Originally posted by Gank
200+ Su27/30s, coupled with Krypton supersonic asms. Numerically inferior but remember the US is going to have to launch off carriers unless they can find someone crazy enough to let them use their strips. Aeriel bombardment isnt all that effective anyways, tactically its next to useless unless theres a ground war going on, and strategically it doesnt always work, Vietnam for example. Against a country the size of China its doomed to failure.
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Yep, and those Suhois lack advanced AWACS, long-range weaponry support and everything else that makes the USAF so powerful. Yup. US forces have to either launch from carriers or Taiwan lol, but that mean preciously little, as it has little effect in everything. Actually, the carrier groups, while having fewer planes and stuff, are also mobile and tremendously well-armed and -protected.
Tactically aerial war is only useful in supporting the ground troops, and that's exactly where it's used. Strategically it's excellent and far exceeds other means, except LR missiles - US could lay waste to eastern China's military infrastructure in couple of weeks, but that would be quite useless, as there's no way to actually hold the ground.
The odds of that happening are incredibly slim, even if China is getting bombed to dust. The US simply cant take and hold the place, its impossible. China would most likely just take it on the chin, they can afford to.
US can't. Nobody can, unless Russia suddenly and mystically manages to become a superpower on par with the US, both economically and militarilly. There's too much land to hold. China has a long way to come, too, 20 years at last. And at that point US and other western NATO members are quite different from what they are today.
