PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

[Moonscape]

Japan always adores the yanks [except immediately after Nagasaki and Horisima nuclear winters], this female PM is no exception, except she uses lies to justify her aims to re-arm heavily, despite the country"s financial deficits.

Best strategy is to bankrupt them, a la the Soviet Union. Let's see how long she can keep her defense spending up with bond rates spiking.

 

[Nevermore]

Japan has its own unique vulnerabilities: high debt, an aging population, and its industrial supply chains and trade heavily reliant on China. Should Japan choose to act recklessly, it would inevitably face enormous consequences.
To be honest, if Japan didn't have these vulnerabilities, China might truly be powerless against it. Unfortunately, Japan's current situation is not like that.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Your logistics tail to do a rapid deployment shoot and scoot for some tiny islands don’t just appear out of thin air and the thing about islands is that they’re fixed positions which make them easy to monitor.

There's not much tail for a missile battery (from "littoral combat teams") though - it's a small unit, which can last on relatively small supply runs for extended periods of time This is data collection unit with some "guerilla" fires, aimed at not so much preventing activities as at monitoring them(bringing around persistent small/tactical sensors rather than theater ones, coming once in a while) and optionally constraining them. Not a coastal defense in a proper stopping sense.
Not a unit meant to engage PLA task force - but should you leave behind a beached transport, tropical forest on an island couple hundred miles away may find a tomahawk. Or there will be a LAAB element, which may be AD, or may result in unexpected F-35B FOB. Etc.

And yes, given minimum footprint, they're very much meant to operate under PLA monitoring in neutral battlespace(1st island chain, i.e. under PLA superiority), and remain obscure enough to somehow survive. Unless China establishes firm control over those islands, which for political reasons it doesn't.

IMHO MLRs mean assaults and mop ups are unavoidable.

 

[latenlazy]

There's not much tail for a missile battery (from "littoral combat teams") though - it's a small unit, which can last on relatively small supply runs for extended periods of time This is data collection unit with some "guerilla" fires, aimed at not so much preventing activities as at monitoring them(bringing around persistent small/tactical sensors rather than theater ones, coming once in a while) and optionally constraining them. Not a coastal defense in a proper stopping sense.
Not a unit meant to engage PLA task force - but should you leave behind a beached transport, tropical forest on an island couple hundred miles away may find a tomahawk. Or there will be a LAAB element, which may be AD, or may result in unexpected F-35B FOB. Etc.

And yes, given minimum footprint, they're very much meant to operate under PLA monitoring in neutral battlespace(1st island chain, i.e. under PLA superiority), and remain obscure enough to somehow survive. Unless China establishes firm control over those islands, which for political reasons it doesn't.

IMHO MLRs mean assaults and mop ups are unavoidable.

If you want to mass enough missiles to do any meaningful damage it’s not just one missile battery. If you’re not stationing anyone around long term but need to be able to conduct prompt operations the logistical tail of where everyone is stationed and when it’s being prepped to extend for a large operation is also visible. The point is the same. You cannot manifest mass out of the ether, and traceable activity is activity that’s exposed to counterstrike. These islands are not the same thing as random jungle popup attacks. There is no cover and extremely limited maneuver capacity, and the potential strike positions are all fixed.

 

[Gloire_bb]

If you want to mass enough missiles to do any meaningful damage it’s not just one missile battery. If you’re not stationing anyone around long term but need to be able to conduct prompt operations the logistical tail of where everyone is stationed and when it’s being prepped to extend for a large operation is also visible. The point is the same. You cannot manifest mass out of the ether.

That's the point. Those aren't mass, at all.
It's intelligence/ambush formation, meant to force operational restrictions. It is not generating missile salvo able to break ship formations or even individual fully operational AD ships, this is not its purpose, and launching at them will only expose them for no gain.

Note the structure and effects: even in overblown US terms, only fix and engage.
If formation has any intention to attack, this would be "all domain joint comprehensive dominance fires", at least.

 

[latenlazy]

That's the point. Those aren't mass, at all.
It's intelligence/ambush formation, meant to force operational restrictions. It is not generating missile salvo able to break ship formations or even individual fully operational AD ships, this is not its purpose.

If you are not generating sufficient mass to do meaningful damage then the exercise itself is pointless.

 

[Gloire_bb]

If you are not generating sufficient mass to do meaningful damage then the exercise itself is pointless.

At least they themselves don't feel this way. Effects from distributed MLR is information, forward support (for their own forces) and forward friction(for PLA). They have some bite, but it shouldn't be overestimanted nor expected to be the purpose.

 

[latenlazy]

At least they themselves don't feel this way. Effects from distributed MLR is information, forward support (for their own forces) and forward friction(for PLA). They have some bite, but it shouldn't be overestimanted nor expected to be the purpose.

Marginal effects against absolute mass differences is just not a meaningful play.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Marginal effects against absolute mass differences is just not a meaningful play.

It's how you shape theater and limit mundane activities by redfor.
Missiles are only part of it, equally important are small/medium sensors and lots of distributed logistics.
Note, that their own integral AA fires a C-UAS only; note that while they're getting lots of GATO/Rs, they as far as i understand aren't even getting new MRICs. Any targetable footprint is discarded.

 

[mshrief303]

We need to consider that this operational concept is evolving, and there's UGVs that can be used to increase battery firepower. And they can stockpile in that area before the war, if it's a Japanese island for instance.

And if you launched a lot of drones in the air, sea surface and underwater from this batteries, it'll be also increase your Naval Task forces power in the area.