Off Topic but affordable plant based “meats” would be nice. Sadly, idk how many years it will take until they are competitive with regular meat. Especially in this type of inflation.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
I think modern military industry supply chain is too complex thus too suspensible to kinetic/cyber disruption. What China enters the war with are probably all that will be available. For this reason I just don't buy the 2017-2018 timeline floated by so many supposed insiders. It's stupid to enter a potential great power war without first increasing one's military spending to above 3% for at least a decade. As long as China continues to only spend 1.7% or so of its GDP on military, the military option is not on the horizon.
I mentioned Iraq because it's a direct example of what the US can actually use after 6 months of buildup. It turns out it was essentially the entire US military's power projection capabilities in 1991.
We can look at Iraq in 2003 to see what it takes to beat an army with little heavy equipment or air power after 12 years of attrition against a country with zero ability to fight back... the answer is 300k in an invasion where they literally just drove through the border.
The US does not have the ability to inflict the equivalent losses to 12 years of attrition on Iraq, against the PLA.
Speaking of CBGs, here's a historical analysis of availability. Conclusion: only 7x will be available in the best of cases. This agrees with the 1/3 availability rule (1/3 deployed, 1/3 training or underway, 1/3 unavailable). See below.
In a war of choice, with all the time in the world to gather forces and nobody shooting back for 6 months, you might get to concentrate 7x at once in a single theater.
In a sudden outbreak of a war, you might only have 4x in a single theater (Pacific fleet: Reagan, Vinson, Lincoln, Nimitz) with 3x in other theaters (Atlantic fleet: Truman, Eisenhower, Bush).
Conclusion: ~1.4x numerical advantage for 1:1 in quality wipes the numerically inferior force 100% while taking less than 30% losses.
I doubt the PLA would even allow the US to gather and concentrate its forces near China. The moment a certain threshold is passed I expect the PLA to make a preemptive first strike against the US military.
Why allow the enemy to gather forces and reach the peak of its military capability/capacity when you can cripple it halfway through.
The critical aspect is that one side has ASBMs and so can strike first when enemy ships are still concentrating towards (and have not yet concentrated at) a theater of operations. ASBMs can be moved under the dead of night and even if spotted during the day, can otherwise look like civilian trucking.
, the end result is that with a mere 200x missiles and even an abysmal 1% success rate against a CBG in general, you can sink 2x CBGs.
Now it was shown that none of the missiles missed out of 2 trials. What do you think the probability is that the actual success rate is just 1%?
Exactly this. If there was an enemy concentration of force occuring and an attack is imminent, the only acceptable strategy would be to defensively strike first to achieve initial concentration of force and establish momentum per Lanchester's Laws.
US has learned from Afghanistan that you need a clear goal and exit strategy.
The only clear goal of US intervention to defend Taiwan is either a) defeat PLA and force PRC to sign an Unequal treaty relinquishing Taiwan a la Treaty of Shimonoseki, or b) conquest of China mainland by Taiwan-US combined forces.
Those two are virtually impossible, so it's better for US to not get involved in a quagmire which it will not win in long-term. China will eventually re-invade again and again at a time of it's own choosing, US can't park a zillion CATOBAR outside Taiwan until the end of time. So US will likely call Taiwan as a loss and crank out the 'China Bad' propaganda high, and blame Taiwan for its own cowardice and low-morale just like the Syrian Kurds, Afghanistan, and South Vietnamese.
Source: Chinese-American who can smell American bullshit from a mile away.
The only clear goal of US intervention to defend Taiwan is either a) defeat PLA and force PRC to sign an Unequal treaty relinquishing Taiwan a la Treaty of Shimonoseki, or b) conquest of China mainland by Taiwan-US combined forces.
Those two are virtually impossible, so it's better for US to not get involved in a quagmire which it will not win in long-term. China will eventually re-invade again and again at a time of it's own choosing, US can't park a zillion CATOBAR outside Taiwan until the end of time. So US will likely call Taiwan as a loss and crank out the 'China Bad' propaganda high, and blame Taiwan for its own cowardice and low-morale just like the Syrian Kurds, Afghanistan, and South Vietnamese.
Source: Chinese-American who can smell American bullshit from a mile away.
Nowhere in my vision for how a war of attrition would go, does the US ever concentrate all of its carrier battlegroups or all of its naval or air forces in the western pacific at the same time.
I'm well aware of carrier deployment and availability cycles, thanks.
They were supposed to have learned that with Vietnam. Not that it matters.
The US Army will do whatever the US President tells them to do. It is as simple as that.