There's a difference between that and a wall text discussion that drags on for pages and pollutes this one, derailing it. There's other threads.
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
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Broccoli
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Seems you forgot whole Hostomel operation and assault on Kiev itself with armored units what were then seperated and destroyed by Ukrainians. Clearly their operation failed because they tought Ukrainians would simply give up after intial assault.
I think so far the lessons of Ukraine are:
1. don’t assume you can violate the attacker must have 3:1 numerical advantage at point of contact rule: don’t assume men for men your are more than a match for the defenders, the amohibious invasion will certainly involve being confined by defenders to a beechhead for extended periods, probably weeks, while the attacker builds up strength inside the beechhead, which may involve landing forces of the size comparable to the entire force the russians deployed in ukraine before making any really significant break out.
2. don’t outrun your supplies, or conversely, have an abundance of well defended supply on hand and means to transport it safely, quickly and in large volumes over considerable distances, ie forget fancy tanks and MICVs, have the ability to support the breakout from the beechhead with tens of thousands of trucks, which may mean looking for opportunity to seize an intact operational port by coup de main early. but don’t rely on being able to do so. so have the ability to deliver tens of thousands of trucks and hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies directly onto the beech over a few weeks while under harassing attacks from defenders.
3. fantasies about taking out taiwan’s bridges is fine, but the geography that make these bridges important to taiwanese defenders makes it even easier to confine the attackers. So there will be no blitzkrieg to take the entire island once the attacker has broken out of the beechhead. Instead the attacker will likely face a series of fortified defensive lines using natural barriers and choke points. more logistic needs: huge amount of river crossing, road repairing and bridging equipment would be needed relatively early and will keep on needing more. have them on hand. Analogy: not US invasion of kuwait abs souther iraq in 1991, but the allied slog up the italian boot between 1943-1944.
4. D-day or day 1 or even day 10 is likely to be disasterous because residual degender air and missile bombardment capability against the invasion fleet abs invasion beechhead. so need to be able to mount a month(s) long high intensity air campaign to suppress air defense and cripple defender’s ability to maneuver to meet the landing before attempting crossing of the strait. Then must be able to sustain total freedom iof the air and sustain high intensity close air support for the duration of the land campaign after the landing. The land campaign itself could be several months long at least.
5. corollary to 4, must have the ability to secure an area of the ocean large enough to prevent US or japanese forces from lanuching any carrier air or cruise missile strikes into the taiwan straits for the entire duration of the conflict, which can be several months long. The opposing force, if prevented from effectively intervening directly near taiwan, can also open up a second front by deploying main force to seize island in south china sea and launch cruise missile attacks against the mainland. so invasion of taiwan requires the attacker to have the ability to effectively keep opposing naval forces outside the area from which they can strike china’s SCS holdings as well.
1. don’t assume you can violate the attacker must have 3:1 numerical advantage at point of contact rule: don’t assume men for men your are more than a match for the defenders, the amohibious invasion will certainly involve being confined by defenders to a beechhead for extended periods, probably weeks, while the attacker builds up strength inside the beechhead, which may involve landing forces of the size comparable to the entire force the russians deployed in ukraine before making any really significant break out.
2. don’t outrun your supplies, or conversely, have an abundance of well defended supply on hand and means to transport it safely, quickly and in large volumes over considerable distances, ie forget fancy tanks and MICVs, have the ability to support the breakout from the beechhead with tens of thousands of trucks, which may mean looking for opportunity to seize an intact operational port by coup de main early. but don’t rely on being able to do so. so have the ability to deliver tens of thousands of trucks and hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies directly onto the beech over a few weeks while under harassing attacks from defenders.
3. fantasies about taking out taiwan’s bridges is fine, but the geography that make these bridges important to taiwanese defenders makes it even easier to confine the attackers. So there will be no blitzkrieg to take the entire island once the attacker has broken out of the beechhead. Instead the attacker will likely face a series of fortified defensive lines using natural barriers and choke points. more logistic needs: huge amount of river crossing, road repairing and bridging equipment would be needed relatively early and will keep on needing more. have them on hand. Analogy: not US invasion of kuwait abs souther iraq in 1991, but the allied slog up the italian boot between 1943-1944.
4. D-day or day 1 or even day 10 is likely to be disasterous because residual degender air and missile bombardment capability against the invasion fleet abs invasion beechhead. so need to be able to mount a month(s) long high intensity air campaign to suppress air defense and cripple defender’s ability to maneuver to meet the landing before attempting crossing of the strait. Then must be able to sustain total freedom iof the air and sustain high intensity close air support for the duration of the land campaign after the landing. The land campaign itself could be several months long at least.
5. corollary to 4, must have the ability to secure an area of the ocean large enough to prevent US or japanese forces from lanuching any carrier air or cruise missile strikes into the taiwan straits for the entire duration of the conflict, which can be several months long. The opposing force, if prevented from effectively intervening directly near taiwan, can also open up a second front by deploying main force to seize island in south china sea and launch cruise missile attacks against the mainland. so invasion of taiwan requires the attacker to have the ability to effectively keep opposing naval forces outside the area from which they can strike china’s SCS holdings as well.
