The best laid PLANs of mice and men often go awry.
Welcome back to another effortpost by me generally on the developing arms race in East Asia, this time covering the People's Liberation Army Navy, hereafter referred to as the "PLAN", and its massive growth... and... mostly, well, its massive growth. What that means is mostly covered in other posts about how other countries are responding to it. The why is a bit difficult because, well, China is not well known for open debate, or open anything, really, which will turn up repeatedly.
- What you [might] need to know about South Korea's ludicrous arms buildup
- We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches.... uh, what do we do after that again?: The Perilous Defensive Position of Taiwan
- "You've hit another cargo ship? The Problems with the US Navy: Not all of them begin with "Seven" and end with "th Fleet"."
- Will China's PLAN survive contact with the enemy?
- Biden's New START and modern nuclear war
- First And Last Stand Of The Tin Can Navies [ASEAN + Australia and the smaller adversaries China may contend with]
- Boned: Problems in the US Air [and space!] Force
- --Unnamed-- effortpost on Japanese military matters, mostly about how weird the JSDF status is
- --Unnamed--effortpost on Indian military matters, and why they can't focus on China or buy anything that works
- --Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the PLA, mostly the air force though
- --Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the US Armed Forces, mostly talking about how the marines are changing and the Army's new love affair with INF-busting weapons
- Conclusion?
Glossary: PLA = People's Liberation Army = the armed forces of the People's Republic of China, or China
PLAN = People's Liberation Army Navy = the naval forces of the PLA
PLANAF = People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force = the air force of the navy of the PLA
Ashm = Anti-ship missile, cruise missile unless specifically described as otherwise--there's only one anti-ship ballistic missile in existence and its efficacy and whether or not it functions is questionable
CIWS = close-in weapons system, like the Phalanx gun or Goalkeeper
VLS = vertical launch system for missiles
AEGIS = Aegis Combat System if described specifically in that context, a US naval warfare system, but we'll usually be talking about "Chinese AEGIS", which is a nomiker used by the Chinese media in particular comparing the Type 346 radar to the AN-SPY family, with which it shares numerous technical characteristics--but how comparable the "Chinese AEGIS" system is to what the US uses is a complete unknown.
SAM = Surface-to-air missile, in this case usually a S-300 derivative
First Island Chain = The islands, stretching from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, which keep China inside its littoral seas much as the GIUK [Greenland-Iceland-UK] gap has kept various continental powers out of the Atlantic.
Some PLAN equipment you might see described--the nomenclature is confusing and a relic of the cultural revolution, and as a result China now has more Types than the British.
Type 003 = China's new conventionally powered supercarriers, currently under construction
Type 002 = China's first truly "operational" carrier
Type 001 = China's first carrier, built on a Soviet hull purchased from Ukraine ostensibly to make a floating casino
Type 055 = Guided-missile cruiser, though generally called a destroyer it's probably more descriptively labeled a cruiser
Type 052D = Guided-missile destroyer using "Chinese AEGIS"
Type 052/051B/052B/052C = the gradual progression of evolving Chinese naval tech, largely built as practice/demo ships like the Type 001. Some of the earlier ones are steam-powered but by the Type 052C you have something almost as advanced as the Type 052D, albeit with turbine problems
Type 054A = the standard modern frigate of the PLAN
Type 053[anything] = old PLAN frigates
Type 096 = China's newest SSBN class, under construction
Type 094 = China's first functional SSBN class, very noisy
Type 092 = China's first "SSBN", believed to have never left port with an actual nuke on board
Type 095 = China's newest SSN class, under construction
Type 093 = China's current SSN class, noisy
Type 091 = China's first SSN class, dumb dumb dumb and is at a 1950s tech level
Type 039[A] = China's new SSK class
Kilo = China's older SSK class, imported from Russia
Sovremenny = China's first capable anti-air destroyers, imported from Russia
1. The Last Time A Rising Navy Challenged A Dominant Foe
The last time we've seen something like this was in the late 19th century. After the First World War shipbuilding was restricted by the landmark Washington Naval Treaty, one of the first great arms control treaties, and during the Cold War the Soviet Union never really had any hopes of surpassing American naval power. China, however, seems intent on replacing the US as the world's dominant naval power, or at least building a force that can stop the US Navy, even combined with the forces of Japan and other regional allies.
The nations in question, of course, in the last naval arms race, were the United Kingdom and a newly-unified Germany. Germany never reached the level of the UK, but seriously threatened it. Previously the UK had maintained a policy of having more ships than the next two largest fleets combined, but this was no longer possible, and the UK legitimately was fearful for its naval supremacy. It didn't last too long in the end--under a decade--and a resumption was foiled by first a world war and then the Washington Naval Treaty. The impact of the arms race, though, was massive. It set Germany and the UK at odds with each other, it resulted in a general buildup of warships pretty much everywhere [South America was, believe it or not, one of the biggest offenders there], established Germany for a time as the world's second naval power, having eclipsed both France and Russia and turning a small coastal defense navy into something that was able to defeat the Royal Navy itself, though never comprehensively enough to change the course of the first world war.
China dwells in a much different situation than Germany did at the turn of the last century, so we can only extend the analogy so far--substituting in Japan for the UK, India for Russia, and so on is possible but not, in my view, educational. However, we can see many of the same elements playing in here. China seems intent on replacing the US as a dominant power, or at least as regional hegemon--the ancient tributary system seems to lie fairly heavily on Chinese minds--and in order to do that, it must be able to have some degree of power projection and the capability to deny the US Navy access to areas within the first island chain. It remains to be seen, however, how successful that quest will be. Much as with the dreadnought battleships, I wouldn't be surprised if we never actually do find out if most of the shiny naval toys people have built actually work. But their mere existence shows the mutual hostility developing in the region and demonstrates the size of the Chinese threat.
Another lesson learned here is that China, like Germany, may not develop a naval force capable of defeating the US comprehensively, but only partially, and that one of the powers--in this case, China--might be pressured to strike first before the US Navy can close the gap. That ~2030 gap I talked about in my last post is, I think, an especially vulnerable point, because China may look at a degraded, but rejuvenating US Navy, then at their own capable forces, and decide to strike then in Taiwan and the South China Sea, only to back down when the US Navy again eclipses them. Whether or not that will happen, we will see--but I find it a very dangerous and perhaps likely possibility.
