The United States has deployed the first island chain on the eastern coast of China, on which there are a large number of military installations. If a war breaks out between China and the United States, China will most likely use the Rocket Force's missiles to strike the first island chain.
However, the biggest problem with missile strikes is that they are expensive. A Dongfeng series ballistic missile can range from millions of yuan to tens of millions of yuan. And in terms of strike efficiency, the warhead that the missile can carry is also seriously mismatched with its volume in terms of yield.
A missile like the DF-15 can blow up a crater that is only about the same as a standard basketball court, that is, 28x15 meters.
Dongfeng-15 missile
But its price is relatively expensive, a few hundred million yuan will be gone after a round of blows, but all you get is a few pits the size of a standard basketball court.
China's means of dealing with the first island chain
Some people will surely wonder if this result is worth it? Is it the Chinese missiles that blow up quickly, or the US military's "quick repair" to repair them quickly?
In fact, many friends of the United States often have a misunderstanding about the first island chain, that is, if China goes to war with the United States, after China begins to attack the first island chain, it will use rocket forces to suppress the first island chain throughout the process.
This tactic is very unrealistic, because it is too wasteful.
PLA Rocket Forces
In fact, when dealing with the first island chain of the United States, the positioning of the continental rocket force has never been a "suppressive force," but a military force that has seized the first-mover advantage.
After the outbreak of war between China and the United States, the main objective of the Rocket Force was to quickly destroy important military forces such as US air bases, command facilities, radar stations, and naval ports on the first island chain.
If most of these military forces can be destroyed in the first wave of the rocket force, or even only half of them, it will be enough to give China a huge first-mover advantage in other military forces.
Dongfeng missile launch
When these military forces of the US military are destroyed, the PLA will mainly rely on the air force for the subsequent continuous suppression of the first island chain.
Air Force strikes are cheaper
Compared to the Rocket Army, the cost of strikes by the Air Force is much lower.
A DF-15 missile weighs 6.2 tons, but the warhead weighs less than 1 ton. That is, the actual effective strike force of missiles accounts for less than 20% of the total weight.
However, the air force can carry a different number of aerial bombs, saying that 500 kilograms are 500 kilograms, and the charge accounts for more than 90% of the total weight.
Ordinary aerial bombs
Therefore, the strike efficiency of launching a 6.2-ton missile on the first island chain is completely different from dropping a 6.2-ton aerial bomb on the first island chain.
When the first round of missile strikes by the Rocket Force passed, the follow-up was the bomber attack of the People's Liberation Army.
The first wave of strikes by the Rocket Force has solved the vast majority of the U.S. military's counterattack force, and the mainland can send H-6s on a large scale to continue bombing the first island chain.
At present, China has more than 200 H-6s, and each H-6 carries 5 tons of bombs, and these 200 H-6s are 1,000 tons of yield in one flight.
3 tons of equivalent can directly blow up a fortress, and this 1,000 tons of equivalent can be thrown down and destroy all of Japan's important military buildings.
Aerial bombs
And even if the United States wants to give full play to its "quick repair" capability and quickly repair these military facilities, it will be difficult for the US military to do so when the PLA has absolute air supremacy.
As long as the PLA sends a wave of "harassing bombing" to the H-6 every one hour or even half an hour, the United States will certainly not be as fast as China's bombing.
So when China uses its rocket forces against the United States in the first island chain, it is worthwhile to use a large number of missiles to strike military facilities on the first island chain.
Without this first round of strikes by the Rocket Force, where would the follow-up H-6 swagger strike at the vast majority of military facilities on the entire first island chain.
Bomb-6
America's response
In response to China's attack, the United States has also thought of various methods.
The main way to deal with this is to build a fortress hangar.
The most important branch of the United States in the first island chain is the Air Force. Because compared with the army and navy, the air force is undoubtedly the most important means of blocking the attack of China's large-scale aircraft fleet.
If the United States wants to deal with China's subsequent H-6 strikes, it naturally needs to find a way to let its bombers survive the first wave of strikes of the Chinese Rocket Force as much as possible, and the fortress-based hangar is undoubtedly a good means of coping.
However, the United States needs to face many problems in order to build fortress-like hangars on the first island chain to protect warplanes.
Hangar fortress
One is the issue of cost. Bastified hangars are expensive, and there are only a limit to the number of warplanes that can fit in a hangar.
And there is still a serious problem of corruption in the US military system, building fortress-like hangars for the entire first island chain, and I don't know how much money the US military can embezzle.
If the United States wants to build fortress-like hangars for the air force on the entire first island chain, it will have to invest tens of billions of dollars, to say the least.
You must know that the cost of the US Ford-class aircraft carrier is only about $15 billion, and the money from the repair of this fortress-like hangar is enough to build several Ford-class aircraft carriers.
What's more, the scheduling of the fortress hangar is also very cumbersome. The conventional hangar is directly connected to the airport runway, and the fighter jets are out of the hangar shed to be the take-off runway.
Air Force Dispatch
Because of its own characteristics, the fortress hangar has to walk a long distance out of the hangar to take off the runway. And the larger the scale of these "hangar fortresses", the more cumbersome it is to schedule large fleets.
The second is the issue of ground-penetrating bombs. China has ground-penetrating missiles in its hands, and the mainland's DF-15C ballistic missiles can penetrate reinforced concrete and strike under protective facilities.
Even if the United States were really willing to spend tens of billions of dollars to put a protective jacket on all its fighters, it would take a long time.
The U.S. infrastructure capacity cannot be compared with China's, and the entire first island chain can be built as a fortress hangar, which can be as short as five or six years, and as long as more than 10 years.
Hangar fortress
Against this backdrop, China will be given plenty of time to react.
At present, not many missiles in the hands of the Chinese Rocket Force are ground-penetrating bombs.
At present, the Chinese Rocket Force is mainly thinking about relying on hypersonic penetration such as the DF-17 and relying on missiles such as the DF-26 to attack US aircraft carriers, and has not given much thought to hitting targets under the fortress.
But when the United States starts building fortress hangars, China can start building DF-15C ground-penetrating missiles.
With China's military-industrial production capacity, the pace of production of DF-15C will not be slow. Therefore, if the United States wants to engage in an "arms race" with China on the issue of protecting its fighter planes, it will not be able to defeat China.
Dongfeng-15C missile
It can be said that the fighter planes deployed by the United States on the first island chain will not be able to be saved under any circumstances. When the first round of strikes by the Rocket Force has passed, it will have no way to stop China's H-6 bombers in the future.
Resources:
[1] People's Daily Online, "US media: China's missile power has made it difficult for the US military to defend the first island chain"
[2] Global Network, "The United States Strengthens Guam's Armament and Endangers Regional Peace and Stability"