Air and Strike Campaigns for PLA relevance

Brumby said:

You are right that Operation Allied Force covered a bigger area than Kosovo. However more than half of the effort were concentrated below the 44th parallel because General Clark wanted to focus the air effort in Kosovo.

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Good, so we agree that the a actual air operation of Allied Force was reflective of the whole of FRY at the time.

Unless you have specific statistics for the actual number of munitions dropped only geographically in Kosovo, then comparing the geographic area of Kosovo with the geographic area of any other hypothetical theatre of conflict is not very useful.

After all even "below the 44th parallel" is not very useful considering there was much more than just Kosovo below that line.

There is no dispute that sortie generation is a function of distance and that Taiwan is a much lesser logistic issue for China. However that doesn't change the number of aim points that are required to be targeted in a major conflict and that is often significantly underestimated by the general public without base lining it to modern conflicts. For example, the Kosovo air campaign expended more than 28,000 munitions (excluding TLAMS) against 9815 aim points. Taiwan has similar environmental features as Kosovo like mountainous terrain which present challenges for ISR as it did with Kosovo. Degradation of Taiwan's ability to deter an invasion is much more than just taking out its airfields. Taiwan will present significant difficulties for China with pop up threats with manpads and AAA just as the Serbs did in Kosovo.


In any air campaign, the range of targets doesn't change - just the degree and depth. For example, the range of targets in Kosovo are a mixture. It should also be noted the ROC has a very capable airforce unlike the Serbs which only has a dozen MIG-29s. China actually doesn't have enough modern airplanes to do the job if you consider its inventory is spread across at least three fronts. View attachment 56235

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Uhh of course the range of targets change in an air campaign, that's because no air campaign has the exact same military or political objectives. Allied Force was different to Odyssey Dawn which was different to the initial air campaign in the Gulf War, which in turn was different to Rolling Thunder or Linebacker etc etc

In Allied Force one of the coalition's major goals was to deny FRY forces from operating in Kosovo, but the challenge they faced was trying to strike at the FRY forces on the ground who were operating in small units and were easily concealable.
The reason why they were forced to use air power to strike at those targets is because they didn't want to send in ground troops, while simultaneously trying to prevent those small infantry units from committing violence in Kosovo (a task which by most measures they didn't particullary succeed at). FRY forces were able to specifically avoid destruction by not congregating in large units and avoiding exposure/avoiding battle.

Therefore, for Taiwan and the PLA we need to specifically look at how application of air power and strikes would be used to achieve military and political goals, and to examine what targets would be defined as relevant targets or "aim points". I believe they would be very different to what NATO's goal of application of air power and strikes against Yugoslavia was in Allied Force.

Among the big differences includes that the PLA will not be forcing its air force and its strikes to try and destroy individual small units of ROC soldiers, and that the ROC's air defense systems are much larger and much less mobile than what Yugoslavia had (of course the ROC's air defenses are much more capable as well than SA-6s, but in context of the combined arms strikes the PLA will be able to bring to bear that doesn't mean much).
The PLA will of course still be hitting big fixed targets like air bases, naval bases, command/control centers, big early warning arrays, logistics centers, pre-sighted missile launch locations, depots, and so on, and those will be the primary targets of interest. Possibly with or without elements of civilian infrastructure if they are determined to be used for military purposes, but again, infrastructure like those aforementioned targets are big, easy to locate and target.


(The proportion of its military power that China will be able to concentrate towards Taiwan is a different matter and dependent on geopoligical context of the time. )

I agree no situation is alike. My purpose is to point out that there are a lot more aim points and consequently PGMs required than there are in inventory.

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Well I was saying that extrapolating trends based only on geography is not the best; other factors need to be considered.

IMO, for the PLA and Taiwan, I would argue that the converse is true to your argument.

