Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

infinity_wor;d said:

The point is a river of bodies does not work in the Ukraine case. While, actually, in any case, if there is no other work to improve their status. Bodies can do nothing. Only well-organized people, not dead people, can make things done.

Is it possible for Ukraine to restore its military industry to sustain its war? Is there any western country focusing its industry productivity on military equipment while supporting Ukraine? Do you know that the USA is calling for help on military production because they do not have enough artillery shells to supply Ukraine Amy? So do tanks and other armored vehicles? No need to say that the Ukraine Army is dealing considerblely fewer casualties to Russians in nearly every battle, which shows that even with the help of Nato, they still can't beat Russia at its weakest point, as you say, in the current state.

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All I'm saying is that it makes sense for Ukraine to maximize its territorial gain before the inevitable Russian counterattack. More land = more time. If Russia plans to repeat the same tactic of slowly pushing upwards, regaining Kherson will allow Ukraine to hold off Russia for a few extra months and even if they do re-capture Kherson in the counterattack, it will be a Major Pro-Russian city left in ruins. Throwing lives away is only negative if you do not achieve your strategic objectives, which with the recapture of Kherson, will be a major strategic goal in cutting off the water supply of Crimea.

Ukraine can also sustain this level of war, even if you take the maximalist level of Ukrainian losses, they can mobilize millions of men, what's a few hundred thousand in the grand scheme of things? We're decidedly still NOT at WW2 levels of mobilization for either side.

tankphobia said:

All I'm saying is that it makes sense for Ukraine to maximize its territorial gain before the inevitable Russian counterattack. More land = more time. If Russia plans to repeat the same tactic of slowly pushing upwards, regaining Kherson will allow Ukraine to hold off Russia for a few extra months and even if they do re-capture Kherson in the counterattack, it will be a Major Pro-Russian city left in ruins. Throwing lives away is only negative if you do not achieve your strategic objectives, which with the recapture of Kherson, will be a major strategic goal in cutting off the water supply of Crimea.

Ukraine can also sustain this level of war, even if you take the maximalist level of Ukrainian losses, they can mobilize millions of men, what's a few hundred thousand in the grand scheme of things? We're decidedly still NOT at WW2 levels of mobilization for either side.

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The question is the loss of men can't be counted by simple numbers.

What you really lost in those casualty numbers are:
1. Experienced officers and soldiers
2. Battlefield experience, for those who can summarize knowledge from the battlefield is already dead.
3. Equipment, including ammunition, artillery, and all kinds of vehicles.

All these things should be precious resources for the Ukraine government, especially when they are on the weaker side of the war, for they are uneasy to restore. Well-trained soldiers and officers need months of training at least. Battlefield experience can be restored, but at the price of more wasted lives. Equipment is running out, which means Ukraine is going to fight with their rifles only. But they don't care about these things and just waste their people's lives in this war.

They may capture some lands, but they did not make the Russian Army suffer enough losses. While Russians quickly train and equip their newly mobilized forces, Ukraine is wasting these resources quickly. Strategic objectives can be wrong when you don't understand what you need to fight a war. So many important cities are given away to Germany during WW2, does that means the Soviet had been dead dozens of time? Millions of men with only what they had in their hands can't fight against a relatively small army equipped with tanks, artillery, drones, and other equipment.

Does anyone know the range of the Chinese version? If the Iranian version can have up to a range of 2500 km, China can just launch these on Taiwan by the thousands at a time overwhelming its defenses.

AssassinsMace said:

Does anyone know the range of the Chinese version? If the Iranian version can have up to a range of 2500 km, China can just launch these on Taiwan by the thousands at a time overwhelming its defenses.

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Not just the Taiwan Island, the American bases on the Ryukyu Islands.

AssassinsMace said:

Does anyone know the range of the Chinese version? If the Iranian version can have up to a range of 2500 km, China can just launch these on Taiwan by the thousands at a time overwhelming its defenses.

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Why would China want to use these low tech drones when it has so many better drones?

tphuang said:

Why would China want to use these low tech drones when it has so many better drones?

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Cheap. Washing machine mopeds, coming soon to a certain separatist region near you.

AssassinsMace said:

Does anyone know the range of the Chinese version? If the Iranian version can have up to a range of 2500 km, China can just launch these on Taiwan by the thousands at a time overwhelming its defenses.

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China has ASN-301 which would be the loitering munition that looks the most similar outwardly. But it's range is sub-300km. The PLA has a lot more other loitering munition varieties like TL-30, FH-901s, etc. off the top of my head.

The ROCAF actually also has an anti-radiation loitering munition similar to the ASN-301, both of which are based on the Israeli IAI Harpy. They call it Chien Tsiang (剑翔无人机). Similar to the ASN-301's method, Taiwan's is launched from the truck below. ASN-301 has man in the loop option though whereas Chien Tsiang doesn't, so Chien Tsiang is similar to Shahed-136 in that sense. I think Chien Tsiang is only strictly for radiation emitting targets (ie. Radars) whereas ASN-301 can turn off it's radiation seeker to hit other stuff.



