Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

I think China has already factored in all of these western sanctions; anyone remember the "Dual Circulation" policy being promoted back in 2020? Dual Circulation would insulate China from outside disruption especially with the levers that the digital Yuan would offer.
Secondly given the experience of H&M and Nike with regards to Xinjiang, it's clear western companies will balk at permanntly losing the chinese market over vacuous virtue signaling

lets talk logistics and resupply for a moment. looking at how Russians have their 50mile long convoy stuck outside Kyiv for the past three days says a lot about its capability to wage war a mere couple hundred miles away from their rail lines.

how well do we think the PLA's logistics and resupply efforts are going to be with tw?

I was thinking after beach heads are secured (meaning total air and sea dominance established), staging areas would be set up by the first wave of amphibious landing of logistics groups. in that same group would be airfield runway repair units tasked with restoring conditions of military/civilian runways back to working, to allow a non stop flow of Y-20s going back and forth across the strait for future resupplies.

of course the ports would be occupied and restored to enable massive ferry transportation of goods/ammos no air transports can match, but i don't see this happening until maybe the last stage of the war. the initial waves of logistic support or even follow up troops would have to come from Y-20s. which is kind of what the russians were thinking when they tried to VDV Hostomel airfield but failed miserably.

Bltizo said:

I'm well aware of the various strike options that exist.
Precision MLRS, attack helicopters, SRBMs, ALCMs, I know they all exist, and I obviously recognize their importance in a Taiwan contingency.

I am saying that on top of all of those, in terms of the ability to do frequent re-attack and to do dynamic air to ground operations (CAS, interdiction) with rapid battle damage assessment immediately post strike, there is no replacement for A2G PGMs that currently exist.

Let's not try to copium it and pretend those strike systems offer the same profile in capabilities of a robust fixed wing precision strike force.

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My position is that I do agree that China needs more of everything in the event of a direct conflict, what I strongly disagree with is the notion that the PLAAF does not already have the necessary PGMs equipped for (at a minimum) field testing and training, because ultimately working out bugs in both doctrine and weapon systems needs to be performed even if a piece of kit is not adopted en mass, and that takes way more time than manufacturing any type of PGMs.

I think the biggest upcoming changes we can expect to see with the PLAAF would be a significant shift towards multirole strike capabilities for all its modern fighters, the J10 and J11 especially are likely to have big overhaul and upgrade packages developed to focus more on ground attack and also have their EW and self defence suits upgraded to the latest standards. Numbers matter, and with more J20s coming online, the days where the PLAAF are expecting to need to expend the bulk of its fighter fleet just to keep the skies clear of enemy aircraft are over. Thus they can start to think and invest more into what they will do with air superiority/dominance after they have achieved it

I would also expect significant increases in the PLA’s rotor wing fleets of transport, attack and recon helicopters as well as significant investment in UCAVs.

The goal would be to create a multilayered integrated air assault and strike force covering low, medium and high altitudes.

I would expect manned fastjets to take the high position with targeting pods and PGMs for high value targets, SEAD/DEAD and time sensitive targets. The rotor wing fleet will follow Russian example for aggressive down-their-throats operations. While UCAVs take the most dangerous middle ground and generally sweep ahead of the manned assets and will focus on broad area recon to ID threats and targets for fastjets and attack helicopters to engage or avoid. Maybe with some limited EW and strikes of opportunity as well, but those won’t be their primary mission set.

But essentially the drones are going to present the most visible and reachable threats, and will suck up the bulk of any surviving enemy MANPAD and SAM/AAA fire to help keep manned platforms safer and also reveal threats for QRF to quickly follow up and destroy before they can relocate again, be that in the form of an air strike or a full on air calv assault.

Although I would also expect significant overspill between the roles. For example, I think the PLA is going to invest heavily into its helicopter swarm drone delivery capabilities and further expand upon it.

I would not be surprised at all if dedicated swarm drone carrier versions of the Z8 and Z20 gets developed where the entire passenger/cargo cabin is replaced with swarm drone VLS cells. They might even develop a modular swarm drone VLS launcher that can be strapped into the passenger compartment of normal Z20s in the field for maximum flexibility. From there is only a small engineering step to make that thing quick detachable and suddenly your paratroopers can have swarm drones they can launch when needed after dropped off.

montyp165 said:

My position is that I do agree that China needs more of everything in the event of a direct conflict, what I strongly disagree with is the notion that the PLAAF does not already have the necessary PGMs equipped for (at a minimum) field testing and training, because ultimately working out bugs in both doctrine and weapon systems needs to be performed even if a piece of kit is not adopted en mass, and that takes way more time than manufacturing any type of PGMs.

