PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

discspinner said:

China wasn't strong enough in 1997, whatever the rationale , unlike today.

Surprised nobody has mentioned something similar that happened in January 2021, right before Trump was to leave office.

Here is a summary of what allegedly occurred:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"After the announcement of Kelly Knight Craft’s visit to Taiwan, the Chinese mainland protested strongly to the U.S. through diplomatic channels from Jan. 7 to 10, but to no avail, and “after consideration, Beijing’s top brass decided to respond strongly with military...On the 11th, the Chinese military told the U.S. Department of Defense through the U.S.-China hotline that Craft’s visit to Taiwan undermines China’s sovereignty and cannot be tolerated, and that when the U.S. plane approaches Taiwan, Chinese warplanes will also follow it into Taiwan airspace to declare China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, and that if blocked by Taiwan’s military planes, “we will not rule out the consequences of direct fire...The U.S. did not expect China to react so strongly and refused to communicate and compromise on this issue. The Pentagon has assessed that to ensure the arrival of Craft’s plane in Taiwan would require an escort of U.S. warplanes in Okinawa, but that would cause a risk of a military confrontation between the U.S. and China. If let the Taiwan warplanes escort, the situation would be even worse, there would be the risk of a firefight over the Taiwan Strait...Either a U.S.-China military standoff or a firefight between Taiwan and mainland China would be unacceptable to the United States. As a result, the Pentagon submitted its assessment to the State Department and strongly recommended that Kelly Knight Craft’s visit to Taiwan be canceled. Although then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was seriously dissatisfied, he was forced to cancel Craft’s visit to Taiwan. To avoid the perception that he was pressured by China to cancel the visit to Taiwan, Pompeo decided to cancel all State Department foreign visits, including Pompeo’s own plans to visit Europe, on the grounds of the transition of power."

The DIFFERENCE this time around is that a lot of these posturing and hypothetical threats / counter threats are being made PUBLICLY PRIOR to the trip, thus increasing the political costs for both sides in backing down. Not surprisingly, leaks in the media including the British Financial Times have further increased tensions.

Pelosi will need to come up with another excuse like with COVID. God help us.

Click to expand...

plawolf said:

I have often seen people dis the PLA’s lack of combat experience, but I’m pretty confident that people who make that dig has no actual understanding of what that means and are just parroting sound bites they heard.

While there is a lot of truth to the importance of real combat experience, the core issue with peacetime armies is that people (especially mid to low level officers and NCOs) don’t take training, planning or procurement seriously as they don’t ever expect to have to fight, so why bother? A good recent example is the modern Russian army and how badly it’s modernisation failed on Ukraine.

The key reason why this doesn’t apply to China is because of Taiwan, especially in recent years. No one dares to try to cut corners or not give training, planning and prep their all because everyone recognises that there is a very real and increasingly likely chance that they will be leading their troops across the strait. You slack off or cut corners now could easily mean your life if the flare ever goes up for real.

There are reports of extremely detailed combat prep going on right now, and those have nothing to do with Pelosi, but they do include the US military.

This is what a lot of people seem to be ignoring or missing. The PLA has always taken it for granted that they will be fighting the US head on over Taiwan. Thus for them, whether they shoot down Pelosi’s plane with or without USAF fighter escort makes no difference to their battle plans.

Indeed, the PLA may well prefer to kick off armed reunification with a direct showdown against the US military. Because that will give them a free hand to fight how they ultimately planned and cut out a possible long lead-up where the US not only get to build up their forces in safety, but could also play Ukraine games by providing sensor and targeting support for the ROC from ranges they should have no chance of getting to if they were an active belligerent and cost the PLA lives and assets like they are doing against the Russians in Ukraine.

There is also a decent chance that if the PLA can kick the butt of the US military hard enough, the ROC military will see the writing on the wall and either desert en mass or simply stage a coup and surrender. It’s an outside chance, but it’s still a chance that cannot be discounted out of hand.

But even ruling that out, there is massive benefit to decisively defeating the US military first and essentially remove US and other outside forces intervention from the equation, thereby removing the need for the PLA to fight with one hand tied behind its back against Taiwan since it would no longer need to hold back the bulk of its strength to guard for when the US would attack at a time when it benefits them the most.

