PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

J

Jingle Bells

Junior Member
Registered Member
Bltizo said:
"Please elaborate on this"
"Give me some numbers"

So, do you want to me literally give you the entire way in which I would expect the PLAAF and PLAN and PLARF to be deployed during a western pacific conflict arising from a PLA invasion of Taiwan, as well as the way in which USAF and USN forces would be deployed, and the forces PLAAF and PLARF forces the PLA would have to support a Korean War operation?
Do you also expect me to come up with the variety of plausible timings in which the various main players would conduct offensive and defensive actions, in addition to the above, and to justify all of them?


I can't do so to that level of detail, I don't have the time and I don't have the patience to do so (unless someone wants to pay me to do it, I suppose, and I'll be charging competitive rates).

But sure, I'll give you the cliffnotes version.
- I expect 3/4s of the PLAs tactical fighter force and their corresponding force multipliers (AEW&C, EW/ECM, ELINT/SIGINT) to be deployed to the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands and 80% of the PLA's bomber force deployed/operating in support of missions in those respective theaters and areas of responsibility. That leaves 1/3rd (at most) of the PLA's remaining tactical fighter force to complete the rest of its missions, including but not limited to -- supporting this idiotic Korean ground offensive, but also to keep a sufficient force in play to deter India on the western approach and conducting an air defense mission in central China.
- I expect 3/4s of the PLARF's SRBM force to have been deployed in support of a Taiwan contingency/invasion (that would have already occurred at this point), and virtually all of the PLARF's IRBM force deployed in support of strikes against US positions in the western pacific (Guam, but also air bases in Japan, and of course most importantly the AShBMs against US carriers).
- I expect the vast majority of the PLAN to be deployed in the Eastern and Southern Theaters in support of the overall western pacific conflict. A token force would remain in the North.
- I expect PLA IADS forces to be redeployed and frontloaded to areas in the Eastern and Southern Theaters as well as to protect Beijing.
- I expect a significant of portion of PLA amphibious capable units to have been redeployed at readiness to the Eastern Theater Command at inland staging locations to be in site for a potential Taiwan amphibious crossing that might occur at any time over the following months or year, pending the outcome of the initial stages of a western pacific conflict with the US.


So, based on all that, the remaining forces that the PLA have left in terms of PLAAF, PLARF, PLAN, IADS are the ones that they will have to support any sort of PLA ground force that they deploy to conduct an attack on the Korean peninsula, and this is keeping in mind that all of the above redeployments to the Eastern and Western Theater Commands will have taken up substantial capacity for China's internal transport network (even before we talk about any potential US strikes against China's transport infrastructure).

Of course, the PLA could certainly try to deploy more of the PLAAF and PLARF and IADS in support of a Korea operation -- but that means substantially weakening their ability to carry out operations in the much more important theater of the western pacific air-naval-missile conflict.



Frankly I am in awe that you are asking me to even elaborate on this.
Perhaps you should first state your position to let me know if I should even spend time on this -- with the PLA's current overall forces, how well do you think they would fare against the US in a western pacific air-naval-missile conflict to begin with, and based on that, how many air and missile forces do you think they would have to spare to support an offensive into Korea at the same time?


Look, if you are genuinely interested, let me give you my distilled position on this suggestion of "carrying out an offensive against Korea simultaneously as a western pacific conflict against the US is occurring for the purposes of trying to start a new front and carry out a war of attrition":
It is stupid, and would cause China to lose the war faster.

If my arguments and logic is worth anything to people who read my writing, then they would be able to take that conclusion and start to do some legwork and use some effort to understand how that conclusion is reached (it isn't difficult, and I've basically already explained the principles out to people repeatedly).


This entire discussion about a war of attrition can be settled if people just recognize that in general, the idea of the PLA waging a war of attrition against the US arising from a Taiwan invasion, with the forces the PLA has at its disposal, is complete and utter fantasy.
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I see, that does make perfect sense. I did realize that we are under the "Taiwan Contingency" thread. So any talk about a "Korean Conflict with PLA involvement" will have the "Taiwan Contingency" as a necessary premise. In this sense, it does make perfect sense that whatever remaining PLA forces is certainly not large enough to do engage in a full-on invasion campaign into South Korea, from a planner's POV. And there is also an issue with war of attrition.
I admit, when I was first reading your earlier post, I didn't think thoroughly about the background conditions of your conversation.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
GTI said:
In regards to point #2 - only the SSGNs (and any LACM capable SSN) are worries.

I’d really like to understand how you think a PLA of say, 2027 won’t be able to decimate surface ships with AShBM, AShHGV/HCM and keep bombers away, using a combination of S/IRBMs (airbases), AEW&Cs, drones, UCAVs, PL-18/20/21 and at least 400 J-20s.

With back-pocket options like destroying GPS and cyber attacks on critical US infrastructure (pipelines, power grids, airports, airplanes, factories, dam control stations etc.) - and the capacity of a PRC wartime economy to produce/replenish ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles.
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This is a summary.