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Right, so I want to explain my threshold for why I think the PLAAF almost certainly does not have the necessary PGMs for field testing and training.
For new aerial weapons/payloads, we generally see their transition from initial industry development -> initial service fielding/tactics -> widespread service in a certain manner.

Initial Industry Development: we see one or two pictures of a test article on an aircraft or two. Sometimes, for certain weapon types, they are first "revealed" at a defense expo at Zhuhai, which is usually indicative of a relatively advanced level of platform/payload testing occurring. However, note that this is industry development. That is to say, it has yet to enter initial fielding with the PLA and initial tactics testing with the PLA -- this stage comes next.

Initial Service Fielding/Tactics: in this stage, it is the first sign that the PLA has procured a new weapon type en masse or is intending to do so. It is the part where they field these weapons in a few units to start off with, to develop initial tactics and likely writing the book for how to handle, operate, maintain those weapons, and the best ways to utilize them. We usually get images or sometimes even brief video clips of this, and it usually emerges may be a few years after the "Initial Industry Development" stage. However, these images is usually only seen on aircraft from one, maybe two units. The weapons are not widespread.

Widespread Service: this is the final stage, and usually is visible a further 2-3 years after the "Initial Service Fielding/Tactics" stage, where the new weapon is basically widely proliferated among the PLA in all of the aircraft units intended to field the weapon. We gradually get multiple pictures (official and unofficial) of aircraft from a variety of units carrying the new weapon, deploying and training with the new weapon, and seeing the new weapon at given air bases.



For me, the only unpowered PGM that the PLA has which has reached the "Widespread Service" stage is the 500kg LGB (LT-2/GB500/LS-500J/whatever name it is). We see this weapon on JH-7/As and J-10 variants, and its status as a "Widespread Service" weapon was basically confirmed sometime in the mid 2000s, and since then we've had consistent stages of it being employed by those platforms.

However, for other PGMs -- whether it's any weapon of the FT family, or the extended LT family, TL PGM family, or the LS family -- we have not seen any evidence of those PGMs entering the "Initial Service Fielding/Tactics" stage let alone the "Widespread Service" stage.
Indeed, it seems that for those weapons they have only existed at the "Initial Industry Development" stage, and we haven't had any signs of the PLA buying them in even a small number to start to train with them and develop tactics of them -- and we require evidence of this, we cannot just assume the PLA are doing it.

In the last couple of years, the only new PGM that we have seen which the PLA might have allowed to reach the "Initial Service Fielding/Tactics" stage is a new 100kg LGB type weapon (pic below), however even in that image it is not exactly encouraging because they're installing it on what appears to be a JH-7/A and on a single pylon rather than a multi-ejector rack, completely wasting the purpose of having a smaller weight bomb. Additionally the bomb itself is a rather large footprint for such a small weight, and lacks the wing kits of other 100kg bombs in existence (like SDB, SPICE 250, or Chinese industry options like TL-20, FT-7).




In short -- there's a lot left to see and confirm, and at present the only PGM that we can confirm the PLA have in widespread service is the 500kg LGB. There is possibly a 100kg LGB that the PLA are starting to field, but is one that is suboptimal in footprint and carrying capacity.

The core problem with this ‘pictures or it didn’t happen’ approach is the underlying assumption that the PLA is under some sort of contractual obligation to release pictures of everything they do.

I have a slight benefit in that I used to (pre covid) travel semi regularly to China. And even from that limited first hand exposure, it’s abundantly clear that what the PLA chooses to show and what they do in real life is worlds apart.

The overriding impression I get from my own first hand observations is that the pictures don’t tell anything like the actual story.

The intensity of flight training and the kind of ordinance carried is something you can never get an idea of from just following official photo releases or from plane spotters. Who funnily enough, all know the difference between posting cool pics and the need for opsec.

The PLA is very sensitive about images of weapons on their planes. Overwhelmingly official and semi official images released are of bird clean or with air to air or anti ship weapons. Air to ground weapons are very rarely released. Party for political reasons due to their offensive nature, but more so for opsec.