Not only is Taiwan a smaller geographic area than the FRY, but the number of relevant aim points that the ROC offers for the PLA is significantly lower and much more easily located than the aim points that NATO were going after in Allied Force, and the military and political goals of a PLA air campaign/strike campaign against Taiwan is also significantly different from what NATO sought in Allied Force as well

Brumby said:

You are right that Operation Allied Force covered a bigger area than Kosovo. However more than half of the effort were concentrated below the 44th parallel because General Clark wanted to focus the air effort in Kosovo.


There is no dispute that sortie generation is a function of distance and that Taiwan is a much lesser logistic issue for China. However that doesn't change the number of aim points that are required to be targeted in a major conflict and that is often significantly underestimated by the general public without base lining it to modern conflicts. For example, the Kosovo air campaign expended more than 28,000 munitions (excluding TLAMS) against 9815 aim points. Taiwan has similar environmental features as Kosovo like mountainous terrain which present challenges for ISR as it did with Kosovo. Degradation of Taiwan's ability to deter an invasion is much more than just taking out its airfields. Taiwan will present significant difficulties for China with pop up threats with manpads and AAA just as the Serbs did in Kosovo.


I agree no situation is alike. My purpose is to point out that there are a lot more aim points and consequently PGMs required than there are in inventory.

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As Bltizo points out, the Chinese Air Force and its air-delivered PGMs will not be used against all the aimpoints in Taiwan.

Over 90% of Taiwan's population is within 30km of the coast.
Presumably that reflects the distribution of industrial, economic and military targets.

If the Chinese military want to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan, amphibious ships are going to have to approach much closer than 30km.
And assuming they have air and maritime superiority in the Taiwan Straits, they might as well use ARMY Artillery Guns on cargo ships. We've seen photos of this already.

A small 500TEU cargo ship is about 115m long and costs $4M used.
A towed artillery gun is say $1M
A unguided artillery shell has a range of 35km and only costs $1K, which is peanuts.
In comparison, a JDAM costs $25K, so you could afford to fire 10 unguided shells to get the same effect as a JDAM.
Alternatively, a guided artillery shell like the Excalibur or SADRAM costs $64K/$68K.

So a cargo ship + artillery gun + 1000 shells costs $6M. That is an absolute bargain.
And the Chinese military essentially has an unlimited supply of these items.
Which all means they are entirely expendable, but pack a lot of firepower.

So you could outfit say 100 such ships to perform fire missions off the Taiwan coastline.
Each ship could sail, fire everything and return to port in 12hours.
So assuming 1 trip per day, that works out to 100,000 artillery shells per day.
Over 20 days, that is 2 million Artillery Shells.

That is more than enough for your guesstimate of 150,000 aimpoints for all the targets in Taiwan.
And also leave enough spare artillery shells to completely decimate Taiwan's entire civilian infrastructure as well.

So the Taiwanese military cannot afford to leave these artillery ships alone, and concealed missile units have to fire and expose themselves.

AndrewS said:

As Bltizo points out, the Chinese Air Force and its air-delivered PGMs will not be used against all the aimpoints in Taiwan.

Over 90% of Taiwan's population is within 30km of the coast.
Presumably that reflects the distribution of industrial, economic and military targets.

If the Chinese military want to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan, amphibious ships are going to have to approach much closer than 30km.
And assuming they have air and maritime superiority in the Taiwan Straits, they might as well use ARMY Artillery Guns on cargo ships. We've seen photos of this already.

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We have seen the PLA using army guns aboard cargo ships a long time ago, but I do not believe it is current practice. The lack of ability to adequately stabilize standard army artillery guns on a rolling seaborne platform as well as their overall level of exposure to the elements and the lack of any similar exercises in recent memory makes me think the PLA aren't interested in doing that.

IMO what is more likely is that they may install some dedicated MLRS modules aboard cargo ships as a fire support tool instead, if they were to use cargo ships in that manner (see pic).




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..... however, more important than that IMO, is a difference in understanding the military goals of what a PLA bombardment is meant to achieve in context of overall military goals.

