China can and will achieve total air superiority over Taiwan

dh19440113 said:

I would add to Jon K invasion strategy by manuver surface fleet in range and forge a beach head with accurate cannon fire on the fourth day, progressively move inland and knock out counter attack asset that will pose a threat to the landing.
kinetic sabot+sat guidence+large calibre rapid fire artillery==winning formula for offshore bombardment.

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It goes both ways, seeker-head munitions such as anti-ship version of Vulcano under development will enable more effective coastal defense too. When and if the concept works, it will be a lot more effective form of coastal defense than traditional shore launched ASM's. The artillery pieces have the benefit of being capable additionally to support ground battle too, while ASM's can just hit ships, and perhaps some ground targets.

Modern artillery pieces have multiple-round-simultaneous impact capability. Thus, if we have Archer/PZH-2000 etc. battery of six artillery pieces they can fire their rounds in a way that the defending ship formation will have to deal with 30-36 very fast and small incoming targets.

Chinese leaders repeatedly emphasized: to carry out a high-tech local wars,for victory, if necessary, to use killer-Jian ( 杀手镧 ) ,the lethal weapon from chinese language.
Ballistic missiles are the main weapons in the Taiwan Strait war, otherwise, China will not increase the annual production of 100.
But obviously it is not the saying lethal weapon. then what is the lethal weapon?
I think that EM GUN It will not be lethal weapon, such unconfirmed weapons,not enough impact on the situation in the Taiwan Strait war all.
I think that should be the lethal weapon of electronic countermeasures, electromagnetic interference and confrontation, the PLA has been researched this in this area for a long time and have been fruitful, the use of such EC and EMIC means to paralyze Taiwan's communications system, will lose the use of advanced Taiwan weapons capability.
For example, missile warheads loaded graphite powder is one of the weapons,maybe there are other aspects of this new invention, which is the real lethal weapon.

Jon K said:

It goes both ways, seeker-head munitions such as anti-ship version of Vulcano under development will enable more effective coastal defense too. When and if the concept works, it will be a lot more effective form of coastal defense than traditional shore launched ASM's. The artillery pieces have the benefit of being capable additionally to support ground battle too, while ASM's can just hit ships, and perhaps some ground targets.

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A satnav guided shell has a navigation transponder its no good at hitting moving targets. To have a guided shell that can hit ships it needs a radar/IR seeker as well. How do you suppose that will fit in a 155MM.

dh19440113 said:

A satnav guided shell has a navigation transponder its no good at hitting moving targets. To have a guided shell that can hit ships it needs a radar/IR seeker as well. How do you suppose that will fit in a 155MM.

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Well, the Vulcano already has IR seeker, as does Excalibur, and Swedish Strix 120mm mortar round.

maozedong said:

I think that EM GUN It will not be lethal weapon, such unconfirmed weapons,not enough impact on the situation in the Taiwan Strait war all.

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Electromagnetic gun, or railgun, should not be confused with electromagnetic pulse, what I think you're describing. Rail guns are already operating in tests and there does not seem to be any fundamental problems except funding, yet. The USN one is planned to have a range of about 200 nautical miles and shells impacting with 5 mach velocity, so even if the fuze is malfunctioning it's still pretty irritating. The numbers are, of course, ever changing and Popular Mechanics should naturally be used only as an illustrative example.



If and when this technology becomes available I'll guess it will be also used in land artillery, with quite far-reaching effects on ground combat.

Jon K said:

Electromagnetic gun, or railgun, should not be confused with electromagnetic pulse, what I think you're describing. Rail guns are already operating in tests and there does not seem to be any fundamental problems except funding, yet. The USN one is planned to have a range of about 200 nautical miles and shells impacting with 5 mach velocity, so even if the fuze is malfunctioning it's still pretty irritating. The numbers are, of course, ever changing and Popular Mechanics should naturally be used only as an illustrative example.

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If and when this technology becomes available I'll guess it will be also used in land artillery, with quite far-reaching effects on ground combat.

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From what I read, China also has something like this in development. This is one of the top 3 or 4 developments that I'm watching out for. It's definitely a very cost effective weapon to have.

It operate like a kinetic sabot but faster and harder hitting. Instead of using powder explosion, it uses a electromagnetic aceelerator to propel a tungston/DU all the way out of the gun.

China should build a cruiser with six 8 inch rail gun, firing shells with IR/Satnav guidence.

There are some good points raised but I still have my doupts.

To Jon K

Isen't the kinetic energy pretty much same deal with all large objects that falls from the sky without their own propulsions? Ballistic missiles warheads and large airbombs?

