Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

tphuang said:

You know what else they can deliver against Taiwan that's cheap, accurate and a lot harder to intercept? The 370 mm rockets from pch191. Why in the world are people so obsessed about some cheap slow Iranian drones? Against any modern anti drone system, the vast majority of them would get shot down with really cheaply. And with their speed, they simply won't do as damage as a pch191 rocket.

On top of that, these "suicide drones" are in reality just slow low flying missiles. A gj2 can carry many kd missiles that would be lower cost and can be used to fire at any moving target.

People, china has a lot of good stuff. It doesn't need to revert to a Russian Iranian strategy.

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PCH191 is only few hundred km range, not 1000+ km range. They only have 2x bigger warhead. What modern anti drone system does Taiwan/US have? jammers don't work as Shahed 136 doesn't communicate, it has to be a physical shootdown, and they don't have good AA guns. Even stingers don't trade favorably.

FairAndUnbiased said:

suicide drones are a good strike weapon. they are long ranged, accurate, hard to shoot down, and most of all, cheap and expendable. they're basically a cruise missile with a propeller engine rather than a jet one. Imagine how easy and cheap that is.

cheap means you can get WW2 scale of production numbers like 50k, 100k, etc rather than modern production numbers like 1k, 2k. 100k Shahed-136 equivalents with slightly longer range would absolutely devastate certain enemies and destroy nearly their entire regional air force on the ground.

I used to not be a believer but seeing the end results and thinking about the logic, it makes so much sense.

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If they fly in predictable pattern to target, AA guns could easily take them out

FairAndUnbiased said:

PCH191 is only few hundred km range, not 1000+ km range. They only have 2x bigger warhead. What modern anti drone system does Taiwan/US have? jammers don't work as Shahed 136 doesn't communicate, it has to be a physical shootdown, and they don't have good AA guns. Even stingers don't trade favorably.

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It goes a lot faster and has more kinetic energy and is simply a lot harder to intercept. If the Ukrainians can intercept Iranian drone, you can bet that America and Taiwan is able to also.

None of which even addresses the other point that ucavs carry kd missiles can identify targets they want to attack on the fly and drop bombs on them. You simply can't do that suicide drones.

If you don't have full air control, you can have j16s launch ground attack missiles from 300 km out.

Russia is using this strategy because it has nothing better. Why does china need to adopt this strategy?

And if you just want to hit fixed targets from 700 km out, I don't see how slow moving drone can be better option than a subsonic cruise missile.

FairAndUnbiased said:

PCH191 is only few hundred km range, not 1000+ km range. They only have 2x bigger warhead. What modern anti drone system does Taiwan/US have? jammers don't work as Shahed 136 doesn't communicate, it has to be a physical shootdown, and they don't have good AA guns. Even stingers don't trade favorably.

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A war between China and Taiwan would already be over by the time a moped drone made it across the Strait.

ZeEa5KPul said:

A war between China and Taiwan would already be over by the time a moped drone made it across the Strait.

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it could be a very devastating first strike weapon due to its very low flight altitude. See: Apaches during Desert Storm.

tphuang said:

It goes a lot faster and has more kinetic energy and is simply a lot harder to intercept. If the Ukrainians can intercept Iranian drone, you can bet that America and Taiwan is able to also.

None of which even addresses the other point that ucavs carry kd missiles can identify targets they want to attack on the fly and drop bombs on them. You simply can't do that suicide drones.

If you don't have full air control, you can have j16s launch ground attack missiles from 300 km out.

Russia is using this strategy because it has nothing better. Why does china need to adopt this strategy?

And if you just want to hit fixed targets from 700 km out, I don't see how slow moving drone can be better option than a subsonic cruise missile.

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because subsonics are still way more expensive. 1 million for a Tomahawk vs. 20k for a Shahed-136. Let's say that the Tomahawk is overpriced and 2x the real price. Still, 500k vs 20k is huge. The kinetic energy is important for bunker busting, and that is an imporatant role, but the kinetic energy of the missile is not important for hitting open targets like radars, soft buildings, fuel tanks, etc.

I mean if you think the Iranian stuff is shit, China can probably make one much better with 200 km/hr speed instead of 100 km/hr, flying even lower at <20 m, higher payload at 50+ kg, longer range at 1000+ km, with a dedicated motor engine instead of a repurposed motorbike one.