2. What the PLAN looked like 20 years ago
The PLAN has undergone an absolutely stunning evolution in the past two decades. In the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis the US could intimidate China with a pair of aircraft carrier strike groups and China could do pretty much nothing about it. Now the US is afraid of sending anything more than a destroyer through the strait.
Twenty years ago, the PLAN was a bit of a joke. Even Taiwan figured it could hold the seas against the PLAN. It consisted of a few tens of outdated coastal-defense frigates, some Soviet-era diesel-electric subs, and a large number of unsophisticated missile craft. The pride of the Chinese fleet were a handful of destroyers assembled using cobbled-together Western technology--copied French missiles, American gas turbines, the lot. According to American accounts at the time, the instructions for the equipment hadn't even been translated. The most advanced ship in the fleet used steampower. There were nuclear submarines, but of 1950s quality. Of particular note was the fact that the Chinese fleet had
no area air defense capabilities--their premier surface-to-air-missile was an unlicensed knockoff of the French Crotale, and couldn't shoot anything outside of visual range, at high altitudes, or really doing anything more sophisticated than trying to kill their ships with low-altitude dumb bombing runs.
In the past twenty years, however, the PLAN has, much like the German Navy towards the end of the 19th century, gone from an afterthought to the world's second most powerful force. It began, as modern China's military capabilities almost all began, with the looting of the former Soviet Union for naval technology. While Soviet naval tech was generally lacking, it was much better than anything else China could get its hands on after the arms embargo placed on it in the 1990s by the US and Europe in response to Tienanmen and the end of the Cold War. China bought Soviet diesel submarines, Soviet air-defense destroyers, and Soviet aircraft carriers, which it promptly left lying around [and turned one of them into a theme park]. This was combined with copies of various pieces of Western, mostly European, technology for everything from sonars to surface-to-air missiles. China then began developing its first modern indigenous surface combatants, the Type 052C, but there were still problems. The engines were Ukrainian and had reliability trouble, the gun jammed, there was no VLS.
It is really in the last ten years that things have begun to move extremely quickly, and even only in the latter portion of the decade. In 2012 the Type 001
Liaoning entered service, and although it remains more of a training ship than an operational vessel, and is held back by a poor carrier aircraft, the mere fact that China "built" a carrier was a surprise to many. In 2014 the first Type 052D destroyer came online. It had learned the lessons from the Type 052C, and in just the last six years at least ten have entered service, with a class size of about 23 expected. This rapid expansion is what has frightened competing navies the most--in a little over a decade, the PLAN is constructing more destroyers than the British, French, and Australian navies have in service combined. It is also building the Type 055, which has generally been called a "destroyer" despite being more aptly described as a cruiser in line with the Ticonderoga-class. China has also built 30 modern frigates in the past decade, which has also swelled its numbers, along with numerous smaller corvettes, submarines, and so on.
This is why the PLAN has become such an object of concern. While it cannot challenge the US Navy yet, at least outside its littoral zones, the decline of the USN and rapid expansion of the PLAN means that it is a serious threat. And the speed at which it has developed has made many fearful. As recently as 2010, the idea of China operating an aircraft carrier or modern destroyers seemed distant, possibly preposterous. Now China speaks openly of having a six-carrier fleet in the 2030s, although, as with many of China's plans to operate full US-replicated tech and doctrine, these may have somewhat caved to realism. China is mighty, but it has already done the easy part--the last part is much harder, in economics and in military matters. Building the software, the institutional knowledge, the hardware to compete with the US Navy will prove difficult.
3. What the PLAN looks like now--submarines
Submarines are one of the PLAN's weak spots, particularly nuclear submarines. China is, however, making some fairly rapid advances in this area.
Their nuclear submarine program has been considered a bit of a joke for some time. In the late 1950s when all the cool
kids great powers were getting nuclear submarines, China decided [or at least Mao did] that China needed nuclear submarines too. About
16 years later, the product of this effort finally emerged as the Type 091 submarine. Based on 1950s technology, with poor radiation shielding and basically nothing done in the name of noise reduction, and not even a teardrop hull, the Type 091 was probably more of a threat to the sailors who were on it than anyone else, except maybe the two Tench-class submarines that Taiwan operates, which use 1940s technology and are the world's longest-serving submarines, though they're mostly used for training nowadays. Even then, my money would be on the Tench despite the upgrades the PLAN has made to the Type 091. There's only so much you can do to put lipstick on a pig.
China also produced an SSBN, the Type 092, which was probably the only submarine more useless than the Type 091. About the only useful thing it did for the PLAN was that it served as a test platform for SLBM launches. Reports suggest that the Type 092 is the noisiest SSBN ever made, and is thought to have only ever undertaken a single patrol. It stayed at port for so long that it was thought to have sunk in an accident. And the experience turned the PLAN off from building SSBNs for over twenty years, until the Type 094 came online in 2007.
More recent submarines are growing in capability, though. The Type 094
is not the noisiest SSBN ever made, and may not even be the noisiest in current service--that honor going to the Delta III operated by the Russian Navy, which uses 1970s technology, and, which, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence, is about as noisy as the Type 094. The Type 093 is also moderately capable--it actually functions and can fire anti-ship missiles. However, the Type 093 is still considered only comparable to the Soviet Victor III class, again using 1970s technology. Future submarines have not yet been seen, but expectations are that China will make another step forward to late 1980s or early 1990s tech levels, producing something on par with the Los Angeles or Akula for the first time.
China also operates a fairly capable fleet of coastal diesel-electric submarines. While some are quite old--the Type 035--most are pretty average for the global submarine force, a mix of Kilos and domestic AIP designs. The large number of boats in operation and their anti-ship missile capability means that these should be considered a real threat, at least in the littoral waters near to China, but they aren't decisive by any means, especially since China is facing off against such threats as Japan's
Soryu class, probably the most advanced diesel-electric sub in existence.
In conclusion, the PLAN is still pretty weak on the submarine front--weaker here than on anything but its carrier force, but its capabilities are advancing rapidly and should not be underestimated.
