Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

supersnoop said:

I was being facetious, there was an actual paragraph on sanitation problems.

Support at 3% for reunification, yes, but support for status quo is over 50%.

So how do those people go when the chips are down? Probably mostly to the USA…

Declaration of Independence would absolutely bring serious consequences, so how people react is important.
As this is the "lessons to learn from Ukraine" thread, I will reiterate what I've said before.

Part of the reason the civil conflict in Ukraine arose (that is 2014 timeframe) is because of the perceived and actual disenfranchisement of the eastern population.

Back to Taiwan, the Pelosi visit taught a very important lesson. If China decided to "push the button", who voted for "freedom" to be impressed upon the people living on Taiwan island?

I would not expect a widescale resistance movement, but things like desertion, sabotage, tip offs, collaborators, etc. When the adversary has an overwhelming advantage in firepower, they don't need MORE help. I think it was @5unrise who had mentioned, there is quite an undercurrent of people in Taiwan of people who don't necessarily support the Communist Party, but one China is non-negotiable.

Again, I don't think it would be as directly militarily significant as Ukraine, but even a small group can cause a wave (i.e. Trump's supporters on Jan. 6).

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I've seen some Taiwanese ideas reproduced from PTT forums over the past few days, and they seem to think they've learned from the Ukrainians, so they can delay the Chinese attack by HIMAS or other tactical missile attacks on mainland military installations.
This discussion took place before the new conscript bill was enacted，I don't know if they are psychologically prepared to join the army, but at least they think that Taiwan can delay time with its current weapons, and then the situation will develop in their favor.

Because these contents have to be "processed" in order to avoid review, it is very difficult to read and share them.

Please forgive me, I will not spend more time looking for the original text published by PTT.

tphuang said:

China needs to determine if America will fight to the end here. The current belief is that America will not stop even if China manages to take Taiwan after a month without US intervention. All the scenarios we discussed of the Chinese first strike is based on the belief that China assesses America will not stop even if China takes most of Taiwan. So if it needs to defeat America regardless, then what is the best course of action? Depending on where China is in it's buildup, it may or may not have the luxury to give America the first shooter advantage. Imagine China blockades Taiwan and America/Japan comes by with very quiet submarines and start firing at China's blockading fleet or such. Once we get to a war scenario, it would be very hard for PLA to know if America's intention if its aircraft takes off from the air fields and ships starting to come over to Taiwan.

Click to expand...

Just what do you mean by fight to the end? If it’s MAD, it’s a pointless discussion as in that case any and every route all lead to MAD.

I assume that by that phrase, you mean fight till it can no longer continue to fight, hence your focus on a surprise alpha strike against the US to maximise asset kills.

But this focus on current inventories completely ignores production. Even if the Chinese deletes the entire sum total present strength of the USN, the US can still continue to fight by building a new fleet.

There is simply no conventional military option for either side to win so decisively and overwhelmingly as to make the other side unable to continue even if they wanted to continue fighting. Not without triggering nuclear MAD first in any case.

As such, there is simply no solution to the problem you have set because you are asking the wrong question.

A war between China and America will either end in MAD, or it will end when one or the other looses the will to continue fighting. So long as both sides retains the will to continue fighting, then they will create the means to do so and will keep fighting until the other side runs out of the will to continue.

This is both why the pro-American camp always wet dream of a Pearl Harbour 2.0, and also why China will never be stupid enough to oblige - because only a second Pearl Harbour like ‘dastardly attack’ would be enough to galvanise America sufficiently to ever come close to Chinese will to see Taiwan reunited with the mainland. All other ‘kick-off’ scenarios result in an America loss due to a lack of will to continue fighting and taking the costs of such a war (both direct battlefield looses and indirect economic pain).

Another central misconception is that China allowing America to shoot first is the same as China being on the receiving end of a Pearl Harbour 2.0.

There are myriad and countless ways for China to force America to prematurely shoot its shot such that America fires the first shots and draw first blood but fails to deliver much of a blow from it.

The easiest and most obvious would be to forward deploy tripwire forces. For example, have 056s or 054As shadow USN carriers and/or intercept USN/USAF mass formations with J11As.

