Comparing 1990 with today

my bet is that the US can't domanace even half the sky of china in under for 2 weeks. one has to consider the actual number of planes US can deploy into the theater. there is no way US could bring its the full power to bare.

also the turnaround time is longer since there is no airbase near china that is safe from a saturated cruise missile attack which china is capable of mounting in the 1st couple of days of combat. this means the planes will have less time fighting and rearming, reducing the combat value of each plane during the critical 1st week.

china also has a habit of stationing planes in small numbers in hundreds of airfield. this makes the process of taking out the airforce completely a very diffcult task. this may cause logistical problems on china side and result in drop in effectiveness in a week as prestocked supplies runs low.

i see US losing half of the planes it brought to the theater, china losing almost all it planes. but it will cost the US alot more than china; afterall, most chinese division are armed with near retiring jet fighter only while us will be bringing in all the expensive stuff...

I think this conflict is highly, highly unlikely to happen in the near futrue.

People can't just take in the military section to study.

there is political, economical and human means that wouldn't allow this to happen.

Yes, China have improved in the past 10 years, BUT! most it's officer is not very highly educated (getting better now). most are from farm land and poor family. rich and educated kids those day probabily only want to make money, instead to join PLA.

And not to mention today, training officers cheat on monthly training report to the upper officers. There is also alot corruption in the higher officers.

PLA today is getting better in educationg and tech, but moral and old time communist fighting spirit have droped

Some time I like to belive china can defence it self, but just face the truth, when american attack, it will be a very hard time.

I also think the best way to improve the PLA, is for the PLA to loss a small war and realize the problems and improve those problem, like a awake for the people.

Totoro said:

To KYli: Lets say US objectives are these: to destroy every military airfield, to destroy every plane/helicopter on the runways or any other place where they could be located. To destroy all the known command centers, to destroy most of military communcations network throughout the country. To destroy military ports and all the capital PLAN vessels. To destroy all the factories of military equipment, ranging from plane assembleys, tank factories, missile factories to shipyards capable of producing military ships, etc. And, of course, to destroy all the SAM sites ( basically every sam that has range more than 10-15 km) and all the chinese fighters that might get in the way of achieving the previously mentioned tasks.

Not counting the mobile targets, i would say these listed fixed targets would number in hundreds of sites, most of them large enough and spread enough to require dozens of bombs to be destroyed.

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OK I think I understand what your objective here, and my answer is I do not think US would ever acheive that much of destuction to chinese force and infrastucture without a total war.

The reasons are you did not include the full extended of chinese capability being the civilian or military. US could destroy every military airfeild, but how about the hundreds of civilian airfield(Chinese Air force use a lot of civilian airbase as alternative). Even if US could take out all of them, how long and how much cruise missiles, aircraftes needed. Also China will try to repair them, do US have the prolong firepower to sustain the bombing. Same thing apply to the SAM and Ballistic Missiles, total lauchers for them will exceed one thousand so at least 100 sites. US needed to destroy thousands of planes and helicopters are also not a easy task to accomplish, US might need to suffer many lost. In conclusion, not counting the moblie targets, I would say fixed targets would number in thousands, most of them large enough and spread enough to require dozens of bombs to be destroyed. As powerful as US Air force is, they do have their limited. US might have the capability to carpet bomb the iraq, but it is complete different story for China. The biggest problem for US is how many planes they could bring into the range of action, and don't forget the pilots and planes will also be stress out in prolong conflict.

Well, let not be too ambitious. Just destroy most of military airfield, planes, helicopter, PLAN vessels and military ports. Caused major damage to the military communcations network, factories of military equipment and destroy the best SAM available. And gain the air superior, made chinese force ineffective to counter attack. I would say 500-800 planes lost for the US. I will guess that 80-100 lost done to navy battle. Over 300 will be lost for gainning air superior and 150-200 will be lost to attack the SAM and missiles%2

SampanViking said:

The other point, I will come back to is that I do not remember the Iraqi Airforce doing anything in 1990. Hardly any planes even scrambled for combat missions, whilst some planes fled straight to Iran.

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At start of Desert Storm (Jan 17, 1991), the Iraqi AF made some 235 sorties/day. After a week of bombing (Jan 23), only 5 Iraqi air bases remained functional and the daily sorties was reduced to 40. We know that on Jan 24th a Saudi F-15 pilot shot down 2 Iraqi Mirage F-1's carrying Exocet missiles in an attempt to attack USN ships, so we can say that even after being severely bombed the Iraqi AF was still capable to mount offensive operations. But by Jan 26, the Iraqi AF had started sending its aircraft to Iran for safety.

It's also claimed that out of 10 F/A-18's lost in Desert Storm, 1 was shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25PD. The USAF AWACS operator failed to warn the F/A-18 pilot that the MiG was on its tail and got shot down.

KYli said:

The reasons are you did not include the full extended of chinese capability being the civilian or military. US could destroy every military airfeild, but how about the hundreds of civilian airfield(Chinese Air force use a lot of civilian airbase as alternative). Even if US could take out all of them, how long and how much cruise missiles, aircraftes needed. Also China will try to repair them, do US have the prolong firepower to sustain the bombing.

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Depending on the intent of the operation, that may be unnecessary if the goal is to simply hurt the PRC economically and militarily. If you're trying to prevent someone from reaching the top of the pyramid, you don't need to beat him senseless, you only need to trip him and make him tumble down the side.

petty officer1 said:

I think this conflict is highly, highly unlikely to happen in the near futrue.
People can't just take in the military section to study.
there is political, economical and human means that wouldn't allow this to happen.

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Agreed.

Yes, China have improved in the past 10 years, BUT! most it's officer is not very highly educated (getting better now). most are from farm land and poor family. rich and educated kids those day probabily only want to make money, instead to join PLA.
And not to mention today, training officers cheat on monthly training report to the upper officers. There is also alot corruption in the higher officers.

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I agreed, but we don't know how it will affect the PLA ability to fight. Corruption might weaken the force, but chinese do tends to fight hard to defend their country in her prolong history.

PLA today is getting better in educationg and tech, but moral and old time communist fighting spirit have droped

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Agreed.

Some time I like to belive china can defence it self, but just face the truth, when american attack, it will be a very hard time.

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If US ever attack China, China will definite have a hard time. You are talking about the world most powerful nation attacking you.

I also think the best way to improve the PLA, is for the PLA to loss a small war and realize the problems and improve those problem, like a awake for the people.

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Bad idea, if the PLA suffered a defeat, not only CCP may have problem to control China. But it may caused internal unrest, there would be too much to lost. China only needed to participate in some low intensity conflict or excercise to gain acknowlege and find out their weakness.

KYli said:

I agreed, but we don't know how it will affect the PLA ability to fight. Corruption might weaken the force, but chinese do tends to fight hard to defend their country in her prolong history.

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The corruption problem probably peaked under Jiang, and it's getting better now.

KYli said:

Bad idea, if the PLA suffered a defeat, not only CCP may have problem to control China. But it may caused internal unrest, there would be too much to lost. China only needed to participate in some low intensity conflict or excercise to gain acknowlege and find out their weakness.

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Agreed. Of course you can't go around starting wars with small countries just to practice But you can exercise with Russia.