4. What the PLAN looks like now--surface combatants
The surface fleet is definitely the most impressive and capable portion of the PLAN, no questions about it. China once had a fleet consisting mostly of coastal frigates and missile boats. As recently as 2000, its fleet had no real area-air-defense destroyers, and no SAMs that could operate outside visual range. Now, though, the PLAN operates tens of advanced guided-missile destroyers, advanced frigates, and still retains a large number of small, stealthy missile boats.
The major focus of Chinese warships appears to be on anti-air, with anti-surface being a somewhat secondary concern for all but the smallest vessels. This makes sense when you realize that the primary focus is, at least for the moment, on using land-based aircraft to strike against hostile fleet formations using long-range anti-ship missiles, in a very Soviet sort of way--"Backfire raids" using long-range land-based aircraft with anti-ship missiles were one of the US Navy's major concerns during the Cold War, and the very reason for the F-14's existence along with the AIM-54 Phoenix it carried. However, China has been developing anti-surface capabilities as well using ashms and land-attack cruise missiles [generally the same thing, actually]. Since China has finally developed a VLS system that allows it to use the same launcher for multiple missiles, its most recent ships have become more versatile in that role.
How effective these ships are at that task is, however, a relatively open question. Their radars at least seem to quite sophisticated, using flat-panel AESA, and have been dubbed "Chinese AEGIS" by the
highly reliable Chinese domestic media. The basic platform their surface-to-air missiles are based on also seems to be fairly capable--the HQ-9 is an S-300 derivative, a respectable SAM system though, again, how capable it is against opponents in an active electronic warfare environment is questionable, and it has basically no capabilities against stealth aircraft like the F-35 as far as anyone knows. The efficacy of their CIWS, again, is open to question. Really this is true of everything about the modern PLAN, and PLA in general. The PLA is secretive, has not exported most of its hardware, and has developed largely independently of foreign militaries, though it is definitely influenced by them. Now that the PLAN has moved away from simply copying foreign hardware and patching it together, its capabilities are much harder to discern.
However, they should be taken as a very real threat, and not written off. My guess would be that their warships are about as capable as most of their non-American counterparts, save those equipped with AEGIS, but that's all my guess is---a guess.
5. What the PLAN looks like now--carriers
The PLAN currently has two carriers in service, and two more known to be under construction, and most suspect that it will build several more. However, at the moment, the PLAN's carrier force is largely a paper tiger, designed around training. The first carrier, the Type 001, basically was a "how do you build a carrier" kit bought from Russia, possibly by accident--the "fully functional"
Minsk ended up as a theme park, believe it or not. The hull was purchased from Ukraine and then completed in China years later. It is also believed that the PLAN may have learned some things about aircraft carriers from the HMAS Melbourne, which was sold to a Chinese firm for scrapping--rumor has it the PLAN had no clue this had happened and then had a field day looking at all the stuff that hadn't been taken out. This was back in the old days when nobody could imagine that China would have an aircraft carrier. The Type 002, however, is built from scratch, but isn't particularly capable especially as it's a ski-jump carrier, leaving the Type 003 the first carrier which will prove actually useful.
The main thing holding China's carrier fleet back, though, is a lack of a suitable aircraft. Originally China was considering purchasing Su-33s from Russia, hardly a good carrier-based aircraft but functional, but after Russia discovered that China had been mucking about building a Su-27 derivative without asking the deal fell through [China tells a different story, saying that Russia demanded exorbitant amounts to reopen production which it was unwilling to pay for a nearly obsolete aircraft]. As a result China operates the J-15 as its naval fighter, with... less than stellar results. It's extremely heavy, and, if it takes off from the carrier, has minimal range if carrying anything at all--it can't take more than two short range air to air missiles into the sky to fight enemy aircraft. However, the J-15 isn't really intended for combat service--it's intended to teach China how to run carriers, and it seems to work well enough for that task, aside from the
multiple fatal crashes. There is, however, thought to be a new carrier fighter in the pipeline--most say the J-31/FC-31, which has reduced RCS and a number of carrier-unique features, is being pitched as a carrier-based aircraft and will serve as China's carrier fighter in the future. China also lacks any fixed wing carrier-based airborne early warning, which could prove troublesome--a lack of AEW means that its view is limited by the horizon--and has no resupply aircraft like the C-2 Greyhound. As a result, for the moment at least, China lacks an effective carrier force, but it is likely to continue developing rapidly in the next decade and become a fairly substantial threat. Remember that as recently as 2010, a Chinese aircraft carrier seemed preposterous to many people, and now they have two.
6. Some attention to land-based aircraft
Land-based aircraft as a naval weapon are not generally used by the US, which has never had a reason to develop them as a doctrinal focus. Sure, you could potentially envision them as being used, and there even were situations where they were utilized, but it just wasn't generally a priority or how things were done. For China, though, taking influence from the Soviets, and lying on littoral seas with hostile powers in the First Island Chain, land-based aircraft and missiles are a key part of doctrine. Although this is often viewed as a new thing, called A2/AD [anti access/area denial], it's really the result of a long historical evolution of naval power, probably most refined by the Soviet Union. As a result, land-based naval aviation plays an important role, firing anti-ship missiles at standoff distances at enemy vessels, and shore-based launchers of anti-ship missiles are also an important weapon. The combination of these systems means that venturing within China's littoral seas is a dangerous proposition during war, and some waters, like those of the Taiwan Strait, are effectively considered closed at this point in the event of hostilities breaking out. For this reason air superiority is also important in this sort of naval warfare, as if either side gains air superiority it can pummel its opponents with air-launched anti-ship missiles. China's capabilities in this area are sophisticated and should not be underestimated, but they are unlikely to go through a rapid period of growth like the PLAN's fleet.
