PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Bellum_Romanum said:

Are they more Pro-Ukrainian over there? And why were you banned for defending yourself (Chinese) against racist attacks that usually comes out from the most Jai Hind folks on that forum. Which also surprised me since that site is supposed to be for Pakistanis, yet those folks are far more indulgent to their Indian users along with their vile rhetoric compared to some of the most frequent Chinese users there.

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1. a certain mod who claims to be 100% Pakistani is also more pro murican pro Ukraine than even some actual muricans and Ukrainians on there. He brags about how it was ez pz to destroy Iraq and Afghanistan (???) and any setbacks the US has is because they don't care enough, it's actually a feature of their freedom and democracy, or shows their supreme mercy.

2. It's not about being Indian or Pakistani IMO. you'd be surprised by how many third worlders in general look down on China despite their countries being poor compared to China with less than 1/5 Chinese GDP per capita. The arrogance is incredible. Instead of viewing China as a model for their development, they internalize racism and attribute anything positive about China to foreign investment or cheating. You even have some Bangladeshis on there, of all people, being racist against Chinese and supporting Imperial Japan.

solarz said:

A bit off topic, but it's something I've always wondered, what's the relation between SDF and PDF? Seems like a lot of posters came from PDF or something?

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PDF was the older forum but people who want something with a bit more structure seem to migrate here and use that one less.

How long would it realistically take for China to mobilise an invasion force in the event of Taiwan's contingency?

Also how long should the SEAD campaign last before sending in the landing force?

Volpler11 said:

How long would it realistically take for China to mobilise an invasion force in the event of Taiwan's contingency?

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Depends on how long it takes to mobilise and prepare (something that they do quite regularly train for though).
If I had to take a guess 1-2 months at most, also they can in fact do it 'kinda covertly/secretly'

Volpler11 said:

Also how long should the SEAD campaign last before sending in the landing force?

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No idea, would depend on their capabilities, but my guess is actually only a single day (for air defense, airports etc.)

Michaelsinodef said:

If I had to take a guess 1-2 months at most, also they can in fact do it 'kinda covertly/secretly'

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My dad said that the PLA wouldn't need to prepare or mobilize much for this operation, because they already secretly stationed troops and assets in Fujian.

Though I still think they'll still need to mobilize their naval assets, but I'm guessing for the first few amphibious landing and blockade, they'll use commercial and civilian fishing boats to quickly establish a beachhead and harass/blockade any foreign ships from intervening.

Coalescence said:

My dad said that the PLA wouldn't need to prepare or mobilize much for this operation, because they already secretly stationed troops and assets in Fujian.

Though I still think they'll still need to mobilize their naval assets, but I'm guessing for the first few amphibious landing and blockade, they'll use commercial and civilian fishing boats to quickly establish a beachhead and harass/blockade any foreign ships from intervening.

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I can imagine that being the case, the 1-2 month was really a loose maximum Tbh.

Would not at all be surprised if it could be done in a few weeks (not to mention a lot of the relevant needed assets/equipment should already be stationed somewhat 'close').

Volpler11 said:

How long would it realistically take for China to mobilise an invasion force in the event of Taiwan's contingency?

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All of China's amphibious forces are already stationed on the coast. The Eastern Theatre Command, whose exclusive ground mission is Taiwan, has three group armies and 18 maneuver brigades, including 6 amphibious brigades.
This map is from the excellent YouTube channel Battle Order.

Volpler11 said:

Also how long should the SEAD campaign last before sending in the landing force?

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Against static or semi-static air defense site (PATRIOT, HAWK, Sky Bow 1/2), the campaign will last the same as the flight time of a short range ballistic missile, which is less than 180 seconds. And it would be DEAD instead of SEAD.

Against mobile air defense (Sky Bow 3, various IR guided SAMs), the campaign will last the entire duration of the war where J-16D armed with anti-radiation missile would be patrolling 24/7 ready to strike the moment a radar is turned on.

Jason_ said:

Against static or semi-static air defense site (PATRIOT, HAWK, Sky Bow 1/2), the campaign will last the same as the flight time of a short range ballistic missile, which is less than 180 seconds. And it would be DEAD instead of SEAD.

Against mobile air defense (Sky Bow 3, various IR guided SAMs), the campaign will last the entire duration of the war where J-16D armed with anti-radiation missile would be patrolling 24/7 ready to strike the moment a radar is turned on.

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Yes, but the question is how much bombardment to do before sending in the landing ships. As the Ukraine war has shown, an insufficient air campaign before sending in the grunt would be costly. China should at least dedicate some amount of time to eliminating as much resistance from the air as possible. The issue is balancing the amount of time to spend vs the risk of foreign response/intervention.

Volpler11 said:

Yes, but the question is how much bombardment to do before sending in the landing ships. As the Ukraine war has shown, an insufficient air campaign before sending in the grunt would be costly. China should at least dedicate some amount of time to eliminating as much resistance from the air as possible. The issue is balancing the amount of time to spend vs the risk of foreign response/intervention.

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Absolutely. In Operation Desert Storm, the Coalition's goal was to reduce Iraqi ground force strength by 50% through the air campaign. The PLAAF should aim for something similar. Indeed this task would be much easier considering that Saddam had ~60 divisions whereas Taiwan has a mere 16 brigades (armor+infantry+artillery).

Volpler11 said:

As the Ukraine war has shown, an insufficient air campaign before sending in the grunt would be costly. China should at least dedicate some amount of time to eliminating as much resistance from the air as possible.

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Make no mistake. A Chinese campaign would not look like the one Russia is putting on Ukraine. The underwater Internet cables will be cut off at T-0. EW aircraft will be constantly stationed over Taiwan jamming/disrupting all communication and Internet. To the point where Taiwan will have very little communications with rest of the world.

There will be an initial wave of ballistic missiles and anti-ship missiles to knock out all of Taiwan's main radar and SAM batteries, large naval ships, commander centers, fuel depots followed by strike aircraft launching stand off missiles and PGMs against all the known military bases, bunkers, hangars and armor group. Ideally, there would be daily Y-9 aircraft circling around Taiwan pre-invasion to track all the troop movement so that they know exactly where most of the artillery and armor units are. So that the strike aircraft can hit them. After a certain point, you don't want to keep sending J-16s out there since that's a lot of stress on the pilots and airframes when you might need them for other battles. Have a large group of WL-2 or following UCAVs to blanket Taiwanese air space. Have KJ-500, something like the new Y-9DZ multi-mission EW aircraft and WZ-7/BZK005 UAV over top + WL-2 SAR radar to continuously assess battlefield situations and decide on new attack targets. They have all the assets in place. They just need more training to more quickly react to Taiwanese ground troop movement and go after them.

I'd expect maybe 1000 missiles of various types launched on the first day against various targets. Fortunately, Taiwan is a smaller air space, so they can probably cover all of Taiwan with WL-2s pretty easily. The initial phase should knock out all fixed air defense, military bases, fuel depots, command center, communication towers, electric stations and at least temporarily disable the runways. The following phases will keep runways out of commission, attack any mobile air defense, troop movement and things like that.