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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Washington’s concern about the fuel problem in the Pacific Ocean |
| 2024-01-12 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. Text taken from a V Kontakte page of Russian military correspondent Aleksandr Kots. [VK] Alexander Kots notes Washington’s concern about the fuel problem in the Pacific Ocean. This is reflected in the transfer of a shipment of 48,000 tons of fuel to the Philippines from Hawaii on board the Yosemite Trader tanker. It is worth recalling that the United States has plans in mind for the unloading of the largest fuel storage facility, Red Hill. It is located just in Hawaii and can hold more than 1 million cubic meters of fuel. It was built for the war with the Japanese and by 2024 it is obsolete: environmentalists are protesting - and, what is much worse, China, with several successful hits on the only storage facility, can paralyze all USPACFLT activity for months. Can they repair a giant dam faster? ▪The United States will not be able to unload Red Hill completely quickly. There are no necessary alternative fuel storage facilities; they will have to be built first. Washington also does not have military (and civilian) tankers to create a distributed network of mobile fuel resources. And the ships themselves will become targets for drones and anti-ship missiles of the PLA. The transferred volume of fuel will not be enough for a serious war, especially if we are talking about the only tanker transporting it. But it is quite possible to perceive this activity as the beginning of the allocation of resources for the conflict in the North-West Pacific in the medium term. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 Well, UnRep only works when you can load the tankers safely. Where the tankers are loaded would seem to be the key in a Pac war that lasts more than a week. The carriers and subs may be nuke, but every other naval asset (including planes) all run on oil products. If the Chinese can hold the US Navy at arms length and swat the refueling depots, it would cease to be a problem in about ten days. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2024-01-12 11:54 |