And a brief note dedicated entirely to the DF-21D "Carrier killer" that the PLA likes to show off. It's a pretty impressive capability, on paper, using a ballistic missile to hit a carrier. The CEP [circular error probable] means that it could even happen, presuming that an aircraft carrier was good enough to sit in one place, not moving, long enough to be detected by China. Aircraft carriers look big, but the seas are huge, and they're surprisingly hard to find. They also move quite fast, in excess of of 35mph/55kph, and thus by the time the ballistic missile has launched it might well be out of range given the fact that ballistic missiles are not particularly known for their maneuverability in terminal stages, at least not in the realm of miles. The DF-21D is not a particular threat to the modern aircraft carrier. It could potentially be one if it evolves into a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, but that's a whole additional can of worms, that I might address a different day.
7. The PLAN's plans for the future--what will it look like in 2030?
Unfortunately the PLAN is not exactly the most open of navies, as I've repeatedly mentioned. There are no public debates over acquisitions programs, no big fleet shape plans, relatively little detail.
However, a few things are fairly sure bets or publicly announced.
China has repeatedly announced plans to build a six-carrier force, including the Type 001 and Type 002, but also a pair of Type 003 [already under construction] conventionally powered supercarriers and a pair of Type 004 nuclear powered supercarriers. However, it seems that the Type 004 is currently on hold. Why, exactly, is unclear, but it seems to be technical difficulties, which are not particularly surprising given that China's experience with nuclear maritime propulsion seem to be rather limited and have had poor results in their submarine fleet. The costs were also expected to be too high--China does not have an unlimited quantity of money, despite what it may flaunt, and nuclear carriers are expensive to develop especially given that China has not built a nuclear-powered surface ship before.
A new carrier-based fighter is almost certainly in the cards because the J-15 is pretty much useless. The FC-31 seems by far the most likely candidate but it could be another aircraft we haven't seen yet. The addition of this aircraft will greatly improve the PLAN's capabilities.
China also has two Type 075 amphibious assault ships/LHDs under construction, and I would expect this class to be much more prolific. These ships are much more affordable than the full carriers, and focus on areas in which China is particularly concerned--amphibious assaults, say, on islands in the South China Sea or on Taiwan, and anti-submarine warfare, which is of particular importance given that submarines cannot be easily halted with land-based anti-ship missiles and air-launched cruise missiles provided for in their area denial doctrine--submarines are one of the few things that can slip through that net.
The surface combatant fleet is likely to continue growing, but I am not sure if it will swell much beyond the ~23 Type 052D ships planned and the 8 Type 055s. We're likely to see the retirement of the classes preceding the Type 052C destroyer and the Type 054 frigate, and they may be offloaded to Bangladesh, Myanmar, or Pakistan--there is substantial precedent here, and it seems that China is interested in expanding the naval capabilities of its partners around India.
The submarine fleet is likely to see rapid expansion
if the PLAN is satisfied with the Type 095 and Type 096 classes, and we're likely to see more diesel-electric subs built as well. Submarines are generally quite good at fighting submarines and conducting area-denial missions, and the large and capable subsurface forces of Japan, Korea, and the United States means that this has to be an area the PLAN invests more in--and the fact that several Southeast Asian nations are also looking at acquiring submarines makes the issue more pressing.
8. Conclusion
China has in the past decade gone from a third-rate navy to perhaps the greatest threat the US Navy has faced since the Second World War. This has significant geopolitical implications, and has resulted in neighbors scrambling to overhaul their naval forces. The growth of the PLAN means that the US can no longer easily defend Taiwan or the South China Sea, or any of China's littoral waters. This, more than anything else, is what has everyone scrambling in the US talking about "great-power competition" because denying access to the US Navy and working on power projection, an inherently naval thing, is essentially a clear sign that China is looking to directly compete with the United States. Underestimate the PLAN at your own peril.
I hope to have more detail and citations in future posts, but unfortunately the PLAN is very secretive [yes, I've said that fifty times already] and this is a pretty big topic to discuss without going into details about all sorts of naval tidbits. Thanks for reading the fourth post in what I hope will be a fairly substantial series, probably around ~12 posts.
9. Citations
James Holmes, "The Danger Zone In Naval Arms Races" USNI, Report to Congress on Chinese Naval Modernization Hans Kristensen, China's Noisy Nuclear Submarines Eric Wertheim, China's Type 052D Destroyer is a potent adversary Robert Farley, Let's Talk About The Chinese Navy's Type 055 Destroyer Ryan Pickrell, Chinese fighter jet holding China back as it builds carrier fleet Look, much more here is based on loose speculation, more unreliable sources, and stuff I've picked up over the years, because public info is limited. So take everything I say with a grain of salt, but understand that it's the best information
I know of.
submitted by tl;dr; After looking all over the internet for standing desk bases for my DIY project I narrowed it to UpLift Desk V2 Commercial, iMovR Lander, and BTOD VertDesk V3. I ultimately decided to buy the VertDesk V3 and I am very happy with my purchase. See photos at the bottom of the post. I am creating this post to record my research and shopping experience and eventually a review of the
BTOD.com VertDesk V3 base once it arrives. I will likely record a video of the assembly process and a review of the product itself.
First of all, I have been looking into standing desk bases on and off for months now.
I had access to standing desks at my office in Detroit Michigan where I worked until March 2020 when the pandemic hit and was moved to working remote 100% of the time.
Since early March I have been using a beautiful solid black walnut desk built by my dad over 20 years ago. It is 30” tall, 55” wide, and 30” deep. I have two 24” Dell monitors, Dell dock, Dell laptop, a keyboard, mouse and then a bunch of misc. stuff (Clutter). I also made the wise choice to buy a GTRacing Gaming chair in mid-March, which has made this setup totally usable for all this time.
I spent the majority of my 20+ year career working in an office, I didn’t realize how much time I spent not at my desk. There are so many breaks and times when I am not sitting at my desk. I walk over to colleagues’ desks for discussions, one on one mentoring, meeting rooms, just taking a break and walking around the office with go workers to move. I only had access to a standing desk for 6 months since moving to my current employer mid 2019. The standing desks at work are nice, but not great. Part of my problem was that I never had an assigned desk for more than a few weeks due to there not being enough desks for all the workers and I am in role where it was deemed less important for me to have a dedicated desk, I am a Software Architect. So, what that means is I am less likely than the Software engineers I work with to spend my time at a desk. Now that the pandemic hit, and I am working remote 100% of the time, I am at my desk all day. No travel time to meetings, no walking over and standing with engineers to discuss solutions to problems. No water cooler talk to walk to…we do have chat rooms where we have virtual water cooler talks, but no movement or standing.
