If Patch is still around in this forum, you would have made him laugh non-stop for the rest of the day (and night) with this post of yours.
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
- Thread starter tphuang
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China will find out before it happens, but will it be early enough? Is that not an extremely risky bet? What if China finds out too late to react forcefully before American soldiers arrive on Taiwan?
The whole point of a quick invasion is to avoid the economic damage of a major war with the US. China may win such a war, but I'm unconvinced that recovering Taiwan is worth large scale destruction of Chinese coastal cities. So if your goal is to take Taiwan without a war with the US, you need to be very fast.
We have to think of a realistic scenario in which the enemy might initiate a war. It's pretty clear that China seems happy with the status quo in which Taiwanese sovereignty becomes less credible every year. So there won't be a Chinese surprise attack, unless a declaration of independence is imminent. One possibility is that in the 2024 presidential election a radical pro independence wins. Both China and the US would have been preparing their forces in anticipation of the result. Finally, the separatist president coordinates with the US and plans to declare independence when the US navy is only one to two weeks away, while they're officially on their way to a large scale exercise in Japan. China can't attack before a declaration of independence for political reasons because there would be much less acceptance from other countries.
The enemy isn't stupid, they know they're on an island. Obviously they won't declare independence if American troops aren't ready to rescue them and then just sit around for 30 days in a blockade and then surrender. They know that if they want to do something that provokes a Chinese attack, they'll have to get American permission and support first. They will be as prepared as possible and China will only have a few days before major reinforcements from the US are flown in. China will have to start the invasion of the main island before thousands of American troops have arrived there. That would force the US to choose whether to intervene in an ongoing war. Just as in Ukraine, they would probably refuse to intervene directly. But if they're already there, China would have to make the difficult decision to go to war with the US.
The 2014 conquest of Crimea made it very clear that a very quick war doesn't cause much of a reaction. So if China knows a declaration of independence is imminent, Taipei must be liberated within a week or two. The only scenario in which the 30 day blockade could work if Tsai abruptly decides to declare independence tomorrow with no plan. The enemy isn't usually that stupid
Think about it.
If there is even 24hours notice of Taiwan and US planning an independence declaration, you will literally have every single country in the world screaming at them to stop. That includes all of America's allies, who don't particularly want a global economic depression to start. You will also have domestic elements in the USA and Taiwan who will be screaming as well.
The reason for a blockade only have been discussed to death before. You made the same arguments against it before and they were shot down by lots of folks
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
What if the US holds back during the bombing, and only attacks during the invasion phase? Keep bombing.
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I know and I'll keep pointing out the fatal flaws in this theory. The thirty day blockade is one possible scenario, but surely there are others in which American intervention is avoided which are worth considering?
I don't understand why you think that or why you think patchwork's writing is convincing. But I can see many people here believe it
I think Patch has been pretty clear that the current force posture heavily favors PLA and the peak of PLA advantage will be around 2025. So given that there are elections in 2024 in both Taiwan and America, it's probably a good thing that PLA would be ready for a conflict if things go really haywire. Or the very least, US military knows that a conflict will be disastrous and tell the politicians to back off. We've also discussed that the think tank times are normally several years behind the curve, so their influence over politicians is a huge disaster to world peace.
The question is what happens after 2025 that changes things. The most obvious ticket items that the deep state is look forward to are B-21, NGAD, hypersonic fires and more effective force structure in westpac. To me, hypersonic fire for us military will always be overly expensive and won't reach the same level of lethality as PLARF hypersonic fire just from quantity pov.
Which I think brings us to the bigger issue of B-21 and NGAD. If PLA can put US carriers in danger with hypersonic anti-ship missiles within second island chain, then longer ranged platform with all aspect stealth will be the big ticket items where PLA face the greatest threat.
To me, it's always easier to deal with these threats by destroying the bases they operate from rather than actually being able to detect them from 1000 km out. The latter seems not possible with current technology even if satellite ISR can tell the when these platforms leave their air bases.
