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Taiwan & China Crisis

Would this also fall in line with the chatter we've been hearing about China converting civilian ships to military use in preparation for invading Taiwan?
Yeah it’s a very grey area that expands functionality. Can’t very well target a merchant ship because you suspect there are Chinese soldiers on it.
Or K class launchers in the hold.

I know I’ve always cautioned towards caution with conflicts but the situation in both regions is getting weirder by the week.
 
Obreid
The ships will be ghosts only near the coast and inshore where the data is harvested by shore based receivers........unless they do something to either disrupt GPS and GLONASS or disrupt the link frequencies to the satellites for the sat ais targets, then I dont think they can do much more. Also bear in mind that the sat-ais targets can be seen in more detail with a subscription to the AIS system by users. The shore harvested ais data is free of charge. The satellite harvested data is subscription only, for example this link


shows another map of AIS data as was with ships now but for sat data this is their subscription page


as from observation on either shipsnow or marinetraffic websites you see that the ships along the coast of China that were before the purview of shore based ais receivers are still visible but with the sat notation...and with a subscription to the sat based system on marinetraffic, would still be visible despite what China has done.....

Riffraff
I think that the shore based ais disruption is a created nuisance nothing more. Far as the ais relation to the rumored Chinese conversion of merchies to use as dual purpose vessels I dont think there is much association there. Bear in mind all that has to be done is the ship master deciding to switch the ais off or being told to switch ais off. Then its invisible to either satellite or shore based systems and....much like a plane with the transponder switched off, the only way it can be found is either visually or skin painting it with radar or sonar. It will be impossible to see dual use or military ships if their ais transponders are switched off, subscription service or not. When i said it will make it more difficult for us to see possible dual use ships I only speak of myself and whomever else here tries to look at marine traffic as a possible indicator of military preparations. I think that if for example, a modified container ship or ro ro is dockside being loaded in support of a military move then they are going to have their ais transponders switched off. Consider this-- before China switched shoreside ais off--if you watched traffic in an area enough to be familiar with what ships frequented an area then if a ship docked at a different pier or harbor it would stand out. Ships for the most part have regular ports of call and many of them will dock at the same location in each harbor each time they visit. Now the low hanging fruit part of that intel has disappeared unless you are a subscriber and with a simple word from either the ship captain or shore authorities to shut ais off then the rest of the ais provided intel will be gone as well. Could China set up jammer stations to kill ais along the China coast and across the strait into Taiwan- I think that possible. Such a move would be as provocative as jamming GPS/GLONASS.

For those interested in more there is this page


Regards
 
S
Obreid
The ships will be ghosts only near the coast and inshore where the data is harvested by shore based receivers........unless they do something to either disrupt GPS and GLONASS or disrupt the link frequencies to the satellites for the sat ais targets, then I dont think they can do much more. Also bear in mind that the sat-ais targets can be seen in more detail with a subscription to the AIS system by users. The shore harvested ais data is free of charge. The satellite harvested data is subscription only, for example this link


shows another map of AIS data as was with ships now but for sat data this is their subscription page


as from observation on either shipsnow or marinetraffic websites you see that the ships along the coast of China that were before the purview of shore based ais receivers are still visible but with the sat notation...and with a subscription to the sat based system on marinetraffic, would still be visible despite what China has done.....

Riffraff
I think that the shore based ais disruption is a created nuisance nothing more. Far as the ais relation to the rumored Chinese conversion of merchies to use as dual purpose vessels I dont think there is much association there. Bear in mind all that has to be done is the ship master deciding to switch the ais off or being told to switch ais off. Then its invisible to either satellite or shore based systems and....much like a plane with the transponder switched off, the only way it can be found is either visually or skin painting it with radar or sonar. It will be impossible to see dual use or military ships if their ais transponders are switched off, subscription service or not. When i said it will make it more difficult for us to see possible dual use ships I only speak of myself and whomever else here tries to look at marine traffic as a possible indicator of military preparations. I think that if for example, a modified container ship or ro ro is dockside being loaded in support of a military move then they are going to have their ais transponders switched off. Consider this-- before China switched shoreside ais off--if you watched traffic in an area enough to be familiar with what ships frequented an area then if a ship docked at a different pier or harbor it would stand out. Ships for the most part have regular ports of call and many of them will dock at the same location in each harbor each time they visit. Now the low hanging fruit part of that intel has disappeared unless you are a subscriber and with a simple word from either the ship captain or shore authorities to shut ais off then the rest of the ais provided intel will be gone as well. Could China set up jammer stations to kill ais along the China coast and across the strait into Taiwan- I think that possible. Such a move would be as provocative as jamming GPS/GLONASS.

