China can and will achieve total air superiority over Taiwan

I don't really see any difference between a North Korean underground air base to a Taiwanese one. If one can be rendered useless by dropping a bomb on the entrance, I don't see how a Taiwanese one, hardened or not, can survive any better. Really, what's the point of having an underground airbase in the first place if it wasn't going to survive at some level. We've heard about the bunker busters used in Iraq but we've never really heard about their effectiveness. It probably says something when Bush wanted to explore the nuclear bunker busters route.

It's not like the North Korean underground bases and tunnels are all dirt held up by rotted wood beams. It's said that the North Koreans have a massive extensive network of underground bases connected to one another by a series of tunnels. Do the Taiwanese have a network? Most likely not. So if you collaspe the entrances of both North Korean and Taiwanese underground air bases, who do think will be able to find a way to get their fighters out?

The ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan have no real tactical value. The US dropped vastly more bombs in number and power on the first day, probably the first hour, of both Iraq wars. 600 will do little. That's why you'll see those ballistic missiles replaced with cruise missiles. Patriots will not be able to take on a swarm of any type of missile(s) which will be the tactic of the mainland. How about the Patriot track record in real battlefield conditions?

1. True, I have to give you that. But look at what they may be aimed at: communications, fuel storage, etc. If the pilots do not get the order to scramble from central command, they will still be on the ground and be targets for a follow up attack.

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And that illustrates just how many targets there are. There certainly isn't enough missiles to attack and put out of commission all of Taiwan's airfields, and that is not taking into account OTHER targets that need to be attacked.

2. They only have PAC-2's, and only 200 of those missiles for 3 batteries. A battery has around 16 launchers all clustered together. These batteries will be placed around targets of more important value than the many airfields Taiwan has, like one near the MoD headquarter, and the other two around other important communications locations. Assuming at best a 50% success rate, around 100 missiles will be intercepted. Taiwan has 600+ missiles pointed at it. 100 missiles intercepted (at best, due to the fact that the PAC-2 and PAC-3 is untested in battle) is a small dent compared to the 500+ missiles still raining down on you.

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Ever since desert storm the performance of the Patriots have been improved. In OIF the PAC-2 and PAC-3s have demonstrated very good performance against SRBMs, so perhaps your ignorance led you to say they were still 'untested'.

3. Place a nice, crater in some of the runways, plus some cluster munitions on them, and those runways will be out of commission for a few hours, depending on the damage. Airplanes still on the ground. Follow up attacks will further crater the runway and frustrate repair efforts.

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Think of how many missiles will needed to place a couple of nice sized craters. China will be out of missiles before you know it. There will already be airplanes in the air to keep off any fixed wing threat from PLAAF, so unless China is going to waste even MORE missiles shooting at the runway (after the initial volley fired) in order to hinder repair work, the repair crew can carry out their job.

4. Don't expect the Chinese to have thought of this. Cluster munitions are a ***** to clean up, and I expect the Chinese to have installed cluster munitions on some of those missiles pointed at those airfields. Taiwan is at most 200km away. A bomber traveling at 600km/h at a economical cruise speed can be over those airfields in less than 20 minutes for follow up attacks. You can't fix a runway while it is still under attack. To effectively disperse aircraft, especially under Taiwan's circumstances will require some sort of VSTOL fighter, such as the Harrier or the upcoming F-35B. Taking fighters off a highway might sound like a good solution, but you have to get the fighters to the highway in the first place. And it is pretty certain that the Chinese will target long stretches of highways near an airfield with something. Anything that does manage to get airborne could be significantly overwhelmed by Chinese fighters roaming overhead.

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See the missile expenditure increasing for every airfield China wants to knock out? Attack the highway, attack the runway, need bomblets. In the end, China could shut down a few airfield for a couple of hours, but it cannot shut them ALL down. And even those shut down will take only a couple of hours to be returned to service.

Kongo said:

But then the premise of the first post is gone - air superiority cannot be achieved with SRBMs alone. Many airbases will still be functional, and even those with damaged runways will only be taken out temporarily. Meaning that the airspace will be heavily contested, and thus the MKKs and H-6s will not have an easy job with their missiles. Consider also the additional problem imposed on the launch positions of the MKKs and H-6s by the facing of the entrances, and they will not have an easy time. Add the fact that those EO missiles/bombs are susceptible to their data-links being jammed, and it is not as easy as you imagine.

