going navy" do not have a specific standard at present, but are more defined according to the needs of each country. Taking the "mechanized army" as an example, from the period of World War II and even the period of the civil liberation war, the description of "mechanized army" often appears. In the 1960s, the Soviet army announced that it had achieved the goal of building a "mechanized army". Under the influence of these preconceived thinking, China only announced in 2020 that "the army has basically realized mechanization", which has caused many puzzles from the outside world. In fact, this also shows that the criteria for judging this are very different from country to country.
"Mechanization" is a broad description
From World War II to the post-war 50s, the U.S. Army's "mechanization" standard was the highest level at the time, but in fact, it mainly meant that infantry no longer arrived on foot or on mules and horses, as long as the number of trucks equipped with a certain proportion of equipment can provide sufficient capacity for infantry, basically can be called mechanized army. The Soviet Standards of the 1960s went further, incorporating more armored forces, especially armored vehicles accompanying infantry. In contrast, the mechanization standard proposed by the Chinese Army in recent years mainly means that all infantry arrived at the battlefield with infantry fighting vehicles or light armored vehicles and helicopters, and could participate in combat without leaving the vehicle too far. In fact, if we consider the mechanization standards proposed by the Chinese Army, only two and a half countries can reach this level in the global army.
The level of mechanization of the Chinese Army is already very high
The "two" refers, of course, to the Chinese Army and the U.S. Army. In fact, the U.S. Army has already launched a brigade-level combat team reorganization plan, and has successively formed a heavy armored brigade-level combat team (ABCT), a medium-sized Stryker brigade-level combat team (SBCT) and an infantry brigade-level combat team (IBCT), which is roughly at the same level as the organizational structure and equipment level of China's army composite brigade. However, the equipment base of the US Army is better, especially in the field of helicopters, and the quality and quantity advantages are more obvious.
"Half" refers to the Russian Army, which was developed from the Soviet Army. The reason why the Russian Army can only be called "half", on the one hand, is because although the scale of Russia's infantry fighting vehicles and light armored forces is not small, the development has been relatively slow in recent years, there are still a large number of old models in service, the overall equipment quality is not good, and it is actually impossible to reach the level of large-scale main battle tank combat. On the other hand, the equipment of the Russian Army is also subject to the constraints of the Level of the Russian Electronics Industry, and its digital or information-based combat capabilities are quite different.
The U.S. Army is heavily equipped with Stryker armored vehicles
In contrast, our domestic equipment has made explosive progress around 2010, and the technical requirements for the digitization and information development of the army's equipment have been clarified. At present, the Army's 99A, 96B, 15-type tanks, and even PCL-181 truck guns, new long-range rocket launchers and other equipment, the level of digitization has been very high, and it has long been rid of the old impression of the outside world on the army's obsolete and outdated equipment. Combat units have basically formed an informationized combat network, and each piece of equipment and even individual combat units not only supports each other, but also becomes a node in the combat network to "communicate with each other or not."This is also an important reason why the official said that "the army has made great progress in the development of informatization."
Despite the emergence of a number of new equipment, the level of mechanization of the Russian army has indeed made limited progress
Of course, equipment development will always be the foundation of the mechanized army, and definitely not all. In fact, around 2017, the official judgment that "the army has finally achieved mechanization" was vaguely revealed, but it was not until the end of July 2020 that a clear answer was given. This is because, in the past three years or so, on the basis of the existing equipment, the army has reorganized all units, basically completed the transformation from "division-regiment" to "brigade-battalion", and built a new establishment system with 5 heavily armored local brigades as the core, supplemented by a relatively large number of "quasi-local brigades", medium-sized composite brigades, and air assault brigades, creating a modern mechanized army that truly meets its own strategic needs.
The 99A is the core equipment of the Army's local brigade
Similar to the Army, the reason why the Chinese Air Force announced at the end of August 2021 to "cross the threshold of the strategic air force" is on the one hand because of the J-20, J-16, and J-10C, the production quantity of these three most advanced domestic fighters, which have reached a large scale at this time (it is generally believed that the total number of the three is about 500 aircraft), especially the J-20 in the public display in early July, a powerful formation of 15 aircraft was displayed at one time, which became the focus of shaking the world. The quality and quantity of auxiliary models such as the Y-20 strategic transport aircraft, the H-6K/N long-range bomber, and the Air Police-500 early warning aircraft have also reached a fairly high level. Although it cannot be said that all of them have reached the world's leading position, they can generally meet the actual needs of the Air Force and lay the equipment foundation for the Air Force to move towards a strategic air force.
