PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

siegecrossbow said:

That’s as far as you can push a ski jump type aircraft carrier.

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Now I wonder a few things

1- Were land-based tankers involved?
2- Was this a surge?
3- What was the nature of flight missions? Long distance strikes are much more demanding than DCA.
4- How many fighters were on board? If there was less than 24, this number is impressive and can go up significantly.

BoraTas said:

Now I wonder a few things

1- Were land-based tankers involved?
2- Was this a surge?
3- What was the nature of flight missions? Long distance strikes are much more demanding than DCA.
4- How many fighters were on board? If there was less than 24, this number is impressive and can go up significantly.

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All these questions and more will be answered in CCTV 7’s 2031 military special — “The Path to AR — Part 2: Joint Swords Exercise”.

FairAndUnbiased said:

here's a road map of Taiwan. Notice how there's only a few roads in the mountains, mostly in valleys and passes.

Here's what a Patriot radar looks like. Note the road quality wheels, not offroad wheels, and requirement for level elevation.

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i might be wrong but i once heard that patriot takes 3-6 hours to set up once it is in position. i believe S-300 and likes take less than an hour.

drowingfish said:

i might be wrong but i once heard that patriot takes 3-6 hours to set up once it is in position. i believe S-300 and likes take less than an hour.

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Correct, Patriots are essentially immobile. Note how they need to lift the truck and stabilize it while S-300s can launch and track with wheels down and ready to drive as soon as the radar is packed.

We keep talking about Salami-slicing by western politicians... the latest being McCarthy meeting Tsai in between attending anti drag show rallies

However, I think the real salami slicing is the inability for the US to mount a credible show of force like what they did in 1996, 2 CVBG were dispatched immediately

With the Pelosi visit, we saw 2 individual ships, weeks after the exercises.

Using the Diaoyutai as an example, the China Coast Guard is now operating larger, more heavily armed ships at a greater frequency than the Japanese authorities are able to muster.

How does the US respond to this?

Temstar said:

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Multiple sonic booms over Hualien, could be some sort of interception. Note Hualian is on the east coast of the island, well over the central mountain.

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Apparently Taiwan denied the sonic boom is from their planes, Chinese netizens suspect it is from the J-20. Does anyone know why J-20? Can't most Chinese fighters fly to east Taiwan and go supersonic?

coolgod said:

Apparently Taiwan denied the sonic boom is from their planes, Chinese netizens suspect it is from the J-20. Does anyone know why J-20? Can't most Chinese fighters fly to east Taiwan and go supersonic?

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It might be flexing to show that they can hear the plane but can neither see it with their eyes nor their radars.

coolgod said:

Apparently Taiwan denied the sonic boom is from their planes, Chinese netizens suspect it is from the J-20. Does anyone know why J-20? Can't most Chinese fighters fly to east Taiwan and go supersonic?

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There is no evidence that J-20 participated in the exercise, at least officially. If they did it in secret then it is a good chance to gauge ROC radar capabilities/preparedness or the lack of.

coolgod said:

Apparently Taiwan denied the sonic boom is from their planes, Chinese netizens suspect it is from the J-20. Does anyone know why J-20? Can't most Chinese fighters fly to east Taiwan and go supersonic?

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A sonic boom could only be heard out to 48km with the aircraft flying at 30k feet, which is a good ballpark for max range the supersonic jets could be from Hualien, which is really close to shore.

While all modern fighters can fly supersonic, even with decent weapons loads, the fuel burn is quite considerable, so not really justified normally.

While it is certainly possible that the PLAAF/PLANAF decided to hit the burners with flankers (the only type that has the legs to be on the east side of Taiwan) to let the locals know they are that close to Taiwan island, the PLAAF doing that with J20s would be a much bigger flex. Not saying it’s more likely, just possible.

FairAndUnbiased said:

so Taiwanese detection rate of carrier based aircraft is 1/30 - 4 claimed detections, 120 sorties.

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? I don't think we have any evidence that all 120 sorties entered the ROC ADIZ. If anything, it would make sense that most of the parties were for CAP for the carrier group itself.

Also, of the 120 sorties, it is 80 that were fixed wing J-15s.


You seem to be wanting to imply that the CV-17 had flown more J-15s into ROC ADIZ than what the were able to report/detect, and while it is a possibility that we cannot rule out, the logic being applied is not reasonable.