PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

siegecrossbow said:

In many aspects Taiwan's military is technologically superior to Ukraine but the morale of the troops is not the best. Soldier training under DPP has been very risk averse and conscription time has been cut down drastically due to popular sentiments. In an article I've read by a conservative American blogger with contacts in Taiwan some of the artillery units have not done live fire training during the duration of their service, like at all... This is pretty unthinkable for a military facing a threat as big as that of mainland China.

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Then there are a lot of other known things like pilots getting 80 hours of training per year, soldiers stopping exercising in summer, naval special forces being trained in swimming pools, almost no AAM test launches, etc...
The abolishment of conscription and decrease in the number of young people mean the Taiwanese military will likely shrink significantly in the coming decade.

As I said, Taiwan is not an easy task but it is definitely achievable and getting easier as the years pass.

BoraTas said:

Then there are a lot of other known things like pilots getting 80 hours of training per year, soldiers stopping exercising in summer, naval special forces being trained in swimming pools, almost no AAM test launches, etc...
The abolishment of conscription and decrease in the number of young people mean the Taiwanese military will likely shrink significantly in the coming decade.

As I said, Taiwan is not an easy task but it is definitely achievable and getting easier as the years pass.

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Greatest obstacle remains geography and external intervention.

siegecrossbow said:

In many aspects Taiwan's military is technologically superior to Ukraine but the morale of the troops is not the best. Soldier training under DPP has been very risk averse and conscription time has been cut down drastically due to popular sentiments. In an article I've read by a conservative American blogger with contacts in Taiwan some of the artillery units have not done live fire training during the duration of their service, like at all... This is pretty unthinkable for a military facing a threat as big as that of mainland China.

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I find that hard to believe, although possible.

You have to regularly expend and replenish ammo to make sure it's fresh. I mean, imagine PLA is invading and you find that water was leaking in the warehouse and all the ammo has become duds. Best way to do this is regular training. Artillery exercises are almost never training rounds for this reason (when else are you going to use it?)

supersnoop said:

I find that hard to believe, although possible.

You have to regularly expend and replenish ammo to make sure it's fresh. I mean, imagine PLA is invading and you find that water was leaking in the warehouse and all the ammo has become duds. Best way to do this is regular training. Artillery exercises are almost never training rounds for this reason (when else are you going to use it?)

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Lots of things are hard to believe but given the current state of ROC military, they are true. It is not some mainland CCP propaganda. It is leaked by people within the military. Unless they have their own version of the strategic fooyou agency...

BoraTas said:

Then there are a lot of other known things like pilots getting 80 hours of training per year, soldiers stopping exercising in summer, naval special forces being trained in swimming pools, almost no AAM test launches, etc...
The abolishment of conscription and decrease in the number of young people mean the Taiwanese military will likely shrink significantly in the coming decade.

As I said, Taiwan is not an easy task but it is definitely achievable and getting easier as the years pass.

Click to expand...

I can't imagine their real special forces being trained in swimming pool, but the deaths of the ROCMC soldiers a couple years ago by drowning always seemed to me either poor training or poor planning.

No AAM test launches is simple. They don't have enough AAMs, something like only 300 AMRAAMs and many of them are stored in the USA for the training squadron. That means technically they don't have enough for even a full combat load.

Summer pause in exercise requires some context. All military should pause training according to medical advice on temperature and humidity.

supersnoop said:

I can't imagine their real special forces being trained in swimming pool, but the deaths of the ROCMC soldiers a couple years ago by drowning always seemed to me either poor training or poor planning.

No AAM test launches is simple. They don't have enough AAMs, something like only 300 AMRAAMs and many of them are stored in the USA for the training squadron. That means technically they don't have enough for even a full combat load.

Summer pause in exercise requires some context. All military should pause training according to medical advice on temperature and humidity.

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Up until last year ROCAF didn't have permission to fire AIM-120 within the island.

escobar said:

With Starlink, Internet will still be available unless PLA can jam thousand starlink sats

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You do realize these things need ground stations and it would be not too hard for spies on the ground and for drones to go after them. And it would be very easy for EW aircraft to severely disrupt the band operating from ground station to starlink satellites since the bands are well know. In fact by this point, PLA EW/ELINT/SIGINT aircraft have spent enough time around Taiwan to probably have all the relevant RFs figured out and pretty much know how ROC would operate in war scenario. I'd be very suppressed if communication in Taiwan is not severely downgraded during wartime. And local population is likely to lose TV, Internet and probably electricity/gas during war time. The only thing they will hear on radio is mainland propaganda for them to give up. It's not going to be a Ukraine scenario where everyone is posting tweets of how they destroy a Russian armor. There would be E-3Cs operating close to Taiwan to provide intelligence to Taiwan military.

The problem for Taiwan political leaders is that military is not well trained at the moment. They spend a bunch of money on new toys but training is not up to par. The ROC military is demoralized by having constant PLAAF fly by and unable to do anything about that. That just leads to people not having careers in military. These days, you need to have a large, professionally trained armed force to properly fight. Having more young conscript does not give you credible defense. Taiwan is now a very well off society. There just isn't the desire for people to develop careers in military if it has such low morale.

Since the land based terminal emits radio signals it can be tracked then targeted with a bomb.

Doubt this would go well with the TW public.

If TW was serious about defending itself, it really needs to institute a 2 year conscription for men and women after the Israeli model.

On the contrary, I don't think PLA needs to scramble the EW of Starlink signals or destroy Starlink satellites, during the war time the spike of EW value will single out the significant military targets, especially when power plants have been destroyed.