PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Just had some read of this author's random blabberings while trying to make it look "professional" with some numbers and figures here and there.

Seriously, this author is either a propagandist trying to comfort the masses, or he's trying to comfort himself. I guess both at the same time.

For instance, did he seriously believe that the PLA would just send men to Taiwan using 50 thousand fishing boats??? If so, I have a planet to sell to him.

On the flip side, man, I truly hope that the Taiwanese leadership would listen to this guy for their defense and security matters. That way, the PLA can just laugh all the way to Taipei.

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supersnoop said:

Vicious…

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For example, construction workers in Taiwan are largely foreign labourers, while local youths would rather work in convenience stores.

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Hendrik_2000 said:

Sometime ago there is discussion about how the west or US can decapitate Chinese military by sneak attack on the bases. It is just not realistic because of the sheer number of Chinese bases and spread widely across continental size country. Here is someone who actually make an effort to enumerate all the chinese bases. During Iraq war the west has trouble locating scud missile even though Iraq is dessert country devoid of greenery

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zhangjim said:

So, as I said, this is a book with a strong propaganda color.The author's own defense is to make people not feel pessimistic about the future through some simple knowledge dissemination.He wanted to make people realize that CPC's war threats were not as terrible as they thought.

I thumbed through the review of the book,this book has sold well, and the publicity has also achieved results. After reading it, many people said that we have confidence in Taiwan's defense capability.

That is why I decided not to repeat their nonsense in the forum.The book is full of outdated information and baseless assumptions,but it is very suitable as a test book to test your cognition of PLA.

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我没有极权主义的信念，认为西方人比俄罗斯、中国等国的人好。我更多地把这些人看作是受害者，是那些不关心人权的精英权贵独裁者的受害者。我更希望俄罗斯或中国成为民主国家。

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

(Chinese follows English) (英文在中文之后)

Apart from the book above, you also have this:

Someone made an EAS (Emergency Alert System) scenario video depicting the hypothetical China's "invasion" of Taiwan.

The video contains news report, EAS, phone calls between generals and politicians, live interviews, battlefront communications, bla bla bla.

Of course, since the outcome of that scenario must be politically correct (as this is Youtube and the creator is a British) so it goes that the PLA advance on Taiwan somehow stalls, US and NATO interferes, PLA got pushed out of Taiwan, riots and chaos across China, US warships firing on Chinese coastal cities, guerrilla inflitration from Vietnam, civil wars, the CPC going to get overthrown, bla bla bla.

And you have this one comment by the creator of this video which tells it all about himself:
View attachment 91301

I can only say that this creator understands nothing about China and the Chinese people.

Heck, he even uses Simplified Chinese for EAS broadcasts by the Taiwanese authorities.

It goes without saying, this is such a hilarious yet stupid video. Treat this as a prank video, everyone.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

(Chinese after English) (中文会在英文之后)

Actually, I plan to use my previous points for further elaboration. But since you have already responded, hence I would just use my elaboration points as part of my response.

You see, with the coastal regions of Fujian being located directly opposite of Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait, by logical sense, those locations would obviously become the staging area for the PLAGF to gather their troops and equipment, board amphibious assault ships of the PLAN before sailing directly for Taiwan. Therefore, those staging areas on Fujian's coastline would become the very first strike targets for any attempts by the ROC military at the very first sign of war in order to thwart any attempts by the PLA to march on Taiwan.

View attachment 91140

Therefore, my thoughts is for the PLAGF to gather near those coastal regions, but make it not so obvious enough that people living along the Fujian coastline could figure out what is going to happen right away. Span the gathering of troops over multiple months, and disperse them wide enough so as to not raise clear warnings for the Taiwanese government.

Rather than loading PLAGF troops and equipment onto PLAN amphibious assault ships before the start of the war, the process of boarding PLAGF troops and equipment onto PLAN amphibious assault ships should not begin until at least three days after the start of the war. But of course, the process must be quick.

If that's the case, then what should be done during the first few days of the war?

That period of time should be for the PLARF, PLAAF and PLAN to conduct round-clock, non-stop, intense, and accurate missile, aerial and naval-based bombardment against Taiwan for sufficient durations of time before the PLAGF could be sent over to land on the beaches of Taiwan and initiate ground combat over there. The key objective for the PLARF, PLAAF and PLAN would be to wipe out as many ROC military command centers, radar stations, communication facilities, anti-air and anti-sea defenses, warehouses, oil depots, bases and airfields as quickly as possible, so as to reduce the threats and pressure facing the amphibious assault forces of the PLAN and the PLAGF to land on Taiwan's beaches later on.

Remember that the US-led Coalition bombed Iraq for MORE THAN 40 DAYS before even sending their ground troops into Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. The long bombing runs pretty much decimated much of the Iraqi command and control, infrastructure, air defenses, depots and bases, making short work for the US-led Coalition ground forces to sweep through the Iraqi Republican Army, ending Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the war itself in just 2-3 weeks afterwards.

At the same time, the places that the PLA should actually take over from the very first day of the war are the Kinmen and Matsu Islands, as they are practically right at mainland China's doorstep. There is no way to bypass those islands and go straight for Taiwan if those ROC military forces on Kinmen and Matsu are still posing danger against the Chinese mainland.

Based on how close Kinmen and Matsu are to mainland China, I guess that even the residents on those islands would know what to do when China finally makes her move against Taiwan.

In fact, the furthest that the PLA could ever reliably advance towards in the first few days of the war, in my opinion, would be the Penghu Islands. In particular, the larger east island (Husi and Magong). Kindly refer to the map below.