My Requirements: - Base only without a tabletop
- Be able to be incorporated into my existing desk (Fit inside the 50” x 25” apron) – This is totally non-negotiable at this point. I love the look of desk my dad built but want to be able to raise it up. This may look a bit strange having a 4-legged desk with an apron and then a lift desk underneath it. I am ok with that look as I do not have a place to put the desk otherwise and I love how rock solid it is as sitting position. I am very comfortable working at the 30” height with my gaming chairing and the keyboard at that height.
- Max desk height of at least 47” height - I am 6’ 1” tall and on paper it seems I should only need about 45”, but when I stand next to a wall and measure my arms at around 90 degree that is 47” - https://www.omnicalculator.com/everyday-life/standing-desk-height
- Strong enough to support the heavy 1” thick black Walnut 55” x 30” top, my two 24” monitors and all the rest of the gear, plus my occasional leaning
- Stable at high heights, minimal wobble (side to side) and rocking (front to back)
- Have overload protection to prevent damage to the equipment if too much weight is applied.
- Have collision detection so all my stuff is not thrown all over if it hits my chair, desk base, etc.
- Have at least 2 programmable heights for one touch movement to the standing or sitting position
- Under $1,000 without a top
- Solid long warranty (10 years ideally for everything)
- Ideally Made in America
I will have to say that this has been an absolute nightmare process. I love Amazon, but there are so many “budget” bases on the market. I quickly realized that there were not many that met my needs for under $300. What was more irritating is to find that over those that met my requirements had very few reviews and many had horrible experiences. OK. Time to turn to google. Well now we are into a whole world of hurt. Two sites kept coming up:
www.workwhilewalking.com and
www.btod.com.
Both of these sites are shady in my opinion.
- Both are highly biased, and the reviews reflect that. They favor the products they benefit from in terms of child companies getting sales or directly from the site themselves.
- In a lot of cases the reviews are not in line with other independent reviews.
- Excessive bashing of companies they do NOT sell or have a relationship with
After lots of hard searching I found:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecuttereviews/best-standing-desk/ This site unlike the two above covered a lot more of the desks I was looking at, but not perfect by any means. I dug through all the products referenced in the above link, even all the products that didn’t “win”.
I narrowed my selection down to the following desks:
- Uplift Desk V2 Commercial (Top pick)
- iMovR Lander (No on Wire Cutter review)
- VertDesk V3 (Previously tested or dismissed)
I then started searching for any reviews of the above desks.
I found numerous YouTube reviews, Reddit Reviews, and other reviews.
UpLift Desk V2 Commercial I was really leaning heavily toward the Uplift as the quantity of reviews, favorable opinion of stability, and lots of independent reviews. It now has a 10-year warranty on everything.
Size will work with my constraints, rated highly in stability. Lots of accessories and customization.
The Uplift has lots of recent problems in terms of delivery time. Since the product is a Jiecang OEM, which is based in China, the supply chain was really disrupted during this. I have seen comments of people having months of delays. Problems with the quality. Uplift was the only one of the three that was not made in the USA to some degree,
NOTE important update below in terms how where the parts come from for BTOD VertDesk V3. This concerned me with having long delays on parts, but this may still be a concern with all of them as they all have parts from around the world.
iMovR Lander base I really wanted to love the iMovR. I love that it ships out of Michigan. I love that it is manufactured in America (Frame made by Knoll in North Carolina), Bosch Motors, Linak electronics (Linak makes parts for hospital beds, so they know how to make durable stuff). Seems to have good support – always a human on the website to chat.
Has a 10-year warranty on motors and electronics and lifetime on frame.
Having said that I don’t like that I cannot find an independent review site that had reviewed them. Only the completely biased website above, YouTube, and Reddit. I have also read less than favorable views of their response time on issues. I also am concerned about the stability of the desk given the design and that the cross bar (well really a metal support attached to the top) was an extra. If this is a crucial part of the desk it should just be included. Also, the inclusion of this cross bar meant it would not fit inside my 50” apron. I also did not like that the support person was less than honest about reviews. I asked why there were so few reviews for the lander (3 on their site), which he said was release in early 2018. This was the response: “Fairly new John yes. You'll find independent reviews on YouTube, Reddit and Trust Pilot, we don't solicit for reviews (or pay for them like many folks these days)!”
- This may be a half-truth at best.
- workwhilewalking.com reviews them and is owned by the parent company – so technically iMovR does not directly pay for them. They don’t hide this on the site.
- Several of the YouTube video reviews have said that the iMovR provided the desk and in one case even provided a standing desk for a giveaway through the reviewer’s channel. Did they pay for the review? Maybe not technically if all they gave was the desk, but that is far from an independent review in my book. Consumer Reports is my standard for independent reviews because they do NOT accept products for review, they buy them like everyone else.
- If they are giving them to some people to review why didn’t they give them to Wire Cutter to be considered in the line up? This says to me that they are worried how they will fair when compared with others. Giving a popular YouTube star a desk who has either no comparison or has a really old model that could only be seen as an improvement is a safe bet.
Finally, the iMovR Lander base was $200 more and the accessories were really high priced.
BTOD VertDesk V3 - What I ordered Finally, the reasons I ultimately ordered the VertDesk V3 from
BTOD.com on Sunday 9/6/2020 and says that is will ship between 09/28/2020 to 10/05/2020, so probably delivered mid October.
