Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

vincent said:

Want to add ETC probably achieved their sortie rate with very little preparation time.

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Blitzo said:

I've bolded a specific part of your post that I want to address.
My question to you, is why do you think the PLAAF is demonstrating that they can perform high intensity ops on a regular basis?

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Blitzo said:

From my perception, all they are demonstrating is a low to moderate intensity operation on a regular basis, which utilizes only a fraction of their overall order of battle and combat capability within the ETC.
Putting it another way, do you think that their sortie rates over the last few weeks is one that represents something near the peak of what ETC can sustain? Because if so, that is certainly the first time I've come across anyone with that sort of suggestion before.

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XiDada said:

The main reason is the change in operating procedure following the Pelosi visit. Prior to her visit, the PLAAF regularly conducted sorties between 10-20 airframes, with 20 being the higher end of things, and a 50+ airframe incursion being a one time thing around October 1st

I think we're both in agreement that the PLA always intended to change the status quo and used Pelosi's visit as the excuse to do so. And everything that we're seeing this months suggest an increase in the op tempo of what they've been doing in the past.

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XiDada said:

It's possible that this indeed still remains in the low to moderate intensity operations.

But the increase in operations is something we've never really seen before, and they're still not sustaining these operations for more than a couple of days at most.

The rapid number of sortie drop-offs immediately after a large incursion (35+) and the time it takes before they launch a similar number again suggests that there is some limiting factor at play that is preventing them from sustaining this kind of tempo.

Whether it's because they can't or it's because they choose not to, we won't know until they climb the next rung on the ladder and increase sortie rates to a consistent 50+ airframes.

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EDIT: And if you have any any additional sources or other available OSINT that can help shed further light on PLAAF sortie generation, I'd love to give those a read.

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tphuang said:

replenishment ships isn't the right place to look at. PLAN is incapable of encroaching further in Pacific Ocean until they have sufficient number of 095s. 095s would allow them to target Pearl + major naval base/shipyards on the west coast. I wouldn't even think about targets beyond that if I were you.

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XiDada said:

Here's the ETC PLAAF OOB:

1. 7th BDE - J-16
2. 8th BDE - J-10A
3. 9th BDE - J-20
4. 78th BDE - J-8DF
5. 83rd BDE - JH-7A
6. 95th BDE - J-11B
7. 25th BDE - J-10C
8. 40th BDE - J-16
9. 41st BDE - J-11A
10. 85th BDE - Su-30MKK

Doctrinal organization of each reformed PLAAF brigade is 24 aircrafts, and given the available OOB and removing the 78th and 83rd BDE, this leaves a total of 192 airframes - again, this is using the assumed doctrinal organization.

If you look at the ROCMOD information about ADIZ incursions, there are airframes like the H-6 that enters as well, which means there are airframes being pulled from other theater commands, most likely STC.

But let's take the assumption that all the aircrafts are coming from the ETC.

PLAAF operations from the 7th onward:

• 66 airframes on the 7th
• 39 airframes on the 8th
• 45 airframes on the 9th
• 36 airframes on the 10th
• 21 airframes on the 11th
• 24 airframes on the 12th
• 29 airframes on the 13th
• 22 airframes on the 14th
• 30 airframes on the 15th
• 17 airframes on the 16th
• 21 airframes on the 17th
• 51 airframes on the 18th

If the PLAAF is demonstrating that they can perform high intensity ops on a regular basis - i.e. land a jet, refuel, rearm, and relaunch, then they should be able to maintain 50 sorties per day. But they're not.

In fact, after the 9th, they had to reduce ops for 9 days until they can launch another 50+ airframes.

Sortie generation is hard, and most air forces are bad at it. We have little data from the ROC about their sortie generation capabilities and I do suspect that it's probably significantly lower just due to training and budgetary constraints, it's also worth remembering that the PLAAF is not 10 ft tall. They've made great strides in improving their capabilities but they're not there yet.
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As a general message: it's not a bad thing to point out that there are still deficiencies. And there certainly are deficiencies in the PLAAF.

Remember where they were as recently as 10 years ago. It would be ludicrous to assume that they've not only managed to fix all their institutional problems in the last 10 years (b/c institutional inertia is a thing) but outright surpassed the one country in the world that has been running high intensity ops for decades. That's the height of hubris.

If you know where you're deficient, you know where you can make improvements.

The worst thing anyone can do is to bury their head in the sand and claim that anything that points out PLA/AF/AN deficiencies is "westoid/Indian/wanwan fantasies" or some other brain dead nationalist chestbeating. Otherwise, how are you any different from the ROC claiming a civilian drone hovering over Kinmen is a "high altitude drone using telescope lens" or that "PLARF missiles flew too high for us to intercept"?