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There is probably only around 12-16 airbases in the whole of Taiwan. You got nearly 700 SSMs, and by the way, many of the are M-10/M-11s which are quite modern and reasonably accurate. You divide that and that's a lot of SSMs that can be spared being thrown into each and every airbase. Even if the missile does not score a direct hit, blast radius is still tremendous. I have a rough rule for every kilogram of warhead, you're looking at +1 meter of blast radius, not to mention the shrapnel, sonic and shockwave effects of something about more than a ton of weight smashing the ground at hypersonic velocities. You're looking at possible 500kg to 1000kg of warhead here. In Italy, they evacuated people up to 1km radius just to unearth a large WWII bomb.

NATO planned a lot of contingencies for SSMs to hit their airbases in time of conflict. But that was back in the Cold War, where SSMs are not as accurate and you don't have close to this extreme density or overkill ratios of SSM used per airbase. Yet NATO seriously feared SSM attack on the airbases.

While SSMs alone cannot take out an airbase alone, it can be very disruptive. Even with paveroad repair kits, you can have engineers getting killed while repairing the runaways, as all you need to do is attack the airbases via **randomized intervals**. How do you know when an SSM is coming? Are you going to have planes parked, taking off and landing in the runaways?

I don't really see a problem in the direction of the mountain face for the MKKs, JH-7s and H-6s. The missiles are by the way, controllable, and those seekers let them see their targets which is relayed back to the fighter for confirmation. All they need is to turn around the missile, identify target and attack. As for ECM that may be a problem but the PLAAF had always exercised under heavy ECM environments and should have already factored that into their requirements and design.

Kongo said:

And that illustrates just how many targets there are. There certainly isn't enough missiles to attack and put out of commission all of Taiwan's airfields, and that is not taking into account OTHER targets that need to be attacked.

Ever since desert storm the performance of the Patriots have been improved. In OIF the PAC-2 and PAC-3s have demonstrated very good performance against SRBMs, so perhaps your ignorance led you to say they were still 'untested'.

Think of how many missiles will needed to place a couple of nice sized craters. China will be out of missiles before you know it. There will already be airplanes in the air to keep off any fixed wing threat from PLAAF, so unless China is going to waste even MORE missiles shooting at the runway (after the initial volley fired) in order to hinder repair work, the repair crew can carry out their job.

See the missile expenditure increasing for every airfield China wants to knock out? Attack the highway, attack the runway, need bomblets. In the end, China could shut down a few airfield for a couple of hours, but it cannot shut them ALL down. And even those shut down will take only a couple of hours to be returned to service.

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1. That is why there is prioritization of targets. Communications and airfields will be hit first with the majority of the missiles.

2. The Chinese have been able to their hands on some of the Patriot missile technology. Word is that the Chinese have studied the technology they were able to get and both improve their own SAM's and to devise countermeasures against the Patriot. Also, it makes multiple missiles to make a successful intercept. One or two missiles per incoming missile won't cut it, and Taiwan currently only has 200 of these missiles. A more realistic figure would be 4 or 5 missiles per incoming missile. Patriot missiles are also only effective against the terminal stage of a ballistic missile attack. That means that the missile is now right above you when you intercept it.

According to one book, "Dire Strait? Military Aspects of the China-Taiwan Confrontation and Implications for U.S. Policy," by David A. Shlapak:

"In the base case, we assumed that the PRC would launch the bulk of its missiles in two strikes on the first day of combat. Each missile strike preceded an air strike, for maximum effect on defending sorties. 20 DF-15 missiles with both cluster and GPS-guided HE explosive warheads were fired at the 6 air bases with tactical aircraft will drop those air base sortie generation to 20% at the end of D-Day (although overnight repairs raised sortie generation to 33%). Remaining DF-15's with cluster warheads were fired at known Patriot and Tien Kung SAM sites, killing six batteries on D-Day. Twenty DF-21 missiles were fired at early warning radars, killing 10 sites and dropping ROC SAM effectiveness by 50%. DF-11 missiles were fired at landing preparation sites were not explicitly modeled.

In cases with increased numbers of missiles, additional DF-15's with GPS guidance were used to restrike air bases runways for two additonal days, while additional DF-15's were used against SAM sites, killing more than 30 SAM batteries in four days."

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The book is from the RAND Corporation, I suggest you read it. It is an extremely good book on a simulation they did in regards to a war that they did in 2000.

The conclusion of the simulation done in 2000? The PRC would be imprudent to resort to solely massive air and missile attacks or an invasion of Taiwan as a means of compelling unification. Such a war would be extremely costly on both sides. This was in 2000. Now it is 2006. The Chinese have more aircraft, more missiles, and more ships.

