Serious shit had happened if we were gonna deal with their tanks
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
- Thread starter tphuang
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the Nagorno-Karabkh war proved that drones can make mince meat of tanks
Right, that's kind of where i'm coming to. You can assume that air force will have air superiority and navy will have sea control. Both ground attack aircraft and naval ships would do a lot of bombardment in the area before the landing. Now, it is possible they will bomb it so hard that defenders will all flee for fear of deaths. However, you cannot assume that will the case. Taiwan would've had to practice against this for many years. PLA should assume there is some level of resistance on landing which would lead to losses in helicopters and mechanized units and landing troops. The question is how they can keep up sortie rates and landing rates so that defenders don't have a breather to regroup themselves. If you can keep up with attacking aircraft sorties, UCAVs and helicopters, that will eventually wear out defenders. You only need to demoralize enough defenders and cause them to flee.
H-20 might not be ready in large numbers by the timeframe I'm thinking of. More importantly, why would you use them against Taiwan when H-6s/JH-7 can safely attack the same areas once PLAAF largely clears them off main air defense and SAMs? You would want to use H-20 in farther away military bases where PLAAF has yet to establish air superiority.
I think we need to be very careful in thinking that China can avoid losses with any single change. Also, I'm not sure Russia has suffered that much losses in equipment. Seems like more of it were lost through bad planning or logistical management.
As Shilao's podcast mentioned, It' impressive that Ka-52 can keep going even after taking some hits.
It's not that easy to "send a million troops". You need to secure the beaches first with amphibious ships and aerial assets before you can carry over large number of troops and equipment. You don't want a few unaccounted for anti-ship missiles hit large RoRo ships and put hundreds of soldiers in the seabed.
Cutting off internet connection will not rely just on missiles, but also undercover agents causing disruptions in Taiwan and EW aircraft persistently jamming all power stations. You want to avoid a situation like Kiev, that's why it's important to cut off all communications. They need to get very good at landing a few troops. That alone with sleeper agents going into major TV channels and spreading propaganda to local population and to find ways to quickly overwhelm surrounded Taiwanese politicians. Remember, Taiwan is an island. No where for local population to flee too aside from the countryside. China would need to think of ways to make it easier for locals to give up.
Keep in mind that the West has given Ukraine defense a lot of Intel on Russian movements. It is very important for China to think about this. How to wireless communication and provide fake ones? How to cut off landline communications? How to spread false information? How to intercept outgoing communications? The mobile SAM units aren't going to be very useful if they cannot communicate with command center or given fake information.
There are some advantages for Taiwan being an island. You can cut off landline access to rest of the world by cutting off all those underwater internet cables. The locations of those cables are very well known. There is no reason for China to not be able to do this. Once you've done that, you need to cut off all satellite comunications or disrupt them to a point where they are unusable.
China has invested a lot of money in EW and ELINT aircraft. They also have a lot of agents on the ground. You don't want to have a situation like currently in Ukraine where there is a complete flood of information coming in and out.
Of course it will only be done when there's air and sea dominance. Before that you can do air drops of thousands or even tens of thousands of troops and tanks. The millions is only for mop up to stop any chance of insurgency and wipe out all remaining hostile forces and also to police the country.
Those airborne troops will secure landing spots for the amphibious transport ships. It won't even be contested in my example, china could even use merchant transport ships at that point like those massive oil tanker ships and even cruise liners.
Before that there might be a chance of a few lucky/stray anti air or anti ship missile sites that PLA missed, but how many can they really do? Once they do it, they will be wiped out afterwards. Even if they get a few, it won't change anything in terms of the big picture and will only be delaying the inevitable. China won't do contested landing like dday style, china would have total air dominance and 24/7 eyes in the sky with satellites and loitering and surveillance drones.
To actually take out the massive amphibious transport's or the Y20 air drops, they would actually need infrastructure and not just manpads where they can just hide easily etc. They would be taken out easy and china could just keep dropping airborne troops and tanks nonstop from Y20 alone, the amphibious landing ships will mainly be used to spread Taiwan out and thin them out, all china needs is one breakthrough and secure one landing spot which I don't think will be that hard.
I don't think it will be hard at all for china to secure landing sites, and even if they don't, why can't they just keep air dropping troops, light tanks, mortars etc using Y20 until they can secure landing spots? China needs to up it's production of transport planes for this very purpose. Also train every infantry to be able to do a drop, which imo shouldn't be hard if it's an emergency and they want to drop tens or even hundreds of thousands. Of course all these drops will be done in conjunction with air and sea dominance and nonstop attacks to spread Taiwan out and create gaps and cover for the drops. I don't think it will be hard for china to achieve air and sea dominance vs just Taiwan by itself.
