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| Type 056 Corvette |
By Robert Farley
Is China beginning to take anti-submarine warfare seriously? As much as anything else, this would confirm that the PLAN is shifting its focus to developing an overseas expeditionary capability.
Anti-submarine warfare in the twentieth century involved two related but distinct efforts: fleet defense and commerce defense. Fleet defense concentrates on the protection of capital ships from subs, and commerce defense on the protection of merchant shipping. The United States and the United Kingdom invented and perfected the commerce defense aspect anti-submarine warfare during the First and Second World Wars, developing methods of managing air, sea, and intelligence assets to bring shooters together with “see-ers.” However, they also worked (perhaps even more successfully) on the fleet defense aspect. No Allied dreadnoughts were lost to submarine attack during the First World War, despite the best German efforts.
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