Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Abominable said:

Although we joke about the various follies of the Taiwanese army, they still are a first world army with professional standards. The Ukrainian army are a corrupt, barely literate bunch of nazi meth heads.

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Eh I wouldn't make those 2 conclusions.

Like yes there is professional parts in the Taiwanese army, but from what I've seen there's also plenty of 'bad parts' (training, morale etc.).

And I don't think we can say the Ukrainian army 'are a corrupt, barely literate bunch of nazi meth heads' (some probably are sure, but generalization it to the whole army is probably way too much).

obj 705A said:

Several pages ago in this thread I said the soft handed approach that Russia is using in Ukraine is the right way to go for China in a war to reunify with Taiwan.
After seeing the many recent fk ups I realize how wrong I was.
The main fk up that Russia did was holding back and putting massive constraints on it's own military to avoid civilian casualties, in the end this will cause increased casualties not only on the Russian military side but even on the Ukrainian civilians because when they see themselves winning they become less likely to surrender thus lengthening the fight and increasing the bloodshed.

Hopefully China has learned from this, use your full military force. do not hold back just because you are afraid you will kill civilians,

When you see Taiwanese soldiers on top of a building do not go street fighting them from one room to another, instead just bomb the entire building and raze it to the ground and move on, the civilians will run away from cities once they see how fierce the fighting is, and when the Taiwanese soldiers see how merciless the PLA is this will make them more likely to surrender, and if they don't surrender well that's fine too, they will be bombed to oblivion any way.

The only exception to that will be the skyscrapers, the Taiwanese military will probably turn the skyscrapers into castles, in this case China cannot raze these skyscrapers because the civilian casualties will be too much and will instead have to liberate them one by one and that will be the most difficult part.

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China should copy Israel: use the double knock method. First missile is to warn civilians, the second one levels the building completely.

obj 705A said:

The only exception to that will be the skyscrapers, the Taiwanese military will probably turn the skyscrapers into castles, in this case China cannot raze these skyscrapers because the civilian casualties will be too much and will instead have to liberate them one by one and that will be the most difficult part.

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Doing that would lead to very heavy PLA losses and could take weeks for each skyscraper. I doubt it would even be considered.

obj 705A said:

Several pages ago in this thread I said the soft handed approach that Russia is using in Ukraine is the right way to go for China in a war to reunify with Taiwan.
After seeing the many recent fk ups I realize how wrong I was.
The main fk up that Russia did was holding back and putting massive constraints on it's own military to avoid civilian casualties, in the end this will cause increased casualties not only on the Russian military side but even on the Ukrainian civilians because when they see themselves winning they become less likely to surrender thus lengthening the fight and increasing the bloodshed.

Hopefully China has learned from this, use your full military force. do not hold back just because you are afraid you will kill civilians,

When you see Taiwanese soldiers on top of a building do not go street fighting them from one room to another, instead just bomb the entire building and raze it to the ground and move on, the civilians will run away from cities once they see how fierce the fighting is, and when the Taiwanese soldiers see how merciless the PLA is this will make them more likely to surrender, and if they don't surrender well that's fine too, they will be bombed to oblivion any way.

The only exception to that will be the skyscrapers, the Taiwanese military will probably turn the skyscrapers into castles, in this case China cannot raze these skyscrapers because the civilian casualties will be too much and will instead have to liberate them one by one and that will be the most difficult part.

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48 hour warning via Loudspeakers, pamphlet droplets, and text messages to tell a residential neighborhood to evacuate with a humanitarian evacuation corridor. Stay at your own risk. Then go Mariupol on them, with Russian MBTs shooting out sniper nests methodically block-by-block. It's the only way to reduce civilian causalities and root out the cockroaches while minimizing PLA causalities.

Phead128 said:

48 hour warning via Loudspeakers, pamphlet droplets, and text messages to tell a residential neighborhood to evacuate with a humanitarian evacuation corridor. Stay at your own risk. Then go Mariupol on them, with Russian MBTs shooting out sniper nests methodically block-by-block. It's the only way to reduce civilian causalities and root out the cockroaches while minimizing PLA causalities.

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What if the objective is to evacuate as much civilians from Taiwan into mainland and into secured areas in Taiwan, then waiting for the enemy troops to starve out and picking them off one by one. Treat the evacuees to the mainland like covid patients, building up temporary shelters and the logistics required to let them stay there throughout the duration of the operation.

It's viable to wait for them to starve out because Taiwan is an island, so they wouldn't be able to be resupplied by foreign forces unless through boats, which are an easy target, however the operation would take a longer time to finish, but at least the damage and casualties will be minimal, and military resources can be preserved.

Riddle said:

Ukraine who don't have experience with anti-ship missiles easily sunk a Russian flagship. does this call into question the effectiveness of defense systems on a ship?

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I'll keep saying this, the best defense against CMs/AShMs, is to neutralize the launchers before they launch. This becomes more true as the threat becomes more advanced, and also applies to drone swarms and any type of saturation attack.

Marketing brochures and commercial-grade simulations can't overrule real world data. S-400s failed in Syria against Tomahawks. US Patriots fail routinely in Arabia against Yemeni CMs. Ukrainian SAMs failed against Russian CMs. Now this, even without terrain. And we haven't even seen the full effect of this threat in the 21st century yet.

This should be good news for China though, since it is expected to fire the first shots in the Taiwan scenario. It just needs good ISR/SATINT, plus a sufficient inventory of CMs.

Mohsin77 said:

I'll keep saying this, the best defense against CMs/AShMs, is to neutralize the launchers before they launch. This becomes more true as the threat becomes more advanced, and also applies to drone swarms and any type of saturation attack.