Bltizo's logic is that the US can strike production facilities so there's 0 replenishment for PRC missiles.

I disagreed because I believe that you can't effectively hit production before you hit air defense, and the best way to hit air defense is with long range cruise missiles (as any other way will be destroyed easily by PLAAF air defenses) Here is where I used multiple citations from published papers (for analysis) and mainstream media (for public numbers) to show that the cruise missile stockpile is nowhere near capable of defeating or suppressing PLA air defense and have enough left over for non-priority targets.

The refutation here is that only a temporary corridor need to be suppressed to hit a single subcomponent facility to cripple production of every single PRC missile.

My refutation here is that you don't even know what a subcomponent facility looks like or who the suppliers are, and even if identified, if they're inland, you'll need to tank up over China which can't be done unless you suppress FAR more air defense than for cruise missiles

You as a member of the neutral audience can take this information and think for yourself. I won't tell you what I think, I will only tell you the facts and where I got them from, and ask some simple questions.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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FairAndUnbiased said:
This is a summary.

Bltizo's logic is that the US can strike production facilities so there's 0 replenishment for PRC missiles.
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I never said that there's "0 replenishment for PRC missiles".
I said that the US can strike Chinese production facilities, and degrade Chinese production to the extent that a war of attrition is unfavourable to China.



FairAndUnbiased said:
My refutation here is that you don't even know what a subcomponent facility looks like or who the suppliers are, and even if identified, if they're inland, you'll need to tank up over China which can't be done unless you suppress FAR more air defense than for cruise missiles

You as a member of the neutral audience can take this information and think for yourself. I won't tell you what I think, I will only tell you the facts and where I got them from, and ask some simple questions.
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You did not quote me in that reply.

As for identification of suppliers -- no, that absolutely can be done through peacetime tracking (that is the entire point of why nations have intelligence services), and suppliers of key subsystems like powerplants, radars, will not be easily relocatable during wartime, entire new facilities with specialized equipment and staff need to be set up, which takes time.

Temporary breaches in limited geographic domains to allow long range cruise missiles and stealth aircraft to launch limited temporary strikes to degrade Chinese production will occur over multiple instances for a multi-year long campaign.

All the while China will have no capability at all to conduct equivalent kinetic strikes against US production facilities.
China may be able to retain production of some weapons -- but the scale of which will be dwarfed by US production of weapons. US replenishment of aircraft, missiles, and ships will outstrip that of China's ability to replenish those systems, and that is how China loses a war of attrition.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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This will be my last post on the matter:

The PLA of today currently does not have the capability to wage a favourable war of attrition against the US military in a western pacific conflict arising from a Taiwan invasion. There are no ifs and buts about it.
If you believe that you might have come up with a way in which the PLA might have an edge or some kind of advantage or some sort of stratagem, please re-read the last 6+ pages.
You will probably find it addressed already by myself or by others.


But, saying the PLA of today is unable to conduct a war of attrition against the US, doesn't mean the PLA will never be able to.

The PLA of the 1990s would not have been capable of properly suppressing the ROCAF and ROCN to even start thinking about an amphibious invasion, but after three decades of planning and procurement, look where they are now.
 
J

Jingle Bells

Junior Member
Registered Member
Bltizo said:
This will be my last post on the matter:

The PLA of today currently does not have the capability to wage a favourable war of attrition against the US military in a western pacific conflict arising from a Taiwan invasion. There are no ifs and buts about it.
If you believe that you might have come up with a way in which the PLA might have an edge or some kind of advantage or some sort of stratagem, please re-read the last 6+ pages.
You will probably find it addressed already by myself or by others.


But, saying the PLA of today is unable to conduct a war of attrition against the US, doesn't mean the PLA will never be able to.

The PLA of the 1990s would not have been capable of properly suppressing the ROCAF and ROCN to even start thinking about an amphibious invasion, but after three decades of planning and procurement, look where they are now.
Click to expand...
What then do you think is the necessary capabilities and strength the PLA will need in order to "be able to conduct a war of attrition against the US in the Western Pacific"?
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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Jingle Bells said:
What then do you think is the necessary capabilities and strength the PLA will need in order to "be able to conduct a war of attrition against the US in the Western Pacific"?
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Lol to be honest I don't even dare to think about the force that the PLA will need in which a war of attrition would be significantly favourable to China.