Click to expand...

Biscuits said:

The only way to prepare for a war on that scale is through training. No amount of killing barely armed and non armed civilians will help. If anything, basing expectations on "wars" where the enemy doesnt have an airforce will seriously throw the preparations off.

Russia's "problems" if you can call it that is mostly that only their Army is modernized, and even that not extremely so. However, their army has also been performing well. The Russian airforce in particular wasn't very useful.

China itself currently lacks a heavy bomber force. At this very moment, China has not begun militarizing yet, while USA has been militarizing for more than a decade. But China has a large upper hand in economy and industry. It may not be too late to begin arming up as soon as a war starts, if US decides to start one now.

The PLA severely needs a bomber that can penetrate modern air defenses and deliver large amounts of strike ordinance, that is to say, the H-20 must be put into mass production. If war breaks out in Asia, the Air Force needs to be able to send not just pinpoint strikes but volume strikes.

Click to expand...

Biscuits said:

The only way to prepare for a war on that scale is through training. No amount of killing barely armed and non armed civilians will help. If anything, basing expectations on "wars" where the enemy doesnt have an airforce will seriously throw the preparations off.

Russia's "problems" if you can call it that is mostly that only their Army is modernized, and even that not extremely so. However, their army has also been performing well. The Russian airforce in particular wasn't very useful.

China itself currently lacks a heavy bomber force. At this very moment, China has not begun militarizing yet, while USA has been militarizing for more than a decade. But China has a large upper hand in economy and industry. It may not be too late to begin arming up as soon as a war starts, if US decides to start one now.

The PLA severely needs a bomber that can penetrate modern air defenses and deliver large amounts of strike ordinance, that is to say, the H-20 must be put into mass production. If war breaks out in Asia, the Air Force needs to be able to send not just pinpoint strikes but volume strikes.

Click to expand...

plawolf said:

Umm, the PLA has been modernising faster than any military in history, with the PLAN and PLAAF in particular making incredible gains against the US lead. Even the unloved PLA ground forces are getting a lot of significant new toys and vastly improved individual infantry soldier weapons and equipment. Short of WWII level war economy, it’s hard to see the PLA doing much more to be honest.

Click to expand...

plawolf said:

Umm, the PLA has been modernising faster than any military in history, with the PLAN and PLAAF in particular making incredible gains against the US lead. Even the unloved PLA ground forces are getting a lot of significant new toys and vastly improved individual infantry soldier weapons and equipment. Short of WWII level war economy, it’s hard to see the PLA doing much more to be honest.

The PLA has long ago surpassed the minimum threshold for armed reunification (AR) even with direct US military involvement. All of the investment and focus since has been about far bigger stakes than just Taiwan. Chinese strategist and leaders have never been afraid to dream big.

Should the US decide to intervene in an AR scenario, the PLA will at a minimum need to kill or cripple all significant USN surface combatants in the western pacific and knock all US military bases in the region directly involved out of action. That will leave a vast power vacuum, which I think the PLA will seek to seize. That’s why it’s building carriers and LHDs. Those are overkill for Taiwan, but would be perfect for shattering the second island chain, which the US and Japan would have already given China the perfect pretext for taking since those islands would have been used to launch attacks against the Chinese military and possibly mainland itself.

It is this next move that will be put at risk should China move too soon on AR as it won’t have the hard power to comfortably take those islands and keep them.

Click to expand...

bobsagget said:

Do not focus on large assets land ships do not need to be special thats an american idiotic fixation . Rather focus on what they carry.
So long as a 25-50k ton ship has needed cwis and self defense and can dispense troop carriers at sea through roll on roll off it is good. All your landing ships need is
1. Cruise speed of 25 knots
2. Roll on roll off at sea capacity
Ability to land 6 medium lift helicopters
launch and land drones of 600 kg payload capacity preferabbly have an internal hanger or external cover
3. have 4 cwis systems and 2 sea sparrow type launchers .
Cargo capacity over 25k tons.
Dirt cheap to make fast and easy to maintain and train on. The usa won ww2 by making fast reliably logistic ships ex liberty ships.

