Stand off missile strike idea as the ultimate solution keeps rearing its head. Yet it's fallacious in many aspects.
Because of the following:
1. Chinese enemies would not have just a few bases available (like on Guam) but possibly 100 + various bases spread over vast swaths of land to operate from, with great majority being closer to China than Guam.
2. Average base mentioned is not a single target but a set of targets numbering dozens different items, each needing some kind of penetrating warhead.
3. Overall number of missiles available to China, that are capable of going over 1000 km is actually not that great. The fact not all can be fired at once as launcher numbers are smaller than missile numbers and the fact the launchers themselves are needed in multiple locations, preclude launches of very large number of missiles at once, at a target. Coupled with missile defenses and possible malfunctions, it's not unexpected that in a notional 24 missile salvo perhaps 10 or so missiles would not hit their targets. (of course this can be much debated)
4. Assets such as tankers would be operating from bases even farther away, if needed. Further lowering the numbers of missiles that could reach so far.
5. Targeting runways is easily done. But runways can get repaired within a day, in most cases.
6. Targeting individual planes is NOT an easy task. Recon flights at sufficient proximity to determine targets are not easily done near such bases. Due to distance, defenses, etc. Determining targets via satellite overflights (let's assume satellites themselves won't be subject to interference) is still far from an easy task. Great majority of Chinese satellites are optical. They do not provide meaningful images during night time. Western pacific is fairly cloudy throughout the year. For example, Tokyo will have overcast weather 50% of the time. Overall average time of clear image availability will be, roughly speaking, 6 hours a day. But not 6 hours of the exact required spot on Earth. Given that pretty much all recon satellites need 90-ish minutes to do an orbit, and that revisit times over the required spots on Earth are usually 3 days or so, there's a high chance a single satellite will need over a week to get a single usable image. Thus, for better coverage, not one but dozens and dozens of satellites would be used.
Great majority of those satellites have decent but still not great resolution. 0.5 to 1 meter. That's NOT good enough to confidently say whether a shape is a real plane or a detailed decoy model.
One can bet one's bum that in war one side will be making thousands of fairly cheap decoys on factory lines, to be brought in by planes/ships/trucks and assembled on site and then easily moved on wheels around the base. Such decoys could cost a few thousand dollars, enough to make them fairly detailed, yet cheap enough to be very dispensable.
6b. Radar satellites can be more useful, both to determine targets and to offer more coverage, undisturbed by night time and clouds. But they're far, far less numerous than optical ones. Which pretty much results in the same issue of target coverage that's simply not that good.
7. target discrimination isn't done automatically. Recon imagery needs to be assessed manually. Sent to a person making decisions. Targeting plan needs to be done and targets need to be input into missiles before launch. While huge, high contrast targets like carriers can be targeted while missile approaches the target - small targets such as individual planes can not. In all likelihood - the whole kill chain from satellite flying over to missile reaching the target would need at least an hour, for a ballistic missile, and several hours for a cruise missile. In that time, many of the targets and decoys alike would be relocated. Pretty much precise times of satellite overflights would be known to the enemy as tracking satellites is a fairly trivial job for a world superpower.
7b. Cruise missiles could have self-retargeting capability against planes on tarmac in certain visibility situations, helping in the issue - but they're not a solution on their own. And they're rather vulnerable. And still not that numerous in Chinese inventory.
Conclusion: China would likely be able to concentrate its assets by doing fuel costly satellite redirections and destructive missile strikes on a single (or a few) bases per day. And do great damage to those. Yet, runways and infrastructure would get repaired and more planes hit than not would in fact be decoys. But it'd take most of its resources to do so. And there'd be dozens and dozens of of similar bases operating at the same time. Not to mention the very same base that was hit would likely need to be hit by a big concentrated recon/targeting/missile strike effort again, and again, every day or two.
Because of the following:
1. Chinese enemies would not have just a few bases available (like on Guam) but possibly 100 + various bases spread over vast swaths of land to operate from, with great majority being closer to China than Guam.
2. Average base mentioned is not a single target but a set of targets numbering dozens different items, each needing some kind of penetrating warhead.
3. Overall number of missiles available to China, that are capable of going over 1000 km is actually not that great. The fact not all can be fired at once as launcher numbers are smaller than missile numbers and the fact the launchers themselves are needed in multiple locations, preclude launches of very large number of missiles at once, at a target. Coupled with missile defenses and possible malfunctions, it's not unexpected that in a notional 24 missile salvo perhaps 10 or so missiles would not hit their targets. (of course this can be much debated)
4. Assets such as tankers would be operating from bases even farther away, if needed. Further lowering the numbers of missiles that could reach so far.
5. Targeting runways is easily done. But runways can get repaired within a day, in most cases.
6. Targeting individual planes is NOT an easy task. Recon flights at sufficient proximity to determine targets are not easily done near such bases. Due to distance, defenses, etc. Determining targets via satellite overflights (let's assume satellites themselves won't be subject to interference) is still far from an easy task. Great majority of Chinese satellites are optical. They do not provide meaningful images during night time. Western pacific is fairly cloudy throughout the year. For example, Tokyo will have overcast weather 50% of the time. Overall average time of clear image availability will be, roughly speaking, 6 hours a day. But not 6 hours of the exact required spot on Earth. Given that pretty much all recon satellites need 90-ish minutes to do an orbit, and that revisit times over the required spots on Earth are usually 3 days or so, there's a high chance a single satellite will need over a week to get a single usable image. Thus, for better coverage, not one but dozens and dozens of satellites would be used.
Great majority of those satellites have decent but still not great resolution. 0.5 to 1 meter. That's NOT good enough to confidently say whether a shape is a real plane or a detailed decoy model.
One can bet one's bum that in war one side will be making thousands of fairly cheap decoys on factory lines, to be brought in by planes/ships/trucks and assembled on site and then easily moved on wheels around the base. Such decoys could cost a few thousand dollars, enough to make them fairly detailed, yet cheap enough to be very dispensable.
6b. Radar satellites can be more useful, both to determine targets and to offer more coverage, undisturbed by night time and clouds. But they're far, far less numerous than optical ones. Which pretty much results in the same issue of target coverage that's simply not that good.
7. target discrimination isn't done automatically. Recon imagery needs to be assessed manually. Sent to a person making decisions. Targeting plan needs to be done and targets need to be input into missiles before launch. While huge, high contrast targets like carriers can be targeted while missile approaches the target - small targets such as individual planes can not. In all likelihood - the whole kill chain from satellite flying over to missile reaching the target would need at least an hour, for a ballistic missile, and several hours for a cruise missile. In that time, many of the targets and decoys alike would be relocated. Pretty much precise times of satellite overflights would be known to the enemy as tracking satellites is a fairly trivial job for a world superpower.
7b. Cruise missiles could have self-retargeting capability against planes on tarmac in certain visibility situations, helping in the issue - but they're not a solution on their own. And they're rather vulnerable. And still not that numerous in Chinese inventory.
Conclusion: China would likely be able to concentrate its assets by doing fuel costly satellite redirections and destructive missile strikes on a single (or a few) bases per day. And do great damage to those. Yet, runways and infrastructure would get repaired and more planes hit than not would in fact be decoys. But it'd take most of its resources to do so. And there'd be dozens and dozens of of similar bases operating at the same time. Not to mention the very same base that was hit would likely need to be hit by a big concentrated recon/targeting/missile strike effort again, and again, every day or two.
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