China can and will achieve total air superiority over Taiwan

Though pointless, it's always fun to have these kind of discussions. And they always go in two general directions: there are people saying you gotta take this and this and this into account and then you see its too complex an issue to discuss, showing its pointlessness, then there are those (like me) who will go into the opposite direction and simplify it to the point of pointlessness. And my view is this: providing no outside involvement, it would be a war of attrition. The side with more munitions and more platforms to carry those munitions will reign supreme in the skies.

Lets keep in mind i'm not necessarily talking about total "number of missiles + 1" always winning against just "total number of missiles" Of course there would be heavy modifiers involved.

Few things to keep in mind: decapitation strikes do not work in this time and age. Even if the enemy is stupid enough to lay their infrastructure and networks for them to work, they would be short timed and the attacker would have to be able continously pound on those key assets for them to have effect. Exactly same thing applies to attacks on the airbases. BMs and LACMs can pause operations at an airbase (but not really take out a significant number of planes) but without continuous follow up strikes, they're just a stopgap measure.

That is why taiwanese will have a harder time to gain a lot by striking at the mainland. More threats/targets using less missiles compared to (speaking in absolute terms here, so the final target/weapon available ratio would be even worse for taiwanese) less threats/targets using more missiles for china.

One has to keep in mind that current gen SAMs, on both sides, are extremely deadly. Yes, there are ARMs and other ways to deal with it, but losses would still be huge to penetrate either chinese or taiwanese SAM networks. Thing is, to achieve (in relative terms) same effect as chinese, taiwanese simply do not have enough platforms to pull off such strikes and end chinese attack before it starts.

Like it was said above, i do not see ROCAF even going into all or nothing strikes against mainland. Stand off strikes - yeah. Maybe even a deep strike if there's a gap in defence that they will see worthy exploitation. But ultimately, those strikes would be only be one time (or two time, at most) thing to buy more time to consolidate defences, do repairs, etc. They would not blunt the blade of chinese total potential in any significant way.

Now, chinese would be ones that have to penetrate defenses at all cost. And it would be costly. Even if (and thats a huge IF) half of rocaf fighters get grounded by damaged runways in the opening minutes and unable to respond, total strength of leftover fighters (still a very potent force) complete with majority of SAMs being active (sorry, i simply don't see any way to deal with non fixed SAMs via BMs or LACMs, that's daydreaming) would mean hundreds of lost planes for PLAAF.

Only questions is, answer to which would define additional losses in the following parts of air campaign, is which hundreds of planes would be lost? Would they be Q5s and J7s? Or JH7s and j11s? Depending on that, total PLAAF losses may rise up to close to a thousand by the time they achieve sustainable air supremacy. (having destroyed ROCAF and at least drained if not destroyed SAM batteries) Even in a best case scenario, i don't see less than 500 PLAAF planes being lost in getting total control of the sky.

One last thing - don't expect china to launch all its BMs and LACMs in one huge wave. More likely is they will do several smaller waves hours apart, trying to mess with taiwanese defenses over a longer period of time. Exact number of waves and their strength/frequency would depend on success of PLAAF strikes.

anyone knows how many PAC-2 missiles the Taiwanese have? I think it's 400 for 6 battallions. Anyhow, with a limited number of missiles, there are only so many opposing missiles you can shoot down. I can't really see anything else in Taiwan with anti-ballistic capability. (even PAC-2, I don't trust its ATBM performance after what happened in Gulf War) Anyway, don't know much about PLA doctrine when it comes for MLRS vs Taiwan, but I would think that the 400 km ranged WS-2 would cause quite a bit of damage.

You mean 200 km WS-2? It only reaches a limited part of the island, and has limited accuracy. But yes, it would be quite a waste of SAMs to try to shoot them down. Perhaps they can be fitted with radar return enhancers to decoy for SRBMs.

Using pac-2 against BMs would be a waste. I seriously doubt any sane and not politically motivated/pressured commander would make a decision not to save those missiles for the waves upon waves of PLAAF planes that would be sure to come just hours afer that. Not only would it be more likely that SAM batteries would enjoy at least slightly better interception rates against airplanes but its a no brainer as to which is more dangerous: an one time missile strike with CEP of some 50-300 m or a plane that can repeatedly keep attacking with 5-50 m CEP per sortie until destroyed?

Only if taiwanese have literally thousands of patriot and skybow missiles (combined) would they be wasting them on BMs. And, as far as we can tell, they don't have such numbers. Actually, that brings me to a rather important question: while we sort of know the patriot missile numbers, just how many skybow missiles does taiwan have in stock?

Do any of these arguments take in to account new systems like the LS6?

These bombs with a unpowered glide range of 60km and powered glide range of 300km, do rather seem to shift the balance of this scenario quite significantly. Would you all not agree?

SampanViking said:

Do any of these arguments take in to account new systems like the LS6?

These bombs with a unpowered glide range of 60km and powered glide range of 300km, do rather seem to shift the balance of this scenario quite significantly. Would you all not agree?

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In a potential year 2012-2015 scenario, where there would be countless other new variables - yes, it would change the balance.