What they should carry .

What you need are good swimming ifvs and apcs ghat can swim to shore from 40-60 miles out at 25 mph plus . Their weapons systems need to be able to engage while on the move in the water and need to be able to engage land and helo type targets 1-2.5 miles out ( using an adats style system to augment the guns would be good .
Counter measures must work at sea ex laser detection and possibly a radar system to detect incoming atgms over a frontal arc is needed .

Additional forces .
Fast suicide swarm drones these are glorified cruise missiles for pecision bombardment a small 2 -4 kg blast payload with atop speed of 350-400 mph and a range of 100-150 miles is desirable . unit cost should not exceed 3000 usd a unit . mlrs tube launch capacity would be nice for deployment .

This drone is smaller but fits the overall idea. So long as you have good recon information the ability to put 100-200 of these in the air to hit targets would be devastating think of it as a long range 105mm cannon

Click to expand...

bobsagget said:

Such drones would be a nightmare for any defending force . Imagine you are incharge of a gepard / tunguska or other assorted short ranged aa system . You suddenly see 100 targets approaching low and near sonic speed spread out over a 1-2 mile front flying at 20 foot altitude. on goods green earth what weapons system can stop that .

Other notes china could easily produce such weapons systems now and at scale rapidly . The biggest threat here is electronic warfare disrupting them.

note 2 current mlrs systems if put on ships can offer similar resilts with less accuracy . The whole philosophy remains the same and is focused on saturation . The strikes must cause shock and awe and cripple any defenders capacity to analyze and react to the attack . The demoralization of the oppositional force is not achived through schorched earth but by overwhelming their decision making capacity . Russian style brutality will only reinforce their will . But flooding and degrading their sensors and unit planing will break their will. Always aim to keep oppositional forces battened down . This is the basic goal of any military manuvering unit from a 2 man foring team to theater command .

Click to expand...

plawolf said:

I have often seen people dis the PLA’s lack of combat experience, but I’m pretty confident that people who make that dig has no actual understanding of what that means and are just parroting sound bites they heard.

While there is a lot of truth to the importance of real combat experience, the core issue with peacetime armies is that people (especially mid to low level officers and NCOs) don’t take training, planning or procurement seriously as they don’t ever expect to have to fight, so why bother? A good recent example is the modern Russian army and how badly it’s modernisation failed on Ukraine.

The key reason why this doesn’t apply to China is because of Taiwan, especially in recent years. No one dares to try to cut corners or not give training, planning and prep their all because everyone recognises that there is a very real and increasingly likely chance that they will be leading their troops across the strait. You slack off or cut corners now could easily mean your life if the flare ever goes up for real.

There are reports of extremely detailed combat prep going on right now, and those have nothing to do with Pelosi, but they do include the US military.

This is what a lot of people seem to be ignoring or missing. The PLA has always taken it for granted that they will be fighting the US head on over Taiwan. Thus for them, whether they shoot down Pelosi’s plane with or without USAF fighter escort makes no difference to their battle plans.

Indeed, the PLA may well prefer to kick off armed reunification with a direct showdown against the US military. Because that will give them a free hand to fight how they ultimately planned and cut out a possible long lead-up where the US not only get to build up their forces in safety, but could also play Ukraine games by providing sensor and targeting support for the ROC from ranges they should have no chance of getting to if they were an active belligerent and cost the PLA lives and assets like they are doing against the Russians in Ukraine.

There is also a decent chance that if the PLA can kick the butt of the US military hard enough, the ROC military will see the writing on the wall and either desert en mass or simply stage a coup and surrender. It’s an outside chance, but it’s still a chance that cannot be discounted out of hand.

But even ruling that out, there is massive benefit to decisively defeating the US military first and essentially remove US and other outside forces intervention from the equation, thereby removing the need for the PLA to fight with one hand tied behind its back against Taiwan since it would no longer need to hold back the bulk of its strength to guard for when the US would attack at a time when it benefits them the most.

Click to expand...