The point is to put (relatively) small numbers of (relative) expendable friendly assets within range to threaten enemy primary assets or being able to deliver unacceptably high losses on enemy regular forces.

In both examples, the US must strike at these tripwire assets before they can launch a strike against other Chinese assets or risk taking unacceptable losses from these tripwire assets launching an immediate counterattack.

Striking at these tripwire forces would give the rest of the PLA sufficient warning that any attempted US alpha strike will fail.

tphuang said:

why would Taiwan move far quantity of troops to static defense positions when it can do a whole lot of damage with artillery units hidden away somewhere that's hard to find.

Click to expand...

Using artillery to defend the coast? Without spotters or some sort of infantry presence, how would they even find incoming enemies? And in cases where PLA lands close to coastal cities, that would mean shelling their own civilian houses?

Artillery from relatively hidden (read: constantly mobile at max range) can give fire support to some extent to defending infantry, but you still need actual infantry to hold the beaches. Otherwise PLA will just land barely contested.

Keep in mind government forces are also calling in artillery but from areas ROC can't reach, and it's a lot more artillery than ROC has.

Biscuits said:

China doesn't have to land in the first day, but it can make feints and if Taiwan fails to detect one, those troops will land.

Click to expand...

That's not how 'feints' work.

The goal is to direct the enemy's focus on Point A, while you attack Point B.

You can't mobilize your entire force to attack, and then not attack at all.

That wouldn't be a "feint", it would be a "clusterfuck."

Biscuits said:

Beijing doesn't lose anything from feinting landings from day 1.

Click to expand...

You don't get "Fienting" for free. It's harder to convince the enemy you're doing something you aren't, then actually doing it. An unsuccessful deception ends up being a complete waste of time and resources which would've been better spent elsewhere. Plus, deceptions are more complicated to pull off these days, with ISR/ELINT/SATINT, then they were in the days of Operation Fortitude.

Biscuits said:

The more overwhelmingly China moves against the rebels, the more US and Japan will be deterred from invading. To use Ukraine as an example, imagine if Kiev had attacked the rebels in 2021 with 30 000+ precisely targeted shells a day while Ukrainian formations rapidly flood into the Donbass as the LDPR loses almost all their equipment to strikes and suffer complete blackout & blockade. Would Russia still have conducted a special military operation in 2022 then? They would be cowed because 1. Ukraine showed its overwhelming capabilities 2. There is no organized army left to reinforce in the separatist territory.

Click to expand...

China's deterrence with regards to US/Japan isnt based on the PLA or its tube artillery. It's the PLAAF/PLAN/PLARF that matter in that equation.

Biscuits said:

Using artillery to defend the coast? Without spotters or some sort of infantry presence, how would they even find incoming enemies? And in cases where PLA lands close to coastal cities, that would mean shelling their own civilian houses?

Artillery from relatively hidden (read: constantly mobile at max range) can give fire support to some extent to defending infantry, but you still need actual infantry to hold the beaches. Otherwise PLA will just land barely contested.

Keep in mind government forces are also calling in artillery but from areas ROC can't reach, and it's a lot more artillery than ROC has.

Click to expand...

I'm sure they will have some units around possible landing spots. they can always use secure lines or something to signal the artillery units to attack. this kind of stuff would be very hard to stop for a landing force. That's why, they need to significantly degrade artillery units before you attempt landing.

It would be a bad idea to expect Taiwanese military to simply present themselves as targets on the beach landing area.

zhangjim said:

Unfortunately, I've seen some Taiwanese ideas reproduced from PTT forums over the past few days, and they seem to think they've learned from the Ukrainians, so they can delay the Chinese attack by HIMAS or other tactical missile attacks on mainland military installations.
This discussion took place before the new conscript bill was enacted，I don't know if they are psychologically prepared to join the army, but at least they think that Taiwan can delay time with its current weapons, and then the situation will develop in their favor.

Because these contents have to be "processed" in order to avoid review, it is very difficult to read and share them.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please forgive me, I will not spend more time looking for the original text published by PTT.