The problem would be after securing the landing site, and Taiwan army then launching missiles or whatever from hiding spots, but even then, that is not a long term solution and china would quickly expand their safe zone and establish more and more landing spots, at which point the floodgates will be completely open and trying to keep chinese troops out would no longer be a viable option since just surviving and staying hidden would be the only thing they can do.
The "hard" part wouldn't be beating Taiwan army in head to head conventional fights, but them hiding among civilian populations and fighting guerilla war. That's why china needs to be 100% committed and ready to overwhelm them and not care about infrastructure etc. That's why I said to do leaflet drops and set up a safe zone for civilians, and anyone who does not go there within a certain time limit will be considered fair game.
I wonder how 4G/5G drone basestations could play a part in something like this.
This was already tested in the flood disaster last year.
You could apply DPI on the uploads, and maybe the people will give up and rather play PUBG than actual fighting.
Justin Bronk just wrote a piece on the troubles that RuAF have had thus far. I would implore everyone to read this carefully rather than dismiss it as Western propaganda. I can assure you that people inside China are taking similar hard looks at what is happening so far and what type of challenges the current PLA structure might face.
He listed a few pretty important item on the issues thus far:
1) lack of coordination between RuAF, ground forces and SAMs. This is something imo that could be a huge problem with PLA also. Historically, the 3 services of PLA have not been very well coordinated. I have no idea the level of coordinations they have now. But if they wanted to have quick successful campaign, there will need to be great coordination in joint force actions between PLAAF, PLA LH and amphibious landing forces and also between PLAAF and PLAN in attacking ROC Navy. I haven't seen enough joint exercises to know the answer to these things.
2) friendly fire incidents between aircraft and SAMs. This is one area that may or may not be an issue for PLAAF. I'd imagine they will not be carrying a lot of mobile SAMs into Taiwan if they are expecting total air dominance before amphibious landing. The main concern would be between the Air Force and the Navy, especially if there is a USN intervention. Again, I would expect there to be improving level of date linking and coordination between the 2 services, but I don't know how well coordinated they are. After all, PLAN has its own Air Force.
3) Lack of training. This is one area that Shilao's podcast has pointed to as a place where PLAAF has significantly surpassed RuAF. I don't know if we can say they are at USAF level, but we are certainly seeing level of sophistication and realistic training level with PLAAF than we have not seen before. It comes back to the original point that we are seeing much higher sustained tempo from J-16s, H-6Ks and Y-8/9s. To me, being able to sustain tempo would be a major factor in a real war scenario. Especially as more J-16/20s enter service.
4) Lack of PGM strikes. Again, we've also discussed this as a major problem with RuAF so far. As we discussed in flanker thread before, J-16s are been better than Su-34 in ground strikes. Whether it's targeting or the abundance of PGMs, PLAAF should have a huge advantage here. Only sustained sorties can keep air bases and runways and SAMs out of action. As we discussed earlier, they will need to add a lot of UCAVs to sustain sorties after they already gain control of air space. You cannot expect J-16s and JH-7As by themselves to sustain high tempo day after day. It wears out the airframe and the pilots. Modern technology is here and PLAAF should add them in large numbers. Shilao's podcast also stated TB-2 performance in these battles despite not being very advanced. The idea is just by having a lot of UCAVs, you could cause a lot of damage without draining your high valued fighter jets.
Again, we talk bout PLA having greater precision strike capabilities with missiles and fighter jets. However, Taiwan does have a better air defense than Ukraine and is more well prepared than Ukraine. We should not dismiss the possibilities that there will be a lot of mobile SAM and Manpad operators facing the initial assaults but also past the initial phases. If you are PLA, you need to be prepared to take a lot of losses in UCAVs and helicopters. You need to add more helicopters and UCAVs. You need to do more comprehensive training between Z-10s, Z-20s and Z-8s, which would be the helicopters best suited for transporting troops and equipments to front line and providing protections.
Just imagine if they can sustain a few hundred Z-20 sorties and Z-8s sorties a day carrying 200 Lynx ATVs and 1500 troops to the East and south of Taipei in order to encircle Taipei. That alone with UCAV and helicopter protection would make quite the difference. Shilao's podcast cannot stop talking about helicopters and Lynx ATVs. These are basically the only major items that the Army has really spent money on in the recent years. These are clearly things they find to be very instrumental in a possible Taiwan invasion.
He listed a few pretty important item on the issues thus far:
1) lack of coordination between RuAF, ground forces and SAMs. This is something imo that could be a huge problem with PLA also. Historically, the 3 services of PLA have not been very well coordinated. I have no idea the level of coordinations they have now. But if they wanted to have quick successful campaign, there will need to be great coordination in joint force actions between PLAAF, PLA LH and amphibious landing forces and also between PLAAF and PLAN in attacking ROC Navy. I haven't seen enough joint exercises to know the answer to these things.