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while the failed initial assault is quit damning in itself, the fiasco of trying reinforce the failure with a 40mile truck convoy is in my opinion much more damning. It says a bunch of hacks learned nothing from the gap between what the russians needed to achieve their original aim and what they had, and tried to reinforce a failure that can not be reversed because the condition required is clearly gone with the wind.
If the russians started to pull back from kyiv on day 5 with recognition that opportunity to score coup de main at kyiv has passed and russia didn’t have the forces to take kyiv against level of resistance they’ve seen, they they would show operational flexibility and ability to process information quickly, and discard preconceived notions proven false by events promptly. they would also be in a position to redeploy their forces elsewhere within 2-3 weeks from the start of the attack. but no.
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will carriers be deployed or will they stay safely out of harm's way?
is it realistic to imagine us navy/jmsdf ssns attack plan ships only to then say "we didn't do it, roc navy subs did it"? or is it a wildly delusional idea? these attacks that have been happening in russia/ukraine show that fog of war can conceal a lot of what happens on the battlefield
is it realistic to imagine us navy/jmsdf ssns attack plan ships only to then say "we didn't do it, roc navy subs did it"? or is it a wildly delusional idea? these attacks that have been happening in russia/ukraine show that fog of war can conceal a lot of what happens on the battlefield
You mean the attack on Hostomel where dismounted VDV paratroopers managed to keep a Ukrainian mechanized brigade away. A brigade which had to hightail back to Kiev once their equipment i.e. vehicles showed up? Right.
I suspect something else might happen. Remember the South Korean ship which sank several years back allegedly due to a North Korean submarine. Those are the kinds of incidents you might see I think.
Taiwan is not Ukraine in a very important way that makes a campaign for months unrealistic: Taiwan doesn't have sufficient food and oil reserves for a months long campaign. There's no oil or gas pipelines running through Taiwan from a oil/gas source. There's also no complication of the Taiwan grid being tied to that of any other country. They don't have the material basis for a months long defensive campaign, which is why every Hankuang exercises has them attack the PLA first in the middle of the strait and tries to stop the PLA off the beach.
If you assume that the Taiwanese defenders blow up the bridges as part of defensive actions, then China might as well destroy all the bridges anyway in the first days of any conflict.
That will speed up the timeline of a general Taiwan collapse, and when electricity, fuel and food run out.
I don’t;t think the US
Also, an attacker who drive people out of their homes by depriving them of basic sustenance do not tend to create any overwhelm desire to capitulate on the part of the defender, especially if it reminds the people on the defence side that the attacker had a famously poor track record for respecting people’s private property rights. Rather It tends to create a sense of anger towards the attacker and a determination to resist harder.
no, any working ground transportation system is of immensely more value to the side with air superiority. So if the chinese plan to gain air superiority over taiwan, then it would be idiotic to help the other side by blowing up more transportation infrastructure than the other side is able to do on its own.
Also, an attacker who drive people out of their homes by depriving them of basic sustenance do not tend to create any overwhelm desire to capitulate on the part of the defender, especially if it reminds the people on the defence side that the attacker had a famously poor track record for respecting people’s private property rights. Rather It tends to create a sense of anger towards the attacker and a determination to resist harder.
I've actually pointed this out a number of times, it is VERY difficult to legally declare independence. This is why the most likely provocation would be from the United States.
It is possible that a president could go rogue. I believe this could open the door to a military coup and possible internal civil war within Taiwan itself. That would be a crazy scenario in itself.
CCP as a warmonger is a fiction spread by the western media to discredit the government. Not being naive to say they are peace-loving hippies, but certainly peaceful relations has been the priority for the last 40 years. The media points out Chinese military this and that, but the reality is that no shots have been fired in decades. Meanwhile, Korean militaries are still killing each other even recently.
The real milestones are not even mentioned:
80's - PRC Direct Investment from Taiwan opened
00's - First direct flights from Taiwan to Mainland (without stopover in HK)
10's - Xi-Ma summit in SG (first ever heads of government meeting between PRC and ROC)
With this background in mind, the question is not whether "Taiwanese defenders will crumble", the question is whether the conditions for resistance would be in place, but the non-military situation is a lot different and doesn't really match well.
Most of the entire livelihood of the island is depending on the mainland, so if the President does anything illegal, they would not have the support of businesspeople for sure, and as such they will use their considerable resources to undermine secession. A good example is Want Want Foods in Taiwan who actively promotes reunification through media channels and newspapers and was shut down by DPP (kind of like Jimmy Lai, lol)
If we are assuming that PRC is playing the role Russia (since this is "lessons from Ukraine"), and decides to invade on its own, then yes, more likely there will be resistance.
If you ask me, the 5th column isn't even a calculation in PRC planning. Why? Because the planning is and always centered around intervention by US and allies. The requirements to defeat the US are so much greater than defeating the ROC armed forces, so whether a 5th column is an active problem or not is irrelevant.
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