"Tom Cooper" wrote in message
...
Pete,

No, they should be fighting for their own territory. Unless you think
the
USAF and USN should be able to go it alone, everywhere around the globe
at
the same time.

Well, from the way the USAF runs specific operations in the last 15 years,
it appears that there is no chance of anything else happening.

The problem is this: the USA have an obligation to defend Taiwan (except
some US admin finds this is 0 and void), and they have a treaty with Japan
and South Korea. But, there is no way the USA to hit China first.
Consequently the first blow in such a scenario would obviously be
delivered
by the Chinese; and in that case the USAF would not be in offensive, but
on
defensive right from the start, flying from airfields that are thousands
of
kms away from the battlefield.

In such a situation the fighter aircraft of the USAF would be flying from
bases
in Taiwan

The USN could bring a carrier or two (even
more... of course, several months later) but these would have underdogs on
their decks, developed to strike places not defended by hundreds of
Flankers
and AWACS....


The Chinese dont have hundreds of Flankers or a fully
specified AWACS. They have purchased around 120
Su-27 and SU-3x aircraft. Assuming normal training
and serviceability requirements this equates to less
than 80 front line aircraft. They can field another
couple of hundred indigienously produced 3rd
generation fighters but the vast majority of their
air force consist of obsolete Mi17/19/21 clones

The PLAF has been boasting about acquiring
hundreds of front line aircraft for years but
the reality is that the real world acquisition
has been considerably below claimed targets.

As for strikes against Chinese targets, thats
what stand off and cruise missiles are for.

Keith




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