But as of now, with those bomb kits not really being deployed (probably still in testing) and especially with neither them or their launch platforms having a precise GPS like navigation, they can not be taken into account.

Even with a working and unobstructed GPS like navigation, attacker would still need persistant surveillance feeding real time or near real time data to the intelligence gathering centres which would then have to interpret the data, send it to command centers where target coordinates would be produced and sent to launch platforms - all in very short time. That is, of course, if one wants to use such munitions against mobile (but not moving) targets.

If one simply wants to bomb fixed targets with them then that's quite a bit easier, though suggested 60-100 km ranges aren't really going to be enough to circumvent either ROCAF or taiwanese long range SAMs. They'd be good enough against HAWK SAMs (and any other of similar range class that might replace it) though, which is a pretty big deal actually. Once the expensive and relatively sparse patriot/skybow missiles are spent, big stocks of still fairly potent HAWK SAMs could wreak havoc to any low/medium altitude flying PLAAF aircraft.

Pointblank said:

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.

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Yes and the ROC now has more missles, more ships and more planes. Everything works both ways in war and in the Taiwan Strait invasion scenario in particular.

With Taiwanese defences, division of missles between targets, hardening of air bases, and inaccuracy/failure rate considered, it is wring to believe that the ROCAF will be defeated by ballistic missle strike alone. However, the anticipated follow up wave by the PLAAFs strike aircraft would be the real killer. The effectivness of that part of the equation is much harder to ponder because its priorities would be based on the situational contingincies of the effects of the first strike, Taiwanese counterattacks, the overall objectives of the Chinese invasion plan, the disposition of PLAN and ROCN forces....etc. etc. etc. The imponderables are in the thousands.

Looks like I'm late to the party.

I've skimmed through the last 3 pages and would like to point out that, yes, Second Arty has around 700 SRBM's pointed at Taiwan. Yes, China will run out of missiles sooner or later. But also, you can be sure as hell China isn't going to field just 700 missiles. Those 700 missiles are according to what year's stats? Do you see a war between China and Taiwan right now? Those numbers are only going to increase, not decrease. It'd do you more good to consider how much missiles will there be in 2008, or 2013.

Obcession said:

It'd do you more good to consider how much missiles will there be in 2008, or 2013.

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And how many HF-IIEs will Taiwan have then? How many ATBM batteries, how much more structural work will be carried out on ROCAF bases, how many bases will it be operating for its fighters, etc? If you want to move things ahead several years, you have to do that for both sides.

Finn McCool said:

Yes and the ROC now has more missles, more ships and more planes. Everything works both ways in war and in the Taiwan Strait invasion scenario in particular.

With Taiwanese defences, division of missles between targets, hardening of air bases, and inaccuracy/failure rate considered, it is wring to believe that the ROCAF will be defeated by ballistic missle strike alone. However, the anticipated follow up wave by the PLAAFs strike aircraft would be the real killer. The effectivness of that part of the equation is much harder to ponder because its priorities would be based on the situational contingincies of the effects of the first strike, Taiwanese counterattacks, the overall objectives of the Chinese invasion plan, the disposition of PLAN and ROCN forces....etc. etc. etc. The imponderables are in the thousands.

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Problem is that the much of the Taiwan stockpile of munitions and spares are kept in the USA with the understanding that it will be rushed to Taiwan "upon need", which also begs the question whenever or not the Americans will actually release this to the Taiwanese. There is a limited number of spare parts in Taiwan because much of the stuff, especially the more dated stuff, is hard to get. Cannibalization can only get you so far and as such, Taiwan is heavily dependent on the US to resupply them once the shooting starts. Some parts are only available from US Military stockpiles. For example, where the heck are you going to find the fire control computer for those Hawk SAM's besides the US Military stockpile if the one you have breaks? Keep in mind that on certain items, like JDAM kits, even the US is experiencing severe shortages of them, and may not be willing to release to the Taiwanese at all in fear of depleting their own stockpiles. Even the indigenously manufactured stuff is limited in many cases by strict control over critical key components that have to be imported from the USA.

The most reasonable estimate is that there is sufficient stuff for about 2 weeks of modest combat intensity for the Taiwanese before they need airlifts of munitions. The trouble is defining what is "modest combat intensity".

All of the various pieces of hardware within the Taiwanese air force have trouble inter-operating with each other. There is a certain amount of integration that can be done via the NATO standard, but that is only on a limited basis for combat interoperability, and it does not extend to parts, logistics, maintenance, etc. A Mirage pilot cannot directly communicate with a F-16 pilot because they have a different communications system which means that their actual capabilities are far less than the raw physical number of platforms they have in inventory suggest. Try using more than a fraction of them at once - and guess what could happen? They could end up shooting at each other in a blue on blue incident. The Chinese do not have this difficulty because their communication systems are fairly standard.

The end result of this is that the amount of consumables needed is actually far less than the raw number of weapons they have available. The Taiwanese simply cannot deploy (or man) all the stuff they have. They don't have enough pilots, maintenance crews, etc. The Taiwanese can't man and field everything they got.

There will be plenty of advanced warning of war - the PRC cannot hide a major military buildup. But whether Taiwan will be fighting on their own without US support, or with immediate US support, are two very different scenarios.