The Absent Superpower

Dilandu wrote:It's just complete strategical idiocy. Those countries play important role in USA defense system. They provide "first echelon" of defense; any enemy that wanted to challenge USA on Pacific knew, that he would need to deal with those countries first, because they tied their mutual defense & essentially their survival with USA.

Basically this strategy advocates destroying all the US forward-based defense assets & retreating up to the Hawaii and Alaska in case of any kind of conflict. It would basically made any trans-pacific campaign for USA an order of magnitude more costly, not to mention that it would lead to complete collapse of any kind of "containment" strategy against China. The USN would not be able to "contain" the PLAN, if USN would be forced to rely on Hawaii and Alaska as closest safe havens. Moreover, considering modern weaponry, it might as well means that USN would be forced to actually operate from West Coast, since Alaska and Hawaii would probably be knocked out by continuous missile attacks.

Any function that is performed at a base in Australia can be performed elsewhere. Our subs in particular can go wherever they want.

Oh, indeed. So in case of war with China, the damaged USN sub would be forced to crawl all the way across Pacific to get into drydock. Of course, since there would be no "containment" of PLAN possible, said sub would probably be hunted and killed by PLAN ASW aircraft and submarines, running loose in Pacific. Because, you see, without bases and support facilities in Australia, and bases here, the USN surface fleet would be unable to operate near China coast for any prolonged period, and thus it would be impossible to block PLAN subs from breaking into Pacific.

Why would Guam loose all use?

Because Guam didn't have any industrial resources and as forward base its completely depended on supply lines. Which NORMALLY should go from Australia... but in your "scheme", they would be stretched all across Pacific up to US West Coast.

Not to mention, that Guam is well within the range of both Chinese IRBM and long-range cruise missiles, not to mention the bomber aircraft. So the Guam would probably be under continuous missile barrage from the first minutes of war, and be of little use.

(and considering that it is a military facility, it could always be just nuked without much escalation).

TFLYTSNBN wrote: Australia can't do much beyond building yachts and Class 5 Polar Patrol vessels. Australia is buying its new submarines from South Korea. The repair facilities for these subs cannnot service US subs.

Australia is buying its new submarines from South Korea.

Annachie wrote:

Australia is buying its new submarines from South Korea.

Nope. Building (mostly assembling probably) a French design in Australia.

Daryl wrote:Plus just finished building a class of destroyers.
There is a reason why we go European in some weapon's system. They're superior.
We can't afford nuclear armed nuclear subs. or big aircraft carriers which is what the US does better than anyone else.

Daryl wrote:We can't afford nuclear armed nuclear subs.

Imaginos1892 wrote:No need for them to be nuclear-armed, but diesel-electric subs are really surface ships that can go underwater for a short time.

Has anybody considered a gas-turbine-electric sub? More efficient than piston engines. Though it too would be a surface ship.

Imaginos1892 wrote:

Daryl wrote:We can't afford nuclear armed nuclear subs.

No need for them to be nuclear-armed, but diesel-electric subs are really surface ships that can go underwater for a short time.

Has anybody considered a gas-turbine-electric sub? More efficient than piston engines. Though it too would be a surface ship.

smr wrote:Point of order: The Swedish build some damn fine super quiet diesel subs.