Chinese Navy a waste of resources?

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sjchan
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Chinese Navy a waste of resources?

#1

Post by sjchan » 15 Nov 2008, 18:14

I have read comments somewhere that the money spent on the Chinese navy turned out to a almost a total waste since the Chinese fleet was pretty much totally ineffective during the Sino Japanese War and rapidly put out of action by the Japanese air force, and the money could have been used to purchase anti-tank guns or artillery. Anyone care to comment on this?

Jerry Asher
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Re: Chinese Navy a waste of resources?

#2

Post by Jerry Asher » 17 Nov 2008, 08:20

SJ: I'm not sure how I feel about this question. The same could be said about anything that is considered a failure. The accretion of military power of China in the mid 1930's is overall balanced and noteworthy in my opinion. Just throwing money at a problem will not compensate for a missing infratstructure. For instance in re artillery--to me the most claring ommission in a Chinese TO & E makes sense in a country with few roads and where the politcaly which ever general has the bigger guns is king. Note how the big guns of the Chinese Navy on the NIng and Ping Hai's are kept close by to Nanjing to protect the government from a coup. No country is entirely free of tension and China's 20th Century had more tension than many others. Nice to hear from you again though. All the best Jerry Asher


South
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Re: Chinese Navy a waste of resources?

#3

Post by South » 17 Nov 2008, 09:54

Chozen SJ Chan, (My Cantonese for Good morning)

I see 2 seperate, but related, thoughts needing to be addressed.

Could the Chinese navy been reformed in various ways so as not to duplicate its ineffectiveness like during the SinoJapanese War?

and

Was the fleet composition the proper mix of units afloat?

China does have a long coastline, the Yellow Sea, Hainan Island and close offshore interests such as Indochina, the Phillippine archepeligo, Taiwan and the Sea of Japan.

Of course, my complete agreement goes to the argument that China funding and building blue navy combatants such as large destroyers was an inproper use of resources. The Russo-Japanese War, even earlier than the Sino-Japanese War, should have taught that.

A navy is, however, much more than combatants.

Small coastal vessels are needed for coastal area resupply and moving small units of personnel.

Especially in regards to near offshore areas, such as the Sea of Japan, small intelligence vessels were valuable.

During severe weather Japanese aviation operations could not augment their naval ops. I've heard that this was successfully exploited by small Chinese units afloat for emergency resuppy delivery, courier service and related matters where small units afloat had an advantage.

Si Geon (Good bye [for now]),

Bob

sjchan
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Re: Chinese Navy a waste of resources?

#4

Post by sjchan » 17 Nov 2008, 17:35

Jerry Asher wrote:SJ: I'm not sure how I feel about this question. The same could be said about anything that is considered a failure. The accretion of military power of China in the mid 1930's is overall balanced and noteworthy in my opinion. Just throwing money at a problem will not compensate for a missing infratstructure. For instance in re artillery--to me the most claring ommission in a Chinese TO & E makes sense in a country with few roads and where the politcaly which ever general has the bigger guns is king. Note how the big guns of the Chinese Navy on the NIng and Ping Hai's are kept close by to Nanjing to protect the government from a coup. No country is entirely free of tension and China's 20th Century had more tension than many others. Nice to hear from you again though. All the best Jerry Asher
Hi Jerry:

What you said is certainly true, particularly the fact that the navy has played significant roles in various internal conflicts within China before the Sino-Japanese war.

Nonetheless, some folks wondered whether the money could be better spent on things like light and medium mortars (not heavy artillery, for which the KMT Army lacked the required infrastrutural support) or even light machine / heavy machine guns which were relatively effective against the Japanese but were always in short supply.

SJ

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Leonard
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Re: Chinese Navy a waste of resources?

#5

Post by Leonard » 20 Nov 2008, 21:23

I don't think the navy was built with Japanese in mind. In fact, KMT wasn't even able to unite the various factions (NE, Fujian, Kwangtung) in the navy before the war.

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