Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

FairAndUnbiased said:

GPS signals are not a location information transmission, GPS signals are not tight beams, and a typical GPS receiver is not a directional antenna.

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Yes, but I'm not referring to a typical civilian grade GPS receiver

I do understand that antenna are omnidirectional
But once you have a GPS system with multiple antenna (which is not a civilian-grade thing) you can get directional information because those antenna can triangulate as well

plawolf said:

Civilians will not easily turn over their phones, and in east Asia it’s common for people to carry multiple phones. Having to search civilians one at a time for phones is just stupid. But developing something that can zap phones en mass will also likely giving the civilians zapped and soldiers doing the zapping cancer, if not more unpleasant and immediate adverse reactions since our soft human bodies tend to be a lot less robust than phones.

The easiest and most effective way to take phones out of the equation is to simply take down the civilian cell networks and power. No cell signal means phones are now just really overpriced digital cameras, and without power, soon they are just ridiculously overpriced paperweights.

That’s how you effectively deal with phones en mass.

If civilian cell networks and power are part of day one strike targets, there will be precious few mobile phones to need to worry about by the time you have boots on the ground.

Not taking down the power and comms networks in Ukraine on day one has to go down in history as one of the silliest strategic blunders in modern warfare.

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Below are the numbers I ended up with previously on Taiwan.
With 20K mobile phone masts, it would be easier to take out the 600-odd electricity substations instead.
Unless of course, you do have 20K spare JDAMs, SDBs, Shaheeds to spare

I agree not taking down the power networks in Ukraine on Day 1 was a huge strategic blunder on the part of the Russians
But an even bigger one was actually launching and continuing with a full-scale invasion. Russia just isn't big enough and Ukraine can easily be resupplied

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a) 3 oil refineries
b) approx 20 fuel distribution terminals
c) a guestimate of 5000 individual Fuel Distribution Tanks in various fuel depots/terminals
d) 2494 petrol stations

e) approx 20,000 mobile telephone masts
f) approx 1500 telephone (Broadband) exchanges

g) 45 major electricity power stations
h) At the next level, 598 electricity substations

AndrewS said:

Yes, but I'm not referring to a typical civilian grade GPS receiver

I do understand that antenna are omnidirectional
But once you have a GPS system with multiple antenna (which is not a civilian-grade thing) you can get directional information because those antenna can triangulate as well

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generally for direction finding you need widely spaced (different angles, so for GPS, not a few meters apart but hundreds km apart) receivers, phase information (i.e. a phased array transceiver), or mechanically motorized directional antenna. If your discrete antenna are just a few meters apart and do not have the high end capabilities of a phased array, then it doesn't work.



Of this, only a phased array is compatible with the requirements of GPS direction finding; this will have similar cost, power and cooling requirements as other phased arrays i.e. radars and cell phone towers.

AndrewS said:

Below are the numbers I ended up with previously on Taiwan.
With 20K mobile phone masts, it would be easier to take out the 600-odd electricity substations instead.
Unless of course, you do have 20K spare JDAMs, SDBs, Shaheeds to spare

I agree not taking down the power networks in Ukraine on Day 1 was a huge strategic blunder on the part of the Russians
But an even bigger one was actually launching and continuing with a full-scale invasion. Russia just isn't big enough and Ukraine can easily be resupplied

---

a) 3 oil refineries
b) approx 20 fuel distribution terminals
c) a guestimate of 5000 individual Fuel Distribution Tanks in various fuel depots/terminals
d) 2494 petrol stations

e) approx 20,000 mobile telephone masts
f) approx 1500 telephone (Broadband) exchanges

g) 45 major electricity power stations
h) At the next level, 598 electricity substations

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Power and civilian comms networks would be much more effectively taken out via cyber or EW means. Cell towers especially would be very venerable to destructive EW assault.

Even if that was no effective, trying to hard kill cell towers would be both incredibly inefficient and ineffective, rather control and processing centres would be more more effective hard kill targets. The cell towers themselves hold little value to need to hit with missiles since they would be useless without mains power in any case.

AndrewS said:

With multiple receiving antennae, you should always be able to deconstruct the direction and strength of any individual signals.

You can't change time difference that occurs when incoming signals reach the different an antennae.

On constructive/deconstructive interference of signals, think back to high school physics classes showing the pattern of constructive/destructive waves caused by light. Unless your jammer is directly between the GPS receiver and original source (a satellite), you can't generate the jamming signals to fool all of the GPS receivers.

