Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

bebops · Dec 25, 2022

I would wait for most pieces of puzzle come together before I launch an attack if necessary-- H20, Type 095, 096, Wing Long 3, loyalman drones, unmanned submarines and ships, Pl21. Alot of them.

B21 is not a big deal. military space satellites can track where its going. swarms of recon and surveillance UAV armed with very long range missile or hypersonic missile can finish the job.

bebops · Dec 25, 2022

To achieve air dominance or superiority, I think UAV with very long range missile/hypersonic can get the job done without manned fighter jet.

ACuriousPLAFan · Dec 25, 2022

Another major concern WRT the missile development in Indopac is the proliferation of long-range (LR) low-obersability (LO) standoff missiles, such as the JASSM and LRASM.

It is certain that LR-LO standoff missiles are going to get (much) longer ranges into the future. Since the JASSM-ER of today already have ranges of close to 2000 kilometers, future LR-LO standoff missiles with ranges upwards of 4000, 6000 or even 8000 kilometers should never be discarded as a very real possibility.

Future LR-LO standoff missiles may even render the need for SRBMs, MRBMs and IRBMs redundant for most cases, perhaps except for underground installations and bunkers which still require ground penetration capabilities present on ballistic missiles. Of course, that if LR-LO standoff missiles can be made to travel in higher speed regimes (e.g. supersonic or low-hypersonic) for at least the terminal phase of the flight, their lethality would be greatly enhanced.

Therefore, I believe China should do several things WRT to this:

1. Develop and station anti-air early-warning and fire-control systems (radars, satellites, drones etc) that can effectively cover at least the western half of the Pacific Ocean plus the northern half of the Indian Ocean;
2. Develop and procure ULR SAM systems with ranges upward of 1000-2000 kilometers;
3. Develop and procure large numbers of LR-LO standoff missiles that should be capable of covering three-fifths (3/5) to three-fourths (3/4) the total distance across of the Pacific Ocean when launched from the Chinese inland or within the First Island Chain; and
4. Procure more mobile launch platforms for these LR-LO standoff missiles, i.e. TELs, H-20s, 052Ds, 055s etc.

solarz · Dec 25, 2022

vincent said:
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?

I could ask the converse: if the US hypothetically decided to go all in against China, what is their fleet going to do if there were no PLA troops in Taiwan? Just sit on their asses?

There's no shortage of targets they could attack, and it doesn't make any sense for the PLA to defend anything. In such a hypothetical situation, the PLA should be focusing its attention on destroying the American forces. If there are PLA troops on the island suffering from supply problems, well they'll just have to tough it out and wait for China to destroy the American forces.

Sure ideally China could make Taiwan surrender just from a blockade, but the world is not ideal. US intervention is also NOT a given. It needs to be accounted for, certainly, but there are a lot of compelling reasons why the US is unlikely to want to start WW3 with China over Taiwan.

And here is the crux: a successful ground invasion will go a long way toward dampening the appetite of an American intervention. That means it's a risk worth taking should circumstances call for it.

Overbom · Dec 25, 2022

Minm said:
China will find out before it happens, but will it be early enough? Is that not an extremely risky bet?

Why? Is there any hurry? If Taiwan declares independence tomorrow does it mean that China is obliged to declare war on it the same day lol

Minm said:
What if China finds out too late to react forcefully before American soldiers arrive on Taiwan?

So what. Lets say I am feeling generous today and say that the US manages to sneak in a brigade in Taiwan. So what, big deal

Anything else meaningful, requiring air or naval assets would be known by Chinese intelligence months before due to the inherent preparations needed to be made to transfer large forces across the globe

The moment China sniffs any big movement, it throws an ultimatum: Go back or we start a first strike at your Asia-Pacific assets while your reinforcements are still at your ports in the US. Then you can wait a month or so to marshal your forces while we are dunking you on the Asia Pacific theater lol

Minm said:
The whole point of a quick invasion is to avoid the economic damage of a major war with the US

Why invasion though? How about a blockade, for how long can Taiwan last with 0 imports. I would say 1-2 weeks max before they become cavemen

FairAndUnbiased · Dec 25, 2022

ACuriousPLAFan said:
Another major concern WRT the missile development in Indopac is the proliferation of long-range (LR) low-obersability (LO) standoff missiles, such as the JASSM and LRASM.

It is certain that LR-LO standoff missiles are going to get (much) longer ranges into the future. Since the JASSM-ER of today already have ranges of close to 2000 kilometers, future LR-LO standoff missiles with ranges upwards of 4000, 6000 or even 8000 kilometers should never be discarded as a very real possibility.

Future LR-LO standoff missiles may even render the need for SRBMs, MRBMs and IRBMs redundant for most cases, perhaps except for underground installations and bunkers which still require ground penetration capabilities present on ballistic missiles. Of course, that if LR-LO standoff missiles can be made to travel in higher speed regimes (e.g. supersonic or low-hypersonic) for at least the terminal phase of the flight, their lethality would be greatly enhanced.