UPDATE 3: On 9/14/2020 I received an email that my ship date is now 9/16/2020. Nice to see ship date come in and NOT out as apparently has been happening to people ordering from UpLift. Cross Fingers that it arrives before the weekend. UPDATE 4: Well 9/16/2020 came and went without tracking information. I reached out and there was a delay. As of today Friday 9/18/2020 I received my tracking information and the desk base is on its way and is currently scheduled for delivery on Sunday 9/20/2020. It still shipped 10 days earlier than the earliest original estimate and only 12 days after my order. Now for eagerly awaiting the delivery. UPDATE 5: Sunday 9/20/2020 and my base was delivered by Fedex. So 14 days after placing the order, and there was a holiday on 9/7/2020 in there so 9 business days, so very happy with the speed of order to delivered. I am not sure if I will have time today to unbox it, but I will post a link to a video of that process when I do. I was really concerned about buying this product. But several things that helped me with the decision. It was reviewed on WireCutter. What is also interesting is that the WireCutter testers agreed with the stability claims of
BTOD.com biased tester. The reason they did not consider it the best was it was loud and difficult to assemble. I have watched the videos on assembly of the desk and feel confident that I can do this. I am a woodworker and home improvement guy so this assembly looks reasonable and I already know it will take some time to modify the existing desk for this project to work. The other area of concern was the loud motor. In an office setting I think this will be a concern, but for me in my own home office I accept this. They have a solid 10-year warranty. I really like the design of desk. At first, I was skeptical of a single motor design, but then I read several review sites on poorly built or designed two motor systems where one leg gets stuck and one side jams up. With the single external motor design with the rod going between the two legs this seems like a near impossibility as the connection to the gear that raises the leg would to break for this to happen. While a two-motor system will have to use special logic to ensure that the two motors move at the same speed. Another thing that I really liked was that the VertDesk Legs are welded and NOT screwed. Welds are permanent and as such will lead to very stable legs. So, the 90 degree at the top of the leg where it connects to the tabletop is welded and the bottom of the leg is welded to the foot. This means that any rocking (front to back) will be the result of the glide having play or flex in the foot, and it appears from the video they do a very good job making this tight and smooth. Then the cross bar is a solid piece of metal connected to welded attachment points. This means that there should be little room for wobble as with an adjustable width crossbar that has screws that are pressuring the two pieces of the cross bar together could become loose over time. This has downsides too, that is that the product has very specific widths. With the Uplift V2 Commercial I would be able to set the width to exactly 50” that will fit in the apron of my desk, but I had to settle for a 46.375” wide option. Since I want a really stable desk this is a fair trade off in my mind. After watching both the Uplift desk assembly instructions and the iMovR assembly there are more screws that could come loose over time or compromise the stability as both desks have lots of screws that attach the feet and tabletop supports in place. As someone over 6-foot-tall I was concerned about the cross bar hitting my knees when seated, but with the Leg being pushed back (C Leg) versus centered (T Leg) that meant it was highly unlikely I would hit it on either the VertDesk V3 or the UpLift Desk V2 Commercial.
UPDATE 2: I also really like that this product is built in America and as such does not have supply chain issues like the Chinese OEM product from UpLift. Certainly, being geographically closer doesn’t mean they can’t have problems here as they do have many parts from other countries, but the frame itself is made here. I also feel better about supporting American workers who make the legs and assemble the products. Ryan from BTOD has corrected me on this point I was incorrect on this part of my write up: "The frames are made in Taiwan. The frames come into the factory at K&A. They put in the gears and glides, then make sure everything fits snuggly and smoothly. The gears, motor are from Europe and we use high end glides to ensure proper spacing and lubrication between the columns but the frames themselves are also coming from overseas."
So there is still a good possibility of supply chain issues, which explains why the cost is $200 less than the iMovR Lander that has its frame made in the USA. In addition Ryan pointed out from this blog post
https://www.btod.com/blog/2017/03/04/a-standing-desk-evolution-vertdesk-v1-and-v2-vs-vertdesk-v3/ “In order to cut down on our quality control issues, we have brought the assembly of the VertDesk v3 to the USA. We are now shipped pre-assembled columns, feet and work surface supports from our Taiwanese partners factory. The gears are shipped to us from Ketterer (Germany) and the electronics come from Laing Innotech (Hungary). The US factory produces the cross support, hex rod cover and work surface. All of the parts are then assembled and boxed for shipment from the Wisconsin warehouse.”
This was my mistake in understanding the video and in NO place on their site do they claim to be more than built in the USA. I still like this added step as it still has US workers assembling and ensuring quality and while it is only a few parts actually being produced in the USA, it still matters to me. UPDATE 1: Here is a photo of my current desk and setup. My plan is to keep the legs and add the standing desk base inside it to just raise the top when needed. https://preview.redd.it/1289qb0q7rl51.jpg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d899eab4b267234345bd1548b11c312a5732f23 UPDATE 6: BTOD Vertdesk V3 - Unboxing Sunday 9/20/2020 Fedex delivered the base. No visible damage to the box at first. After hauling it to my second floor office I did notice a small ding at the bottom, but after unboxing it did no damage as the ding was in a nice piece of packing material. The packaging was a little difficult to open as the box was sealed with both staples and glue. This is goos and bad. Well protected, but it also means that the box was a bit torn up trying to open it so if I have to return it I may have to do some repair work. The legs, main motor rod, cross bar, and motor rod cover were well packed and easy to remove. Legs were packed well, but one leg box had a bit of damage and there are two small marks on the front of the foot. The marks are nothing I will notice as from a standing position they are not visible. I also have to say I am happy with my decision as the legs do feel really solid with the welded on feet and top supports. Each leg is a solid unit pre assembled and they feel really solid. Over all there really are not that many part to this setup.
BTOD Vertdesk V3 - Assembly Part 1 I started the assembly Sunday 9/20/2020 in the evening. So far the assembly was harder than others may experience more because of the small space in my office. I will post a video of different snippets put together as you will see I have to keep on moving stuff to be able to assemble it. After reading and watching some things on BTOD I decided to assemble the frame on the floor before adding my top. This process really didn't take long. I was lucky and the alignment of the rod was pretty easy. I decided to flip it over before the top was on just to test that it went up and down correctly and to set the lower container stop. As you can see in the photo above my existing desk has legs and a wood apron around the top. I do not have the space to store this base elsewhere and it has a great deal of sentimental value keeping the desk intact, so I set the lower container stop to 30.5". This basically means that the lowest the desk will go is 30.5" instead of the typical 27". I will likely have to adjust this further once the legs are placed inside the frame. At first I was concerned that above 37" it kept giving an error F05, but then I realized that this was a collision detection feature that was having a problem because the control module was not where it was supposed to be per the instructions. The control box has to be in a specific place on the table top and it sitting on the floor was causing problems. By doing half inch steps I was able to move it all the way to the full height of 47" and then back down. As you can see my current desk is a rather big mess of stuff and I have to remove all that stuff, mark the location of the apron on the underside of the top and unscrew it so that I can attach the frame to it. The fun part will no doubt being getting help to lower the assembled desk the 30" up into the frame. So far I am pleased with the frame. I will post more when I add the top.