J-16 launching 300 km missiles is still more expensive and should be reserved for harder targets. Operational cost of 1 hour for J-16 can probably buy a drone. The 300 km missile can probably buy 10 drones.

At the end of the day the Ukrainians are trading 1 missile for 1 SH-136 when they're in the middle of a high intensity conflict. China's use case is far different - stealthy first strike to kick open the door without warning for higher end assets. If it takes 50 drones to take out a Ptriot radar so be it, that's still just 1 million.

daifo said:

If they fly in predictable pattern to target, AA guns could easily take them out

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is that the case in Ukraine war?

tphuang said:

It goes a lot faster and has more kinetic energy and is simply a lot harder to intercept. If the Ukrainians can intercept Iranian drone, you can bet that America and Taiwan is able to also.

None of which even addresses the other point that ucavs carry kd missiles can identify targets they want to attack on the fly and drop bombs on them. You simply can't do that suicide drones.

If you don't have full air control, you can have j16s launch ground attack missiles from 300 km out.

Russia is using this strategy because it has nothing better. Why does china need to adopt this strategy?

And if you just want to hit fixed targets from 700 km out, I don't see how slow moving drone can be better option than a subsonic cruise missile.

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It's fine if you don't like the Iranian brand. But what about the Israeli Harpy or Harop, which are basically the same as shahed 136 but faster and more accurate. China has bought the Harpy and could easily copy it.

There's no reason to argue using either missiles or suicide drones. You can use both at the same time to saturate air defences and achieve different aims. Taiwan has a certain amount of manpads. Ideally, you give them a target to expend all their manpads before starting any amphibious landings that would benefit from helicopter support. Bigger missiles can take out more well defended targets or fuel and ammunition depots

Minm said:

It's fine if you don't like the Iranian brand. But what about the Israeli Harpy or Harop, which are basically the same as shahed 136 but faster and more accurate. China has bought the Harpy and could easily copy it.

There's no reason to argue using either missiles or suicide drones. You can use both at the same time to saturate air defences and achieve different aims. Taiwan has a certain amount of manpads. Ideally, you give them a target to expend all their manpads before starting any amphibious landings that would benefit from helicopter support. Bigger missiles can take out more well defended targets or fuel and ammunition depots

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I mean china has in it's arsenal and will likely use drones in wide effect. However, china has such advanced unmanned programs, that it has more options on hand than just cheap, low speed and easy to intercept suicide drones. Even something like harpy would be better since it homes in on emission sources.

Ideally, you are probably going to see a combination of df17s and ground launched cruise missiles against a place like Okinawa initially to achieve air control and sink naval ships followed by stand off missiles from j16s and jh7a. Once that's established, you can just have male ucavs fly over the top all day to take out all the other targets. The munitions they drop will be cheaper and more explosive since the missiles don't need to fly 1000 km to get to target. On top of that, drones will have pe sistent isr and be able to more accurately detect targets and launch them.

Using Russian Iranian unmanned fleet to plan what plaaf attack doesn't make a lot of sense. Chinese civilians using AliExpress can probably pose more danger than those Iranian military at this point.

tphuang said:

And if you just want to hit fixed targets from 700 km out, I don't see how slow moving drone can be better option than a subsonic cruise missile.

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Volume of fire. Cheap drones can be launched anywhere, not dependent on airstrips or ships

tphuang said:

I mean china has in it's arsenal and will likely use drones in wide effect. However, china has such advanced unmanned programs, that it has more options on hand than just cheap, low speed and easy to intercept suicide drones. Even something like harpy would be better since it homes in on emission sources.

Ideally, you are probably going to see a combination of df17s and ground launched cruise missiles against a place like Okinawa initially to achieve air control and sink naval ships followed by stand off missiles from j16s and jh7a. Once that's established, you can just have male ucavs fly over the top all day to take out all the other targets. The munitions they drop will be cheaper and more explosive since the missiles don't need to fly 1000 km to get to target. On top of that, drones will have pe sistent isr and be able to more accurately detect targets and launch them.

Using Russian Iranian unmanned fleet to plan what plaaf attack doesn't make a lot of sense. Chinese civilians using AliExpress can probably pose more danger than those Iranian military at this point.

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the Shahed-136 types can be given to PLAGF as ground launched CAS and artillery, and let PLAAF focus on core missions of air to air and antiship.