Just to add to this point. "Speed" is also relative. What may seem like a long time, many weeks maybe even months, is actually very fast due to the nature of naval warfare and the distances involved (especially for United States). It might take several weeks of maneuvering and preparation to land a decisive blow.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
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Just to add to this point. "Speed" is also relative. What may seem like a long time, many weeks maybe even months, is actually very fast due to the nature of naval warfare and the distances involved (especially for United States). It might take several weeks of maneuvering and preparation to land a decisive blow.
This is related to the q I asked yesterday but could H20s form a "wall" of sorts against ships in the 1IC. If they just hang around a few hundred miles off the Chinese coast and start spamming very long ranged BMs and CMs can that make the 1IC a denied environment for US ships?
i very much doubt that the army would bother fielding a land to land system that is already covered by RF. more reasonable to just focus on targets up to 300km out. there are already a handful to handle in taiwan, penghu and matsu islands. targets in japan and korea they'll leave for RF and AF to worry about.
Depends on missile range. Even 500 km missiles maybe too short legged for hitting CBGs with a subsonic unstealthy bomber and 1000 km missiles will have limited quantity and payload. A H-20 can approach within 300-500 km safely.
For the given distances involved in the first island chain towards the northern and eastern direction, you don't need to put such weapons on a H-20 and have it fly hundreds of kms over the ocean for that. Sure, there's no reason why an anti-ship configured H-20 wouldn't be able to greatly augment existing 1IC distance anti-ship fires, but at the system of systems level in wartime they should be able to contest air and sea control at those distances sufficiently such that other platforms and other missiles can provide a sufficiently dense fires bandwidth etc.
For the more southern direction, it may have a bit more use but the southern direction of the first island chain would use a different combination of platforms for the overall conflict anyway.
H-20s loaded with longer range anti ship weapons would be more important for anti ship missions at distances beyond the 1IC, perhaps up to 2IC.
The question in this case specifies "first island chain". If it's in the eastern and northern directions of the first island chain (e.g.: getting within 1000km of the Chinese mainland), the PLA's system of systems ability to contest air and sea control at those distances means that they characteristics of a H-20 very much may not be essential in providing anti-ship fires density in addition to the multi-domain anti-ship fires that they would already have at that kind of distance (again, within 1000km).
If it's in the more southern direction of the 1IC, or if it's beyond the 1IC up to 2IC direction, then that is where H-20's contribution to the anti ship fires capacity becomes more notable.
I don't know, but I think H-20 should be more strategic purpose than tactical one. If it can bring nuclear missiles inside it's body, it can penetrate Japanese and South Korean air defense platforms, and aim to Tokyo and Seoul. Also threat Manila to think twice before they agree to join the war in US side. Because with H-20 stealth capability, it can strike Tokyo, Seoul and Manila from any where outside China own territory. It can even strike Japan from eastward, strike Manila from SCS or even turn around from Russia territory / north Korea to reach Japan and South Korea from the location that they are not aware off.
With that, China can decrease the chance of Japan, S. Korea, Philippine, etc from doing dangerous adventure that can harm China intention to unite Taiwan.
And yes, I know that Dong Feng can also do the job. But think about it. Dong Feng will be very likely to launched from China mainland. And you know what, I'm sure that all US and their alliance air defense weapons will face toward China. But if China has something that bring more calculation to the table, it can change the things around East Asia.