View attachment 91118

Choosing to take Husi and Magong is because they have:
1. An airport and a small airstrip, which would be very useful for the PLAAF to base their fighters, bombers, drones and support planes there to reduce the jumping distance from mainland China to Taiwan, plus providing a closer runway for any battle-damaged PLAAF planes operating in the southern half of Taiwan to conduct emergency landings on.
2. A sizeable port, which would be useful for unloading PLAGF forces to rule the island under Chinese authorities without having to resort to Mulberry Harbour-style.

View attachment 91139
Mulberry Harbor used during the liberation of France in July 1944.

Meanwhile, due to its hilly terrain, the smaller islands to the north (Baisha) and west (Siyu) can be isolated and left to their own demise once ROC military installations on them are wiped out, assuming stubborn resistance from the people on those islands who refused to surrender. The Wangan and Cimei islands located further south can also be bypassed as well.

(中文翻译)
其实我打算用我之前的观点来进一步阐述。但由于你已经做出了回应，因此我只想把我的阐述作为我的回应的一部分。

福建沿海地区位于台湾海峡的对岸，从逻辑上讲，这些地方显然会成为解放军陆军集结部队和装备、登上解放军海军的两栖攻击舰，然后直接驶向台湾的集结地。因此，福建海岸线上的这些集结区就将成为台湾军方在战争一开始就试图挫败解放军进军台湾的任何企图的首要打击目标。

View attachment 91141

所以，我的想法是让解放军在这些沿海地区附近集结，但不要太明显，以至于居住在福建海岸线上的人们可以马上知道将要发生什么。将部队的集结时间延长到数个月，并将其分散到足够大的范围，以便不引起台湾政府的警戒。

与其在开战前将解放军陆军部队和装备装上解放军海军的两栖攻击舰，不如在开战后至少三天才开始让解放军陆军部队和装备登上解放军海军两栖攻击舰的过程。当然，这个过程必须迅速。

如果是这样的话，那么在战争的头几天应该做什么？

那段时间应该是解放军火箭军、解放军空军和解放军海军对台湾进行昼夜不停、密集、精确的导弹、空中和海上轰炸，持续足够长的时间，然后再派解放军陆军登陆台湾，在那里发起地面作战。解放军火箭军、解放军空军和解放军海军的关键目标是尽快消灭尽可能多的台湾军方军事指挥中心、雷达站、通讯设施、防空和防海设施、仓库、油库、基地和机场，以减少解放军海军和解放军陆军的两栖攻击部队以后登陆台湾所面临的威胁和压力。

记得在1991年的海湾战争中，以美国为首的联军在向伊拉克派遣地面部队之前，对伊拉克进行了长达40多天的轰炸。长时间的联军轰炸几乎摧毁了伊拉克军队的大部分指挥和控制、基础设施、防空设施、仓库和基地，使以美国为首的联军地面部队在短时间内扫荡了伊拉克共和国军队，在随后的2-3周内结束了伊拉克对科威特的占领和战争本身。

同时，解放军在战争的第一天起就应该实际管控的地方是金门和马祖群岛，因为它们实际上就在中国大陆的门口。如果台湾当局在金门和马祖的军事力量仍然对中国大陆构成威胁，那么就没有办法绕过这些岛屿而直接攻打台湾。

基于金门和马祖离中国大陆多近也是必想而知得，所以这些岛上的居民也会知道当中国最终对台湾采取军事行动得时候应该怎么做。

事实上，在我看来，在战争的最初几天，解放军能够可靠地推进的最远的地方是澎湖群岛。特别是较大的东岛（湖西和马公）。请参考下面的地图。

View attachment 91137

选择拿湖西和马公，是因为他们有：
1. 一个机场和一个小型简易跑道，这对解放军空军来说非常有用。解放军空军可以让他们的战斗机、轰炸机、无人机和支援飞机驻扎在那里，以减少从中国大陆到台湾的跳跃距离。另外，那个机场还可以为在台湾南半部作战时任何战损的解放军飞机提供一个较近的跑道，以进行紧急降落。
2. 一个体积相当的港口，这将有助于解放军海军卸货，以便于中国当局管辖该岛，而不必采用桑树港式的方法。

View attachment 91138
1944年7月解放法国时使用的桑树港。

同时，由于其丘陵地形，北岛（白沙）和西岛（西屿）的小岛屿可以被孤立，一旦台湾军方在这些岛屿上的势力被消灭，就可以任其自生自灭，前提是这些岛屿上拒绝投降的人民的顽强抵抗。位于更南边的望安岛和七美岛同样也可以被绕过。

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Biscuits said:

If the civil war is about to get hot, there would be a few moves the mainland takes first before even arraying ground forces at all.

1. The prelude to hostilities will begin with sanctions that deprive Taiwan from all critical sectors, seizure of property traced to ROC leadership would happen at the same time.

2. There would likely be a blockade followed by calls to surrender to the government army.

3. If none of that worked, there would still be grace period where the Air Force and artillery is bombing leadership positions and suspected arms storages, similar to what Ukraine was doing to the LDPR prior to the Russian invasion, except due to vastly better targeting, the shells won't hit civilians. This could last months and aimed at systematically destroying any weapons that could be used for terror as well as eliminating the enemy officer corps.

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Biscuits said:

4. Once Beijing confirmed the willingness of rebel forces to fight to death, only then they would launch an all out constant airstrike attack meant to decimate everything, followed by the Army moving in to sweep up remnants and enforce martial law until a new local government can be installed.

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