PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

FairAndUnbiased said:

This is describing the vast difficulty in targeting Chinese military assets with missiles, without any interception capability from the SAMs and discounting the entire PLAN and PLARF... Just looking at missile stockpiles vs air defense and targets.

Click to expand...

I most certainly am not discounting the entire PLAN and PLARF.

This entire chain of the thread has been describing a war of attrition -- i.e.: a war that takes many months -- if not years -- to be fought.

With the given forces that each side has at present, and their pre-conflict positioning, in a war of attrition I fully expect the US to be capable of significantly degrading Chinese military production facilities, the longer that such a conflict drags out.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Even for a Taiwan scenario, the PLARF has stockpiled 2000+ SRBMs and N cruise missiles to disable Taiwanese air defense long enough for a follow up strike with PGMs and hit critical civil infrastructure for a region FAR smaller than all of China, and this is for a scenario that doesn't require a naval battle (as Taiwan's navy is negligible vs the PLAN), refueling, worrying about your own bases, etc.

Click to expand...

A Taiwan contingency that the PLA plans for, versus a generalized high intensity westpac war of attrition, are so different in terms of geographical force disposition, opposing force capabilities, timescale, and respective objectives, that a comparison is virtually useless.

FairAndUnbiased said:

When you take into account the need for a naval battle and tankers to even get to the point where missile strikes against ground targets inside China are possible there would already be significant attrition of strike assets... If they win the naval battle without horrible losses at all.

Conclusion: they don't attempt a war of attrition because the math doesn't work out in their favor.

Click to expand...

What is more likely is that China will be capable of incurring significant casualties to US air and naval forces in the region during a conflict -- but at great cost to PLA's own air and naval forces in the region.
However, the much greater quantity of global US forces means the US will be capable of reinforcing their air and naval forces in the region in relatively short order (multiple months) while also conducting targeted long range strikes with certain assets that China is unable to properly defend against at that point (SSNs, SSGNs, CONTUS based US bombers) due to the significant losses of its air and naval forces have incurred. This will result in a initial small scale targeted strikes of key production facilities that are vital subsystems for important PLA weapons systems (subsystems involved in weapons such as stealth fighters, long range missile systems, destroyers). The scale will be small initially, but gradually enlarge over time.

Such actions will start off by delaying their production/delivery, then reducing their production rate/delivery, then become wholly unable to be completed in general as time passes.

Over the course of a year, and then two years, and then three years, China will eventually be unable to sustain its losses while the US is capable of replacing its losses, until a tipping point is reached and a general collapse of China's capability to sustain a meaningful air and naval presence and losing the capability to build long range strike missiles in general, at which point it becomes a matter of the US choosing to gradually mop up the remaining ground based air defenses and short range air and naval assets China has remaining.


For China to be capable of making a war of attrition at minimum "equal" between China and the US, China will need to possess the air, naval and missile capability that are able to soundly defeat initial US forces in the western pacific in an initial conflict phase while suffering minimal losses of their own.
The remaining PLA forces after the initial conflict phase would need to be at least equal to the rest of the global forces that the US has remaining that they are able to redeploy to the western pacific in a follow on conflict phase.

Or, putting it more simply, I see a war of attrition mostly as having 2 phases.

Phase 1 conflict:
Westpac location
Duration, occurring over multiple weeks/a few months
Forces at play: Initial Overall PLA Forces vs 50-60% of Global US Forces (assuming 50-60% of the total US military force is redeployed to fight China)

Phase 2 conflict:
Likely occurring multiple months after Phase 1 conflict
Duration, unknown
Westpac/central pacific location
Forces at play: Remaining PLA forces (after Phase 1 conflict) vs Remaining US Global Forces (after Phase 1 conflict, which assumes that the entirety of the US's remaining military force in the entire world has been redeployed to fight China)

The war of attrition will come into play in Phase 2.

In Phase 2, China would do poorly in a war of attrition if the "Remaining PLA Forces" is markedly inferior to the "Remaining US Global Forces".
However, in Phase 2, a war of attrition could be about equal for China and the US if "Remaining PLA Forces" has approximate parity with "Remaining US Global Forces".

That means the big question is what sort of capabilities and overall mass does the PLA need in the "Initial Overall PLA Forces" in Phase 1, to allow their "Remaining PLA Forces" in Phase 2 to achieve rough parity with "Remaining US Global Forces".