But I have written about the PLA force where neither side is favoured in a war of attrition (i.e.: where the US is unable to wage a war of attrition against China, but where China is also not really able to wage a war of attrition against the US):

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

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. I most certainly am not discounting the...
www.sinodefenceforum.com

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

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. I most certainly am not discounting the...
www.sinodefenceforum.com


===

But in terms of the rough correlation of forces that the PLA will need to be able to be favoured in a war of attrition against the US, I did briefly entertain the idea here:

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Yes, I agree that the PLA would delay a Taiwan campaign if the US got involved. From the civilian perspective, the electricity and fuel networks on Taiwan will be attacked. There are only 100-odd major targets like Power stations, Fuel Depots and Refineries. The transportation network could...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
 
J

Jingle Bells

Junior Member
Registered Member
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.
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Sure, from a planner's point of view. This does seem like what a moderately cautious and careful planner will request from the state to have a adequately confident prospect.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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Jingle Bells said:
Sure, from a planner's point of view. This does seem like what a moderately cautious and careful planner will request from the state to have a adequately confident prospect.
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Yeah funny that. It's almost like that is what we should all be aspiring to adapt our mindsets towards as, on this forum.

(Not directed at anyone specifically of course)
 
james smith esq

james smith esq

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Sorry to comment, here, again, as it seems that some, here, have claimed ownership to this thread, BUT, it seems, to me, that this thread has become a debate, in which competitive sides seek to “win” by persuasion, as opposed to a discussion, in which cooperative participants seek to expand knowledge and understanding through the exchange of perspectives (how thoroughly western that is, indeed!). Sorry to lecture, BUT, that seems to have become the prevailing tone, here.

All of our projected scenarios have bases in assumptions and biases, which, by definition, are based in incomplete factual knowledge and experiential preferences. As such, by necessity, none of them are factually correct, no matter how many words we pile onto them. And, no, repeated repetition, or “clarifications” of our positions (assumptions) don’t make them any more correct.

So, that said, there are, from my reading, two primary competing assumptions regarding one strategic consideration that are at the root of much of the contention, here. The strategic consideration is US attacks against the Chinese mainland and the two assumptions, obviously, are will happen and won’t happen. My assumption and biases incline me towards scenarios based upon the latter, and I’ve observed that some others’ do, as well.

So, may I suggest, that going forward, if your perspective aligns with one or the other of these assumptions, that you state this at beginning of your post and request that only those that see value in this assumption respond to your post/question. That way, we don’t have to, politely, scream and talk at each other, trying to persuade each other that our assumptions are correct!
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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Staff member
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james smith esq said:
Sorry to comment, here, again, as it seems that some, here, have claimed ownership to this thread, BUT, it seems, to me, that this thread has become a debate, in which competitive sides seek to “win” by persuasion, as opposed to a discussion, in which cooperative participants seek to expand knowledge and understanding through the exchange of perspectives (how thoroughly western that is, indeed!). Sorry to lecture, BUT, that seems to have become the prevailing tone, here.

All of our projected scenarios have bases in assumptions and biases, which, by definition, are based in incomplete factual knowledge and experiential preferences. As such, by necessity, none of them are factually correct, no matter how many words we pile onto them. And, no, repeated repetition, or “clarifications” of our positions (assumptions) don’t make them any more correct.

So, that said, there are, from my reading, two primary competing assumptions regarding one strategic consideration that are at the root of much of the contention, here. The strategic consideration is US attacks against the Chinese mainland and the two assumptions, obviously, are will happen and won’t happen. My assumption and biases incline me towards scenarios based upon the latter, and I’ve observed that some others’ do, as well.

So, may I suggest, that going forward, if your perspective aligns with one or the other of these assumptions, that you state this at beginning of your post and request that only those that see value in this assumption respond to your post/question. That way, we don’t have to, politely, scream and talk at each other, trying to persuade each other that our assumptions are correct!
Click to expand...

It's impossible to have such a discussion when even simple things like "US conducting strikes on sites against the Chinese mainland," was first openly discussed and raised some four days ago:

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

That is to say -- if foreign intervention occurs in the middle of an invasion, I expect the PLA to place the majority of its focus on asserting regional air and sea control against the foreign intervention. If the invasion has yet to really get underway with only minimal forces landed, I expect...
www.sinodefenceforum.com

And then people enter the conversation part way through without being able to recognize that was part of the original exchange (and thus part of the original set of assumptions) in the first place.
If someone wants to enter the conversation and challenge that perhaps the US conducting strikes against the Chinese mainland is not a reasonable assumption then that is fine.
Efforts would be made to debate that point (which is what occurred), or alternatively the discussion with that person will simply be finished and be unable to progress.


However, when things such as misportraying positions like claiming I had suggested "US strikes means there's 0 replenishment for PRC missiles," then yes it requires detailed and repetitive clarification of one's position to ensure that they are not being misinterpreted.

I can appreciate that a multipage, multi-party, long episode of a detailed discussion like this might be difficult to keep track of, but people who want to enter the discussion should be required to do the due diligence of understanding what the various positions are and what the actual arguments are and what arguments have already been made, before contributing their own arguments.
Requesting people to clarify their positions is reasonable, but putting forward one's own argument should necessitate an understanding of what has already been said and by whom.
This does not only go for this thread, but all threads in general.

I don't want to lecture, but I think that is a fairly reasonable expectation for forum etiquette.
 
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