Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

siegecrossbow said:

I wonder Russia did not use so many long range guided MLRS in the initial assault.

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This reminds me, one very important question is how effective the sensor-fuzed submunitions for MLRS were in this conflict. I bet all the world's militaries are rushing to find this data. This was a key sticking point for the US after Iraq too. Because the USAF may have used their clusters ineffectively (targeting armor which was not in the open.) The critics of this technology argued that these submunitions weren't effective. But it could've just been improper use. This conflict just provided another battle test of this technology.

By the way, there were heavy MLRS barrages in the opening phase, but (at least according to the very unreliable twitter footage) did seem to drop off in frequency. I'm assuming (for now) the Ukrainian formations would have dispersed after the first day because of the devastating effect of those opening salvos. But we really need data on the first question (of effectiveness) to know what happened.

I think one thing we will all agree on is the 5G warfare concept is massively overrated. A lot of American think tanks, strategists and generals got very high on their own supply on that one.

It didn't work in Galwan, Afghanistan, Karabakh and likely here. Manipulating social media so you win twitter wars and lots of reddit upvotes isn't suddenly going to change what's happening on the battlefield.

An authoritarian country can manipulate media fine but in western democracies people will have a lot of questions why every media outlet, social media platform was reporting they were winning right up until the day before they unconditionally surrendered.

The only time it was "successful" was with ISIS's initial gains. But I think that was because they winning on the ground against a corrupt, low morale enemy. Young people nowadays post everything on social media and if they are winning it organically grows. A bunch of American boomer generals saw the ISIS propaganda trending and assumed that was why they won.

5G warfare? More like Baghdad Bob warfare.

Update on Russia's Night Ops:

"Russian forces took control of the railway station and the port in Kherson overnight." (Source: The Guardian's map notes) Combine this with the fact that they've captured territory faster than the US in Iraq, it doesn't look like they're lacking activity at night at all.

But here's the problem for the PLA vs Taiwan scenario:

Both the PLA and Taiwan have NV capability. This raises a whole new set of problems for the infantry especially. You need IR illuminators with NVGs to aim properly. But if both sides can see each others illuminators, that changes everything... That's a whole new scenario that has never happened yet in any modern war. You basically need to remove the IR illuminator dependency if your enemy also has NVGs, otherwise you'll be more visible during the night than the day.

Mohsin77 said:

Update on Russia's Night Ops:

"Russian forces took control of the railway station and the port in Kherson overnight." (Source: The Guardian's map notes) Combine this with the fact that they've captured territory faster than the US in Iraq, it doesn't look like they're lacking activity at night at all.

But here's the problem for the PLA vs Taiwan scenario:

Both the PLA and Taiwan have NV capability. This raises a whole new set of problems for the infantry especially. You need IR illuminators with NVGs to aim properly. But if both sides can see each others illuminators, that changes everything... That's a whole new scenario that has never happened yet in any modern war. You basically need to remove the IR illuminator dependency if your enemy also has NVGs, otherwise you'll be more visible during the night than the day.

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by the time it hits ground warfare, the only solution is artillery. There's too much risk in urban warfare otherwise. The first round will be leaflets for civilians and to ask for a surrender by walking out a given corridor. The next round will not be.

One thing we see in Ukraine is how easy a convoy can be ambushed by foot soldiers, attack helicopters or rocket artillery. This need to be counter measured.

Taiwan is an island with mountaineous terrain. When I was in central Taiwan 3 years ago, the lack of flat land amazed me. If the roads in the hills are destroyed, the only way to travel would be by helicopters. And if a convoy is ambushed, its chances of getting destroyed is very large.

The type of counter measure I expected would be depolying scouts in every detachment, not just a convoy. Drones, scout helicopter (Z19), using satellites and Y9GX aircraft with ground mapping radar, LIDAR mapping etc. Recon 24 hours before deployment, and in real time.

Mohsin77 said:

Update on Russia's Night Ops:

"Russian forces took control of the railway station and the port in Kherson overnight." (Source: The Guardian's map notes) Combine this with the fact that they've captured territory faster than the US in Iraq, it doesn't look like they're lacking activity at night at all.

But here's the problem for the PLA vs Taiwan scenario:

Both the PLA and Taiwan have NV capability. This raises a whole new set of problems for the infantry especially. You need IR illuminators with NVGs to aim properly. But if both sides can see each others illuminators, that changes everything... That's a whole new scenario that has never happened yet in any modern war. You basically need to remove the IR illuminator dependency if your enemy also has NVGs, otherwise you'll be more visible during the night than the day.

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More advanced systems such as the combine both night vision and thermal imaging into a single system enabling maximal use of ambient heat and light sources for target acquisition, and reducing energy consumption relative to active illuminators. The PLA definitely would have such under development for drone use, and infantry use isn't much of a stretch.

lcloo said:

One thing we see in Ukraine is how easy a convoy can be ambushed by foot soldiers, attack helicopters or rocket artillery. This need to be counter measured.

Taiwan is an island with mountaineous terrain. When I was in central Taiwan 3 years ago, the lack of flat land amazed me. If the roads in the hills are destroyed, the only way to travel would be by helicopters. And if a convoy is ambushed, its chances of getting destroyed is very large.

The type of counter measure I expected would be depolying scouts in every detachment, not just a convoy. Drones, scout helicopter (Z19), using satellites and Y9GX aircraft with ground mapping radar, LIDAR mapping etc. Recon 24 hours before deployment, and in real time.

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it also means that enemy forces hiding in the mountains are vulnerable to being cut off. Bomb the bridges and trails, then starve them out.

In any conflict over Taiwan that Involves the US, you can definitely expect the US to deploy a shit ton of mines in the SCS.

Looking at the refugees trying to get out of Ukraine via train or via car, taiwan is an island so chances are we'll be seeing more of a Kabul 2021 airport scenario than anything else. For humane reasons, China after capturing the airports of major cities should allow an air bridge for refugees fleeing taiwan, however i can see this being abused by economic migrants looking to flee to the West, not to mention allowing criminals and fugitives to escape Chinese justice.

If the US thought it could beat China in a war, they would have started one already. They wouldn't be waiting for China to make the first move on Taiwan.

Look at the media ops they run against China. It's the exact same crap as the stuff they fling against Russia.

Turns out, the US had no intention of fighting Russia, and the Ukrainians are SOL.