Jim Coulson on CDR Salamander

[Jim Coulson]

I've said several times our "force on force" and logistics plan is wrong. Any fight vs China will take a lot of logistics, and any blockade of Taiwan will need to disrupt their logistics and warfighter chain.

We should be building long range (1200nm+) flying mines, harpoon like mines that can do precision insertion (remote laying of minefields) of fields and be ready with hundreds of thousands of them to mine every port China could use to launch from or resupply from. Complicate their refueling and resupply, complicate any timeline to take over Taiwan. Given the relatively shallow shelf between Taiwan and China, subs just won't hack a lot of those mining missions, esp given the lack of subs and having lots of other missions .

[Ron Swart]

While I like the concept, historically, mining has been an afterthought or last resort "what else do we have in the magazine" effort, not placed early in a conflict, not easily integrated into surface/sub fleet maneuver schema and seabed management. As you suggest by your approach, delivery by traditional means requires getting in a long line of air/sub/surface delivery with higher priority weapons. I wonder where funding for self-propelled flying mines stacks up given our sea lift availability (and missile magazine inventories etc.) is in such poor shape. Mines do work when placed at the right location and at the right time.

[Pete]

Our adversaries think mining is about creating bombs.

We think mining is about creating virtual money.