But whatever the "Initial Overall PLA Forces" would specifically look like, I think right now the PLA most certainly is not there.

Appreciate the frank and brutally honest assestment of the overall strenght in case of a "final" showdown between China and the US. So, what are the best estimates of when China could achieve superiority over the US in such a conflict, assuming current trajectory to be constant?

Is the reason why the US hasn't yet initiate a pre-emptive strike at China because the US doesn't yet think China's surpassing them in military capability is a definite inevitably? That the US still thinks that China can still be contained without resorting to kinetic war?

And in this regard, has China already achived MAD parity with the US to deter a pre-emptive strike?

I'm no longer interested in a Taiwan contingency at the moment, because this seems so besides the point now.

Shaolian said:

Appreciate the frank and brutally honest assestment of the overall strenght in case of a "final" showdown between China and the US. So, what are the best estimates of when China could achieve superiority over the US in such a conflict, assuming current trajectory to be constant?

Is the reason why the US hasn't yet initiate a pre-emptive strike at China because the US doesn't yet think China's surpassing them in military capability is a definite inevitably? That the US still thinks that China can still be contained without resorting to kinetic war?

And in this regard, has China already achived MAD parity with the US to deter a pre-emptive strike?

Click to expand...

No comment lol

Bltizo said:

This entire chain of the thread has been describing a war of attrition -- i.e.: a war that takes many months -- if not years -- to be fought.

With the given forces that each side has at present, and their pre-conflict positioning, in a war of attrition I fully expect the US to be capable of significantly degrading Chinese military production facilities, the longer that such a conflict drags out.





A Taiwan contingency that the PLA plans for, versus a generalized high intensity westpac war of attrition, are so different in terms of geographical force disposition, opposing force capabilities, timescale, and respective objectives, that a comparison is virtually useless.






What is more likely is that China will be capable of incurring significant casualties to US air and naval forces in the region during a conflict -- but at great cost to PLA's own air and naval forces in the region.
However, the much greater quantity of global US forces means the US will be capable of reinforcing their air and naval forces in the region in relatively short order (multiple months) while also conducting targeted long range strikes with certain assets that China is unable to properly defend against at that point (SSNs, SSGNs, CONTUS based US bombers) due to the significant losses of its air and naval forces have incurred. This will result in a initial small scale targeted strikes of key production facilities that are vital subsystems for important PLA weapons systems (subsystems involved in weapons such as stealth fighters, long range missile systems, destroyers). The scale will be small initially, but gradually enlarge over time.

Such actions will start off by delaying their production/delivery, then reducing their production rate/delivery, then become wholly unable to be completed in general as time passes.

Over the course of a year, and then two years, and then three years, China will eventually be unable to sustain its losses while the US is capable of replacing its losses, until a tipping point is reached and a general collapse of China's capability to sustain a meaningful air and naval presence and losing the capability to build long range strike missiles in general, at which point it becomes a matter of the US choosing to gradually mop up the remaining ground based air defenses and short range air and naval assets China has remaining.


For China to be capable of making a war of attrition at minimum "equal" between China and the US, China will need to possess the air, naval and missile capability that are able to soundly defeat initial US forces in the western pacific in an initial conflict phase while suffering minimal losses of their own.
The remaining PLA forces after the initial conflict phase would need to be at least equal to the rest of the global forces that the US has remaining that they are able to redeploy to the western pacific in a follow on conflict phase.

Or, putting it more simply, I see a war of attrition mostly as having 2 phases.

Phase 1 conflict:
Westpac location
Duration, occurring over multiple weeks/a few months
Forces at play: Initial Overall PLA Forces vs 50-60% of Global US Forces (assuming 50-60% of the total US military force is redeployed to fight China)

Phase 2 conflict:
Likely occurring multiple months after Phase 1 conflict
Duration, unknown
Westpac/central pacific location
Forces at play: Remaining PLA forces (after Phase 1 conflict) vs Remaining US Global Forces (after Phase 1 conflict, which assumes that the entirety of the US's remaining military force in the entire world has been redeployed to fight China)

The war of attrition will come into play in Phase 2.

In Phase 2, China would do poorly in a war of attrition if the "Remaining PLA Forces" is markedly inferior to the "Remaining US Global Forces".
However, in Phase 2, a war of attrition could be about equal for China and the US if "Remaining PLA Forces" has approximate parity with "Remaining US Global Forces".

