Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Status
Not open for further replies.

Michaelsinodef

Senior Member
Registered Member
If the Chinese side has access to hypersonics, what makes the US unable to procure them? They've just recently completed 2 successful test so having b-2 launched hypersonics is not out of the question. If hypersonics are at play and they are extremely difficult to intercept, it's not a stretch that the US will priorities hitting critical chip making infrastructure over the long term seeing as those hi-tech factories are extremely fragile. Over the long term they don't need to beat China in the first Island chain, just make it so that China will seriously struggle to push past, which they will through targeting those critical supply chains. They could also technically target nuclear powerplants, but that's a road that leads to MAD, so it's kind pointless to speculate.

We've seen that volume of fire alone is not enough to win wars from the Korean war to Vietnam, so what makes you think that local fire superiority will allow China to completely suppress Korea/Japan war making capabilities? If invading Taiwan required an operation greater than D-day how will China ever manage to stop Japan from lobbing missiles back?
Like I said, spend some time reading @Patchwork_Chimera posts here and on reddit.

Here's a link to one: https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/vs924o/_/ifftoww
Here's another: https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/vrpur9/_/ieycnae


Basically, your idea of the US just 'easily' being able to take out chinese IC manufacturing is not based in any kind of reality lol.
 

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
Like I said, spend some time reading @Patchwork_Chimera posts here and on reddit.

Here's a link to one: https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/vs924o/_/ifftoww
Here's another: https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/vrpur9/_/ieycnae


Basically, your idea of the US just 'easily' being able to take out chinese IC manufacturing is not based in any kind of reality lol.
We're talking past each other here, I'm well aware of Patchwork_Chimera's posts and how China could seriously degrade allied capabilities within a short time frame using long range fires, but currently China has little in the way of being able to counter long range stand off stealth missiles fired from air refueled stealth bombers such as the b-2. the JASSM has up to 1000km of range and a b2 can carry up to 16 of them at a time, it makes it possible for the missiles to take a complex path to target and avoid air defense unless China would expend a serious amount of naval anti air assets around the Chinese coast, tying up a lot of resources that are needed to push past the first island chain.

While the US can afford to do those harrassing strikes indefinitely from the safety of even pearl harbor there's little way for China to do the same to the US. Also Patchwork_Chimera's post seems to be accurate if you're talking about a Taiwanese conflict that last <3 months if I'm being generous here, in the mean time China will have to maintain the same volume of fire to ensure that local allied capabilities don't return from repair, if the position was switched I don't think the US can maintain the same volume of fire, so why would China?
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
It will make it easier as nobody knows if PRC begins demanding land and ocean areas from them after Taiwan and there is zero guarantees that wouldn't happen. Asian NATO would benefit smaller countries but not PRC and that's why PRC official are protesting loudly against such ideas... same as Russians do against NATO since it makes inpossible for them to invade/pressure their smaller neighbors.
There are no guarantees in life, but as China gets stronger, the picture is increasingly clear that the key to prosperity in Asia is to get along with China. No small nation in Asia can benefit by drawing China's ire and Europe is a mess because Europeans followed the wrong country against the wrong country... though it might have seemed the right choice at the end of 1945. Hedging against China with the US is simply putting a target sign on your back in Asia and siding with China brings many advantages to be enjoyed, as the Philippines found out with the departure of Aquino.
USN doesn't need to enter anywhere near mainland as China relies on shipping for it's survival and those cargo ships can be seized or sunk outside any island chains. What is PLAN gonna do... sit inside those chains while vital cargo is being taken away from them?

This kinda tactics work perfect against China and it forces PLAN to move outside safe zones.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
1. China has many routes to ship through Russia and into Europe.
2. The bulk of China's economy is in domestic consumption; China does not depend on shipping at all. The reason you think it does is because China's so good at trade and the reason we're so good is because everybody needs us, not the other way around.
3. Piracy can be answered with escalation in missile strikes directly on the assets of the countries desperate enough to resort to this simply because they cannot compete with China.
4. You know how it is with the US. Every time they try to harm China's economy, they put themselves in recession. If China doesn't trade, the US ends up in recession and China gets by just fine.
 

Michaelsinodef

Senior Member
Registered Member
We're talking past each other here, I'm well aware of Patchwork_Chimera's posts and how China could seriously degrade allied capabilities within a short time frame using long range fires, but currently China has little in the way of being able to counter long range stand off stealth missiles fired from air refueled stealth bombers such as the b-2. the JASSM has up to 1000km of range and a b2 can carry up to 16 of them at a time, it makes it possible for the missiles to take a complex path to target and avoid air defense unless China would expend a serious amount of naval anti air assets around the Chinese coast, tying up a lot of resources that are needed to push past the first island chain.
No, because patchwork has very explicitly posted that the probability of arrival (I think it was) was very low, even for something like JASSM against the PLA (so against China).
While the US can afford to do those harrassing strikes indefinitely from the safety of even pearl harbor there's little way for China to do the same to the US. Also Patchwork_Chimera's post seems to be accurate if you're talking about a Taiwanese conflict that last <3 months if I'm being generous here, in the mean time China will have to maintain the same volume of fire to ensure that local allied capabilities don't return from repair, if the position was switched I don't think the US can maintain the same volume of fire, so why would China?
No, you really aren't gonna get to do such harrassing strikes so incredibly easy and indefinitely lmao, nor would China really need to maintain the same volume of fire after the initial strikes lol.
 