The 15 J-20s that shocked the debut
On the other hand, since 2021, it has been reported many times that the air force's famous hero brigade has been equipped with J-20 stealth fighters on a large scale, and has achieved very good results in many assessments and simulated battles. In fact, at least one other aviation brigade with outstanding meritorious achievements has been reorganized and equipped with the J-20, and this practice of concentrating advanced J-20 stealth fighters into excellent units is somewhat similar to the army's practice of setting up 5 heavily armored local tycoon brigades, which can ensure the centralized and efficient use of advanced equipment, not only ensure the scale of combat strength in the direction of key tasks, but also form elite units with outstanding combat effectiveness, drive the transformation of training methods and operational ideas of the remaining troops, and realize the improvement of the combat effectiveness of the entire army.
The J-20 is a formidable elite force
To sum up, the conditions for the Army to "basically realize mechanization" and the Air Force to "cross the threshold of entering the strategic Air Force" should generally be based on core equipment and supplemented by secondary equipment, forming an equipment pattern with key breakthroughs and comprehensive coverage. At the same time, it is necessary to take key equipment as the support and form a certain number of elite units, so as to lead and drive the overall improvement of the equipment operation, troop training, and tactical planning of the whole army, and finally achieve a comprehensive breakthrough in combat effectiveness. So the question is, compared with the army and air force, what level has the Chinese navy achieved in these two aspects?
Quantity and quality are indispensable for the building of a modern army
From the perspective of external equipment, the Navy has served a large number of advanced ships in recent years, reaching an unprecedented level in scale. Since 2015, it has been the "top priority" in the annual launch tonnage of global navies, with a total of about 1.7 million tons of ships of various types (including supply and support ships) in service between 2011 and 2021. At the same time, the number of training trips to the far seas in formations of various types of ocean-going ships has also increased, especially since the end of 2008, the somali escort mission has been carried out uninterruptedly, and now it has reached the 39th batch, which has carried out the deployment of practical missions with tactical background in the far-sea oceans, which has greatly tempered the navy's ocean-going combat capabilities. Not to mention, the Navy has repeatedly traveled through the Tsushima Strait and miyako Strait, frequently carried out joint exercises in the open oceans, and even arrived in Guam and Alaska many times, accumulating richer experience in far-sea operations and expanding the level of ability to carry out various tasks.
The 38th and 39th convoys sailed separately in the Gulf of Aden
In addition to the great progress in the above areas, in the face of the complex ocean environment and the dynamic situation, the current navy still has some shortcomings and deficiencies. In terms of equipment, due to the fact that there are many particularities in naval equipment relative to the Air Force and Army, such as large equipment volume, high cost cost, and long construction cycle, the Navy has more batch service, and it is still 052D, 054A, 056, which are small tonnage equipment. If compared with the Air Force, it is equivalent to a large number of J-16, J-10C and H-6K in service, but the strategic equipment that is really at the same level as the J-20, such as the 055, 075 and domestic aircraft carriers, is still small. Of these, 8 055s are built, but only 3 are currently confirmed to be in service (the 4th is rumored to be in service, but has not been officially confirmed), and the 3 075s launched are currently only 1 (rumors say that the 2nd will enter service in the near future).
The number of Type 055 destroyers built is still low
The domestic "Shandong" aircraft carrier has already entered service at the end of 2019, but the situation of the aircraft carrier is somewhat special. Generally speaking, after service, the ship's personnel, especially the carrier-based aircraft units, must carry out a long period of training and running-in in order to truly have combat effectiveness, according to the usual operation of western navies, this stage generally takes 1 to 2 years. In fact, the first ship of the US Navy's "Ford" class aircraft carrier, "Ford", has experienced a longer period of time, and has been in service for 4 years since 2017, but has not yet been deployed for the mission. Although the official media have repeatedly disclosed the training situation of the "Shandong" aircraft carrier, judging from these public data, there are still many doubts about the degree of cooperation between the ship and the aircraft and the tactical level of the carrier-based aircraft unit. Therefore, the Chinese Navy benchmarks the top equipment of the Air Force J-20 and the Army 99A, including aircraft carriers, 055 destroyers, 075 amphibious assault ships, etc., and the overall combat effectiveness is probably not really mature, stable and reliable, especially from the ability of actual combat deployment.