That means the big question is what sort of capabilities and overall mass does the PLA need in the "Initial Overall PLA Forces" in Phase 1, to allow their "Remaining PLA Forces" in Phase 2 to achieve rough parity with "Remaining US Global Forces".

But whatever the "Initial Overall PLA Forces" would specifically look like, I think right now the PLA most certainly is not there.

Click to expand...

Taiwan is an island, to take it, you must make a landing, either succeed, or fail. you somehow managed to turn it into an attrition, then you call in a couple of invincible weapons: SSN, SSGN, to degrade China's military production to achieve your target.

LesAdieux said:

Taiwan is an island, to take it, you must make a landing, either succeed, or fail. you somehow managed to turn it into an attrition, then you call in a couple of invincible weapons: SSN, SSGN, to degrade China's military production to achieve your target.

Click to expand...

It wasn't me who changed this into a discussion about a war of attrition.

The original point was about how US intervention during a Taiwan invasion would require the PLA to significantly shift gears to allow them to achieve a degree of regional air and sea control for the airlift and sealift of a Taiwan invasion to continue and to succeed.

Not a controversial idea.

Then, it was raised that a "war with the US comes down to attrition" and speaking of it as if that outcome would be in China's favour.


My argument has been to demonstrate that:
1. A war of attrition against the US would be very much unfavourable for China at this point in time with the balance of forces available, and therefore,
2. Any Taiwan invasion that involves US intervention, would require China to shape its military and geopolitical response in a way to try to carry out its missions as briskly as possible and try to reach a state whereby some sort of peace could be attained ideally after they have achieved their objectives in a Taiwan invasion, and thus avoiding a war of attrition against the US.


===

In any case, I think I've made my point fairly clear over the last few pages now.
Anyone who is partial to being convinced would already be so, and anyone who isn't probably won't be convinced until even after the outcome of a contemporary war of attrition where China gets utterly reduced by the end of it.

This is why I typically don't participate deeply in Taiwan contingency threads, because it usually becomes a thread about a generalized westpac high intensity conflict involving the US.

Bltizo said:

I most certainly am not discounting the entire PLAN and PLARF.

This entire chain of the thread has been describing a war of attrition -- i.e.: a war that takes many months -- if not years -- to be fought.

With the given forces that each side has at present, and their pre-conflict positioning, in a war of attrition I fully expect the US to be capable of significantly degrading Chinese military production facilities, the longer that such a conflict drags out.





A Taiwan contingency that the PLA plans for, versus a generalized high intensity westpac war of attrition, are so different in terms of geographical force disposition, opposing force capabilities, timescale, and respective objectives, that a comparison is virtually useless.






What is more likely is that China will be capable of incurring significant casualties to US air and naval forces in the region during a conflict -- but at great cost to PLA's own air and naval forces in the region.
However, the much greater quantity of global US forces means the US will be capable of reinforcing their air and naval forces in the region in relatively short order (multiple months) while also conducting targeted long range strikes with certain assets that China is unable to properly defend against at that point (SSNs, SSGNs, CONTUS based US bombers) due to the significant losses of its air and naval forces have incurred. This will result in a initial small scale targeted strikes of key production facilities that are vital subsystems for important PLA weapons systems (subsystems involved in weapons such as stealth fighters, long range missile systems, destroyers). The scale will be small initially, but gradually enlarge over time.

Such actions will start off by delaying their production/delivery, then reducing their production rate/delivery, then become wholly unable to be completed in general as time passes.

Over the course of a year, and then two years, and then three years, China will eventually be unable to sustain its losses while the US is capable of replacing its losses, until a tipping point is reached and a general collapse of China's capability to sustain a meaningful air and naval presence and losing the capability to build long range strike missiles in general, at which point it becomes a matter of the US choosing to gradually mop up the remaining ground based air defenses and short range air and naval assets China has remaining.


For China to be capable of making a war of attrition at minimum "equal" between China and the US, China will need to possess the air, naval and missile capability that are able to soundly defeat initial US forces in the western pacific in an initial conflict phase while suffering minimal losses of their own.
The remaining PLA forces after the initial conflict phase would need to be at least equal to the rest of the global forces that the US has remaining that they are able to redeploy to the western pacific in a follow on conflict phase.

Or, putting it more simply, I see a war of attrition mostly as having 2 phases.