Sure, you cannot infer massive inventories of weapons just because a model is shown at a defence trade show. But it’s just as silly to assume the PLA does not have something just because you haven’t seen an arbitrary number of photos of it from official press releases. Especially if said weapon is perfectly suited to fill an obvious and import gap in their toolkit for their top national security mission.

plawolf said:

The core problem with this ‘pictures or it didn’t happen’ approach is the underlying assumption that the PLA is under some sort of contractual obligation to release pictures of everything they do.

I have a slight benefit in that I used to (pre covid) travel semi regularly to China. And even from that limited first hand exposure, it’s abundantly clear that what the PLA chooses to show and what they do in real life is worlds apart.

The overriding impression I get from my own first hand observations is that the pictures don’t tell anything like the actual story.

The intensity of flight training and the kind of ordinance carried is something you can never get an idea of from just following official photo releases or from plane spotters. Who funnily enough, all know the difference between posting cool pics and the need for opsec.

The PLA is very sensitive about images of weapons on their planes. Overwhelmingly official and semi official images released are of bird clean or with air to air or anti ship weapons. Air to ground weapons are very rarely released. Party for political reasons due to their offensive nature, but more so for opsec.

Sure, you cannot infer massive inventories of weapons just because a model is shown at a defence trade show. But it’s just as silly to assume the PLA does not have something just because you haven’t seen an arbitrary number of photos of it from official press releases. Especially if said weapon is perfectly suited to fill an obvious and import gap in their toolkit for their top national security mission.

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Dude, it's me.
I'm well aware that absence of evidence is not equal to evidence of absence, especially for PLA watching.

I've made those same arguments many times for things like estimating aircraft delivery/inventories, and estimating the progress of the flight testing of new aircraft despite lack of pictures etc.


In the case of development, initial service, and widespread service of new air launched weapons however, I think what I described is a very reasonable series of thresholds for allowing us to make reasonable guesses for whether a new weapon has reached certain milestones.

I would point out that for a variety of recent air launched weapons over the last decade we've seen evidence of them going through the three stages that I described -- PL-10, PL-15, new YJ-83K variants, 500kg stealthy munitions dispenser, KD-X (MMW guided ATGM) -- and I see no reason why we would not apply the same expectations for PGMs.

And no, the PLA absolutely does give us images of PGMs and air to ground weapons -- once or twice a year we get a new image of a frotnline in-service J-10 or JH-7/A carrying or launching a 500kg LGB. Additionally, the PLA often releases many images of J-10s, JH-7/As and Flankers launching unguided rockets and dumb bombs as well, so the lack of images of PLA aircraft launching other types of PGMs is not due to a fear of being perceived as aggressive or due to any specific opsec concerns over PGMs. (If anything, standoff range powered weapons/ALCMs should arguably be of much more opsec concern than PGMs! Yet we get images of those frequent enough!)


The fact of the matter is that for a variety of weapons, such as FT family of bombs, like LS-6, like TL-20 SDB (pics all below in order), and others, we have evidence of them having been flown in flight tests and likely finished developmental tests of the munitions themselves.
However, in the intervening many years since (for the LS-6 below, it's been over a decade!), we've never had even one image of those weapons seen with in use with PLA aircraft either at test/tactics development units Dingxin or Cangzhou (let alone frontline combat brigades), which would be the minimum threshold we'd need to say with any sort of confidence that "PLA has inducted/is inducting XYZ PGM type".

The lack of evidence of in service PLA aircraft operating those weapons -- many years after we had evidence of those weapons being tested -- means that we cannot reasonably assume the PLA has inducted them in service.

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secretprojects said:

Are you truly advocating China support Russian war crimes and effective genocide in Ukraine to help cow Taiwan into submission?

Are you so far divorced from reality that you can't see the evil inherent in this argument? Why is reunification of Taiwan with China worth that price of human life?

I literally shake my head in disbelief at the callous nature of the discussions here.

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Well now you know what most of the world feels with the US's illegal war in Iraq based on the "false pretext" of a imminent threat of WMDs.

AssassinsMace said:

Well now you know what most of the world feels with the US's illegal war in Iraq based on the "false pretext" of a imminent threat of WMDs.

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Which I was firmly against at the time. 1991 Gulf War was justifiable, 2003 not. Also I'm not American (British, living in NZ).

There's a moral principle here - "two wrongs don't make a right". I agree that the US intervention in Iraq was an unhelpful precedent that Putin is attempting to leverage with his talk of regime change. His rhetoric has now turned from regime change to "stop fighting or Ukraine will stop existing". I think there's a fair shade of difference there.