Also consider the line of sight required to jam a low-flying missile.

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Well the wave interference is gonna mess up the wave form regardless how many antennas the missile has.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Seize their phone, throw on ground, stomp on it. Easy.

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I hope it is that easy to destroy a phone. And whether it is easy or not, destroying phones needs to be incorporated into basic training.

Without training on phones a group of soldiers encountering civilians after weeks of getting hit by artillery might resort to outright killing of civilians they encounter.

Five Russian soldiers arrive and try to break into the businesses – firing at locks and smashing glass.

As the owner approaches with hands raised, they stop him and appear to search him for weapons. Plyats then arrives and is also frisked. There seems to be some conversation before the soldiers turn away and the two civilians begin to walk back to their guard post.

Then at least two of the soldiers come up behind the men and open fire. Both civilians drop to the ground.

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For context, many civilians were part of the action by using phones to send locations.

At great risk to themselves, the villagers shared tips and Google map locations with local authorities, turning the highway that runs between the Russian border and Kyiv into a big logistical defeat for Moscow. The intelligence they gleaned helped bring Ukrainian fire on numerous Russian units.

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Why not take out the mobile network? I have no technical knowledge here. However, in thinking of war scenarios, stick to conservative assumptions. I don't think taking out the mobile network should be taken for granted. It could turn out knocking mobile networks is harder than expected. The story below is from December. Russia is still struggling to take down the Ukrainian mobile network. We have to bear in mind the sheer number of targets that must be prioritized and the limited number of munitions.

The engineers, who typically go unseen and unsung in peacetime, often work around the clock to maintain or restore phone service, sometimes braving minefields to do so. After Russian strikes took out the electricity that cellphone towers usually run on, they revved up generators to keep the towers on.

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beijing_bandar said:

I hope it is that easy to destroy a phone. And whether it is easy or not, destroying phones needs to be incorporated into basic training.

Without training on phones a group of soldiers encountering civilians after weeks of getting hit by artillery might resort to outright killing of civilians they encounter.

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For context, many civilians were part of the action by using phones to send locations.

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Why not take out the mobile network? I have no technical knowledge here. However, in thinking of war scenarios, stick to conservative assumptions. I don't think taking out the mobile network should be taken for granted. It could turn out knocking mobile networks is harder than expected. The story below is from December. Russia is still struggling to take down the Ukrainian mobile network. We have to bear in mind the sheer number of targets that must be prioritized and the limited number of munitions.

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Why are you so strangely obsessed with this scenario?
Do you see how many phone cases are sold on Amazon and Aliexpress?
It definitely is that easy to destroy the phone, at least destroyed easily enough to not turn it on.
Smash it with a gun, smash it on concrete by throwing it and then stomping it. They are not super durable.
Any soldier prior to deployment will be given localized instruction. This is going to be related to Rules of Engagement, local customs/language, etc. If phones are an issue, they will be instructed to seize them at checkpoints or methods of destruction, etc.

The network can be attacked in numerous ways.
1. Electronic warfare - That is active interference with the signal
2. Cyber warfare - That is attacking the network, either re-routing traffic, denial of service by overloading servers, etc.
3. Physical attack - Destroying the infrastructure, cell towers, hubs, could include electricity

Russia did not fully prepare for the conflict Ukraine. For China, the planning for Taiwan has been going on since 1949. If PLA is in a position to be exposed by cell phone intelligence, then they have already landed and taken positions inside the city. At that point, the war would be on the way to being concluded.

vincent said:

Well the wave interference is gonna mess up the wave form regardless how many antennas the missile has.

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Yes, the wave forms will be messed up for each antenna.

But given the timing differences for that the signals reach each antenna, you can work out what all the original signal directions with some processing.

AndrewS said:

Yes, the wave forms will be messed up for each antenna.

But given the timing differences for that the signals reach each antenna, you can work out what all the original signal directions with some processing.

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Regardless the number of antennas or the ability to determine the directions of the source signals, the signals all the antennas received are distorted.

supersnoop said:

Why are you so strangely obsessed with this scenario?

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I am interested in the information and psychology aspects of warfare. It is in no way odd to pay a lot of attention to the scenario. A major factor in the challenges faced by Russia is the extent to which Americans and Europeans are galvanized to help defeat them because of stories and media of atrocities.

I've brought up the scenario a few times in the thread because I believe the responses are not good, for example too reliant on comfortable assumptions.