Phase 1 conflict:
Westpac location
Duration, occurring over multiple weeks/a few months
Forces at play: Initial Overall PLA Forces vs 50-60% of Global US Forces (assuming 50-60% of the total US military force is redeployed to fight China)

Phase 2 conflict:
Likely occurring multiple months after Phase 1 conflict
Duration, unknown
Westpac/central pacific location
Forces at play: Remaining PLA forces (after Phase 1 conflict) vs Remaining US Global Forces (after Phase 1 conflict, which assumes that the entirety of the US's remaining military force in the entire world has been redeployed to fight China)

The war of attrition will come into play in Phase 2.

In Phase 2, China would do poorly in a war of attrition if the "Remaining PLA Forces" is markedly inferior to the "Remaining US Global Forces".
However, in Phase 2, a war of attrition could be about equal for China and the US if "Remaining PLA Forces" has approximate parity with "Remaining US Global Forces".

That means the big question is what sort of capabilities and overall mass does the PLA need in the "Initial Overall PLA Forces" in Phase 1, to allow their "Remaining PLA Forces" in Phase 2 to achieve rough parity with "Remaining US Global Forces".

But whatever the "Initial Overall PLA Forces" would specifically look like, I think right now the PLA most certainly is not there.

Click to expand...

I used multiple citations to show that the current US cruise missile stockpile is wholy insufficient to conduct a war of attrition because they will need to be used on military targets first. Tomahawks (and other similar long range cruise missiles) are the only real way to attack China during the initial phase of the engagement.

I only use the number of PLARF SRBMs targetting Taiwan as an example to show the vast disparity in targets vs munition: there's 2000+ PLARF missiles targetting a small island, yet only 4000 Tomahawks for the US for all of China, an area 250x bigger.

I showed you, again with citations, that just to target 210 (10%) probable SAM sites out of 2100 SAM site candidates identified by satellite imaging and machine learning in a tiny slice of coastal Southeast China of ~93,000 sq km (1% of China's total area), will require 1000+ missiles. Note that my estimate of 5 missiles per site is valid because all sites shown are pentagonal sites with 5 SAM batteries each. I again demonstrated that because this is already accounting for SAM sites that were rejected by manual human analysts, that there is no further possibility of remote identification and thus all 210 sites must be hit. This is not even counting the entirety of the rest of China. This is also not counting the possibility that a real SAM site was erroneously rejected by human analysts and would be able to shoot down incoming missiles.

I have further demonstrated, again with citations, from known historical battles such as Syria, that the quantity of remaining missiles would be insufficient to suppress PLA air bases, and that just a small fraction of PLAAF fighters, flying safely within Chinese borders, even with an abysmal 50% shootdown rate, would be able to eliminate even more cruise missiles incoming.

And this is me not even counting the possibility of intercepts from the PLAN or PLARF attrition, solely total US stockpile vs. PLA air defense and targets. If you count PLAN air defense assets in, the number of cruise missiles that can hit ground targets declines even further, and very rapidly at that.

This is also discounting the various other effects such as a Russia striking in Europe, Iran striking in the middle east, hyperinflation worldwide, etc.

You also assume that it is 100% known exactly where each subcomponent facility is AND that it can even be targetted by cruise missiles. What if it's in the middle of the country like Chengdu, Chongqing or Xi'an?

In conclusion, I have demonstrated, using citations and openly published data, and with as little personal assumptions as possible, that cruise missile strikes would be ineffective at disabling PLA air defense even under worst case scenario estimates because of the insufficient cruise missile stockpile.

Without disabling air defense, using short ranged dumb bombs on fighters would just be sending them to the grinder. Without using short ranged dumb bombs, there aren't enough munitions to even hit military targets, let alone production centers.

FairAndUnbiased said:

I used multiple citations to show that the current US cruise missile stockpile is wholy insufficient to conduct a war of attrition because they will need to be used on military targets first. Tomahawks (and other similar long range cruise missiles) are the only real way to attack China during the initial phase of the engagement.

Click to expand...

That is why it is called a war of attrition, because in the initial phase of a conflict, the stockpile of cruise missiles are not going to be the total quantity of cruise missiles for the entirety of the war of attrition.