The firepower conseration of TBMs with conventional warheads is somewht similar than large and constant bombing riads in WWII. Their had huge effect, but did they win the war alone? Also the amount of the TBM is limited, there is really only 500-700 of those missiles. And when their stocks are out, they are out. The manufacturing and cost is just too huge for serieproduction in short period.

The accurcy is also important factor. You really need to shoot almoust all those missiles into single airbase in order take it out effectivily. 500kg of normal TNT isent sufficent to wipe out everything inside the CEP of these missiles. Thats why Tactical nukes where born, so that TBM can actually take out strategical targets. But with conventional warheads, they arent sufficent for precission strike missions. And there were talks of using the TBMs in towards just around anything thats fielded in the ROC side. Towards single SAM site you need several missiles in order to make sure that even one of them hits near enough to take it out. Compared to ARMs and PGMs, everyone can cout the cost-effectivness between those two. And its all out of the large stockpiles to destroy the airfields and other larger targets.

And the Vucano-round is really a anti-ship round. Its not mented to use in large conventional artillery conserations. Its a more like anti-tank round which destructive power is more to the kinetic energy of the arrow-shape warhead. The warhead itself is 15 kg. (in prinsible, everytime when you add expensive electronics and other stuff to increase the accuracy and range of the pig, you are forced to reduce its actual TNT ammount) Its a good concept in naval warfare but as a artillery mution its as usefull in the "normal" artillery role as anti-tankrounds of tanks. Also the range of this round is 70 km, the 120 km version was about to be introdiced in 2011. And even if you pretend that you have the 120 km range mution in your disposal, we should consider this: What is the range from the most outpost mainland spot where you can field artillery battery to the nearest airbase in Taiwan?
I've always dislike the idea that weaponsystems are taken out of their concept, add a hint of magic and you somehow have a superweapon that saves the day.

In WWII the most potent part of Hitlers V1 and V2 missiles were the psychological impact, rather then the military or strategic significance.

So I can see the SRBM's with three primary uses:

1) A short intense bombardment of strategic facilities in order to be able to land an Invasion force.

2) An occasional weapon used sparingly but indiscriminately to destroy the resolve of ordinary citizens.

3) Bait on the mainland for enemy aircraft, in an attempt to neutralise 1) and 2) thus drawing them into dangerous Air defence territory.

Gollevainen said:

Isen't the kinetic energy pretty much same deal with all large objects that falls from the sky without their own propulsions? Ballistic missiles warheads and large airbombs?

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Sure, an aerial bomb has KE, but as the KE is computed in scale 1/2 x mass x velocity to 2, the KE is altogether larger.

Gollevainen said:

The firepower conseration of TBMs with conventional warheads is somewht similar than large and constant bombing riads in WWII. Their had huge effect, but did they win the war alone? Also the amount of the TBM is limited, there is really only 500-700 of those missiles. And when their stocks are out, they are out. The manufacturing and cost is just too huge for serieproduction in short period.

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What's the real cost of having 500-700 aircraft, their escort and support units, ordnance, air superiority missions etc. For "first strike" missions and strikes against time-sensitive targets TBM's are much more effective. Additionally, especially considering Taiwan, TBM's do not give as much warning time as conventional aircraft.

Gollevainen said:

The accurcy is also important factor. You really need to shoot almoust all those missiles into single airbase in order take it out effectivily.

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Cluster munitions have quite large footprint, and accuracy achieved via conventional guidance methods (such as Pershing II's around 30m CEP) is good enough for airfield strikes. SAM batteries are feared to be TBM targets in Finland too, as they were already during Gulf War I. When the location of target is known via ECM, it's much more effective to use TBM's to strike it rather than vulnerable and slow strike aircraft. Of course ARM's have their use outside TBM range and as a self-defense weapons. Aircraft dropped PGM's are really effective only if there's means to strike through enemy air defense, or the enemy air defense has been wiped out.

Gollevainen said:

And the Vucano-round is really a anti-ship round. Its not mented to use in large conventional artillery conserations.

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I think you're counting the firepower wrong way around; it's not the mass of ordnance which gets to the target, but number of aimpoints destroyed which counts.

The ultimate mission of artillery is not to produce blasts and roar (although it's nice) but to suppress and destroy targets. For that, guided munitions are much more effective than unguided rounds. Their unit cost is larger, sure, but their total cost when counting the smaller number of needed firing units etc. is much lower. The Vulcano will be available both as anti-ship and land target versions. Sure, it's coming technology but it's not the only smart round around such as projects as ERGM, Bonus, Strix etc show. The future of artillery is mainly in guided rounds aided by some ICM's, HE's, Smoke and illumination rounds. I would predict that we will also see guided rounds which do not have explosive content at all, to eliminate targets with minimum collateral damage.