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
It's unlikely that China can overcome the allied japan/korean/US navy all at once, at least currently. Since Chinese chip manufacturing is pretty concentrated along coastal cities, the US can destroy those capabilities through long range fire, while China can't do the same to Intel chip fabs located in mainland US. This will degrade Chinese ability to replenish it's stock of PGMs long term while a western world that is united and in a war economy can be a terrifying force to deal with.
How would you expect Korean Navy to intervene without:
1. Setting off WW3 for sure
2. Seoul becoming ash
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Well written! 20 years ago the US would absolutely demolish China in a first Island chain slug fest, right now China can fight on equal footing, but lose the long term economic war. In 20 years time China will be powerful enough for the US to have no choice but to pullback past the second island chain unless they want to lose militarily and economically. The best path forward is for China to grow another 20 years and keep the fighting limited to saber rattling until unification becomes an inevitability, not a war to be fought over.

Or perhaps it might turn out like the Napoleonic Wars?

Both England and France were exhausted by the fighting and negotiated various temporary peaces before things kicked off again.
But the thing to note is that relatively speaking, China is far larger than France.

Or perhaps China is defeated? But what then? Look at how Imperial Germany transformed into Nazi Germany and sought revenge.
 

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
No, because patchwork has very explicitly posted that the probability of arrival (I think it was) was very low, even for something like JASSM against the PLA (so against China).

No, you really aren't gonna get to do such harrassing strikes so incredibly easy and indefinitely lmao, nor would China really need to maintain the same volume of fire after the initial strikes lol.
I mean, why not? unless China puts AA assets all along the coast what's stopping the US from lobbing cruise missiles using strategic bombers day in day out? After JASSM runs out, they still have older LO cruise missiles. You'll have b-52 parked mid way between Pearl harbor and japan lobbing cruise missiles all day every day, the barrier to US military missile procurement is political, not by inability. I doubt China has such a stockpile of AA missiles that they can intercept every single one of them, nor do I think that those AA assets are not better spent elsewhere. Like I'm not trying to disparage China here, they have a formidable military, but the US has 40 years of cold war spending to throw at a China sized problem and it's going to take some time for it to equalize.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
USN doesn't need to enter anywhere near mainland as China relies on shipping for it's survival and those cargo ships can be seized or sunk outside any island chains. What is PLAN gonna do... sit inside those chains while vital cargo is being taken away from them?

This kinda tactics work perfect against China and it forces PLAN to move outside safe zones.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

China is geographically the same size as a continent-spanning USA which can be largely self-sufficient.
Plus China has numerous land borders through which critical trade can flow.

In comparison, the US would have to send in shipping to Japan (next to China) and Japan literally does rely on shipping to survive.

It is China which would look to initiate an Operation Starvation if Japan declares war.
 

Biscuits

Major
Registered Member
If the Chinese side has access to hypersonics, what makes the US unable to procure them? They've just recently completed 2 successful test so having b-2 launched hypersonics is not out of the question. If hypersonics are at play and they are extremely difficult to intercept, it's not a stretch that the US will priorities hitting critical chip making infrastructure over the long term seeing as those hi-tech factories are extremely fragile. Over the long term they don't need to beat China in the first Island chain, just make it so that China will seriously struggle to push past, which they will through targeting those critical supply chains. They could also technically target nuclear powerplants, but that's a road that leads to MAD, so it's kind pointless to speculate.

We've seen that volume of fire alone is not enough to win wars from the Korean war to Vietnam, so what makes you think that local fire superiority will allow China to completely suppress Korea/Japan war making capabilities? If invading Taiwan required an operation greater than D-day how will China ever manage to stop Japan from lobbing missiles back?
Even if US could hypothetically overcome the tech hurdle for hypersonics, such missiles would be insanely expensive and therefore unsuited to strategic bombing. For the same reason Russia doesn't simply shoot every ammo depot in Ukraine at once using Zircon and then roll in unopposed.

Producing tons of lower grade missiles etc is not difficult, especially since China would ramp up military spending to probably 5% at least in order to exceed USA a few years before war. Stuff like J-20s to some extent needs to be completed in special facilities which would still be well hidden, but a CJ-10 could feasibly be made in any major industrial park.

Taiwan Island is surrounded by defensive installations, if US wants to invade, they need to win a decisive battle over practically the entire PLAN and PLAAF while fighting in an area where they're completely exposed.

The situation facing US and any country unfortunate enough to join the war on their side would be similar to Imperial Japan in ww2. Without raw resources, consumer goods from China and it's allies, the attackers would be fighting a timer towards economical collapse, while PRC gains in strength the longer the war lasts.

As for how South Korea and Japan would be suppressed if they join, Korea would be the first to go, because its so close to China, it can be blockaded far more easily than Japan, and since the Ground Force wouldn't be fighting aside from defending Taiwan Island, the SK army will find itself staring down not just the entire NK and large parts of RU Army, but the brunt of the PLA as well.

Even with full control over mainland Asia, the invasion of the home islands and Okinawa would still be an immense feat requiring huge logistics investments, extensive coordination with Russia from the sakhalin front and is inherently a huge risk. It would be larger than Operation Overlord in scope.

But China has quite a bit of prep time, and what stacks things in their advantage is that the Japanese economy will be completely wrecked by energy sanctions, blockade and air raids.
 

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
Or perhaps it might turn out like the Napoleonic Wars?

Both England and France were exhausted by the fighting and negotiated various temporary peaces before things kicked off again.
But the thing to note is that relatively speaking, China is far larger than France.

Or perhaps China is defeated? But what then? Look at how Imperial Germany transformed into Nazi Germany and sought revenge.
Lets be real here, China can be largely self sufficient except for energy and they can amend most of the disruption through a large dose of the big green rock in the next 10-15 years. A land invasion of China is impossible so there's no real way China can 'lose' here. Blockade and sanctioned, yes, crippled domestic and global economy, also yes! An insane amount of needless human suffering? A definite yes. Status quo don't look so bad now does it?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top