Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

drowingfish said:

while nothing should be discounted in war, the chances of ROC being able to put together a counter offensive to reclaim penghu once if is lost to PLA is just so negligible. an offensive operation of that nature requires so much effort that i dont think they will even consider it.

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Need to be prepared. The counter offensive may not be by ROC alone. That is why I said in my original message that once all the key beachheads, including Penghu Islands, are secured by the PLA, a perimeter (no fly zone and sea blockade) around the main Taiwan Island must be set up ASAP.

Penghu Island alone will not be sufficient for setting up the perimeter.

drowingfish said:

agreed, i have been pretty vocal about taking penghu first before moving on taiwan proper. although i dont think penghu's air field is very useful to PLAAF because Taiwan itself isnt that far away in the first place. but it does make a good forward base for UAV's and helicopters. in fact one of the ways i envisioned penghu to be seized would be a mix of hostomel and FOB cobra. part of the islands would have to be occupied by force, then a large contingent of helicopters will move in a lot of infantry to clear the rest.

the thing with penghu is that it is made up of many small islets, i believe most of the critical assets are concentrated on the two larger islets on the west side. we are talking about anti ship and anti air assets including sensors. if those two islets were to be seized quickly then the rest can be worked on with a bit less urgency.

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The ROC military knows Penghu will be a high priority target. If I remember correctly they have stationed quite a large contingent of their armored forces (1/6 of their M60s? I might be wrong here) on Penghu to repel any PLA amphibious assault. But their armored forces will have little mobility on those tiny islands and should be sitting ducks from airstrikes and longer range artillery from the Mainland.

Chilled_k6 said:

The ROC military knows Penghu will be a high priority target. If I remember correctly they have stationed quite a large contingent of their armored forces (1/6 of their M60s? I might be wrong here) on Penghu to repel any PLA amphibious assault. But their armored forces will have little mobility on those tiny islands and should be sitting ducks from airstrikes and longer range artillery from the Mainland.

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their m60s on those islands are useless. UAVs from mainland and even patrol ships can easily target them.

a single Type 22 patrol ship with 8x YJ-83 cruise missiles and a 6x30 mm CIWS cannon isn't very scary in the ocean, but that's more firepower than an entire tank battalion and even outranges them.

Just use 20x Type 22s with deployed quadcopter drones to designate and cruise missile their bases, then mop up survivors with their CIWS autocannon from outside tank gun range, what can they do?

Tam said:

China better make more mobile howitzer, less SOF bs, and do more reservists. Maybe there's something about Soviet doctrines after all.

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If I look at the structure of Chinese Army brigades, I don't see an issue with the number of mobile howitzers. The limiting factor is going to be ammunition resupply because each shell is around 43kg. So more trucks and guided rounds would be better. That reduces the number of rounds used and also resupply requirements and improves hit accuracy.

I agree that Special Forces shouldn't be overemphasised. I've always thought that they will end up as infantry the vast majority of the time.

On reservists, the Chinese military demobilise approximately 100,000 personnel every 6 months.

So that would be 400,000 personnel available with military experience in the past 2 years.

At the same time, every 6 months, there are 100,000 personnel undergoing basic training and then a really extended specialty training. This lasts a total of 6 months.

So I don't see a problem with the numbers of personnel that can be made available for military service.

It's training and experience which needs more focus. And the Israelis, Koreans and Singaporeans have demonstrated that you can have a very competent Infantry force, even if a large number of personnel are only around for 2 years in total.

When a conflict starts, penghu will be the last of Taiwan's worries. If pla cannot take it with air power and battleship bombardment, then it shouldn't be attempting the much larger target of Taiwan. The key will be how quickly they can get their their artillery units and construction workers on there, so that they can make it fully usable for following actions. I think if they can get their units setup and fire long range projectiles or rockets against military targets in Taiwan, it would save them a lot of more ground attack munitions they would need against other farther away targets. I would assume that the range and accuracy of artillery units continue to improve in the next 10 to 15 years and that penghu is close enough to provide good coverage.

I would expect most of the damage on the first day to be done by long range mrls, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, bombers and fighter jets. The initial attack will probably devastate the island defense, command center and defense infrastructure. You can't half ass this. The following attacks from drones and artillery is to keep the defense offline.