Therefore, I believe China should do several things WRT to this:

1. Develop and station anti-air early-warning and fire-control systems (radars, satellites, drones etc) that can effectively cover at least the western half of the Pacific Ocean plus the northern half of the Indian Ocean;
2. Develop and procure ULR SAM systems with ranges upward of 1000-2000 kilometers;
3. Develop and procure large numbers of LR-LO standoff missiles that should be capable of covering three-fifths (3/5) to three-fourths (3/4) the total distance across of the Pacific Ocean when launched from the Chinese inland or within the First Island Chain; and
4. Procure more mobile launch platforms for these LR-LO standoff missiles, i.e. TELs, H-20s, 052Ds, 055s etc.

Any air breathing cruise missile is vulnerable to 2 entire class of defense that ballistic missiles don't need to deal with:

1. air shootdowns. One reason for CAP around CBGs is to down ASMs from far outside the range of even SAMs. Because of how slow they are, multiple intercepts can be attempted.

2. CIWS. Before they are inside CIWS range they're already visible on even optical camera and even the smallest RCS assumed would be visible at that range too.

So they cannot replace ballistics entirely.

vincent · Dec 25, 2022

solarz said:
I could ask the converse: if the US hypothetically decided to go all in against China, what is their fleet going to do if there were no PLA troops in Taiwan? Just sit on their asses?

uh break the blockade and resupply the island?

solarz said:
There's no shortage of targets they could attack, and it doesn't make any sense for the PLA to defend anything. In such a hypothetical situation, the PLA should be focusing its attention on destroying the American forces. If there are PLA troops on the island suffering from supply problems, well they'll just have to tough it out and wait for China to destroy the American forces.

You are gonna leave the PLAGF on the island without resupply of ammo and food among hostile civilian population while under attack by ROC forces?

solarz said:
Sure ideally China could make Taiwan surrender just from a blockade, but the world is not ideal. US intervention is also NOT a given. It needs to be accounted for, certainly, but there are a lot of compelling reasons why the US is unlikely to want to start WW3 with China over Taiwan.

And here is the crux: a successful ground invasion will go a long way toward dampening the appetite of an American intervention. That means it's a risk worth taking should circumstances call for it.

Define a “successful ground invasion”. No more armed resistance? if ROC does give a decent fight, how long the urban fighting will take with an urban area of 23 million people?

If there is no American intervention, what will the people on the island hold out for in a blockade scenario? No one else is capable of breaking the blockade and the people on the island will starve to death.

Biscuits · Dec 25, 2022

vincent said:
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

This argument doesn't really make any sense because government troops on the island will always be accompanied by a total cutoff at the same time. Its not one or the other.

If America joins the civil war on the side of the enemy, China will directly engage their bases let alone flimsy ISR assets.

So PLA will fight troops that are blind, being constantly bombed from air and artillery, and whose command centers will likely be sniped in minutes. Not to mention, sleeper cells among the rebels will also be activated to kill high ranking commanders. You're not talking a Lyman or Kherson scenario where separatist troops can leisurely retreat while preserving their fighting strength and without losing their command posts. China will target the heads of the separatists from minute 1 of the conflicts, all the way down to the commissioned officer level, and they can do this due to complete ISR dominance and ability to hit anywhere within their own country with cheap satnav rockets and drones.

In addition the effects of the blockade as you state will also be ongoing. And within 1-2 weeks, the blockade will seriously impact the ability of rebel troops to continue fighting.

The forces utilized for Taiwan ground defense are mainly PLAGF supported by resupply ships of the navy. Meanwhile, the forces used to counterattack America or Japan will consist of the Navy's regular forces, long range rocket force and the Air Force. China has enough Army soldiers that it doesn't make sense to not use them.

AndrewS · Dec 25, 2022

Overbom said:
Why invasion though? How about a blockade, for how long can Taiwan last with 0 imports. I would say 1-2 weeks max before they become cavemen

I would say 2 weeks would be when food starts running out in Taiwan. Think about how much food there is typically in a kitchen cupboard.

Then another 2 weeks for the situation to progressively become desperate

supersnoop · Dec 25, 2022

Minm said:
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

What kind of “realistic” scenarios involve meaningful numbers of US combat assets being closer to Taiwan than China is?

Also thousands of US troops being flown in before China can do a thing?

Max capacity of a C-17 is 107 soldiers, somehow at least 20 C-17 landings don’t raise any eyebrows?

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

bebops

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bebops

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ACuriousPLAFan

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solarz

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Overbom

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FairAndUnbiased

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vincent

Grumpy Old Man

Biscuits

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AndrewS

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supersnoop

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