Distance and force concentration works both ways.
These are LO missile boats. Their whole point is to be hard to find while having a very big and long stick that makes it hard to ignore them. Opfor needs to devote significant resources to guard against them or try to hunt them down or leave themselves very vulnerable to being sucker punched by them. In that sense, the work most like subs.
Sure, you can park them just off the Fujian coast and just spam missiles from them, but in that case, just how practically different are they from shore based missile batteries or even high end MRLSs exactly?
Yes, they're not that different from shore based missile batteries or high end MLRS, which is the point.
These are boats which have relatively low endurance, limited seakeeping, and very vulnerable to enemy airpower if you cannot guarantee air superiority. Operating as mobile off shore missile batteries is probably the lowest risk, highest reward role for them.
Certainly, I think a Taiwan contingency operating in that manner would be the most sensible mission for the Type 22s.
If the PLA is that short on missiles, they have far bigger problems than finding a role for the 022.
Also, the Fujian coast is probably going to be one of the most intensely surveillanced areas on earth in the event of a war. LO isn’t magic and generally sticking LO assets where the enemy will focus their sensors is not the best way to make the best use of your LO assets.
In a Taiwan conflict, the balance of ISR, EW, CAP and overall system of systems will be very heavily in the PLA's favour, and having the Type 22s operate only in a highly littoral environment covered by friendly fixed wing airpower and ground based IADS, would make them very very difficult to target by the opfor.
In the SCS, the vast open waters and many many islands are basically ideal hunting grounds of 022s. Especially with China’s SCS island bases for home ports and the massive sensor networks China is building there for ISR and off-board targeting without needing much more in the way of support for them to be effective.
With LO and islands to hide behind, it will be a hard task for any naval force to try and get past just the 022 without risking getting hit hard. That means China doesn’t need to keep as much of its navy down in the SCS to safeguard its holdings there from potential opportunistic attacks by Australian or European naval expeditionary forces. And could also act as a formidable barrier against US naval reinforcements trying to move in from the Indian Ocean.
I personally view the SCS environment as far more dangerous for the Type 22s to operate in compared to say, the Taiwan strait.
Operating in areas with more open water is not good for FACs as they are more easily detectable by airpower than operating in a highly littoral environment, and also because the PLA's air power and air defenses will be of far lower density in the SCS compared to the ETC off the Taiwan strait.
The greater expanses of water of the SCS also means that the limited sea keeping and endurance of the Type 22s would make their issues felt.
That said, if the conflict is of such an intensity that the SCS theater needs buffing up with anything they can scrounge up, then I suppose the Type 22s would still be somewhat useful there. But I do not consider Type 22s operating in the SCS to be the most survivable way of operating them in event of conflict.
The original question was basically asking what would be a suitable role for the Type 22s in the modern era. I think using them as mobile floating AShM batteries in a Taiwan contingency is the best as it offers the best reward for the least risk and also the least difficulty of supporting its operation.