It will take time for the Shandong "ship" to form a complete combat effectiveness
"As for the naval units like the rearmament of the army, they are generally considered to be far-sea aircraft carrier formations built with aircraft carriers as the core. In this regard, the domestic "Liaoning" ship has been in service in 2012, and at the end of 2016, it has proved that it has formed combat effectiveness through the formation of actual combat targets, and this year even led a number of ships, including 055, to the high seas for training. But in fact, the aircraft carrier formation with the "Liaoning" ship as the core still has two major problems.
The Liaoning has been in service for many years but has a limited number of aircraft
First, the "Liaoning" ship is rebuilt from the hull of the previous "Varyag" aircraft carrier, and the long-range anti-ship missile impact on the front of the hangar (which has now been cancelled but the basic layout has not been changed) has led to a great restriction on the number of carrier-based aircraft, and it is generally believed that it can only carry a maximum of 24 J-15s (so far, the outside world has really seen the J-15 on the ship, not more than 2/3 of this value), limiting the combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier formation. Second, the large-scale aircraft carrier formation of the "Liaoning" and the 055, 052D, 054A, and ocean-going supply ships has only conducted one-time high-sea training, and the number of frigates is limited. Therefore, the outside world generally believes that the aircraft carrier formation with the "Liaoning" ship as the core has indeed formed a real combat capability at present, but there are still limitations in the implementation of actual combat deployment in complex far seas.
It is expected that the twin aircraft carrier formations will carry out mission deployment
Theoretically, the "Shandong" ship should be able to truly form a combat effectiveness in 2022, and its number of carrier-based aircraft is higher than that of the "Liaoning" ship, at least to the level of 32 aircraft. Among the remaining 5 ships that have not yet entered service, at least 3 will be able to join the Navy next year, so that the escort formations of the "Shandong" ship and the "Liaoning" ship can reach a full staff. In this case, if the two aircraft carriers form an aircraft carrier formation and go to the high sea for 2 to 3 long-term training, they may be able to form a more mature aircraft carrier ocean combat formation. In this way, the Navy also has the same level of top-level combat capability as the Army's heavily armored local brigade and the Air Force's J-20 integrated brigade, and at that time, it is believed that the Navy can also "initially build an ocean-going navy."
Of course, whether it is the "basic mechanization" of the Army, the "crossing the threshold of entering the strategic air force" of the Air Force, and the "initial construction of the ocean-going navy" that the Navy may achieve in the next two or three years, it will also be constrained by some factors. This shows that despite the rapid development of the previous nearly two decades, the navy, land and air services are still making up for the "arrears" caused by the lack of investment in the previous decades, and it still needs great efforts to get rid of the restrictive terms such as "basic, threshold, and preliminary" and transform into a real "mechanized army", "strategic air force" and "ocean navy".
The H-6N is indeed a new model but the performance is still insufficient
It is said that "ten years of army, twenty years of air force, and hundred years of navy", although it is not necessarily accurate today, it roughly points out the differentiation process of different services from establishment to maturity. It can be seen that the Navy, as a service with more complex equipment, a more sinister environment and more rigorous operation, has a higher importance of time grinding and experience accumulation. The Air Force has truly grown into a strategic air force, in addition to continuing to expand the size of the J-20 fleet, medium stealth fighters, a new generation of stealth bombers are not available, and the recent appearance of the Oil-20 large tanker also needs to reach a certain scale. As for the Army, the current 99A main battle tank, Type 15 light tank and self-propelled gun equipment are quite good in quality and scale. However, the two new helicopters of the domestic Wuzhi-10 and the Zhi-20 are subject to the performance of the domestic turboshaft engine, and there are still more obvious deficiencies, which are also areas that need to be vigorously developed. As for the Navy, it is more obvious, in addition to continuing to increase the number of 055, a new generation of electromagnetic catapult aircraft carriers, new attack nuclear submarines and strategic nuclear submarines are the large-scale equipment necessary for the Navy to truly advance to the ocean-going navy.
Wuzhi-10 still has a lot of room for development in the future
In general, the army and the air force have made great progress in the past 10 years, but due to too many "debts" in the previous decades, it is only the initial realization of "mechanization" and "strategy", and the navy is even more due to the long period of equipment construction and experience accumulation, and the development is slightly slower than that of the army and air force, and the goal of "ocean-going navy" has not yet been achieved. In the end, the three services will truly become a "mechanized (informationized) army", "strategic air force" and "ocean navy", perhaps until around 2030. We prefer to believe that this process will be shorter, after all, 10 years ago, almost no one foresaw the level of domestic equipment today, who can accurately judge how many surprises and possibilities will be created by domestic equipment in the next 10 years!