The problem is in a real conflict (not imaginary), the number of aim points available are much more than China’s inventory of missiles. It is more likely that China will run out of ballistic missiles before India runs out of ammunition. Long range precision strike might achieve certain desired effects but they are not magical solutions to every problem in a conflict. How do we know? Just look at the number of aim points generated during the Iraq campaigns or the number of Tomahawks expended against the Shayrat airbase in Syria.
China will not want to expend too many of its high value munitions against India; however, the assumption that the PLAAF's tactics need to mirror that of the US in Iraq/Syria doesn't make sense to me. I would assume that China's Western Theater Command reserves something like 15-20% of China's missile arsenal for the Indian front. The PLAAF's goal would be to choose the aim points to achieve maximum effect against core C4I nodes and SAM batteries, just enough to enable strike and SEAD/DEAD packages to break through the line, supported by heavy EW and network attacks.
We must also remember that the US has been overly reliant on Tomahawks for domestic political reasons, in Syria for example, to avoid getting too involved in the ME again. But in a full scale war, the gloves truly come off. Cruise Missiles are supposed to be used to strike key high value targets, not to knock out the enemy by themselves, or flatten entire air bases, as the US was trying to do against Syria.
If numerical and geographical advantage does not translate to gains how does such a situation instead reverse to a Chinese advantage as many seems to suggest? That is a logic I cannot reconcile to.
Logistics. The backbone of war is always logistics. We are using
Indian sources as our citations (plus that of a Nepalese professor), which state that India does not have the logistical backbone to sustain this conflict.
You have no idea how any of those toys will perform in actual conflict. No one knows behind that veil of Chinese secrecy and that has been one off my key point. When facing uncertainty how do you arrive at certainty as a conclusion?
Granted that we do not empirically know how a full scale war with 21st century kill chains will play out yet; however, the assumption that China has a huge advantage over India is not an unfair assertion. Why? Simply because China has actually been preparing for it, while India has not. (Again, India's own analysts have claimed this.)
With that said, I agree that more discussion needs to be had on the technicalities. Unfortunately, there are so many Indian media fabrications every day that this thread gets distracted.
I don't know much about the Brahmos program but are you kidding me that it was in existence decades ago? Seriously? Give me link to back up your assertion.
It was first test fired in 2001. The Brahmos is essentially a 1990s product. Just because it took India until the late 00's to make it operational doesn't mean it's a 21st century product. India takes forever to field anything. It notoriously has the most inefficient procurement pipeline in the world. That's why France refused local production of Rafales, because they knew India would mess it up and then blame France (like the continually do with Russia.)