But Sarge, My Rifle Smells Like Fish

StrategyPage has some news for you China watchers out there. It looks like the PLA is working on a way to overcome its lack of naval transport:

With the growing Chinese military capability again in the news, a February 1, 2002 article in the Beijing "Jianchuan Zhishi" on organizing fishing vessels for sea-crossing operations is worth examining. The Chinese admit that their conventional amphibious assets are insufficient to support any serious moves, so they have plan to muster 200 to 250 fishing ships (each over 50 tons and carrying a platoon or squad).

The Chinese claim once the system is setup they'll have about 50 of these armed fishing fleets, each capable of moving a division of infantry (that's about 400,000 troops alltogether). They'll still rely on their military transports for heavy equipment and artillery.

I certainly can't see this having much chance of working against Taiwan without the Chinese gaining complete naval and air dominance of the Taiwan strait. With the pathetic state of the PLA air force and a navy that isn’t much better, that dominance just ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

 

Posted by Captain Mojo at July 30, 2002 10:29 PM | TrackBack