Satellite images show China built mock-ups of US warships

They didn't need an actual mock-up for target practice. It's an overt threat and warning.

I imagine that Xi also has a photo of Biden pinned to a dartboard in his gameroom too.

satellites observing the paper tigers being a threat to anyone.

Also mock ups don't shoot back. Easy to look good against that.
It could be used to see how good our satellites are.
Or shiny thing over hear, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Not so much for "target practice" as for urban combat scenarios, if, for example, you had a group of 10 "militiamen" of whatever color/religion/ideology occupying an area and needing removal.

I'm going to say that this isn't for "target practice" (since most sea battles aren't fought on sand) but to practice boarding and taking a ship.

Or maybe it was somebody's high school science project.

As if America doesn’t, we won’t just hear about it.

Much like Iran does defence war exercises this time every year, and NK does artillery drills all the time, like all militaries…but thats the trifecta for AP this week.

The purpose of all of which is both to frighten us and to keep the bloated American military from being seen as over bloated.

We have more tonnage though.

Military budget 3x…nuclear warheads 7300 to 280…goes on and on…

Military envy? Not to worry, America is HUGE, also spends twice the percentage of GDP.

Fear is the main driving force veh8nd that extreme fiscal obscenity, so shed the fear and shed the budget,

Biden of colluding with to alter the election? There went that theory.

environs kinda like we would see Chinese Navy ships in the Caribbean.

Just not supposed to be there.

That's why other Navies are also doing freedom of the seas passages thru the area.

would be like Italy claiming the Mediterranean Sea as their own territorial waters.

Both scenarios are complete garbage, not compliant with International law, and should be challenged.

could, as America cruises every sea in the world, cause it is imperialistic, still.

By dredging up islands and claiming they are US territory

threat. Could it be they need a new use for all that money? If we don't have a hot war we are always
preparing for another one.

The Military Industrial Complex never rests.

It must be fed, continually.

General Mattis’s 2018 National Defense Strategy prioritized China and Russia as concerns and diminished the import of terrorist and asymmetric forces.



https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf

The South China Sea dispute has been going on since well before 2013 when they started building the islands.

to lead us to fear. The fear leads us to war.

The Chinese military is nothing to sneeze at.

They also have the world by the balls as far as high tech fabrication sites.

Also, the worlds best educated engineers and scientists.

Just sayin

The real ones with defensive and offensive capabilities might prove to be a bigger challenge...

China does not have ICBM or First Strike. We do
China only has mid-range missiles. We have long range.

The Chinese army can't even line up straight or wear uniforms that aren't stained or wrinkled. The lack of discipline in front of their officers i mind boggling.

But when people don't know anything their "enemy" and what they know is all fearmongering and warmongering, you get articles like this that enhance the narrative the MIC and the media (the unofficial public relations wonks for the Department of Defense) want people to have.

Xi Jinping is a complete coward and the Chinese military is a paper tiger.

The DF-5 is an ICBM with a range of over 12,000km. It has been in service since 1981. The DF-31 also has intercontinental capabilities.

I wonder where you have had the opportunity to work PLA to observe their discipline. Your summation of them sounds like something from 1950s propaganda about why we shouldn't fear their intervention in Korea. Concerning discipline issues for China are more about corruption at the officer level than the rank and file.

It is fair to criticize their effectiveness in battle as recent (the last 30 years or so) outcomes could charitably be called mixed. However when referring to them as a paper tiger it pays to remember their human resource pool. If they can pile enough paper on an opponent it will eventually be smothered.

That China has had ICBMs for forty years.

in many ways you're better positioned to know many things about the country because you *don't* live there.

Dongfeng 41 (CSS-20) is both intercontinental and holds 10 to 12 nuke MIRV missiles.
The longest range missile on the planet.

Don't underestimate the Chinese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile

Intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles
Trident missile launch at sea from a Royal Navy Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarine

United States The U.S. Navy currently has 18 Ohio-class submarines deployed, of which 14 are designated SSBNs and armed with 24 Trident II SLBMs each, for a total of 288 Trident II missiles equipped with 1,152 MIRV nuclear warheads.

Russia The Russian Navy currently has 14 SSBNs deployed, including 3 Delta III-class submarines, 6 Delta IV-class submarines, 1 Typhoon-class submarine and 4 Borei-class submarines.[20] Missiles include R-29R SLBMs, R-29RMU Sineva / R-29RMU2 Liner SLBMs with MIRV warheads and Bulava SLBMs with MIRV warheads.

