China can and will achieve total air superiority over Taiwan

Pointblank said:

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.

Click to expand...

Well given that the US will play a key role in Taiwan's defence, the question of whether or not supplies would be provided is a bit academic. Even with deliveries of missiles and spare parts, I'm not sure how long Taiwan could hold out by itself. If the US gets involved, it will intervene directly with extra missiles, etc being provided for Taiwan - if it doesn't, it won't help at all.

FuManChu said:

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.

Click to expand...

You have to ask much HF-IIE Taiwan is willing to invest. I doubt that Taiwan would invest as much on HF-IIE than the mainland would do on SSMs. For the ROC, it's a poor strategic investment of resources. The mainland is far more larger and would require a lot more LACMs to do the same strategic impact than the PRC can do upon the ROC. ROC's best option is to invest on the most cost effective means possible, and the HF-IIE isn't it.

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?

Click to expand...

Fundamentally, these kits represent a great shift in the equation. You can convert all the old inventory of 500kg and 250kg (with FT-2 kit) into INS/GPS precision guided munitions. As long as the carriers are updated with corresponding navigational equipment, you can potentially turn every J-7, Q-5 and J-8 into a precision bomber. Looks to me these kits are cheap and easy to produce.

crobato said:

You have to ask much HF-IIE Taiwan is willing to invest. I doubt that Taiwan would invest as much on HF-IIE than the mainland would do on SSMs. For the ROC, it's a poor strategic investment of resources. The mainland is far more larger and would require a lot more LACMs to do the same strategic impact than the PRC can do upon the ROC. ROC's best option is to invest on the most cost effective means possible, and the HF-IIE isn't it.

Click to expand...

It depends on how much the HF-IIE costs - I've heard $300,000 bandied about, but I've no idea how reliable a figure that is. It also depends how many Taiwan wants and what it intends to use them for - supposedly 500 sometime after 2010. Obviously it isn't going to field as many as China has SSMs. That doesn't mean to say they wouldn't have their uses. Taiwan wouldn't need to cause the "same" amount of damage to China as China could to it, merely disrupt a few select mainland targets to give Taiwan breathing space.

Taiwan isn't going to try and race China on missile numbers. If it has a significant arsenal, it will be because it has specific uses for them. Also from the few reports I've seen on it, Taiwan will not be adding to their numbers at the sort of rate China is building up its missile force. It appears to be a long-term project, which shouldn't place a strain on Taiwan's resources.

Also these sorts of things often offer a moral-boost, regardless of what real effect they have.

Aside from the simple fact that China simply has greater ability to develop, buy, and produce weapons, Taiwan is severely hampered by politics right now that is probably not going to get Taiwan very much edge against China.

The problem with Taiwan maintaining air superiority goes deeper than just the airbases. Some of the ROCAF is on the east coast and any deployments there would have to cross the mountains and then Western Taiwan just to get to the coast. It would make reaction time much tighter for those fighters. Forcing a retreat to the mountains would actually be better in the end for China if they can't keep the ROCAf grounded period. That would give the PLAAF air dominance in the Straits.

Then you have the problem with supplies. Taiwan has very limited supplies and all the PLAAF has to do is take out some storage bunkers on the airbases to cut the ROCAF in half.

The ROCAF can't do that to the PLAAF.

what ROC could do is to launch preemptive strike against PRC airfield and missile site. ROC does have missile that can strike mainland target, and a preemtive strike could give ROC a period of breathing time where it can consider its option. This way, the PLA will be knocked off balance and any invasion will be postponed for a while.

the first strike by ROC may be detrimental to itself politically, but it will sure give it some tactical advantage.

FuManChu said:

It depends on how much the HF-IIE costs - I've heard $300,000 bandied about, but I've no idea how reliable a figure that is. It also depends how many Taiwan wants and what it intends to use them for - supposedly 500 sometime after 2010. Obviously it isn't going to field as many as China has SSMs. That doesn't mean to say they wouldn't have their uses. Taiwan wouldn't need to cause the "same" amount of damage to China as China could to it, merely disrupt a few select mainland targets to give Taiwan breathing space.

Click to expand...

That figure is unreliable. Are you telling me that a cruise missile will costs as much as an old Sparrow? An AMRAAM is about 700,000$ and a Harpoon maybe over a million.

Taiwan isn't going to try and race China on missile numbers. If it has a significant arsenal, it will be because it has specific uses for them. Also from the few reports I've seen on it, Taiwan will not be adding to their numbers at the sort of rate China is building up its missile force. It appears to be a long-term project, which shouldn't place a strain on Taiwan's resources.

Also these sorts of things often offer a moral-boost, regardless of what real effect they have.

Click to expand...

Cruise missiles will cost more than an SSM for one thing, jet engines are not as simple as rocket motors. Furthermore, where will the ROC source mini-turbojets or turbofans? It is not as if they have a factory that makes this, unlike the mainland.

I will read "long term project" as one that is not serious enough for short term implementation. You won't know what the PRC will be in the long term in comparison.

kunmingren said:

what ROC could do is to launch preemptive strike against PRC airfield and missile site. ROC does have missile that can strike mainland target, and a preemtive strike could give ROC a period of breathing time where it can consider its option. This way, the PLA will be knocked off balance and any invasion will be postponed for a while.

the first strike by ROC may be detrimental to itself politically, but it will sure give it some tactical advantage.