Chilled_k6 said:

The ROC military knows Penghu will be a high priority target. If I remember correctly they have stationed quite a large contingent of their armored forces (1/6 of their M60s? I might be wrong here) on Penghu to repel any PLA amphibious assault. But their armored forces will have little mobility on those tiny islands and should be sitting ducks from airstrikes and longer range artillery from the Mainland.

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precisely, the way penghu is broken up into small islets makes it hard to defend by mobile forces, also hard to take control of all ay once. this is why the fight will primarily focus on just the few main islets on which the most critical assets are stationed. the major factor against ROC defenders is that they are isolated and morale will be low. the PLA will be well advised to use surprise to defeat penghu defence, which is why i am suggesting hostomel type raid (better reinforced of course) early on. the first 48 hours is the window PLA has to get a foothold on penghu.

tphuang said:

When a conflict starts, penghu will be the last of Taiwan's worries. If pla cannot take it with air power and battleship bombardment, then it shouldn't be attempting the much larger target of Taiwan. The key will be how quickly they can get their their artillery units and construction workers on there, so that they can make it fully usable for following actions. I think if they can get their units setup and fire long range projectiles or rockets against military targets in Taiwan, it would save them a lot of more ground attack munitions they would need against other farther away targets. I would assume that the range and accuracy of artillery units continue to improve in the next 10 to 15 years and that penghu is close enough to provide good coverage.

I would expect most of the damage on the first day to be done by long range mrls, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, bombers and fighter jets. The initial attack will probably devastate the island defense, command center and defense infrastructure. You can't half ass this. The following attacks from drones and artillery is to keep the defense offline.

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how much use penghu will be for the PLA correlates to whether or not the war becomes protracted. that is a possibility, however hard the PLA tries to avoid it, that must be taken into account.

if the PLA takes penghu during the opening stages when its defence is weak, then assuming the war becomes protracted (for example US is fully committed and all air and naval assets will have to be diverted to deal with them first), the PLA still has a decent forward base from which it can conduct strikes cheaply and wear down Taiwan's defence over time. if the PLA does not hold penghu and its attack is ground to a halt, then Taiwan will have a relatively intact defence and depth. so in a short war penghu is important because it denies Taiwan a firebase, but in a protracted war it is important because it provides the PLA with a forward base.

tphuang said:

When a conflict starts, penghu will be the last of Taiwan's worries. If pla cannot take it with air power and battleship bombardment, then it shouldn't be attempting the much larger target of Taiwan. The key will be how quickly they can get their their artillery units and construction workers on there, so that they can make it fully usable for following actions. I think if they can get their units setup and fire long range projectiles or rockets against military targets in Taiwan, it would save them a lot of more ground attack munitions they would need against other farther away targets. I would assume that the range and accuracy of artillery units continue to improve in the next 10 to 15 years and that penghu is close enough to provide good coverage.

I would expect most of the damage on the first day to be done by long range mrls, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, bombers and fighter jets. The initial attack will probably devastate the island defense, command center and defense infrastructure. You can't half ass this. The following attacks from drones and artillery is to keep the defense offline.

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I think Taiwan knows this and probably the key nodes of C&C are probably were well hardened and bunkered up and will probably require the most critical infrastructure would require those huge bunker busters like MOABs etc.

Also, can China not form dozens of artificial islands between Taiwan and China, extend it's let's 'feet'.

drowingfish said:

how much use penghu will be for the PLA correlates to whether or not the war becomes protracted. that is a possibility, however hard the PLA tries to avoid it, that must be taken into account.

if the PLA takes penghu during the opening stages when its defence is weak, then assuming the war becomes protracted (for example US is fully committed and all air and naval assets will have to be diverted to deal with them first), the PLA still has a decent forward base from which it can conduct strikes cheaply and wear down Taiwan's defence over time. if the PLA does not hold penghu and its attack is ground to a halt, then Taiwan will have a relatively intact defence and depth. so in a short war penghu is important because it denies Taiwan a firebase, but in a protracted war it is important because it provides the PLA with a forward base.

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In addition to what your already said, like to add that Penghu, together with Dongsha (Prata) Island, also guards the southern entrance to the Taiwan Strait.