Taking Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu (Dongsha and Taiping are less important) is absolutely essential. Taking Green and Orchid islands is also very important. We have to consider the worst case, which is that with massive US support, the main island of Taiwan cannot be conquered and all beach landings fail. China needs to take at least some territory and be able to continue attacking from much closer to the main island. If the campaign fails, but China liberates Penghu, then the islands will be very important in a drawn out war of attrition. Penghu could also be useful for shelling Taiwan and never letting the conflict fully end, which will prevent new investment in Taiwan and won't allow them to rebuild. In the most extreme worst case, if the PLA of today fails but at least takes Penghu, then the next generation 30 years from now won't have to start from scratch.
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
- Thread starter tphuang
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If the PLA can take Penghu Island with as little pain as possible, then by all means they should do it. The island would serve as a very useful role in supporting the logistics for the amphibious invasion of Taiwan proper. It does make perfect military sense to take Penghu Island. The PLA will get the island, but the timing can be varied.
The PLA should also be aware that the ROCAF would anticipate this. The ROCAF will attempt to commit men, aircraft, and ships to try to deny Penghu Island to the PLA. The PLA could take this opportunity to turn Penghu Island into a force fixing operation, and meatgrinder for the ROCAF. Penghu Island is one of those places that the PLA can bleed the ROCAF of aircraft and naval vessels. The faster the ROCAF bleeds, the better outcome for the PLA in the entire conflict.
Pro-Taiwanese military pundits and arm chair generals are very smug about their assessment about the PLA. They anticipate that Penghu Island will be one of those first places that the PLA must land on. To then turn it into a jump point for the actual landing on Taiwan proper. Hence, they think they can anticipate the PLA's every move; making them think that it is 'easy' to defeat the PLA there and mess up their invasion plan. The PLA should try not to be so direct. Don't follow the enemy's rulebook, just make them think you are. Let the enemy think that Penghu Island is gonna be some kind of epic 'Battle of Guadalcanal' against the PLA. Then let them suddenly wonder why they had committed too much men and assets trying to fight over Penghu Island, while the PLA where making their big maneuvers all around Taiwan. Make them commit the same 'Maginot Line' mistake that the French had made in WWII.
Most fuel depot attacks will have to wait for unpowered munitions to be used instead of more expensive BM/CM/Rockets
For Taiwan, I've got the following figures:
a) 3 oil refineries
b) approx 20 fuel distribution terminals
c) a guestimate of 5000 individual Fuel Distribution Tanks in various fuel depots/terminals
d) 2494 petrol stations
e) approx 20,000 mobile telephone masts
f) approx 1500 telephone (Broadband) exchanges
It also appears that JH-7s were still being produced in 2015, so they still will be around in a 2027/2032 timeframe
100 JH-7 launching 1500 PGMs? How? All the JH-7s regiments are retired already from what I can see. The 200 to 250 JH-7A (I think?) will be retiring pretty quickly over the next few years. For missions involving flying a long distance to dropping a lot of bombs, you cannot assume very high availability rate for that. 60 to 70% would be pretty high estimate. 6 PGMs for each JH-7A would be a lot. I wouldn't put such high hopes on JH-7.
Do you any proof of this? There is a lot of operating costs involved in aircraft sorties that are not there for just setting up and launching artillery shells. There will most likely be more PGM attacks, but they have to balance out the operating cost/availability of aircraft with other missions that are out there.
I think J-10 has 1100 km combat radius with 3 EFTs. That's plenty. It's also why we have often seen J-10s fly out to Taiwan ADIZ. It has 11 hard points. You can easily carry 3 FTs + 2 PL10s + 4 PGMs + 1 pod. I have not seen JH-7A fly out to Taiwan ADIZ. I don't know how you can say that the aircraft with better maneuverability and EW suite has lower survivability.
If they can't get 200 km range glide PGMs by then, 50 to 100 km range ones are fine too.
land based JASSMs are just ground launched LACMs. They don't need new development for that. An improved, more compact and stealthier version of stand off missile compared to KD-88 is definitely needed.
In the timeframe I'm thinking of, J-10/J-11B retirement will already be well under way, so they will definitely be used as bomb trucks. Similarly, J-15s will be bomb trucks. Or in the case of J-16, they will also be tasked with carrying long range weapons like PL-XX that cannot be carried internally within J=20/35. They should have 400 5th gen by 2027 and 900 by 2032.
Ground attacks are pretty important. A lot of air sorties will be for those missions.
Well, we have already seen what happens when PLAAF sends aircraft into ROCAF ADIZ. ROCAF just runs out of aircraft pretty quickly. The initial barrage will put most of ROCA assets out of usage for the initial part of war. Along with shore bombardment from naval ships, I think taking Penghu will be quite easy actually. There is basically no where the defenders can hide. The initial part of conflict will involve taking out all the air strips, naval ships, C&C, communication towers and anything of value in organizing counter attacks. PLAAF needs to ensure they can establish complete air dominance very early on. Once they do that, follow on attacks will be a lot easier.
UCAVs when you have complete air control is great, because they have unlimited endurance and can attack any ground troop movements.
I was not referring to regular gas stations, but rather fuel depots next to large military bases. I really don't recall JH-7As still being produced after 2010/2011 range. Most JH-7A units were produced before 2009 IIRC. Now, it's possible they produced 1 last batch in 2015 to help make up numbers, but there is no reason to keep it around longer just because 1 regiment is new.
When I say JH-7, I do mean all the variants.
If we take 50x JH-7s, each should be able to carry 6 racks with 4 SDBs each. That would be 1200 weapons
If we another 50x JH-7s, each should be able to carry 6 250kg JDAM-ER easily. That would be 300 weapons.
