The U.S. government revealed the latest investigation report, saying that only 40% of Navy ships can complete repairs on time. This data exposes the serious service problems faced by the US Navy at this stage, and compared with the Chinese Navy, which has just completed sea trials of aircraft carriers and maintained stable maintenance and growth of surface ship forces, the US Navy's stock advantage is already in jeopardy.
[The Fujian ship that successfully returned from sea trials]
Recently, as the Fujian, the third aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy, officially completed its first voyage test, the outside world is concerned about the largest tonnage warship ever built in China, and at the same time, it is also paying attention to the reaction of the United States to this matter.
Because as we know, the Fujian was launched on June 17, 2022, almost 2 years after the first sea trial. In contrast, the Ford-class aircraft carrier No. 2 on the other side of the ocean was launched as early as December 2019, two and a half years faster than the Fujian, but the ship is still in the outfitting stage, and judging from the dense equipment stacked on the deck, it is also unlikely that the ship will carry out the first sea trial in the short term.
[The current situation of the new generation of USS Kennedy]
This contrast is enough to show the rapid progress made by the PLA in the field of aircraft carriers, and in other areas of the navy, the US Navy is also beginning to show fatigue, as can be seen in an investigation report issued by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In the report, the GAO makes it clear that while shipyards across the U.S. still have a lot of room to spare for ship maintenance, it is difficult for shipyards to spare enough resources to carry out these maintenance tasks due to familiar issues such as ship parts supply and skilled workers. As a direct result, only 40% of the ships can finish maintenance according to the planned schedule, and the rest of the US ships that need to be repaired can slowly queue up in the shipyard.
A typical example is the US Navy's "Los Angeles"-class attack submarine "Boise", which was required to carry out overhaul work as early as 2015 due to aging equipment, but due to the lack of manpower at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard responsible for repairs, the maintenance work of this submarine was delayed until March this year, and the numbering time was as long as 9 years.
[Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Boise]
As for the waiting time of other US nuclear submarines on this issue, although it is a little shorter than that of the Boise, it is not a figure that can be ignored. For example, in 2019, the maintenance extension time of all attack nuclear submarines in the US Navy was generally as high as 1500-1600 days, and a platoon was more than 4 years. In 2022, this time has been reduced to 1,100 days, and it will take at least 3 years to repair the ship.
As a result, as of July last year, 40 percent of the US nuclear submarine force, about 18 attack nuclear submarines, were waiting to be repaired and could not carry out any combat missions.
In addition to nuclear submarines, the U.S. Navy's Burke-class destroyers also have widespread problems with maintenance delays. And this not only affects the combat readiness rate of the Burke-class on a global scale, but also greatly affects the decommissioning iteration of the destroyer fleet.
[USS DDG-95 Williams under maintenance in the dockyard]
After all, one of the reasons why U.S. shipyards will have a shortage of human and material resources on the issue of ship maintenance, is that shipyards need to prioritize the supply of ships under construction. But even so, under the influence of deindustrialization and other factors, the United States at this stage can only maintain an average annual production capacity of 2 destroyers in 3 years.
The problem, however, is that the United States, which remained at its peak after the Cold War until the turn of the millennium, is no less efficient at building ships than China is today. So much so that in the 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States built as many as 30 Burke-class destroyers.
According to the design 35-year service life, the 30 Burke-class ships will be retired from 2026. Unless China helps the United States build destroyers together, with the current U.S. ability to build two destroyers in three years, they will not be able to fill this retirement gap in any way, and this is why the "Asia Times" bluntly said that "the U.S. Navy is too slow and backward to compete with the Chinese Navy in the future".
So the question is, how is the PLA doing on this issue? Take the PLA Type 052 missile destroyer Harbin as an example, the ship was officially listed on May 8, 1994, and according to the 35-year service life, the Harbin ship needs to be officially decommissioned in 2029.
[Type 052 missile destroyer Harbin]
At the same time, there is overseas open source intelligence that the second batch of 112 destroyers with the port number 055 may be named Harbin. Although this news has not been confirmed by official sources, it is not impossible to continue the name of the Harbin ship, which is known as the "first ship in China", considering that the second batch of 055 will generally be commissioned between 2025 and 2029.
From this point, we can also see that China's shipbuilding capacity is enough to meet the PLA's needs for ship renewal and iteration for a long time in the future, compared with the US Navy, which can only sit on the empty and slowly growing, the latter's stock advantage maintained by virtue of the Cold War will be offset by the PLA at a speed visible to the naked eye.
[The name of the second batch of 055 ships speculated by overseas open source intelligence agencies]
In the face of the gap between the two sides in these areas, the impact of the Fujian's first voyage on the US Navy is not very high. After all, no matter how the United States reacts, it is an indisputable fact that China has the ability to independently design and build supercarriers. And this also means that these aircraft carriers can be built one after another in the future as long as we have the demand.
At that time, the US Navy will face an all-round catch-up and overtaking of the Chinese Navy. And when the Chinese Navy takes a well-deserved first place in these areas, it is likely that the leadership in Washington will stop being aggressive against China.
After all, the Pacific Ocean is big enough for China and the United States to develop together. And the growing strength of the Chinese navy is the confidence that allows the United States to sit down and coexist peacefully with us.