UPDATE 7: BTOD Vertdesk V3 - Assembly Part 2 Monday 9/21/2020 I was able to clean off the mess that was my old desk and remove the top. I was able to flip over the assembled base and attach the frame to the top. A couple lessons learned. You have to assemble the cross bar in order to make sure the legs are spaced correctly for so that you can pre drill and screw the legs to the frame. After doing that you you need to remove the cross bar as with it in place you will not have clearance to get a drill in to screw in the motor rod cover. Once the cover is installed then you can reinstall the cross bar, but you will need to slightly loosen screws holding the legs so that there is some play. I had a hard time getting the cross bar installed again until I did that as slight movement caused them to be miss-aligned. To be fair the instructions call this out, but the instructions order of operations are different than what I had to do as the instructions assume a pre drilled top. Once I get that all done the next steps for adding the control box, wire management, controller, and flipping over the desk were pretty easy. To be honest the hardest parts of all of this assembly were related to my work area being very small and the DIY aspect of custom attachment to my top. So definitely when you do this assembly have plenty of physical space. I would say a minimum to easily do this project is double the width of your desk and three times the depth of your desk.
Review so far So I have not placed the desk in it's final position, but had to actually get to my day job, but here are some initial thoughts.
Stability is amazing. Even at the 45" standing height that seems comfortable for me to work at there is very little movement. Typing very vigorously does not seem to move the desk or my monitor. I only have one of my two monitors hooked up so far, so we will see how things go once everything back together. I like the one touch programmable buttons. I have my standing and sitting position programmed and they work well. More to come later as I have to get back to work.
UPDATE 8: Monday 9/21/2020 I completed my first full day of work with the VetDesk V3. Overall it has been great. I don't have my complete setup moved to the desk yet, but have my laptop screen and one Monitor. For a bit of my time standing have been using my wife's Simply Fit Board where you swing you lower body side by side and holding on to the desk because frankly I have not been using it much and my balance is not great. I am leaning pretty heavily against the desk as I swing side by side and the desk is NOT moving. No movement on any of the monitors. This thing is really solid and stable at the 45" height I am comfortable standing at.
UPDATE 9: Monday 9/21/2020 I completed getting my setup all done...well other than a lot of cable management and getting a better stand for my laptop. See Photos of my two positions seated at 30.5" and Standing at 45". So due to me wanting to keep the old legs from my Dad's Desk I had to add 3" tall foot stands. The legs are 29" tall (30" with the top) so the min height of the standing desk of 26" (27" with top) was not going to work. There is a container stop position on the desk, but whenever you lose power to the desk for more than 10 seconds it goes into reset mode that requires you to lower the desk to the min height of 26" before it allows you to raise the desk. Overall adding the feet to the desk does not seem to reduce the overall stability at the standing height. I did a few tests with the Simply Fit board and the amount of shaking on the monitors is slightly more, but not at all at a point where it would bother me. Also with aggressive typing I don't notice any monitor movement at all.
Seated position at 30.5\" at the table top. Standing position at 45\" submitted by This is a recurring topic. I see it every time once in a while, with more or less thought put in the subject. Due to the nature of the subject, I expect it to keep popping up again now and then, since both hardware and Dwarf Fortress are evoluting.
I'm a software engineer working on (more or less) embedded devices, doing low level stuff in C. I'm not stating this as an argument of authority but rather as an invitation to go deep so that performances may be discussed at the lowest possible level - !SCIENCE! is important here.
I'd like to start with a few observations on dwarf fortress' usage of hardware. - DF is rarely running on different threads. This isn't criticism - multi threading isn't a magical option. Not everything can be multi threaded, as threads have an access to the same memory - as a result, there has to be locks, mutexes, and suchlike, but in dwarf fortress.... Everything is essentially... reliant on ... well, everything else, making it nearly impossible to define asynchronous tasks. I've seen forum posts discussing that, in the case of dwarf fortress, it would actually make things worse because of the bottleneck being the memory bus (?)
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138921.0 - Dwarf fortress suffers from cache misses.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=151121.msg6270374#msg6270374 We're mostly talking L3/L4 cache apparently. When a CPU tries to read or write data it will check the cache first - if what it seeks is present in cache, it will be SIGNIFICANTLY faster than acessing RAM (10 to 100 times typically). A cache miss is the failure to use cache, leading to the CPU having to read/write in the RAM which is slower, and a reason for framerate drop.
- Dwarf fortress does not store much, but uses what it stores all the time - dwarf fortress actions are reliant on basically everything else! So much in fact that I expect the current game memory to be practically entirely used all the time by virtually any action. So while the size of that data isn't massive, it's in constant use for both reading and writing.
- GPU is irrelevant. The nature of dwarf fortress includes the use of many tools, though, some of which include visual tools and renderers. Also, I don't think it's very controversial to say that many people find the game unplayable without an array of tools - at the very least Dwarf Therapist. Personally I tend to add external info windows to this, along with the use of a browser for the wiki, a legends browser for the history of my world, etc. I therefore would say you'd rather have multiple screens to play on.
- Dwarf fortress does not seem to interact with the disk often. When it does, however it can take quite a while (loading a save and saving a game - read and write, respectively) . I had a world that would take 10 minutes to load.
https://www.reddit.com/dwarffortress/comments/cjnhec/dwarf_fortress_does_hard_disk_speed_matter_test/ Deductions on DF's requirements - what it needs, what it doesn't need CPU: Dwarf fortress does not require excellent multi threading capacities. In this day and age however you are not very likely to find single cores, and besides, it stills benefits your OS and whatever other tasks you're running. You probably do need, however, good single core performances. Most importantly, you will need cache, the more the better - think of it this way, the more cache you have, the less often DF will need to access memory. And since it tries to grab little bits of data at a very fast rate, I expect this to raise your framerate up quite a bit. Now, if you want a cheap secondhand CPU with a lot of cache, everything seems to point towards older Xeons and suchlike. Server hardware is probably good for dwarf fortress, but beware the very, very high prices of motherboards associated with them. Otherwise think about cache whenever you build your next gaming PC. Hyperthreading and suchlike will likely be used. If you make a PC for dwarf fortress, you may not really need an i7 - though, again, if it has more cache than your other choices, and good single core performances, it's still a safe bet.
