Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

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tphuang

tphuang

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Minm said:
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
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No, I would think that if you bother read some of this stuff, you will understand the pros and cons of both and how things are likely to play out. It appears to me that you have not put in the basic effort into understanding the implications of various decisions.

Going for a "quick victory" in Taiwan is a fine strategy. There are pros and cons. If PLA thinks there is a good chance that can keep America out, then that could be the approach they take. But if it does take this approach, it also needs to be aware of the possibility that US military based in Japan would fire the first shot and be ready to hit back hard. If US military starts to build up its air forces in Japan in the middle of your blockade of Taiwan, what do you do if you are PLA? I assume you have to draw some red lines with US government. You can desire a quick victory in Taiwan, but things can quickly get out of control and you are involved in a full blown war.
 
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supersnoop

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siegecrossbow said:
I think mobile artillery like M-777 might work better for this scenario.
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I have never been in the Taiwan mountains myself, but I imagine it's still limited by the lack of cross-country opportunity.
You would need to find plateaus of a certain area accessible by the gun tractor.
Max range of M777 is 40 Km with Excalibur.
In a 40 Km radius around a given landing area, how many suitable firing areas are there?
Just looking at a map from Taichung beaches
20 Km inland is basically the edge of the developed area
>30 Km is well into the hinterlands with maybe 2-3 roads
How many M777 can you stash in a given location? Do you expect to be able to get them out?
 
tphuang

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supersnoop said:
I have never been in the Taiwan mountains myself, but I imagine it's still limited by the lack of cross-country opportunity.
You would need to find plateaus of a certain area accessible by the gun tractor.
Max range of M777 is 40 Km with Excalibur.
In a 40 Km radius around a given landing area, how many suitable firing areas are there?
Just looking at a map from Taichung beaches
20 Km inland is basically the edge of the developed area
>30 Km is well into the hinterlands with maybe 2-3 roads
How many M777 can you stash in a given location? Do you expect to be able to get them out?
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Regardless of how many suitable locations there are, you still need to get intel and target them to make sure that you disable the weapons that could cause serious damage to your landing forces. Until ROC Army is degraded, it doesn't make a lot of sense to just land. Maybe it only takes 4 or 5 days to degrade ROC forces to the point that landing is easy, but you still need to do it. The earlier you land, the harder the landing will be and the more casualties will be incurred in the landing and afterward.
 
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supersnoop

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tphuang said:
Regardless of how many suitable locations there are, you still need to get intel and target them to make sure that you disable the weapons that could cause serious damage to your landing forces. Until ROC Army is degraded, it doesn't make a lot of sense to just land. Maybe it only takes 4 or 5 days to degrade ROC forces to the point that landing is easy, but you still need to do it. The earlier you land, the harder the landing will be and the more casualties will be incurred in the landing and afterward.
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Definitely, in my original response I did mention that the most likely areas should be identified using a combination of techniques.
During a landing scenario, drones could provide instant counterbattery-type support for PLA landing forces by flying overhead the most likely positions surveyed.
Normally drones would probably be fodder for something like Avenger or other Stingers, but I imagine the sheer number of things flying in the air would negatively impact the performance of these units.

Conversely, for the ROC forces, I think a more effective weapon than artillery would be some kind of small surface to surface missile like those jury rigged Brimstones.
 
GZDRefugee

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Rocket arty on Taiwanese assets to soften up the island's resistance against landing is a given. Lots of posters have asserted that CSGs and air wings would take time to transit to the region. But what about submarines? Their presence as counter-battery, land attack on massing amphibious troops, and threats to landing craft cannot be overlooked. They can creep into the AO virtually undetected and will be nigh impossible to pin down and eliminate. Putting naval resources to deter or hunt down subs would be risky and costly.
 
FairAndUnbiased

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GZDRefugee said:
Rocket arty on Taiwanese assets to soften up the island's resistance against landing is a given. Lots of posters have asserted that CSGs and air wings would take time to transit to the region. But what about submarines? Their presence as counter-battery, land attack on massing amphibious troops, and threats to landing craft cannot be overlooked. They can creep into the AO virtually undetected and will be nigh impossible to pin down and eliminate. Putting naval resources to deter or hunt down subs would be risky and costly.
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How do subs do counterbattery? How do subs communicate in a duplex channel with command, in fact?
 
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Petrolicious88

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Minm said:
Obviously no amphibious assault is necessary if Taiwan is on its own. But the risk of US intervention rises with every day of the campaign. Defeating the US in a Pacific War is not easy. Russia made plans for an unopposed campaign, China should make plans assuming that the US and Japan are likely to enter the war if there's any hope for Taiwan to survive. Aircraft carriers don't even matter that much, the US can simply fly hundreds of planes from the continental US to their unsinkable aircraft carrier called Japan and attack from there. Assume they send 200 F22, 100 F35 etc in addition to the Reagan and the Japanese air force. Plus all the forces in Japan and those in Korea, which can easily move to the bases in Japan and attack from there.

