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This @SCMPNews article, which posits that China's South China Sea bases are "vulnerable to attack" has been getting some attention lately... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3112419/beijings-south-china-sea-military-bases-are-vulnerable-attack
...including, now, apparently amplification in US media: https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/china/south-china-sea-bases-military-intl-hnk/index.html
I'll not get into the usual back-and-forth about just how defensible the islands are or not; I've already written about this question elsewhere: https://warontherocks.com/2016/09/chinas-artificial-islands-are-bigger-and-a-bigger-deal-than-you-think/
But I'd like to address a few items that stick out in this SCMP summary of the original article, published in "Naval and Merchant Ships".
First, the source magazine is "published by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which builds ships for the Chinese navy."
First, the source magazine is "published by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which builds ships for the Chinese navy."
While I don't normally jump right away onto an author's source of funding, etc., preferring instead to address arguments head-on, there's a fairly obvious organizational interest here - downplaying the likely effectiveness of land-based sources of military power in the SCS.
Next, the article makes a claim that appears to me to be just complete nonsense - that the islands "only had one runway and did not have the space to provide the facilities to support more than one aircraft at a time."
And also that "a plane unloading or refuelling would have to stay on the runway at all times, preventing other planes from using it."
This claim doesn't stand up to the most casual review of easily-available satellite imagery.
Here you can see at Fiery Cross Reef that, in addition to 3 hangars for large aircraft and 24 for smaller ones, there's plenty of room on the ramp to marshal and refuel aircraft:
Here you can see at Fiery Cross Reef that, in addition to 3 hangars for large aircraft and 24 for smaller ones, there's plenty of room on the ramp to marshal and refuel aircraft:
It's this sort of bafflingly bad claim that makes me think right away about the possibility of straight-up fiction and bad-faith arguments made on behalf of organizational interest (e.g., building aircraft carriers instead of island bases).
The article also recycles an argument I've seen elsewhere that the airfields are "close to the ocean" and thus unsuitable for aircraft. To this I'll respond, as I have elsewhere, that each of the hangars on the island appears to have climate control units installed...
...that the USAF operates delicate F-22 stealth fighters out of open-air shelters a stone's throw from the beach in Hawaii (seen here in imagery of the Hickam airfield)...
...and that the alternative for airpower in the SCS is, as one would assume China Shipbuilding may be implying, aircraft operating from the decks of ships - even closer to the ocean's surface and often subject to sea spray.
The article also says that the islands are "too far away to deploy" fighters to, which I fail to understand. As an example, Fiery Cross Reef is, as the article states, about 1000 km from Hainan Island, site of the nearest air bases in China proper.
But the J-16 has an apparent range of about 3000km, nearly 3X that far (and is air-refuellable), so it clearly can be deployed to the island bases - and their 72 (total) fighter-sized hangars and huge underground fuel tanks. http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/j16.htm
We've even seen video of Chinese Flanker fighters flying patrols over Subi Reef, so clearly China's fighters can reach the islands.
Again, claims bordering on the nonsensical. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35338/video-of-chinese-fighters-over-the-south-china-sea-gives-insight-into-long-range-missions
Again, claims bordering on the nonsensical. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35338/video-of-chinese-fighters-over-the-south-china-sea-gives-insight-into-long-range-missions
The article also claims "there was no coherent chain connecting" islands, preventing mutual support, when the weapons systems already installed on islands provide overlapping coverage in most areas. And aircraft on any of the islands could be over any of the others in minutes.
As I said above, the question of how much combat capability China's SCS islands can provide is one on which reasonable people can disagree. But this article contains what are IMO significant factual & analytical flaws, which are now being propagated to a larger audience.
Fin.
Fin.
