Any sort of anti shipping mission against the ROCN in the Taiwan strait would rely on shooters and sensors being separated from each other.
Airborne ISR and AEW&C would be directing and cuing fires and providing midcourse guidance for shooters (loitering H-6J/Ks with YJ-12s, land based AShMs, and whatever naval surface shooters they want including Type 22s).
All of these platforms will fire their AShMs at maximum range and avoid getting into close proximity of the opposing ROCN combatants.
Type 22 of course would be the same.
Well yes, I did say that the PLA have more efficient anti shipping platforms now across air, land and sea.
But I do think that using Type 22s as "augmenting AShM/land attack fires" is the best use for them in a Taiwan contingency.
All they need is to continue with contemporary datalinks and to be able to use the more modern YJ-83 variants.
During peacetime they would rarely go to sea, and during wartime each boat if they go to sea would just add 8 more missiles to a fight at relatively low cost to manpower, and newer missiles also offer land attack capability beyond only anti ship capability.
Operating as a floating, mobile, relatively low signature datalinked, dedicated AShM/medium range LACM platform I think is a perfectly viable and useful role for the Type 22s in a Taiwan contingency, and it could be done with relatively low cost and limited upgrades.
Converting the Type 22s to unmanned ships would be too costly and complex for these boats that are relatively small.
Let me try to boil down the discussions and arguments.
What Type 22 missile boats were designed for.
They were meant to get very close to the enemy ships, shoot the missiles and run. That's why they were small, fast and numerous. The context and underlying assumptions were enemy has stronger navy and PLAN does not have air supremacy and sea control, at least there were no guarantee of them. They would be more autonomous than relying on system support such as senor and targeting information. In other words, it's more like guerilla war on the sea, something that PLAN had been very familiar with when dealing with a stronger ROCN since the '50s. It's a strategy that may work when you don't have many other better platforms.
How Type 22 missile boats would be used today.
Option A. Adopt the same strategy that they were designed for. It should still work. But context and condition have all changed. PLAN/PLAAF now have far more efficient and effective platforms and strategy to handle the much weaker and much smaller ROCN.
Option B. Still employ these missile boats but with a different somewhat tactics. This time use them more as mobile AShMs launchers, but keep them farther away from enemy ships. They will be fed with targeting data, but much of the searching and targeting are done by other platforms (aircraft & more capable surface combatants). This will also work. This sounds like what you're suggesting, more or less. My question is if other platforms can do both the searching and targeting AND striking, in a more timely manner, why do you need to use these missile boats? It's not like ROCN has either a qualitative or numerical edge, using PLAAF and/or PLAN larger ships are just much more effective given that PLAAF and PLAN will definitely gain air and sea control over Taiwan Strat.
There is also the fundamental and underlying assumption: the next Taiwan Strait crisis, if these missile boats were deployed and used, world be the armed unification, in which case time is of essence and ROCN ships would need to be destroyed or incapacitated quickly to clear the way for landing.
All in all, I don't doubt that these missile boats can still be useful, I'm questioning if they should still play important roles if at all.
Can Type 22 missile boats be converted to play a more modern and important role?
This is not essential to the arguments. It's something I was thinking prompted by your arguments. We agree it's not worth it for the Taiwan contingency.