Marketing brochures and commercial-grade simulations can't overrule real world data. S-400s failed in Syria against Tomahawks. US Patriots fail routinely in Arabia against Yemeni CMs. Ukrainian SAMs failed against Russian CMs. Now this, even without terrain. And we haven't even seen the full effect of this threat in the 21st century yet.

This should be good news for China though, since it is expected to fire the first shots in the Taiwan scenario. It just needs good ISR/SATINT, plus a sufficient inventory of CMs.

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I find it scary to think that there's no effective solution against cruise missiles even to this day, and worse is like you said, the threat is getting more advanced. So I'm guessing deterrence/pre-emptive capability is more useful than prevention, how much does a single cruise missile cost in China, and also is there an estimate on their production capabilities?

obj 705A said:

Several pages ago in this thread I said the soft handed approach that Russia is using in Ukraine is the right way to go for China in a war to reunify with Taiwan.
After seeing the many recent fk ups I realize how wrong I was.
The main fk up that Russia did was holding back and putting massive constraints on it's own military to avoid civilian casualties, in the end this will cause increased casualties not only on the Russian military side but even on the Ukrainian civilians because when they see themselves winning they become less likely to surrender thus lengthening the fight and increasing the bloodshed.

Hopefully China has learned from this, use your full military force. do not hold back just because you are afraid you will kill civilians,

When you see Taiwanese soldiers on top of a building do not go street fighting them from one room to another, instead just bomb the entire building and raze it to the ground and move on, the civilians will run away from cities once they see how fierce the fighting is, and when the Taiwanese soldiers see how merciless the PLA is this will make them more likely to surrender, and if they don't surrender well that's fine too, they will be bombed to oblivion any way.

The only exception to that will be the skyscrapers, the Taiwanese military will probably turn the skyscrapers into castles, in this case China cannot raze these skyscrapers because the civilian casualties will be too much and will instead have to liberate them one by one and that will be the most difficult part.

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Actually skyscrapers are notoriously hard to live in without modern HVAC. Turn off power and A/C and wait 24 hours, it will be hotter than a sauna. No elevators and try to defend Taipei 101, good luck moving supplies.

I don't think PLA has ever been soft to their opponents during fire fights, they usually give all they have thrown at their enemy, the huge number of KMT deaths can be testimonial to this. However, after the battle is over, PLA can be soft to their prisoners, as shown by their treatments of war prisoners (KMT soldiers in civil war, imperial Japanese in WW2, Korean war UN soldiers and Indian soldiers in China-India border war/conflicts).

In any fire fights against ROC soldiers in Taiwan, PLA is not expected to fight like Russians in Ukraine. An enemy is an enemy, there won't be any mercy unless they surrender. Civilians will be given the opportunity to leave battle zones before fire fights and during ceasefire, and those that decided to stay will have to take their chances.

Classic PLA war doctrines is to fight the enemy outside cities, then sorround the city and negotiate with the defenders inside to surrender peacefully. Of course this may not work all the time, in which case strikes against enemy position inside the city will have to carry out by all means.

I would consider urban battles as early stage of mopping up operation rather than part of main invasion phase because when a city is surrounded, PLA is already winning. Later stage of mopping up phase will be hunting down enemies hidding in the mountains.

Just like in Mariupol, PLA can take their time systematically clear sector by sector in a city until all enemy are terminated. Damages to buildings and infrastructure can not be avoided, and must be accepted.

A city under sieze would be under 24 hour surveillence by drones like CH-4/5, JDI types of drones, unmanned ground vehicles etc, to track all movements and activities on the ground and fortified positions inside buildings. Identified enemy positions will be terminated by all means.

lcloo said:

I don't think PLA has ever been soft to their opponents during fire fights, they usually give all they have thrown at their enemy, the huge number of KMT deaths can be testimonial to this. However, after the battle is over, PLA can be soft to their prisoners, as shown by their treatments of war prisoners (KMT soldiers in civil war, imperial Japanese in WW2, Korean war UN soldiers and Indian soldiers in China-India border war/conflicts).

In any fire fights against ROC soldiers in Taiwan, PLA is not expected to fight like Russians in Ukraine. An enemy is an enemy, there won't be any mercy unless they surrender. Civilians will be given the opportunity to leave battle zones before fire fights and during ceasefire, and those that decided to stay will have to take their chances.

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Yea from looking at past performance and doctrine, we should expect the PLA to be absolutely merciless in raining down missiles, pgms etc. on any military equipment and personel.

lcloo said:

Classic PLA war doctrines is to fight the enemy outside cities, then sorround the city and negotiate with the defenders inside to surrender peacefully. Of course this may not work all the time, in which case strikes against enemy position inside the city will have to carry out by all means.

I would consider urban battles as early stage of mopping up operation rather than part of main invasion phase because when a city is surrounded, PLA is already winning. Later stage of mopping up phase will be hunting down enemies hidding in the mountains.

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I agree, I mean at that point the PLA should basically already have landed on the island, at which point the PLA has basically won and it's really a question of mopping up things (unless say the US intervenes).
With lots of propaganda (fliers, videos, loudspeakers etc.) of surrender, "don't end up like mariupol", "life won't be that different" etc. I don't expect there to be much fierce resistance (probably some of course) and I think chances are high for surrender.

lcloo said:

Just like in Mariupol, PLA can take their time systematically clear sector by sector in a city until all enemy are terminated. Damages to buildings and infrastructure can not be avoided, and must be accepted.

A city under sieze would be under 24 hour surveillence by drones like CH-4/5, JDI types of drones, unmanned ground vehicles etc, to track all movements and activities on the ground and fortified positions inside buildings. Identified enemy positions will be terminated by all means.

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Yep, I do wonder how much the research PLA is putting into urban warfare. Surely they must be very interested in how Mariupol is/was fought and must surely be researching better methods (small drones?, thermal sights? other kinds of stuff that would help)?