AssassinsMace said:

I don't really see any difference between a North Korean underground air base to a Taiwanese one. If one can be rendered useless by dropping a bomb on the entrance, I don't see how a Taiwanese one, hardened or not, can survive any better. Really, what's the point of having an underground airbase in the first place if it wasn't going to survive at some level. We've heard about the bunker busters used in Iraq but we've never really heard about their effectiveness. It probably says something when Bush wanted to explore the nuclear bunker busters route.

It's not like the North Korean underground bases and tunnels are all dirt held up by rotted wood beams. It's said that the North Koreans have a massive extensive network of underground bases connected to one another by a series of tunnels. Do the Taiwanese have a network? Most likely not. So if you collaspe the entrances of both North Korean and Taiwanese underground air bases, who do think will be able to find a way to get their fighters out?

The ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan have no real tactical value. The US dropped vastly more bombs in number and power on the first day, probably the first hour, of both Iraq wars. 600 will do little. That's why you'll see those ballistic missiles replaced with cruise missiles. Patriots will not be able to take on a swarm of any type of missile(s) which will be the tactic of the mainland. How about the Patriot track record in real battlefield conditions?

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Don't make the mistake that ballistic misisles are going to be used like bombs. They're not.

SSMs will primarily be used against air bases for a massive shock effect, and this will be quickly followed by bombers. Disrupting an airbase enough so it is shut down by a few hours is **more than enough** for bombers to get through unintercepted and do their damage. By then the air base can be genuinely pulverized by air launched PGBs.

Don't look at the Gulf War and Serbia as an example. The US is applying overkill measures against an army that has become a ragged guerilla force, which you can never destroy by bombing. (Likewise airpower would be useless if the ROCA plays guerilla war).

crobato said:

Don't make the mistake that ballistic misisles are going to be used like bombs. They're not.

SSMs will primarily be used against air bases for a massive shock effect, and this will be quickly followed by bombers. Disrupting an airbase enough so it is shut down by a few hours is **more than enough** for bombers to get through unintercepted and do their damage. By then the air base can be genuinely pulverized by air launched PGBs.

Don't look at the Gulf War and Serbia as an example. The US is applying overkill measures against an army that has become a ragged guerilla force, which you can never destroy by bombing. (Likewise airpower would be useless if the ROCA plays guerilla war).

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That's why I said no real significant tactical value in regards to the missiles itself. 600 warheads delivered on a missile sounds like an expensive way to deliver a what... 500lb bomb? The US delivered a lot more with planes. I don't think China will be able to deliver that scale on Taiwan. That's why they're going to be more "inventive" since they cannot really deliver bombs like the US.

I agree with you. The ones here that bring the point about runways can get repaired... well a couple of hours maybe all it takes for the mainland make that point moot.

AssassinsMace said:

That's why I said no real significant tactical value in regards to the missiles itself. 600 warheads delivered on a missile sounds like an expensive way to deliver a what... 500lb bomb? The US delivered a lot more with planes. I don't think China will be able to deliver that scale on Taiwan. That's why they're going to be more "inventive" since they cannot really deliver bombs like the US.

I agree with you. The ones here that bring the point about runways can get repaired... well a couple of hours maybe all it takes for the mainland make that point moot.

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They have more of a strategic value, as a weapon to initially disrupt Taiwanese air defenses and as a weapon of terror against the population. The psychological impact of missile attacks are unpredictable, but there are precedents for dramatic impacts, such as the potential terror effect the V-2 had in World War II, and the "War of the cities" in the Iran-Iraq War.

According to most open source estimates of the capabilities, most of the missiles aimed at Taiwan would equate to 450 tons of HE (using the 620 missile as our guide). In WWII, the average operational bomb load of the B-17 was 2 tons. By 1945, the USAAF was routinely dispatching formations of 600 to 1000 B-17's against Germany. By this yardstick, the ~620 Chinese missiles will yield 1/4 of the explosive power of a thousand plane USAAF sortie in WWII. However, today, we have more accurate weapons than before, meaning less weapons are needed against a single target, and regardless, such attacks could cause massive damage anyways to Taiwan's military, economy, and society.

Yes, engineers trying to hastily repair a runaway, when all of a sudden, bombers come along. Not only will the runaway be recratered, but the engineers would be dead in the process and no one would be around to repair it again.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Hitting roads and you cut vital lifelines of logistics and reinforcements. You get another big problem if Taiwan's national fuel reserve gets targeted and blown up.