And if you look at the weight involved, it's not actually that much compared to maximum external payload capacity of 9000kg
I'm not too fussed as to whether it is JH-7 or J-16. In the future, yes, the JH-7s eventually be replaced.
But today, there are over 200 JH-7 available and I would expect 150 to still be in service in 5 years time. That is enough to support 100 sorties per day.
A laser-guided Krasnopol 152mm Artillery Shell is $35K yet only has a 25km range.
The Netherlands was paying $20K for M1156 Precision Guidance Kits to attach to 155mm artillery shells.
Then you have to add the cost of an extended range artillery shell which might have a range of 70km.
If you draw a range circle from Penghu to Taiwan, you can see it doesn't cover any territory on Taiwan. So you'll have to use MLRS rockets or aircraft anyway.
In comparison, standard JDAM kits start at $21K each, and can be attached to 500lb bomb which costs $4K.
SDB-1s cost $40K each.
Yes, aircraft have a lot more operating costs involved than artillery, but for the vast majority of targets in Taiwan, artillery (even located on Penghu) don't have enough range
Well, if the US is involved, an invasion of Taiwan will have to take backseat to the conflict with the US military. There's no other option.
So JH-7s will be focusing on antiship and strike missions outside of Taiwan. But if the US hasn't declared war, then China can spare 100 JH-7/J-16s to launch large numbers of glide bombs. The flight profile involved is really straightforward and risk free. Fly below the radar horizon, then pop up at 110km or 70km, launch the glide bombs, then turn around. It's beyond the range of medium-range SAMs.
I see the JH-7 as having a better EW suite than the J-10.
And the reason why we see J-10s flying out to Taiwan is because there are J-10 units stationed on the coast opposite Taiwan.
The JH-7 units are stationed elsewhere, and as I've outlined, an attack profile using glide bombs is really simple and could be practiced anywhere. And of course, you need to have those glide bombs in the inventory before you really start practicing.
I think 5-10 years is a workable time horizon.
If you go further, predictions start to get much fuzzier.
Plus in 10 years time, I don't think there will be any disagreement on China having the capacity to conquer Taiwan AND being able to deter the USA from declaring war against China.
There are a lot of things that should be possible, but unfortunately not so easy. Wide scale deployment 250 kg dual guidance PGMs that can glide is probably the most realistic option that we can expect in the next 10 years. And that's assuming PLAAF is finally comfortable with Beidou guidance. Currently, we have rarely even seen pictures of them carry more than 1 500 KG PGM. Let's they are holding back more impressive photos. Carrying 6 per JH-7A would still be a very big change from now.
That's rather optimistic. Unless Taiwan declares independence before 2030, I don't see JH-7 playing a role here. Again, most of the current JH-7A units joined service before 2010.
Again, we haven't seen PLAAF fit guidance kits on dumb bombs. We have definitely seen that fire a lot of dumb bombs with J-10s/J-16s.
I would think they can use a combination of ER shelling or rocket systems. The former covers portion of Taiwan and the latter covers all of relevant targets in Taiwan. You can continuous shelling with artillery, which you can't do with aircraft. You also don't put your aircraft at risk from possible SHORAD or Manpads,
Yes, that's why you keep up your shelling with artillery/rocket systems to keep military bases offline and try to best utilize your aerial assets against farther away targets.
Yes, if there is no prepositioned US force that can get involved quickly, then PLAAF should make use of its aerial assets to quickly achieve complete air dominance and control the entire battlefield.
no possible.
not really. In 10 years, USAF could have a good number of NGAD/B21 joining service while China is still waiting on H20/6th generation join service. We really don't know. The next 10 years are very important for the balance of power in West Pac. It's also a period that I'm mostly concerned about a terrible conflict.
I expect to see wide-scale deployment of both 250kg and 125kg glide bombs within the next 5 years.
They'll have a basic GPS/INS version at low cost. But there's no reason they couldn't add laser guidance for a modest amount.
Then because they already have a SDB-1 munitions airframe, they might as well develop a more expensive SDB-2 equivalent with autonomous attack sensors.
I would also expect large numbers of JDAMs, given the technology is already here. It's something which they should be doing now.
If the US is involved, then I don't see a Penghu operation being successful. So there won't be a land base for long-range artillery or standard-range MLRS rockets.
The JH-7 has an integrated EW system plus a back-seater who can also operate EW. The J-10 doesn't have this.
Both platforms could integrate the same EW pod. So which platform is likely to have better electronic warfare and jamming capability?
In 8 years time, China should have twice the "stock/inventory" of advanced weapons systems that it has today.
Focusing just on NGAD and the B-21 is the wrong metric. In the 5-10 year timeframe, there will likely only be a handful of these systems.
And beyond 10 years time, I think the Chinese military will be decisively accelerating ahead and leaving the US behind.
On helicopter armor. You are not likely putting a frame hit by a manpad back into service no matter how much armor it has . The point of most armor on helicopters is to only prevent immediate pilot death and to protect the engines. Asides from that any sort of blast from a manpad will put untold stress on the airframe and sub components that would need to be investigated before you even think about getting it in the air again. helicopters are delicate fickle machines that should not be operated where aa is present. Thats why you have combined arms and airland battle theories. You use intel and recon to confirm likely enemy composition and use air units to go into safeish areas for support .
That's funny. There is a reason people are saying that the gap between the US and China is rapidly closing and will never (for the foreseeable future) start growing again.
"Current" as of 2021
And that's for 2025, 4 years later
And now you say 10 years later (assume 2032). Does anyone here really want to update the data to show the difference between the projected 2025 Chinese forces and 2032... Between 2021 and 2025 there was such big difference, imagine what would be the rate of progress between 2025 and 2032.
(The above data are referenced from here)
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