Chien Tsiang has a range of 300-500km. ROCAF actually considers this drone their main anti-radiation weapon since their AGM-88s are old and limited in number. With the infamous performance of a relatively slow and simple drone like Shahed-136s in Ukraine, it's a no-brainer that in the near future they upgrade Chien Tsiang, or if they receive other more potent loitering munition types from the US.

A lesson for China is to be constantly monitoring the drone capabilities in Taiwan and other rival nations, and develop the necessary countermeasures. Chien Tsiang seems very easy to mass-produce like Shahed-136 and have potential to swarm the AD of PLAN ships and landbased systems.

Fortunately China has a lot of counters like lasers and gun-based solutions, decoys, EW. I was reading about this 76mm anti-aircraft gun, it can fire fragmentation shells in a funnel shape with a timed fuse calculated from the fire control radar to take out drones. It'll be perfect against slow drones like Shahed-136. But again loitering munitions are going to keep proliferating and keep getting better.

AssassinsMace said:

Does anyone know the range of the Chinese version? If the Iranian version can have up to a range of 2500 km, China can just launch these on Taiwan by the thousands at a time overwhelming its defenses.

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The 2500km range claim I find dubious. Reason being if you were the designer and a lot of time people use those drone to hit targets say, 1000km or less away then you would design it so it has a smaller fuel compartment and carry a bigger warhead instead.

The Chinese version is called

If instead of using it to loiter over an area for anti-radar work as it's intended use and you make it fly in a stranght line you'll get about 900km range out of these, so that's plenty of range for use against Taiwan if you get rid of the seeker and just use a beidou and inertial guidance module.

But instead of thinking small, consider the J-6 UAV:

PLAAF have had a dedicated unit building them for a long time now. 1400km range, carries 2 tons of explosive (both iron bomb on rack plus empty space in the plane filled) and is high subsonic (no longer supersonic due to all the bombs hanging off it). Cheap like a small UAV too since the air frame is sunk cost and one just need to pay for the conversion kit.

These J-6 UAV are much more threatening weapons than Harpy clones, better for soaking up SAMs too since they are indistinguishable from manned fighters.

Temstar said:

The 2500km range claim I find dubious. Reason being if you were the designer and a lot of time people use those drone to hit targets say, 1000km or less away then you would design it so it has a smaller fuel compartment and carry a bigger warhead instead.

The Chinese version is called

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View attachment 99990
If instead of using it to loiter over an area for anti-radar work as it's intended use and you make it fly in a stranght line you'll get about 900km range out of these, so that's plenty of range for use against Taiwan if you get rid of the seeker and just use a beidou and inertial guidance module.

But instead of thinking small, consider the J-6 UAV:
View attachment 99991
PLAAF have had a dedicated unit building them for a long time now. 1400km range, carries 2 tons of explosive (both iron bomb on rack plus empty space in the plane filled) and is high subsonic (no longer supersonic due to all the bombs hanging off it). Cheap like a small UAV too since the air frame is sunk cost and one just need to pay for the conversion kit.

These J-6 UAV are much more threatening weapons than Harpy clones, better for soaking up SAMs too since they are indistinguishable from manned fighters.

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I don't think the range is unrealistic. A small amount of fuel can translate to a big increase in range. Playing around with fuel load and payload can give multiple range options. MALE drones have endurance measured in days rather than km.

Instead of suicide drones, I'd like to see the Russians experiment with reusable drones. Make one a similar size to the Shahed except it's warhead can be dropped and the drone return to base. Make enough of them that a single site can be hit with hundreds of drones. It depends how survivable the drones are. Maybe the Russians have done their calculations and think kamikazi drones are more effective, but I doubt it.

Either way this is a rare opportunity to test out drone warfare on a live real world target.

Abominable said:

I don't think the range is unrealistic. A small amount of fuel can translate to a big increase in range. Playing around with fuel load and payload can give multiple range options. MALE drones have endurance measured in days rather than km.

Instead of suicide drones, I'd like to see the Russians experiment with reusable drones. Make one a similar size to the Shahed except it's warhead can be dropped and the drone return to base. Make enough of them that a single site can be hit with hundreds of drones. It depends how survivable the drones are. Maybe the Russians have done their calculations and think kamikazi drones are more effective, but I doubt it.

Either way this is a rare opportunity to test out drone warfare on a live real world target.

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bombsights are expensive due to the precision optics involved as well as flight control software to move the plane in such a way that the bombsights actually work. A suicide drone just has to fly into something and can use cheap satellite navigation chips and commercial cameras.