Click to expand...

With what will the ROC do this? The IDF is too short ranged. The M2000 is really a swing role, not a multirole jet. A swing role jet is a plane where you have multiple versions to do each appropriate task and not one jet to do it. The F-16s lack the ARMs that can be used to take out the mainland radar sites. The IDFs have the ARMs but they are too short ranged.

The best strike option for the ROcAF is to attack radar sites along the China coast with the IDF using the TC-2A. In that way, they can at least seriously blind the PLAAF, and the PLAAF would have to resort to their AWACS and not their ground stations for tactical management.

HF-2E is not in service, and nothing suggests that it will enter mass production in large quantity any time soon. It should not be included for near future scenarios.

Crobato said:

Cruise missiles will cost more than an SSM for one thing, jet engines are not as simple as rocket motors. Furthermore, where will the ROC source mini-turbojets or turbofans? It is not as if they have a factory that makes this, unlike the mainland.

Click to expand...

LACM aren't necessarily more expensive than TBM, it depends.

Taiwan could make CM engines, that's not a problem. The real issue is the range.

Pointblank said:

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.

Click to expand...

“Communication” is not technically correct, you could always communicate via radio, early warning aircrafts, or ground station, even without fighter to fighter datalink. It’s an exaggeration to say that without fighter to fighter datalink there would be friendly fire everywhere. IFF equipments and effective AEW / ground control are much more important to prevent fratricide.

If you are talking about datalink, then remember Link 16 installation on ROCAF fighters begin next year. PLAAF doesn’t have the French / American weapon integration issue, but are all the Chinese systems the same standard as the Russian ones? More importantly, does the entire PLAAF fleet have fighter to fighter datalink installed? I suspect the reality is not exactly as you described.

I don’t know who your “contact” is, but I cannot completely agree with the assessment of lack of munition. Taiwan does have smaller stock of: AIM-120, PAC-2+, and TC-2. That however isn’t all of the weapon inventory. There is no shortage of AIM-7M, MICA, Magic II, AIM-9, I-HAWK, or TK.

FuManChu said:

It depends on how much the HF-IIE costs - I've heard $300,000 bandied about, but I've no idea how reliable a figure that is.

Click to expand...

That sounds too low, especially for initial production quantity.

Dear Sirs:

China's developement of new long-range precision guided munitions, like those displayed in Zhuhai 2006 will have the potential to change the equation in the Taiwan Straits.

In particular, weapons or kits like the LS-6 (with a reputed boosted range of 300 km, a speed of Mach 1 and an accuracy better than 15 meters, and can ba adapted to a wide variety of older dumb bombs) can strike almost anywhere in Taiwan when fired from the Chinese coast.

The only way the ROCAF could counter strikes from weapons like these would be to go after them over Chinese territory - which would probably spell the end of Taiwan's airforce!

This has the potetial of becoming the straw that breaks the defense's back!

Just my 2 cents.

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim

crobato said:

That figure is unreliable. Are you telling me that a cruise missile will costs as much as an old Sparrow?

Click to expand...

No, I said I'd heard the figure bandied about and that I wasn't sure of the reliability.

I will read "long term project" as one that is not serious enough for short term implementation. You won't know what the PRC will be in the long term in comparison.

Click to expand...

Well, long-term was maybe the wrong term. Perhaps "medium term" is more correct - though supposedly production will start in the near future.

Any PRC attack will have to make a choice, attack with missiles and then race Taiwan vis a vis mobalisation and also race the UN/US's ability to react, or mobalize and give away the game.

If they attack and then try and surge thier forces forward thier troops and the PLAN will not be close enough to ensure they can seize the Island before the US can strike. If they surge first the US has time to react with local assets. The delay as they scramble to arm and deploy bombers becuase, major movements of muntions and aircraft would be noticed by the US....

dammed if you do dammed if you don't... A couple of tomahawk strikes (from the subs that are always off China's coast) and China loses it's amphibious warfare capability and critical transport aircraft. The biggest army in the world will be stuck on mainland China.

The US also almost always keeps a ship in port at Taipei (ussally aegis equipped) China can either attack it and enrage the American public with dead American sailors or ignore it as it empties it's bins killing PRC missiles and provides critical C4I assistence to RoC forces.

If China's mobalizes first, then the first strikes will probalby miss the aircraft and critical control assets who would have dispersed and the US will be on the way.

As long as the US is willing to defend Taiwan and has the ability to remove the Chinese tranport aircraft and ships at will; China will remain divided unless and until the RoC deicdes to join the PRC.

China's best bet is to simply continue the economic merger, domestic liberalisation and take a long view. The economics have brought the two Chinas closer than any threats by the generals. China's arms race however may undue this progress by making paranoid neighbors inluding the RoC.

best bet would be remove the missiles, stop the arms buying and redirect that capitol into the economy (although the idiot hawks running the PLA would dissagree). The two Chinas will merge when both of them decide that is the most profitable way to go.