So, how do you threaten bases further out. At a minimum, I think we are talking about Tindal (Darwin), Diego Garcia and Alaska. For Alaska, we are talking about Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Elielson AFB and possibly major airports like ANC and FAI. In the latest DOD report, US military has conceded that China can take out bases all the way to Guam. We know that US military is spending money to build out Tindal. In my mind, they can probably take out Tindal and Diego Garcia in the next few years, but things will be operationally challenging because they would need to have a large escort fleet of J-20s supporting H-6Ks operating from Spratley's. Would be hard to protect that with naval escorts once you get out of SCS.
So, what can change that in the next 10 years? The most immediate change is the availability of DF-27. This I think is a huge game changer if it has 5000 to 8000 km range as discussed in DoD report. My only concern is that they won't be able to procure enough of them due to cost for such a platform. There are some seriously worthy targets for DF-27 (like for example aircraft carriers sitting in Pearl Harbor or other capital warships like long range replenishment ship and LHDs. The operational reality of US navy will be quite stark if they cannot be comfortable being able to park carriers like Pearl Harbor. + @Blitzo, @Mohsin77 and @latenlazy for thoughts on this one.
After that, I think CV-18 joining service with J-35 is the next major change. This would remove the range limitations of J-20. For example, you can have CV-18 protected by 093Bs and a whole bunch of ASW assets heading in the Australia direction and having J-35s protecting cover for H-6Ks flying out of Spratley. By having a carrier in the Celebes Sea (between Phillipines and Indonesia), you can have destroyers close enough to launch LACMs. You can have J-35s and KJ-600s able to protect H-6Ks and J-15Bs carrying hypersonic fires and long range LRASM-like missiles at Tindal air base. You could still have YY-20A from Spratleys providing refueling for this type of mission. In the 8 to 10 years, I feel like these are the type of missions that something like CV-18 could provide for PLA.
The big ones after that are obviously H-20 and 095. The former would be able to really threaten Alaska. And if they ever get to the point where they take out the air defense capabilities in Alaska, then it might even be able to threaten bases in British Columbia and Washington state (assuming Russians will allow them to land in air bases in Far East.
For 095, we are making the assumption that it can be built in large numbers and will be similar in noise level to early Virginia class and can carry large number of UVLS. In that scenario, they should be relatively hard to detect in open ocean when operating alone and would be able to launch probably 1000 km long hypersonic missile and 2000 km long subsonic cruise missiles. That would allow them to again threaten Alaska and Pearl Harbour, but also any naval base in the west coast.
So I think in order to deal with the upcoming challenges, they would probably have to build up their own access denial platforms that can deny access much further out than second island chain. I think they are going to have to get to a stage where they are pumping out 5 to 8 095s a year as well as 15 to 20 H-20s.
The question is what happens after 2025 that changes things. The most obvious ticket items that the deep state is look forward to are B-21, NGAD, hypersonic fires and more effective force structure in westpac. To me, hypersonic fire for us military will always be overly expensive and won't reach the same level of lethality as PLARF hypersonic fire just from quantity pov.
Which I think brings us to the bigger issue of B-21 and NGAD. If PLA can put US carriers in danger with hypersonic anti-ship missiles within second island chain, then longer ranged platform with all aspect stealth will be the big ticket items where PLA face the greatest threat.
To me, it's always easier to deal with these threats by destroying the bases they operate from rather than actually being able to detect them from 1000 km out. The latter seems not possible with current technology even if satellite ISR can tell the when these platforms leave their air bases.
So, how do you threaten bases further out. At a minimum, I think we are talking about Tindal (Darwin), Diego Garcia and Alaska. For Alaska, we are talking about Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Elielson AFB and possibly major airports like ANC and FAI. In the latest DOD report, US military has conceded that China can take out bases all the way to Guam. We know that US military is spending money to build out Tindal. In my mind, they can probably take out Tindal and Diego Garcia in the next few years, but things will be operationally challenging because they would need to have a large escort fleet of J-20s supporting H-6Ks operating from Spratley's. Would be hard to protect that with naval escorts once you get out of SCS.
So, what can change that in the next 10 years? The most immediate change is the availability of DF-27. This I think is a huge game changer if it has 5000 to 8000 km range as discussed in DoD report. My only concern is that they won't be able to procure enough of them due to cost for such a platform. There are some seriously worthy targets for DF-27 (like for example aircraft carriers sitting in Pearl Harbor or other capital warships like long range replenishment ship and LHDs. The operational reality of US navy will be quite stark if they cannot be comfortable being able to park carriers like Pearl Harbor. + @Blitzo, @Mohsin77 and @latenlazy for thoughts on this one.