FairAndUnbiased said:

I only use the number of PLARF SRBMs targetting Taiwan as an example to show the vast disparity in targets vs munition: there's 2000+ PLARF missiles targetting a small island, yet only 4000 Tomahawks for the US for all of China, an area 250x bigger.

Click to expand...

That difference in disparity is quite obvious because the PLARF is required to be part of basically a full and complete robust annihilation of the ROC armed forces including their air bases, air defenses, naval facilities, ground formations and bases, C4I centers, all to a sufficient degree such that the PLA can conduct an amphibious invasion, and all in scenarios where time is of the essence which requires frontloading more munitions in a smaller period of time to achieve the given results.

The US does not need to conduct an invasion of China in any form, nor do they require the full and complete robust elimination of the PLA to be capable of starting to chip away at the few key production facilities for specific subsystems vital to the production of various types of military systems.
All the US requires is to punch or even suppress a few temporary holes in China's defenses in specific locations for a brief period to be capable of significantly degrading production of key systems important to various important military systems.

Putting it another way, suppressing a few key locations of China's air defenses just for a couple of hours, can allow cruise missiles or even stealth strikers to conduct a strike against a few high value production locations that are difficult to duplicate and replace.
After those few hours, those holes in China's air defenses can return to full strength without a problem -- but those temporary holes in a few key locations is enough to cause a few key production sites to be shattered.
Rinse and repeat over months and years, and you start to see the gradual effect of how a war of attrition will be lost.

FairAndUnbiased said:

I showed you, again with citations, that just to target 210 (10%) probable SAM sites out of 2100 SAM site candidates identified by satellite imaging and machine learning in a tiny slice of coastal Southeast China of ~93,000 sq km (1% of China's total area), will require 1000+ missiles. Note that my estimate of 5 missiles per site is valid because all sites shown are pentagonal sites with 5 SAM batteries each. I again demonstrated that because this is already accounting for SAM sites that were rejected by manual human analysts, that there is no further possibility of remote identification and thus all 210 sites must be hit. This is not even counting the entirety of the rest of China. This is also not counting the possibility that a real SAM site was erroneously rejected by human analysts and would be able to shoot down incoming missiles.

I have further demonstrated, again with citations, from known historical battles such as Syria, that the quantity of remaining missiles would be insufficient to suppress PLA air bases, and that just a small fraction of PLAAF fighters, flying safely within Chinese borders, even with an abysmal 50% shootdown rate, would be able to eliminate even more cruise missiles incoming.

And this is me not even counting the possibility of intercepts from the PLAN or PLARF attrition, solely total US stockpile vs. PLA air defense and targets. If you count PLAN air defense assets in, the number of cruise missiles that can hit ground targets declines even further, and very rapidly at that.

This is also discounting the various other effects such as a Russia striking in Europe, Iran striking in the middle east, hyperinflation worldwide, etc.

You also assume that it is 100% known exactly where each subcomponent facility is AND that it can even be targetted by cruise missiles. What if it's in the middle of the country like Chengdu, Chongqing or Xi'an?

In conclusion, I have demonstrated, using citations and openly published data, and with as little personal assumptions as possible, that cruise missile strikes would be ineffective at disabling PLA air defense even under worst case scenario estimates because of the insufficient cruise missile stockpile.

Without disabling air defense, using short ranged dumb bombs on fighters would just be sending them to the grinder. Without using short ranged dumb bombs, there aren't enough munitions to even hit military targets, let alone production centers.

Click to expand...

You are describing a PLA that is placed on a wholly defensive stance with PLAAF and PLAN forces residing wholly within China's borders and forfeiting the capability to operate meaningfully beyond China's immediate borders.

That results in not only conceding the first island chain to US air and naval forces (and thus massively increasing the sortie rate and/or range of their aircraft and the effective strike range/depth of their long range cruise missiles), but also meaning the PLA gives up any sort of strategic initiative at all and they effectively concede the ability to meaningfully strike at US air bases in the region with anything other than ground launched missiles.


Such a conflict would allow the PLA to hold out in a war of attrition slightly longer than if they actually tried to conduct a strategy to strike at US air bases and carriers in the region in a multi-domain manner, but it also means they are basically guaranteed to lose such a conflict in the long term due to the loss of initiative, because you allow the enemy to choose the location and time of where they want to strike, which unless you have sufficient mobility and/or capability of your own, means the enemy will almost always be capable of concentrating greater firepower, assets, EW/ECM, and situational awareness than you are able to do.


