PLA (strategic) news, pics, and videos

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Again, I could just row to Diego Garcia and make a grenade qualify as a missile that is within range of the island. If you want to hypothesize that some giant missile like a CJ-10 could fit inside a J-36 that is then refueled during its trip from a high altitude airfield for which it may or may not be designed to operate and count that missile as one that is within "range" of Diego Garcia, then knock yourself out, but it clearly is outside OP's intended statement.

Couple of points

1. You can have J-36 escorting H-6 bombers, who do have the range to launch cruise missiles against Diego Garcia

2. Diego Garcia should be within range of the DF-27 missiles. And aircraft like bombers or tankers are very vulnerable on the ground because they are too big to hide or place in hardened shelters

3. Diego Garcia is 6000km from Taiwan, and taking such a route is problematic as it would require overflying neutral countries in ASEAN. It also requires tankers.
 

Biscuits

Colonel
Registered Member
  1. Military strikes on Chinese mainland targets: while China may gain a nascent ability to retaliate against the homelands of faraway adversaries, this would be disproportionate in favor of the US & her allies. Any Chinese strike on CONUS (or other countries in that vicinity) would be mostly symbolic
But besides US, all the other coalition of aggressors are all close to China. No, it would not disproportionately favor US, rather it would severely favor China.
  1. while the latter's strikes on China would do real damage.
At most, concentrated attacks from Japan, Korea, Philippines could maybe apply as much damage as Resistance attacks on Tel Aviv. I.e. Sow some fear and concern, get a few hundred thousand jumpy people to evacuate etc.

In return, these nations face a very real possibility of wholesale annihilation. For example Philippines only has 8 shorad vehicles to their name, a level of air defense that is far inferior to even Saddam's Iraq.
  1. Attacks on Chinese shipping & naval vessels: this ties in with the blockade scenarios above, but this is still a very real possibility, even when dealing with "easy" opponents.
China is a continental power, while the new imperial axis is a network of island states + US. In wartime, the amount of non-military shipping China does is minimal, while the likes of Australia, Japan etc still need to ship between eachother in order to sustain their functions.

Not only will there be an air campaign, but likely 10 000 - 100 000s of seaborne UAVs being used to deny the new Axis members from reinforcing eachother. Ports like Tokyo, Manila etc will have hundreds of small sea UAVs coming in on a daily basis. They would attack both military shipping but also the vital container ships used to maintain the invader alliance's supply lines.

The obsession with hitting CONUS is madness. Why surrender all your home court advantages, when there's so much softly defended de facto US territory in Asia that China can annex to fuel its war effort?

Island hopping has always, always, been the name of the game. Not idiotic cross map bombing of US (although China probably tries it a few times just to make US waste air defenses in North America).
 
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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Overall, the biggest risks for China in any hypothetical conflict against a peer adversary would be, IMHO (ranked in descending order of importance & impact):
  1. Energy embargo: China is a net energy importer while the US is a net energy exporter. While China may build up fuel reserves and mitigate its dependence on overseas oil suppliers by turning to closer neighbors (such as Russia), this is not a long-term solution. China has not developed her renewable energy infrastructure to the point that fossil fuels are no longer a concern. This vulnerability also places China at the mercy of chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca.
  2. Trade/shipping blockade: the US has the theoretical capability to impose a shipping blockade on China through the use of its CBGs and submarines. While China may be able to sustain her industries during a conflict, this is only a temporary measure and any long-term blockade of China's shipping lanes would be detrimental to her economic outlook.
  3. Economic sactions: we all saw what this did to Russia's non-military economy. While China is much more intertwined with other major powers than Russia was, this is still a risk and should not be viewed much differently when it comes to risk assessment.
  4. Military strikes on Chinese mainland targets: while China may gain a nascent ability to retaliate against the homelands of faraway adversaries, this would be disproportionate in favor of the US & her allies. Any Chinese strike on CONUS (or other countries in that vicinity) would be mostly symbolic while the latter's strikes on China would do real damage.
  5. Attacks on Chinese shipping & naval vessels: this ties in with the blockade scenarios above, but this is still a very real possibility, even when dealing with "easy" opponents.


Previous back of the envelope calculations indicate that China could get by without seaborne imports of oil. There's enough domestic production and overland imports.

I don't think this is a coincidence, but a policy decision.

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Think about how Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines are all small, densely populated "islands" with literally no natural resources. They are critically reliant on imports for oil and food.

They are also close to China and far away from external support. China can likely produce enough missiles and therefore impose an air-sea blockade on any opposing islands in the Western Pacific. Those islands will face collapse whilst China can get by from domestic resources and limited imports over land/sea.

For example, if Japan faces the prospect of 1. starving/collapse or 2. being neutral in a US-China conflict, what will Japan choose?
 
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PiSigma

"the engineer"
Previous back of the envelope calculations indicate that China could get by without seaborne imports of oil. There's enough domestic production and overland imports.

I don't think this is a coincidence, but a policy decision.

---

Think about how Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines are all small, densely populated "islands" with literally no natural resources. They are critically reliant on imports for oil and food.

They are also close to China and far away from external support. China can likely produce enough missiles and therefore impose an air-sea blockade on any opposing islands in the Western Pacific. Those islands will face collapse whilst China can get by from domestic resources and limited imports over land/sea.

For example, if Japan faces the prospect of 1. starving/collapse or 2. being neutral in a US-China conflict, what will Japan choose?
Japan will choose fighting for their master, it's the samurai way, just the way China hoped they would.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Japan will choose fighting for their master, it's the samurai way, just the way China hoped they would.

Let's say that is true.

But if the USA sees that it can't prevent a blockade of Japan, does it make sense for the US to start a war with China, knowing that at a minimum, Japan will be defeated?

A defeated Japan would be a huge signal that US security guarantees are worthless in the Pacific.

The rational action is for the USA not to get into a war with China.
 

tonyget

Senior Member
Registered Member
Distance between Lhasa and Diego Garcia according to Google is 4569km. J36 ahould be able to carry two 1500km range cruise missiles in its bay. The range of J-36 scan be extended with tankers

Go through India airspace?I don't think India would give China permission to do that

And even if you can bomb Diego Garcia,the US still has plenty bases in the Middle east and Africa,all of which could strike Chinese ships
 
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Biscuits

Colonel
Registered Member
Go through India airspace?I don't think India would give China permission to do that

And even if you can bomb Diego Garcia,the US still has plenty bases in the Middle east and Africa,all of which could strike Chinese ships
So those African countries agree to be party to US' aggression then?

Who's gonna protect their cities from the air and sea?
 

Heresy

New Member
Registered Member
Go through India airspace?I don't think India would give China permission to do that

And even if you can bomb Diego Garcia,the US still has plenty bases in the Middle east and Africa,all of which could strike Chinese ships

Can we get some clean-up of brain rot here? @tonyget how about you stay in your lane and confine yourself to discussing a topic you actually have some knowledge in rather than polluting other threads with whatever mental illness you have?
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Go through India airspace?I don't think India would give China permission to do that

And even if you can bomb Diego Garcia,the US still has plenty bases in the Middle east and Africa,all of which could strike Chinese ships
Why attack Diego Garcia with planes? Why not used land-based missiles with far higher damage capacity? China has land-based missiles that can strike anywhere in the world.
 

Heresy

New Member
Registered Member
Even if the PLAAF were to choose to attack Diego Garcia with J-36 or J-20 with aerial refueling (hardly an optimal delivery method, granted) via Indian airspace, would India even be able to properly track and intercept J-20, to say nothing about the J-36?
 
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