XBradTC

A little birdy tipped me to this piece at USNI Daily News.

The People’s Liberation Army is building a South China Sea helicopter base that could be a key node in a Chinese anti-submarine warfare (ASW) network across the region, according to new satellite images and analysis shared with USNI News on Friday.

The imagery — first published on news site The Diplomat — show what appears to be extensive reclamation work to build could easily be an ASW helicopter base on Duncan Island, about 200 miles from the coast of Vietnam in the disputed Paracel Islands.

A key US element of defeating China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) strategy in the Pacific is the use of our nuclear attack submarines as anti-surface warfare platforms. The large number of small Chinese surface combatants makes it a target rich environment.

But helicopters can be a very potent ASW asset. The People’s Liberation Army Navy, however, has only a limited number of shipboard helicopters, and those are limited in capability.

The Z-18F, however, basically a copy of the French Super Frelon, has a formidable capability as an ASW platform, with good endurance, sensors, and weapons. But it is too large for most shipborne operations.

But China’s production of a series of lily pad bases in the South China Sea gives them a network of basings that will make US submarine operations in the region more difficult.

On the flip side, these island bases are static targets, and US submarines (and other platforms) will have little trouble targeting them with Tomahawk missiles or other offensive weapons.

Still, the primary lesson here is that China is increasingly asserting sovreignity over what have always been considered international waters, and the US is showing little pushback against such action.

Were XBradTC the Commander in Chief, there would be a P-8A circling directly over one of these artificial islands continuously. You can protest, bitch, threaten, whatever. But the second you take offensive action, you catch a barrage in the face. Disproportionate response.