In various NATO air campaigns since the end of the cold war, the air power and/or cruise missile strikes have been the primary mode of achieving military and political goals.
In Allied Force as well as Libya, the goal was to avoid sending boots on the ground.

For the PLA, their hypothetical air campaign/strike campaign vs Taiwan would primarily be to enable an amphibious invasion and to achieve a beachhead and introduce a major ground component.
They do not have to do everything with air power or strikes alone -- instead, air power and strikes (as well as naval power) will play a big role in terms of how it can enable the ground warfare domain to be conducted and how those factors can create a force multiplier effect for the effectiveness of the PLA's ground forces once combat on the ground is joined.


IMO that principle should guide what kind of targets and aim points we consider the PLA to be most interested in during their initial air and strike campaign.

Bltizo said:

We have seen the PLA using army guns aboard cargo ships a long time ago, but I do not believe it is current practice. The lack of ability to adequately stabilize standard army artillery guns on a rolling seaborne platform as well as their overall level of exposure to the elements and the lack of any similar exercises in recent memory makes me think the PLA aren't interested in doing that.

IMO what is more likely is that they may install some dedicated MLRS modules aboard cargo ships as a fire support tool instead, if they were to use cargo ships in that manner (see pic).

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Yes, I expect HIMAR / MLRS equivalents to be fielded on cargo ships as well.
Cluster munitions or guided submunitions also come to mind.

On artillery guns on a ship, can 25 unguided rounds have the same effect as a precision JDAM?
That is the roughly the cost-benefit threshold.

If you have an area target, I expect artillery rounds are still perfectly fine.

AndrewS said:

Yes, I expect HIMAR / MLRS equivalents to be fielded on cargo ships as well.
Cluster munitions or guided submunitions also come to mind.

On artillery guns on a ship, can 25 unguided rounds have the same effect as a precision JDAM?
That is the roughly the cost-benefit threshold.

If you have an area target, I expect artillery rounds are still perfectly fine.

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Against area targets, I think MLRS would be more useful to be honest.


What kind of role is putting artillery guns on a cargo ship meant to have or what role is it meant to replace?
If you're trying to have it replace an air dropped PGM against a target within 30km of the coast... well I'd first ask:
1: does that target need to be serviced by ship based artillery, or can it wait until the PLA have landed on the beach with their SPHs?
2: can that target be serviced by an alternative method such as long range guided MLRS (either ship based or even launched from across the strait)?
3: is the target big enough that you can rely on unstabilized artillery guns mounted openly on a cargo ship to adequately hit it?



I have nothing against the idea of naval gunfire support -- I just think the weapons and the platform in the solution should be sufficiently efficient and hardy for combat.

Kosovo and Iraq(91) were reactive wars that required NATO to quickly formulate a target set, while Taiwan has been constantly monitored and planned for by China. On a weighted average, Taiwan should require much less munitions expenditure than Kosovo/Iraq did, I would think.

Mohsin77 said:

Kosovo and Iraq(91) were reactive wars that required NATO to quickly formulate a target set, while Taiwan has been constantly monitored and planned for by China. On a weighted average, Taiwan should require much less munitions expenditure than Kosovo/Iraq did, I would think.

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Yes, the PLA is likely to have a much better pre-recce picture of what they want to achieve in Taiwan compared to most of NATO's air campaigns after the Cold War; and of course the PLA's ability to conduct recce flights near or around Taiwan during wartime will also likely be substantially easier than what NATO was able to do in say, Allied Force (again given the number of air bases in proximity to the theater of operations).

I don't think that will directly effect the number of aimpoints that the PLA will have for itself however, because that is more a reflection of what the military and political goals a nation has.

Bltizo said:

Against area targets, I think MLRS would be more useful to be honest.

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But how much does a MLRS round cost?

It looks like $1.1M for a M26 Rocket with a range of 30km
Each M26 Rocket has 644x M77 submunitions
Each M77 submunition only contains 33g of explosive.