Convincing the ROC to surrender without a substantial amphibious landing on the main island can only work if the US does nothing but sanctions. Why would the Chinese government make such a risky bet?
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US is doing the opposite. Instead of concentrating forces all in one locale, US is dispersing and distributing forces across the pacific. Japan of course will remain a vital part of any US strategy in SCS.

Also, besides acquiring offensive capabilities in preparation for the coming war (e.g long rang missiles directed towards China), Japan's entire navy is optimized for ASW with 22 attack subs, whose capabilities are considered world class, 70 P3 Orions, 33 Kawasaki P1s, large number of ASW helicopters, Asahi -Class destroyers. All will try to form a chokehold across the Miyako Strait against the PLA.
 
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ansy1968

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Petrolicious88 said:
US is doing the opposite. Instead of concentrating forces all in one locale, US is dispersing and distributing forces across the pacific. Japan of course will remain a vital part of any US strategy in SCS.

Also, besides acquiring offensive capabilities in preparation for the coming war (e.g long rang missiles directed towards China), Japan's entire navy is optimized for ASW with 22 attack subs, whose capabilities are considered world class, 70 P3 Orions, 33 Kawasaki P1s, large number of ASW helicopters, Asahi -Class destroyers. All will try to form a chokehold across the Miyako Strait against the PLA.
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All is well and DANDY UNTIL THE RUSSIAN show up....lol and you can include the pesky NK, man KIM has the temerity to nuked Japan for the 2nd time....lol, China is not alone, IF the American use its allies to subdue China then she has friends to back her up, IF China lost they're next. And it cancel out each other, NK will cancelled out any SK support, while Japan may incur attacks from unexpected sources, I may predict that IF NK attack Japan the SK will stay silent and may applaud the NK effort...lol

The most committed allies the US expect are those of the 5eyes BUT they were spread out and most them will be fighting at the rear UNLESS you count the Royal Navy so called Wunderwaffen Carriers with borrowed F35 as a frontline warship. ;) This fight will be a Mano en Mano between China and the US, the rest are side show. What about EU, they will be tied down facing Russia and Iran may take advantage and liberate the Iraqis further complicating things for the US.

For me the restrain that China imposed on itself had been unshackled, the Pelosi visit is the Final straw, for China the strategy is to shift from being docile to proactive like supplying arms to any countries under threat by the Collective West, the strategy now is to spread the threat that the American will face with deadly arms making the already stretch US military and economy even more, resulting to a System Collapse.
 
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drowingfish

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Patchwork_Chimera said:
Just as a quick note, the """counterforce""" portion is a fraction of the total ETF (Electronic Target Folder - which is just where we store that crap) we currently keep for Taiwan. Prosecuting them could feasibly be done in a matter of hours, with expanded target set prosecution being viable with much "lower end" hardware (a DF-17 is great for kicking in the door, but any fixed wing platform with FT pattern direct attack or unpowered glide munition can send a building back to the architect's imagination). Smaller targets (especially tactical-level ones) are well suited to the rotary-wing and UAS force that the PLA has been putting together over the years, since frankly, a DF-16 isn't a favorable effector if you're just slapping a handful of tanks lined up on a ridge a-la Han Kuang.

In all, while yes there's a sizable number of aimpoints and systems that need to be prosecuted in order to operationally "dunk on" the ROC Armed Forces, many of them are very well suited to low-capability, high-volume weapons systems (aforementioned DAM/Glide PGMs, Rotary-wing and UAS employed A(T)GMs, etc.), as opposed to requiring high-capability, low-volume systems like DF-17s or PHL-16 370mm GMLRs. As a result, it's very doable to exhaust all Taiwanese deliberate targets within a matter of days, easily within a week.


Meh, I don't think that's especially comparable. They were trying to wage a tactical war with operational airpower, which doesn't really work. Airpower is - fundamentally - a versatile, capable, and long-reaching mechanism by which a "small to medium" volume of fires can be employed (when compared to, say, indirect fires, or straight up maneuver formations). That is all. As a result of this, airpower can perform *exceptionally* well in the role of systemically degrading and destroying an enemy ***system*** of combat power. Even for as overblown as '91 airpower effectiveness may be in popular memory, we still effectively deleted the entire Iraqi air force within the first 6-12 hours (generously), and had utterly shattered the ability for Iraqi Army forces to execute meaningful, high intensity combat operations within the first few days to a week. Everything after that was pretty much "well, we've got free reign, we may as well attrit them as much as possible prior to ODS's land component kicking off," and saw almost exclusively BAI, interdiction, and other "tactical" strike missions executed from then on, which yes, due to the aforementioned low (comparative) volume of fires that airpower brings to the table, it takes a decent chunk of time to degrade an enemy's tactical forces.
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why do you think Russia was not able to achieve this effect? Russian and Chinese forces are quite similar in their reliance on ballistic missiles for door kicking no? was it because Ukraine was too big, or did Russia simply fail to exploit the initial chaos and allowed Ukraine to regain its footing?
 
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