Pointblank said:

They have more of a strategic value, as a weapon to initially disrupt Taiwanese air defenses and as a weapon of terror against the population. The psychological impact of missile attacks are unpredictable, but there are precedents for dramatic impacts, such as the potential terror effect the V-2 had in World War II, and the "War of the cities" in the Iran-Iraq War.

According to most open source estimates of the capabilities, most of the missiles aimed at Taiwan would equate to 450 tons of HE (using the 620 missile as our guide). In WWII, the average operational bomb load of the B-17 was 2 tons. By 1945, the USAAF was routinely dispatching formations of 600 to 1000 B-17's against Germany. By this yardstick, the ~620 Chinese missiles will yield 1/4 of the explosive power of a thousand plane USAAF sortie in WWII. However, today, we have more accurate weapons than before, meaning less weapons are needed against a single target, and regardless, such attacks could cause massive damage anyways to Taiwan's military, economy, and society.

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Thanks for clarifying the warhead yield. I wasn't too sure about the size. I got mixed up between kilograms and pounds.

There is probably only around 12-16 airbases in the whole of Taiwan. You got nearly 700 SSMs, and by the way, many of the are M-10/M-11s which are quite modern and reasonably accurate. You divide that and that's a lot of SSMs that can be spared being thrown into each and every airbase. Even if the missile does not score a direct hit, blast radius is still tremendous. I have a rough rule for every kilogram of warhead, you're looking at +1 meter of blast radius, not to mention the shrapnel, sonic and shockwave effects of something about more than a ton of weight smashing the ground at hypersonic velocities. You're looking at possible 500kg to 1000kg of warhead here. In Italy, they evacuated people up to 1km radius just to unearth a large WWII bomb.

NATO planned a lot of contingencies for SSMs to hit their airbases in time of conflict. But that was back in the Cold War, where SSMs are not as accurate and you don't have close to this extreme density or overkill ratios of SSM used per airbase. Yet NATO seriously feared SSM attack on the airbases.

While SSMs alone cannot take out an airbase alone, it can be very disruptive. Even with paveroad repair kits, you can have engineers getting killed while repairing the runaways, as all you need to do is attack the airbases via **randomized intervals**. How do you know when an SSM is coming? Are you going to have planes parked, taking off and landing in the runaways?

I don't really see a problem in the direction of the mountain face for the MKKs, JH-7s and H-6s. The missiles are by the way, controllable, and those seekers let them see their targets which is relayed back to the fighter for confirmation. All they need is to turn around the missile, identify target and attack. As for ECM that may be a problem but the PLAAF had always exercised under heavy ECM environments and should have already factored that into their requirements and design.

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Blast radius increase by 1m per kg of explosives? Don't make me laugh. What's the blast radius of a 1MT nuke then? 1000,000,000m? LOL. Taiwan would have hardened their critical structures, like their comms facilities, aircraft shelters etc. What that means, is that a virtually direct hit is required to take them out. Miss you might as well not have bothered. Now what that means, is that these hardened targets will need MANY missiles to take EACH out. Even non-hardened ones will need multiple missiles to take out if the missiles are not GPS guided. (and are you going to count on them having GPS guidance?) Try reading the link I put up. In that link there is another link to an analysis on the effectiveness of SRBMs. Do yourself a favour and educate yourself with that info.

Trying to disrupt runway repair operations means having to expend MORE missiles than whats already spent in the first volley. As said, read and educate yourself to get a clue on the numbers of targets and the number of missiles required to service them all. There are FAR more targets than missiles, leaving none for your disruption effort. They could leave some missiles in reserve for disruption, but that means other targets and air fields would go unharmed. (In fact many will already go unscathed) And no, field engineers are not going to cower in fear while terrifying Chinese missiles are falling on their heads (if there are even any SRBMs left) This is war, and risk of casualties will be taken. And the risk isn't high anyway, if China can only afford to lob a few missiles at random intervals.

Finally, those bombs and missiles have to reverse direction to hit those cave entrances. There are a few problems. One is that the mountains mean that data-link connectivity is virtually assured to be cut off. Second, since the bomb's transmission power is lower than any ECM, the link has an even higher chance of being cut-off. And just because the PLAAF 'trains under ECM conditions' doesn't mean they are immune to it. What, you mean other countries don't train their forces under ECM conditions?

Yes, engineers trying to hastily repair a runaway, when all of a sudden, bombers come along. Not only will the runaway be recratered, but the engineers would be dead in the process and no one would be around to repair it again.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Hitting roads and you cut vital lifelines of logistics and reinforcements. You get another big problem if Taiwan's national fuel reserve gets targeted and blown up.

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Yeah, as if there wasn't any fighters available to take them down.