Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

vincent said:

How long Russian forces took to pacify Mariupol? Majority of the living area in Taiwan have been urbanized. To think ROC forces will surrender quickly is pure hubris.

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Urbanised doesn’t equal Mariupol. Not event Mariupol is what you seem think it is, just Azovstal steelworks that was designed and built like a fortress. The rest of Mariupol fell relatively quickly.

The PLA has always known urban combat was very likely in a Taiwan scenario, and one where it is likely the opfor would hold civilians trapped in the cities as human shields to limit the PLA’s firepower dominance.

This is why China has been so interested in unmanned ground combat vehicles and drones. But even those are really only for contingencies. The main means for China to achieve quick, decisive victory is in being supremely aggressive and unrelenting in its initial bombardments and subsequent follow-up strikes.

After the initial alpha strike has smashed open the door, swarms of drones and strike aircraft will keep that door open for the rest of the war where the PLA will enjoy air dominance and destroy the RoCA in their bases and on the road.

People only fight on where there is hope, the Russians screwed up by being massively underwhelming and gifted Ukraine a lot of cheap early victories that gave them enough hope to keep on fighting. The Iraqi military melted away because the brutality of American overwhelming firepower left them no hope to keep fighting. It’s only later, once the US occupation forces started taking sustained attrition from attacks that hope grew and so did the insurgency.

The best thing China can learn from the Ukraine war is that there is no such thing as brotherly war. The enemy will not be grateful and surrender if you pull your punches. You need to show no mercy and hit them with your total strength and be unrelenting ruthless in slaughtering them in as great a number as possible and as quickly as possible until they surrender or are all utterly destroyed.

So long as China doesn’t make that conceptual mistake, with the firepower they have, the intelligence they have, and the small size of the AO, there will be precious few RoCA soldiers left alive to reach the cities from their barracks. If they want to fight to the bitter end, well that’s fine as well. The PLA doesn’t need to hold every apartment and basement to hold Taiwan. All they need to do is get SAM and AShM batteries established on the western coast of Taiwan and it’s game over as far as outside intervention is concerned. Everything else is just mop up.

The West and Taiwan have got themselves thinking China wants to take control of Taiwan's technology meaning China would have be surgical in their attacks. I say bomb the hell out of all their economic and technological infrastructure. The situation regarding Taiwan now is going to be the same after. You only think China sees Taiwan's technology as so precious to preserve if "mainland" Chinese believe they're genetically inferior to Taiwanese and Westerners as they believe themselves hence projecting it on Chinese goals. It's like how some Americans believe foreigners want to invade the US for their white women. Destroy it all and the other side loses it too. Yeah they can setup shop in the West but again as I've been saying in this forum everything they do cost more. Take out Taiwan's technological and economic infrastructure and it immediately eliminates Taiwan's worth to the West. It's the simple part in a war that can be achieved quickly.

Another brainwashing tactic is believing every technology the US has uses the best chips from their toasters to supercomputers. The US M88 nuclear warhead was designed on an Apple IIE. How many people are going to argue that the M88 warhead would now be obsolete and useless compared to any nuke designed with a supercomputer today? That goes with imbeciles who think China has to match the US at every level in order to have a chance at beating the US. Then why is the US afraid of asymmetrical warfare?

AssassinsMace said:

The West and Taiwan have got themselves thinking China wants to take control of Taiwan's technology meaning China would have be surgical in their attacks. I say bomb the hell out of all their economic and technological infrastructure. The situation regarding Taiwan now is going to be the same after. You only think China sees Taiwan's technology as so precious to preserve if "mainland" Chinese believe they're genetically inferior to Taiwanese and Westerners as they believe themselves hence projecting it on Chinese goals. It's like how some Americans believe foreigners want to invade the US for their white women. Destroy it all and the other side loses it too. Yeah they can setup shop in the West but again as I've been saying in this forum everything they do cost more. Take out Taiwan's technological and economic infrastructure and it immediately eliminates Taiwan's worth to the West. It's the simple part in a war that can be achieved quickly.

Another brainwashing tactic is believing every technology the US has uses the best chips from their toasters to supercomputers. The US M88 nuclear warhead was designed on an Apple IIE. How many people are going to argue that the M88 warhead would now be obsolete and useless compared to any nuke designed with a supercomputer today? That goes with imbeciles who think China has to match the US at every level in order to have a chance at beating the US. Then why is the US afraid of asymmetrical warfare?

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Taiwan's technology is literally the exact same as China's own. There is no difference, the stuff is from the same people, usually working on both sides of the straits, it is manufactured and designed in China. If it is necessary to reduce every major building on the island to rubble in order to drag out the rebels, China doesn't need to learn anything new to remake all the buildings from scratch. They'd likely be broadly better and safer even, since the mainland actually improved since the 90s but KMT remained in stasis.

Biscuits said:

Taiwan's technology is literally the exact same as China's own. There is no difference, the stuff is from the same people, usually working on both sides of the straits, it is manufactured and designed in China. If it is necessary to reduce every major building on the island to rubble in order to drag out the rebels, China doesn't need to learn anything new to remake all the buildings from scratch. They'd likely be broadly better and safer even, since the mainland actually improved since the 90s but KMT remained in stasis.

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It may not be necessary to reduce major infrastructure into rubble but it will have to be eventually ripped out. The stuff that Taiwan is using is not safe to leave alone for the mid to long term. Can’t guarantee that there isn’t a built in back door where the West could exploit for their own gain.