The entire thesis of your argument is flawed because it rests on the idea that:
A: The PLA will fight a wholly defensive conflict (allowing them to defend locations on the mainland better but ceding the capability of conducting more complex and robust strikes against US bases and carriers in the region), AND
B: That for the US to conduct strikes against the small number of high value production facilities vital to military production, the US must somehow permanently defeat, destroy or suppress the entirety of China's air defenses, when in reality only select geographical locations need to be degraded and suppressed only for the duration of a given strike mission and no longer than the duration of the mission itself.

Bltizo said:

That is why it is called a war of attrition, because in the initial phase of a conflict, the stockpile of cruise missiles are not going to be the total quantity of cruise missiles for the entirety of the war of attrition.




That difference in disparity is quite obvious because the PLARF is required to be part of basically a full and complete robust annihilation of the ROC armed forces including their air bases, air defenses, naval facilities, ground formations and bases, C4I centers, all to a sufficient degree such that the PLA can conduct an amphibious invasion, and all in scenarios where time is of the essence which requires frontloading more munitions in a smaller period of time to achieve the given results.

The US does not need to conduct an invasion of China in any form, nor do they require the full and complete robust elimination of the PLA to be capable of starting to chip away at the few key production facilities for specific subsystems vital to the production of various types of military systems.
All the US requires is to punch or even suppress a few temporary holes in China's defenses in specific locations for a brief period to be capable of significantly degrading production of key systems important to various important military systems.

Putting it another way, suppressing a few key locations of China's air defenses just for a couple of hours, can allow cruise missiles or even stealth strikers to conduct a strike against a few high value production locations that are difficult to duplicate and replace.
After those few hours, those holes in China's air defenses can return to full strength without a problem -- but those temporary holes in a few key locations is enough to cause a few key production sites to be shattered.
Rinse and repeat over months and years, and you start to see the gradual effect of how a war of attrition will be lost.





You are describing a PLA that is placed on a wholly defensive stance with PLAAF and PLAN forces residing wholly within China's borders and forfeiting the capability to operate meaningfully beyond China's immediate borders.

That results in not only conceding the first island chain to US air and naval forces (and thus massively increasing the sortie rate and/or range of their aircraft and the effective strike range/depth of their long range cruise missiles), but also meaning the PLA gives up any sort of strategic initiative at all and they effectively concede the ability to meaningfully strike at US air bases in the region with anything other than ground launched missiles.


Such a conflict would allow the PLA to hold out in a war of attrition slightly longer than if they actually tried to conduct a strategy to strike at US air bases and carriers in the region in a multi-domain manner, but it also means they are basically guaranteed to lose such a conflict in the long term due to the loss of initiative, because you allow the enemy to choose the location and time of where they want to strike, which unless you have sufficient mobility and/or capability of your own, means the enemy will almost always be capable of concentrating greater firepower, assets, EW/ECM, and situational awareness than you are able to do.


The entire thesis of your argument is flawed because it rests on the idea that:
A: The PLA will fight a wholly defensive conflict (allowing them to defend locations on the mainland better but ceding the capability of conducting more complex and robust strikes against US bases and carriers in the region), AND
B: That for the US to conduct strikes against the small number of high value production facilities vital to military production, the US must somehow permanently defeat, destroy or suppress the entirety of China's air defenses, when in reality only select geographical locations need to be degraded and suppressed only for the duration of a given strike mission and no longer than the duration of the mission itself.

Click to expand...

I'm only using this as a toy model (a highly simplified model to look only at a few variables in order to gain understanding) because a general model of a Westpac conflict is too complicated to accurately think about, so I don't even try. The variables I chose to look at were cruise missiles vs. air defenses. I chose these variables because this is the key enabling first step. If this step fails every other step fails.

All this model shows, is that the current cruise missile stockpile is completely inadequate for disrupting production because they can't even disable a small fraction of SAM site candidates + nearby airbases. Indeed, from previous production data (~300 per year) even at full production rate, over a few years it wouldn't make a huge difference.

That is all. It is a highly limited model to look at a single aspect of a potential conflict. However, this may also be claimed to be the worst case scenario, because of the extreme conservatism I made in assuming PLA defenses, and basically deleting the PLAN and PLARF.