United Kingdom The United Kingdom's Royal Navy has four Vanguard-class SSBNs, each armed with 16 Trident II SLBMs with MIRV warheads for a total of 64 Trident II missiles and 225 nuclear warheads.

France The French Navy has four Triomphant-class SSBNs each armed with 16 M45s SLBMs with TN75 MIRV nuclear warheads. The M45 SLBMs are scheduled to be upgraded to M51.1 and M51.2 (expected to enter service in 2015).

China The People's Republic of China's People's Liberation Army Navy has five Type 094 SSBNs each to be armed with 12-16 JL-2 SLBMs.

India: It was revealed in 2011 that India is developing a submarine launch ballistic missiles based on some variants of the Agni series, the K Missile family which will be a series of submarine-launched solid fueled missiles. K-5 missile, with a maximum range of 6,000 to 8000 kilometers and a payload of one tonne, is under development by DRDO which may be the SLBM version of AGNI-VI (ICBM).[21] India, having completed the development of its first ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant, is reported to be developing at least four submarines in the Arihant class.[22]

What are you so afraid of? The number of MIRV payload on the Trident is classified and rumored to be 10, next to the JL-2 is a three-stage, solid-fuelled missile,[3] with a maximum range of 7,200 km (4,500 mi).[7] Its payload is a single[3] 1 Megaton warhead[5] or 3-8 MIRVs with yields of 20, 90, or 150kt.[2] warheaded Chinese missiles.

What is your real concern?

Don't underestimate them

That's done for an international audience.

North Korea does the same thing.

Consider I've lived there and am married to one and own a house there and speak the language fluently, and know the culture. . .if you haven't lived there you don't really have grounds to speak.

There are places where they build huge terrain models for potential land battle locations.

https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/07/huge_scale_mode.html

It's a sort of "Analog Virtual Reality" for training and planning.

Let's add a trillion to the "defense" budget.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-china-war/620571/

... from two authors from the academic/think tank echo chamber. They encourage every cliche and misperception concerning China in one essay. China’s collapsing, it’s in danger of losing its legitimacy, it’s the aggressor, the neighboring states in Southeast Asia are aligned against it, etc. Taiwan is the PRCs “rival.” In another absurd contention, rearming Japan will “help.” It’s also China that will start a war because its window of opportunity is “closing.” China is painted as an aggressor in the most obvious example of US projection of its own worst qualities onto the “other.” Besides Beckley’s other institutional affiliations, his association with Tufts marks him as a militarist.

Brands seems to be in the arms lobbying think tank category. There is so much distortion and misrepresentation in the essay, it is a masterful piece of propaganda. Each and every US disaster in the far east has been preceded by such a package of delusional characterizations of the targeted other.

夢

China's military is NOT stupid. This is what they should be doing and what we probably do now with digital assets to them and Russia.

The US navy has repainted their aggressor squadron planes in typical Chinese paint schemes so at least someone over here is on the ball.

I am not sure this means much. Isn't this what all militaries do? They prepare to fight the most likely enemy they may face? I believe the US Marines built a full-sized mock-up of a Chinese stealth strike fighter.

My bigger concern is how certain people on the right will try to use this for domestic propaganda against the Biden admin. It doesn't matter if their claims do not make any sense and if they can easily be disputed and shown to be illogical, the fact remains that it's the red meat their base wants and will eat up without question. Which seems like a huge win for China, because it means that if there ever is a serious real threat posed by China or any other nation, we're not a serious enough country to deal with it..

does not suggest the kind of targeting accuracy that a dynamic environment would require.

I wouldn't ignore the effort, though. It looks like a PR stunt like Iran would attempt but it does signal their intentions.

And they are far more capable than Iran.

Making them to look like US Navy ships is a bit provocative. The turn in the tracks is pretty extreme and is supposed to simulate a turn made by a ship under fire. Other sources have even discussed the presence of chaff dispensers and other countermeasures so they can test the weapons more thoroughly.

A lot of modern warheads use pattern recognition for terminal mode, good idea to test it on a similar looking target.

1. there are no US wespons fring back and that can make BIG difference.

2 As the Navy's own SINKEX (sinking decommissioned ships) have shown, it's really difficult to sink Navy ships, and damage control is a big part of the training.