Biscuits said:

Taiwan's technology is literally the exact same as China's own. There is no difference, the stuff is from the same people, usually working on both sides of the straits, it is manufactured and designed in China. If it is necessary to reduce every major building on the island to rubble in order to drag out the rebels, China doesn't need to learn anything new to remake all the buildings from scratch. They'd likely be broadly better and safer even, since the mainland actually improved since the 90s but KMT remained in stasis.

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Telecom equipment is gonna have to be completely replaced after reunification anyways. Functionality is probably 70% US backdoors vs 30% actual telecom. Extrapolate to other critical industries and infrastructure.

AssassinsMace said:

The West and Taiwan have got themselves thinking China wants to take control of Taiwan's technology meaning China would have be . Destroy it all and the other side loses it too. Yeah they can setup shop in the West but again as I've been saying in this forum everything they do cost more. Take out Taiwan's technological and economic infrastructure and it immediately eliminates Taiwan's worth to the West. It's the simple part in a war that can be achieved quickly.

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Remember that the US has now sanctioned the latest chips (which are made in Taiwan) from being sold to China, whilst they are available to the US

So if those semiconductors are no longer available because the Taiwanese fabs have been destroyed, this actually favours China

plawolf said:

People only fight on where there is hope, the Russians screwed up by being massively underwhelming and gifted Ukraine a lot of cheap early victories that gave them enough hope to keep on fighting. The Iraqi military melted away because the brutality of American overwhelming firepower left them no hope to keep fighting. It’s only later, once the US occupation forces started taking sustained attrition from attacks that hope grew and so did the insurgency.

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Yes, the key is to break Taiwan's will to resist, but does not necessarily mean killing as much as possible.

If there's no electricity, food, water, fuel or communications, and there is an effective blockade - the eventual outcome is obvious.

And it's better for this to happen as fast as possible in an example of shock and awe, rather than be drawn out.

Plus China should offer generous terms to encourage a quicker end to a war

plawolf said:

The best thing China can learn from the Ukraine war is that there is no such thing as brotherly war. The enemy will not be grateful and surrender if you pull your punches. You need to show no mercy and hit them with your total strength and be unrelenting ruthless in slaughtering them in as great a number as possible and as quickly as possible until they surrender or are all utterly destroyed.

So long as China doesn’t make that conceptual mistake, with the firepower they have, the intelligence they have, and the small size of the AO, there will be precious few RoCA soldiers left alive to reach the cities from their barracks. If they want to fight to the bitter end, well that’s fine as well. The PLA doesn’t need to hold every apartment and basement to hold Taiwan. All they need to do is get SAM and AShM batteries established on the western coast of Taiwan and it’s game over as far as outside intervention is concerned. Everything else is just mop up.

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vincent said:

Sigh....
Foreign intervention is a given. The question is if PLA wants to fight American and its vassals' force without having to divert valuable ships/planes to supply ground forces on the island.

Please read my previous post and patchwork's reply

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Coup de Grace, mostly. It's actually surprisingly hard to get a starving, dehydrated island without communication to the outside world, without power, and with their previous leadership probably dead from POI strikes during the air campaign to surrender. Not because they don't want it to be...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

We keep talking about this. You make compelling point on why America getting involved is a bad idea. But domestic politics and think tanks would inevitably push America very close to this bad idea. We keep seeing people like Mark esper going to Taiwan and asking how many taiwanese are willing...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

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The patchwork scenario doesn't get any more convincing even if it gets reposted all the time

You can't bet the future of China on the chance that the Americans are going to do nothing for thirty days while Taiwan gets starved into submission. What if Japan and the US prepare together for a Taiwanese declaration of independence and are ready to defend the island from day one?

There will be no Chinese surprise attack. If there will be a war, it will be an attempt of a Taiwanese surprise declaration of independence. The Americans will prepare in advance and their navy will be sailing towards China on their "independence day". What do you do then?

Minm said:

The patchwork scenario doesn't get any more convincing even if it gets reposted all the time

You can't bet the future of China on the chance that the Americans are going to do nothing for thirty days while Taiwan gets starved into submission. What if Japan and the US prepare together for a Taiwanese declaration of independence and are ready to defend the island from day one?

There will be no Chinese surprise attack. If there will be a war, it will be an attempt of a Taiwanese surprise declaration of independence. The Americans will prepare in advance and their navy will be sailing towards China on their "independence day". What do you do then?

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You'll have to explain how exactly the Japanese and US manage to prepare for Taiwanese independence without anyone finding out. Then you'll have to explain how the US navy movements are going to be unnoticed by the PLA in the era of satellite tracking etc.

Direct route from US mainland to Taiwan will take around 30 days. If they're taking off from Pacific ocean bases or Japan, China will see them mustering there beforehand. In order for the US/Japan to support Taiwanese independence, they'll need to move a massive amount of logistic ships, planes, crew, etc. to Pacific bases which is impossible to not notice. The tyranny of distances works against the US/Japan intervention.

Taiwan will be cut off and China will enforce that blockade against foreign intervention. That was the scenario Patch was talking about. Other actors will not be able to help Taiwan, not that they won't try to.

Don't know why you guys keep arguing about this. The PLA is making preparation for all possible scenarios. Landing capacity is already prepared, whether or not it will be used will depend on circumstances.

It's silly to declare things will happen according to certain imagined ways.