So in summary, 12 MLRS rockets costs $13M and only covers an area of 600m x 600m

In comparison, $13M buys 13000 unguided artillery rounds.
Each artillery round contains 7kg of explosive, and has a blast radius of 70m.
An unguided artillery round at a 30km range is supposed to have a CEP of 236M.

Even if the seaborne artillery round CEP is degraded significantly, you can still expect 4000 artillery rounds to completely blanket the same MLRS 600m x 600m area.
But the MLRS rockets cost 3x more than the equivalent artillery rounds.

I agree MLRS rounds are useful, but that artillery rounds have even more advantages for area targets.

What kind of role is putting artillery guns on a cargo ship meant to have or what role is it meant to replace?
If you're trying to have it replace an air dropped PGM against a target within 30km of the coast... well I'd first ask:
1: does that target need to be serviced by ship based artillery, or can it wait until the PLA have landed on the beach with their SPHs?
2: can that target be serviced by an alternative method such as long range guided MLRS (either ship based or even launched from across the strait)?
3: is the target big enough that you can rely on unstabilized artillery guns mounted openly on a cargo ship to adequately hit it?



I have nothing against the idea of naval gunfire support -- I just think the weapons and the platform in the solution should be sufficiently efficient and hardy for combat.

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1. These ships would be visible from the Taiwan coastline and be a very inviting target.
It's better that concealed Taiwanese antiship missile batteries fire their missiles on these expendable targets, which are fully under covered by the Chinese battle network.

You want to deal with these antiship missile units before an actual invasion by high value amphibious warships.
Taiwanese missile batteries and anti-invasion artillery units will reveal their location when they fire.
And during the actual Chinese amphibious assault, additional artillery support and ship targets for Taiwanese defenders is definitely be useful.

2. Yes, MLRS launched on a ship or on mainland China will work as well.

But the point is that cargo ships, artillery guns and artillery rounds are cheap, expendable and available in practically unlimited quantities.
They already exist and have already been paid for.

So it doesn't actually matter if they are less "efficient" than missiles for many use cases.
When artillery rounds are used, it conserves scarce air and missile power for more important uses.

3. I did mention guided projectiles like the Excalibur which cost $68K, for precision targets as one solution.
That is still a bargain compared to airborne delivery, although it may not be if compared to a MLRS rocket.

Another use case has just occurred to me.

A human being will start to hallucinate and become really non-functional after 3 days of not sleeping.

Given that artillery rounds are so cheap and plentiful, you could fire a few airburst rounds every hour over a target.
And theoretically, this could be maintained for weeks.
The purpose is to prevent the defenders from ever sleeping.
Also remember that over 90% of Taiwan's population (and presumably industry, economy, military) is within 30KM of the coast.

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So I expect there's a lot more things you could do, with an unlimited supply of cheap artillery rounds.

Among the big differences includes that the PLA will not be forcing its air force and its strikes to try and destroy individual small units of ROC soldiers, and that the ROC's air defense systems are much larger and much less mobile than what Yugoslavia had (of course the ROC's air defenses are much more capable as well than SA-6s, but in context of the combined arms strikes the PLA will be able to bring to bear that doesn't mean much).
The PLA will of course still be hitting big fixed targets like air bases, naval bases, command/control centers, big early warning arrays, logistics centers, pre-sighted missile launch locations, depots, and so on, and those will be the primary targets of interest. Possibly with or without elements of civilian infrastructure if they are determined to be used for military purposes, but again, infrastructure like those aforementioned targets are big, easy to locate and target.

agreed to Bltizo, and for me
1. Liberation Taiwan war will be fought when PRC has very strong economic position . And nowadays PRC is far from that condition. So in short term this campaign is not relevance. PRC must prepare near zero export to western europe, canada and us, and self sufficient in all field high tech ( since there will be western blockade in all aspect ).
2. Strong economic means strong munition