FairAndUnbiased said:

I'm only using this as a toy model (a highly simplified model to look only at a few variables in order to gain understanding) because a general model of a Westpac conflict is too complicated to accurately think about, so I don't even try. The variables I chose to look at were cruise missiles vs. air defenses. I chose these variables because this is the key enabling first step. If this step fails every other step fails.

All this model shows, is that the current cruise missile stockpile is completely inadequate for disrupting production because they can't even disable a small fraction of SAM site candidates + nearby airbases. Indeed, from previous production data (~300 per year) even at full production rate, over a few years it wouldn't make a huge difference.

That is all. It is a highly limited model to look at a single aspect of a potential conflict. However, this may also be claimed to be the worst case scenario, because of the extreme conservatism I made in assuming PLA defenses, and basically deleting the PLAN and PLARF.

Click to expand...

I am not anywhere near as optimistic as you are.

I'll be frank.
I think that for the PLA to have a force that is capable of preventing the US from being able to wage a viable war of attrition against China, they need something like a minimum of 8 CATOBAR super carriers with associated escorts, some 60+ H-20s, some 30+ qualitatively competitive SSNs, and a quadrupling of the intermediate range ballistic missile/AShBM/HGV force that they currently have. And of course a correspondingly large and advanced land based fighter and tanker fleet.

The only way to prevent the US from being capable of waging such a war, is to in phase 1, at minimum cripple, and ideally delete the various frontloaded major air bases they have in the region as well as permanently take out of action at least a third of the US's globally available carrier battle groups, while retaining sufficient remaining surviving PLA forces to hold off the inevitable reorganized and redeployed global forces in westpac for phase 2.



The advantages of US frontloaded, prepositioned bases and staging areas in relatively close proximity to the Chinese mainland is a massive one which cannot be underestimated.

Bltizo said:

I am not anywhere near as optimistic as you are.

I'll be frank.
I think that for the PLA to have a force that is capable of preventing the US from being able to wage a viable war of attrition against China, they need something like a minimum of 8 CATOBAR super carriers with associated escorts, some 60+ H-20s, some 30+ qualitatively competitive SSNs, and a quadrupling of the intermediate range ballistic missile/AShBM/HGV force that they currently have. And of course a correspondingly large and advanced land based fighter and tanker fleet.

The only way to prevent the US from being capable of waging such a war, is to in phase 1, at minimum cripple, and ideally delete the various frontloaded major air bases they have in the region as well as permanently take out of action at least a third of the US's globally available carrier battle groups, while retaining sufficient remaining surviving PLA forces to hold off the inevitable reorganized and redeployed global forces in westpac for phase 2.



The advantages of US frontloaded, prepositioned bases and staging areas in relatively close proximity to the Chinese mainland is a massive one which cannot be underestimated.

Click to expand...

I make no claims as to what strategy is best, or what an adequate force number should be, because then we'd have to start making assumptions and start guessing.

But, with a broader view than merely cruise missiles vs. targets, I'd say that it's not feasible to preemptively attack China due to the risk. At current production rates, if they lose the Pacific fleet and can't conquer or regime change China to a such a degree that China starts paying them tribute (and I demonstrated this is impossible), they could outright lose because now European/Middle Eastern crises spiral out of their control with Russian escalations.

As long as China can survive without regime change or total conquest, and inflicts sufficient damage to force a pullout of Atlantic forces and eliminates enough force projection assets like tankers, carriers, bombers, etc. it's a win. If their Atlantic fleet has to be sent to the Pacific, they'd lose control of European supply lines to Russian subs which can operate far out of reach of European ASW planes.

Europe is not consumer product or energy self sufficient, and food self sufficiency depends on Russian natural gas for chemical feedstock. If Russia takes this opportunity to retake the Baltics and Ukraine, it would be a complete crisis for NATO. Russia cuts the gas, China won't be able to export even if it wants to, subs and missiles sink ships in the Atlantic, North Sea oil rigs and oil refineries... Europe falls into hyperinflation and shortage of everything. As long as the EU core of France-Germany-Italy-Spain isn't attacked, the case for defending Baltics and Ukraine goes down... and the hegemonic promises of aid are rendered useless.

Middle East is even worse, of course, with it being much easier to disrupt supply chains.

Does this mean that it WILL happen this way? No, but it is a possibility, and that possibility must be considered. So taking a broader view, it is infeasible for them to strike first, because the potential of overall political defeat remains. Then China has time to develop in peace.