For those interested in more there is this page


Regards
satellite imagery could help with much of that.
It is mostly a nuisance your correct but it is a way for them to assert authority over the region. If you want the security of better traffic in the region you will have to acquiesce to chinas demands.

As well as conditioning with a reduced information picture in the region. With the amount of ship traffic in that region it will complicate the issue.
And make keeping track of everything more difficult.
 
Like China has done in a number of places in Central and South America...... good post and important thanks for that.....
What also might be interesting to watch is whether SpaceX does any new or unscheduled launches for DoD. All they have scheduled through 1-2022 is commercial and Starlink stuff. The do have one heavy throw--Falcon Heavy- for the USAF scheduled for early 2022 but if things really look like they are going in the can, I wonder if DoD isnt going to try to put a few more recon birds up using SpaceX's quick launch ability..... FWIW you can see a schedule of whats on tap -at least that we know of-- here


and fwiw, another page here


Somewhat off topic but something I forgot to mention in my earlier post on ais.

That Russia has sortied some of their key pieces in their undersea fleet I also find damn worrisome.
Regards
 
when you say "toxic loans" you do include those trillion china loaned to the US
China buys those loans via US treasuries. So they are free to sell them whenever. In fact they chose to sell a major chunk of them a few years ago. So there was no default, no bad loan.

Do I like the why the US dollar is being managed and we all might see these policies collapse the value of the dollar.
But nations buy US treasuries for a number of reasons. Stability and trade settlement.
Chinas belt and road could have been stroke of genius on the part of China but they have basically milked the countries that signed on.
 
which is why he’s asking for more funding
Maybe for his barber to finally trim his eyebrows. Raytheon and Lockheed have already been told to develop a defense system for hypersonic glide weapons.

I think huge powerful lasers are the ticket since they will be fast enough to hit them and move on to the next target before they change course. Missiles simply won't be able to think and jink that fast. They will likely cost way to much money IE: the missiles we are using for ICBM interceptors right now. They are using Minuteman missiles and silos to get the interceptor warheads to the incoming nuclear warheads. Pretty dumb if you ask me because we can never have enough.

The Israelis have a new missile interceptor laser right now that should be able to get the job done.
 
Hey Dark Noon
What they have done is shut down...or made unavailable shore based AIS services that were here to fore available on the web at places like

or


if you look at the sites you see everything along the coast of mainland China is tagged sat-ais. The ais data is still there but not for anyone other than a subscriber to the satellite service ais data which for example is available here


so by and large the shore based ais transponder receivers from the Chinese mainland are no longer available on the internet like those are from across the strait in Taiwan. The sat-ais markers indicate those ships close to mainland China shore have activated ais transponders. Could there be ships there that have been instructed by the Chinese government to shut their ais transponders off?? Absolutely. Then you wouldnt see them at all anywhere except on a skin paint radar. Its the Chinese receivers that are no longer commonly available on the web. Given the high density of traffic alongshore I feel sure that ais shore based receivers are still operating....for traffic managers along the strait and elsewhere. The shore based data isnt any longer available on the web though.

Regards
 
Hey Dark Noon
What they have done is shut down...or made unavailable shore based AIS services that were here to fore available on the web at places like

or


if you look at the sites you see everything along the coast of mainland China is tagged sat-ais. The ais data is still there but not for anyone other than a subscriber to the satellite service ais data which for example is available here


so by and large the shore based ais transponder receivers from the Chinese mainland are no longer available on the internet like those are from across the strait in Taiwan. The sat-ais markers indicate those ships close to mainland China shore have activated ais transponders. Could there be ships there that have been instructed by the Chinese government to shut their ais transponders off?? Absolutely. Then you wouldnt see them at all anywhere except on a skin paint radar. Its the Chinese receivers that are no longer commonly available on the web. Given the high density of traffic alongshore I feel sure that ais shore based receivers are still operating....for traffic managers along the strait and elsewhere. The shore based data isnt any longer available on the web though.

Regards
Intresting thank you as always for laying it out straight forward. I was wondering technically how that was working out.
 
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