Arrogance and hubris loses wars. Honest self-criticism and seeking improvements wins them.

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Blitzo said:

I don't think their increase in op tempo is necessarily a change in the status quo, nor do I think it is necessarily something that will be a permanent fixture.

Instead, I see all of the PLA's actions here as being mostly reactive, in relation to heightened US pressure and salami slicing WRT Taiwan.

Immediately after Pelosi's visit, of course the PLA had a slightly higher uptick of air sorties (that occurred alongside exercises from the other services).
Since Pelosi's visit, the US has continued to enable visits from senate or congress to Taiwan, albeit on much lower profile, so it's only natural that they would continue low level signaling during this time.

On the 18th of August, or on the days immediately adjacent to that time, the US and Taiwan started formal govt to govt trade talks, which further flirted with salami slicing, which naturally resulted in a slightly higher uptick of PLA air sortie signaling.

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I think the burden of proof here is on you to justify why you think generating 50 sorties a day is at or near peak of what the ETC is capable of, given it is so entirely opposite to what a reasonable null hypothesis is.


Addendum:
To expand on this -- if you are arguing that you think 50 sorties/day is at or near the peak of what ETC can do, then by extension you are saying two things:

1: with the ETC's current order of battle of some 250-300 tactical fighter aircraft and additional multiple dozens of other aircraft (bomber and ISR/MPA/AEW&C), that the most they can do is 50 sorties a day (which you're saying they can't even sustain!) in close physical proximity of the Taiwan strait.

and,

2: by suggesting that the PLA has chosen to exert the ETC's maximum air sortie generation capability (and thus maxing out the ETC's air sortie signaling capability), you are implying that they have no further room for the ETC to further escalate air sortie signaling. Thus by extension you're arguing that you believe this is one of the PLA's most severe and serious military signaling they can do only a couple of rungs short of war!
(The next rung after "maximal ETC air sortie generation" would be "maximal ETC air sortie generation + augmentation from other TCs" which in turn would be one of the last signaling options short of the outset of actual military conflict)

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• 5 turn 5
• 4 turn 4
• 4 turn 4
• 4 turn 5 or 5 turn 4
• 3 turn 3
• 2 turn 2
• 3 turn 3
• 2 turn 2
• 4 turn 4

XiDada said:

Fair enough. I'll defer to you here. But I still think the PLAAF sortie generation rate is still behind that of the USAF.

So what I did now is looking at the number of Su-30s making incursions because there's only a single base that operates them in the ETC, making it a good litmus test to help determine single base sortie generation

Looking at the reported number of Su-30s being sent up, the largest day was Aug 5th when 24x Su-30s crossed the median line. If we assume that this was a 12 turn 12 operation, then we can get an idea for how their sortie rates can be sustained from that single airbase.

The next day was 10, then 8, 8, 9, 6, 4, 6, 4, and 8. So potentially:

• 5 turn 5
• 4 turn 4
• 4 turn 4
• 4 turn 5 or 5 turn 4
• 3 turn 3
• 2 turn 2
• 3 turn 3
• 2 turn 2
• 4 turn 4

Now. We don't know if more didn't cross the line and the ROCMOD isn't giving any details on those. But the PLAAF did not launch any other 24x Su-30s crossing ops after the 5th. And today was the first day that no Su-30s made the crossing.

So from my perspective, what I see is that they sustained 1 day of 12 turn 12, and then had to reduce operations from that single base.

Again. A lot of other factors may go into why they aren't putting more airframes up but Occam's razor suggests that it's because they needed the the recovery time after a high tempo op.

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Jason_ said:

Occam's razor does not suggest this at all. Occam's razor suggests the reason why the number of sorties is reduced after an exercise ended is because the exercise ended.

In any case, your own example of Su-30s defeats your original argument. How is it that all 24 Su-30 in the ETC were sortied on day one but only 66 total sorties out of a potential 192 airframes were sent for the entire ETC? Does this not indicate that same other airbases are sortieing at much lower rates, and by extension, the ETC would be capable of sorting at a much higher rate if these airbases are also sortieing at max capacity?

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XiDada said:

Single day sortie vs sustained sorties following that single day is the main focus here.

The exercises ran from the 4th to the 7th, but su-30 sorties fell by 50% after a single day (the 5th) and the exercises were extended by a day so if they were capable of sustaining the ops, they would've continued churning out 5 turn 5 or 6 turn 6. But they didn't.

And again: I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. The PLAAF continuing to launch su-30s after a day of 12 turn 12 is already impressive in its own right. But nothing they're doing suggests that they have the capacity to maintain such an aggressive sortie generation rate.

Because ultimately, China has to do more than launch a single wave of airframes for a Taiwan scenario. They need to launch a continuous flow of sorties so that maximum pressure can be applied or they'll lose the initiative.

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