RAM: You don't need a lot of RAM, but you need fast RAM - possibly, very fast RAM. This other thread seems to point out fairly accurately that faster RAM may make the same save twice as fast - THOUGH a lot of data is missing (What other hardware is in use, etc)
https://www.reddit.com/dwarffortress/comments/5kyyb5/faster_ram_gave_me_a_nice_fps_boost/ This is because, like I said, DF accesses little bits of memory all the time but as all actions are reliant on almost all of the available data, every nano second spent reading and writing on memory is keeping the game on hold. Reduce this latency and the framerate will be boosted massively.
Now as I am writing this, I am keeping an eye on the upcoming DDR5 - with RAM going up to 6400MT/s compared to 3200MT/s for fast DDR4. From the look of it, DDR5 would help greatly on this regard. Typically we'd be looking into fast, small ram, possibly in dual channel (2 x 4GB would be more than sufficient - I dare you to find smaller anyway...)
GPU: Honestly just pay attention to the number of ports so that you can slap multiple screens on that bish lol - probably something low end so you can run renderers and have a bunch of windows open. IDK. Maybe pay attention to drivers if we plan on going for a solely DF based computers, in which case we may turn to a linux distro? More on this later.
Storage: SSDs now cost nothing and are pretty reliable. I would personally say that putting DF on a small SSD (say 20GB) would be absolutely more than enough.
YOU WILL NOT gain framerate with a faster disk in dwarf fortress! We are solely talking loading and saving times, here. SSDs do not magically enhance framerate like a lot of people seem to pretend - this will only happen in games that rely on heavy disk usage (IE, Arma 3 that requires to load big uncompressed files into memory during play, because there's no way it could put everything in memory to start with) Now the OS question is relevant again. Maybe, for a DF only machine, you would like to go for a linux distro. In this case, the entire computer wouldn't need much more than only this small SSD - I have rarely seen a Linux system taking more than 1GB (With this said I normally use GUI less debians.) For a windows computer you will need more than that, honestly I'd go over 120GB to be safe.
Operating system: Although I use various linux distros every day, I have to say I have never even considered trying Dwarf Fortress on Linux. I have no idea if there are any benchmarks available as far as performances go, on Linux and Windows. What I do recall however is that one of my friends did it and got frustrated at multiple tools being unusable, and having to use Wine for some of them, even one that is in Java (Supposedly multi platform lol, Java truly is the language of Satan)
In the absence of data I consider that I have no valuable opinion on this matter. I'd probably go for windows because I already know how to make myself comfortable with DF on windows.
Motherboard: Must support your hardware and that's it. Don't go fancy I guess. Unless you're using server hardware.
Now from all that... I've kind of explored the topic a bit, and I see a few options for a computer built with dwarf fortress in mind:
- Option 1 would be to build your gaming rig with dwarf fortress in mind. This would mean that ontop of whatever budget and goals you have, you would have to be mindful on specificities regarding the CPU and RAM, mostly: IE, paying specific attention to cache and getting a CPU that is a bit more expensive, for more cache, or paying more attention to RAM speed and getting faster RAM than you initially went for - Option 2 would be to build a computer made out of second hand server hardware. I've looked into it and have found very high frequency, old xeons with a LOT of cache, that don't have too many cores and are regarded as obsoletes because, being old, they are lacking in cores and suchlike. Here I have encountered one problem: it seems hard or very expensive to get motherboards and other parts that go with such CPUs. But I haven't checked in a while. This could be a very good option in the case you work in IT and you know companies that get rid of their old server hardware - I've had this happen multiple times, with the company essentially giving away entire racks that it doesn't have the time to sell. - Option 4 would be just building a regular computer with DF's specificities in mind. I came up with a computer around 600€ that looks the part, with a Ryzen 2700x, 16GB of very fast DDR4, and the rest being pretty basic. I haven't developped it a whole lot, though, it was a quick research thing.
I'd honestly like seeing a lot more builds that would theorically work, from all types of options, and for all budgets. I'm talking budget DF computer that just runs that, to gaming rigs optimized with DF in mind, and why not absolute dream machines for the eventual DF playing millionaires out there who would like to make a dedicated machine for DF worth 10K+, lol.
Additional important links on optimization and hardware usage:
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_(computing)#CACHE-MISS#CACHE-MISS)
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Technical_tricks http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Maximizing_framerate https://www.reddit.com/dwarffortress/comments/7y1j0w/what_would_be_the_ideal_cpu_for_df/ http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=105554.15 Evolution Gaming has launched the Speed Roulette, its new game that has been designated as the fastest roulette online. With the launch of its new game, Speed Roulette, Evolution Gaming increases the number of varieties of roulette titles it offers.This new production is available on tablet, Smartphone and PC on all casinos powered by the developer. Evolution’s Speed Blackjack follows the same rules as its regular Live Blackjack but with a key difference – the dealing order when it is time for the player to make their decision. In the new Speed version, each player’s first two cards are dealt as normal. Evolution Live Roulette is the most popular, authentic and exciting live dealer Roulette available online. There are multiple game variants, the largest number of generic, VIP and native speaking dealer tables, and dedicated tables for optimum control over your online brand, and even Dual Play Roulette, which brings together land-based and online players at the same on-premise tables. The founder of the software, Adam Todd, decided to design the software because he managed to make a substantial amount of money from scalping horse races on Betfair. Initially BetTrader evolution was designed only for scalping on Betfair, but, later evolved into software to help trading the Betfair exchange in general. RaceAdvisor - Betting Speed Evolution is a software program developed by Anonymous Ginger Limited. The most common release is 1.2.11, with over 98% of all installations currently using this version. The primary executable is named bettingspeedevolution.exe.
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