2) friendly fire incidents between aircraft and SAMs. This is one area that may or may not be an issue for PLAAF. I'd imagine they will not be carrying a lot of mobile SAMs into Taiwan if they are expecting total air dominance before amphibious landing. The main concern would be between the Air Force and the Navy, especially if there is a USN intervention. Again, I would expect there to be improving level of date linking and coordination between the 2 services, but I don't know how well coordinated they are. After all, PLAN has its own Air Force.
3) Lack of training. This is one area that Shilao's podcast has pointed to as a place where PLAAF has significantly surpassed RuAF. I don't know if we can say they are at USAF level, but we are certainly seeing level of sophistication and realistic training level with PLAAF than we have not seen before. It comes back to the original point that we are seeing much higher sustained tempo from J-16s, H-6Ks and Y-8/9s. To me, being able to sustain tempo would be a major factor in a real war scenario. Especially as more J-16/20s enter service.
4) Lack of PGM strikes. Again, we've also discussed this as a major problem with RuAF so far. As we discussed in flanker thread before, J-16s are been better than Su-34 in ground strikes. Whether it's targeting or the abundance of PGMs, PLAAF should have a huge advantage here. Only sustained sorties can keep air bases and runways and SAMs out of action. As we discussed earlier, they will need to add a lot of UCAVs to sustain sorties after they already gain control of air space. You cannot expect J-16s and JH-7As by themselves to sustain high tempo day after day. It wears out the airframe and the pilots. Modern technology is here and PLAAF should add them in large numbers. Shilao's podcast also stated TB-2 performance in these battles despite not being very advanced. The idea is just by having a lot of UCAVs, you could cause a lot of damage without draining your high valued fighter jets.
Again, we talk bout PLA having greater precision strike capabilities with missiles and fighter jets. However, Taiwan does have a better air defense than Ukraine and is more well prepared than Ukraine. We should not dismiss the possibilities that there will be a lot of mobile SAM and Manpad operators facing the initial assaults but also past the initial phases. If you are PLA, you need to be prepared to take a lot of losses in UCAVs and helicopters. You need to add more helicopters and UCAVs. You need to do more comprehensive training between Z-10s, Z-20s and Z-8s, which would be the helicopters best suited for transporting troops and equipments to front line and providing protections.
Just imagine if they can sustain a few hundred Z-20 sorties and Z-8s sorties a day carrying 200 Lynx ATVs and 1500 troops to the East and south of Taipei in order to encircle Taipei. That alone with UCAV and helicopter protection would make quite the difference. Shilao's podcast cannot stop talking about helicopters and Lynx ATVs. These are basically the only major items that the Army has really spent money on in the recent years. These are clearly things they find to be very instrumental in a possible Taiwan invasion.
I think cutting undersea internet cables would be very easy and done very early on.
If we look at all the High New series aircraft they've added. They've added command aircraft, EW aircrafts, ELINT aircraft and psychological warfare aircraft. The goal here is not just cut out internet cable and ground stations and cell phone towers. They need to also jam all the satellite internet, intercept communication, disrupt communications and spread propaganda. That's how you'd cut out the effectiveness of collective defense and get people demoralized and give up. If you open up your TV/internet/radio and can only hear about PRC winning the war everywhere and can't find a way to communicate or see the outside world, it would be pretty easy to give up. These are areas that PRC made major investment after EP3 incidents. A lot of these investments didn't actually make sense for me back 15 years ago. having seen the struggles that Russian army have had, these do make sense now.
One thing that I noticed from Ukraine: UAVs are still running at low rates. This makes me more and more convinced that foreign intervention is already happening.
Here I focus on UAVs. UAVs still flying means 1 of 2 possibilities:
1. Russian army and air force is so incompetent that they did not strike obvious drone control centers blasting out tons of RF and situated in open areas away near airbases.
2. The drones are not being controlled from Ukrainian soil. The original control centers were taken out, true. But they're not being piloted from there.
I believe that the drones are likely being remote piloted from outside Ukraine. I even doubt Ukrainians are piloting their SAMs or doing more than just pressing a button, as Russian Air Force took out their radar on day 1. It is 100%
Here I focus on UAVs. UAVs still flying means 1 of 2 possibilities:
1. Russian army and air force is so incompetent that they did not strike obvious drone control centers blasting out tons of RF and situated in open areas away near airbases.
2. The drones are not being controlled from Ukrainian soil. The original control centers were taken out, true. But they're not being piloted from there.
I believe that the drones are likely being remote piloted from outside Ukraine. I even doubt Ukrainians are piloting their SAMs or doing more than just pressing a button, as Russian Air Force took out their radar on day 1. It is 100%
Mobile communications is only wireless for end user. Otherwise the data is carried on fiber optics. Wireless doesn't have the bandwidth or channels to support the massive volume of data that millions of smartphones produce.
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