Click to expand...

PTT is worse than reddit.
Taiwan has 70 or so ATACMS with range to reach mainland.
HIMARS/M270 has nothing else that can reach the other side. For every one ATACMS launch detected by PLA, the Rocket force can respond with 100's of their own BM and even more regular artillery rockets.
Russia does not have the protection of the sea between her forces and Ukraine.
ATACMS will have to fly through 100's of PLAN SAMs and PLA SAM complexes.
How can there be a delay anyway? For Ukraine, HIMARS is a "new" system. Russia might not know what to expect or it's weaknesses. For Taiwan, the approval is 2 years old. PLA already planned for it.

The situation will develop in their favour if they go to mainland China now, find a job and develop good contacts. This way they can return to Taiwan to aid in reconstruction should the worse come to pass (or just enjoy the higher wages if nothing happens).

plawolf said:

But this focus on current inventories completely ignores production. Even if the Chinese deletes the entire sum total present strength of the USN, the US can still continue to fight by building a new fleet.

Click to expand...

How is the USN going to rebuild a fleet, if they don't have a fleet to defend their harbors where new fleets are built?

Even leaving direct strikes on the US out, this isn't the 1940s where you can churn out carriers like hot cakes, even with a total war economy. How much time will it take for the USN to rebuild a whole new fleet that can challenge China in WESTPAC again? And how much time will China have to respond to that newborn fleet? Point being: A decisive conventional victory in WESTPAC is very much possible, if you delete the enemy's existing air and naval forces.

tphuang said:

It would be really good if you actually bother reading some of the stuff we wrote ahead. For the sake of this discussion, please just read some of what we discussed here PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
and what @Patchwork_Chimera posted here
https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/vs924o
China needs to determine if America will fight to the end here. The current belief is that America will not stop even if China manages to take Taiwan after a month without US intervention. All the scenarios we discussed of the Chinese first strike is based on the belief that China assesses America will not stop even if China takes most of Taiwan. So if it needs to defeat America regardless, then what is the best course of action? Depending on where China is in it's buildup, it may or may not have the luxury to give America the first shooter advantage. Imagine China blockades Taiwan and America/Japan comes by with very quiet submarines and start firing at China's blockading fleet or such. Once we get to a war scenario, it would be very hard for PLA to know if America's intention if its aircraft takes off from the air fields and ships starting to come over to Taiwan.

Click to expand...

Sorry I don't consider the posts on this forum official Chinese or American policy. I have seen some of those discussions. But if you're starting with the premise that the US will turn this into a major war regardless of how the invasion of Taiwan goes, then that isn't very relevant to real life. The details of how this war would be fought today or in the next few years aren't even that important, the risk to China is just not worth it in any scenario.

The assumption that America will fight to the end is a good assumption if you want to discuss pacific war strategies. It's not a good assumption for discussing how to deal with the Taiwan issue. If you could point me to good evidence showing that if Taiwan falls very quickly and there aren't major riots afterwards, presenting the world with a fait accompli, the US will launch an attack anyway, I'd be grateful. Personally I believe that a very quick victory is the only "safe" way for China to achieve its goals

tphuang said:

why would Taiwan move far quantity of troops to static defense positions when it can do a whole lot of damage with artillery units hidden away somewhere that's hard to find.

Click to expand...

The difficulty with this strategy is the topology/terrain of Taiwan island.
The widest part of the island is only about 150 km wide.
In the middle are mountains. It is going to be difficult to station artillery on slopes. Based on topographic, satellite, and on the ground data, it is possible that the most likely firing positions have already been surveyed.
Because of the poor cross island road network, there are only so many places a large gun can go.

supersnoop said:

The difficulty with this strategy is the topology/terrain of Taiwan island.
The widest part of the island is only about 150 km wide.
In the middle are mountains. It is going to be difficult to station artillery on slopes. Based on topographic, satellite, and on the ground data, it is possible that the most likely firing positions have already been surveyed.
Because of the poor cross island road network, there are only so many places a large gun can go.

Click to expand...

I think mobile artillery like M-777 might work better for this scenario.