After that, I think CV-18 joining service with J-35 is the next major change. This would remove the range limitations of J-20. For example, you can have CV-18 protected by 093Bs and a whole bunch of ASW assets heading in the Australia direction and having J-35s protecting cover for H-6Ks flying out of Spratley. By having a carrier in the Celebes Sea (between Phillipines and Indonesia), you can have destroyers close enough to launch LACMs. You can have J-35s and KJ-600s able to protect H-6Ks and J-15Bs carrying hypersonic fires and long range LRASM-like missiles at Tindal air base. You could still have YY-20A from Spratleys providing refueling for this type of mission. In the 8 to 10 years, I feel like these are the type of missions that something like CV-18 could provide for PLA.
The big ones after that are obviously H-20 and 095. The former would be able to really threaten Alaska. And if they ever get to the point where they take out the air defense capabilities in Alaska, then it might even be able to threaten bases in British Columbia and Washington state (assuming Russians will allow them to land in air bases in Far East.
For 095, we are making the assumption that it can be built in large numbers and will be similar in noise level to early Virginia class and can carry large number of UVLS. In that scenario, they should be relatively hard to detect in open ocean when operating alone and would be able to launch probably 1000 km long hypersonic missile and 2000 km long subsonic cruise missiles. That would allow them to again threaten Alaska and Pearl Harbour, but also any naval base in the west coast.
So I think in order to deal with the upcoming challenges, they would probably have to build up their own access denial platforms that can deny access much further out than second island chain. I think they are going to have to get to a stage where they are pumping out 5 to 8 095s a year as well as 15 to 20 H-20s.
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Just destroy all jet fuel depots in Japan, South Korea, Guam and in Northern Australia. B-21s need tankers to reach West Pac (if they are based in CONUS). No tankers, no flights.
Over the next decade there will be a lot of changes in military hardware which will allow higher power projection than we had in the past 40 years I think. One is the use of variable cycle engines which will allow much higher range for conventional fighters and bombers. Another is the increasing pervasiveness of VTOL transport aircraft which will increase range and speed of troop transport at medium distances. Then you have the hypersonic missiles which basically put any target at theater range in jeopardy without the use of the strategic weapons resource. Eventually, in like two decades, we might get hypersonic reconnaissance platforms and bombers as well.
Another major change in the strategic picture is much cheaper space launch. The much lower launch cost of mass produced or reusable rockets allows launching much larger satellite constellations than what used to be possible. You already have Starlink for communications, and pretty soon there might be similar constellations for orbital reconnaissance as well. So I think China will need to focus more resources on both denial and destruction of orbital space assets.
Another major change in the strategic picture is much cheaper space launch. The much lower launch cost of mass produced or reusable rockets allows launching much larger satellite constellations than what used to be possible. You already have Starlink for communications, and pretty soon there might be similar constellations for orbital reconnaissance as well. So I think China will need to focus more resources on both denial and destruction of orbital space assets.
One should always plan for the worst (Russians learned that painful lesson recently).
Answer this question: if ROC ground forces resist fiercely and PLA has to fight buildings after buildings, blocks after blocks like the Russian did in Mariupol, considering the Taiwan Island is highly highly urbanized, fighting will drag on for months. This gives American and its vassals plenty of time to mobilize their forces while providing ISR support to the ROC forces to resist PLA. When their grand fleet do reach the West Pac theatre, PLAAF and PLAN will have to fight their forces while have to divert their forces to provide support and supply to the PLAGF. The supply lines will be heavily attack and PLAAF and PLAN have to use a lot of their forces to defend them instead of attacking the intervention forces.
Is this scenario ideal?
On the other hand with a pure naval and aerial blockade, the PLAAF and PLAGF can bomb the shit out of ROC forces for as long as it takes. If the American and its vassals’ forces do intervene, the PLAAF and PLAN can switch from a blockade mode into a mobile force mode. They can maneuver without worry about defending supply lines and use much more of their forces to attack the intervention forces. At the mean time, the people on the Taiwan Island can think about surrendering
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