PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
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lcloo
Captain
Yes, logistics could be a huge problem for US and its allies in West Pacific. Industrial bases and parts + munition depots in East Asia are all under missile range. They would have to depend on depots in Australia and Haiwaii. Alaska bases are not safe if Russians decide to join in.
Isn't the fundamental problem with distributed basing is that it stretches personnel and logistical needs vs. concentrating at a single base? Where one ground crew could refuel/re-arm/inspect a squadron of F-35s in X number of hours when all grouped on one base now they need to split those people across several bases and divide already limited defenses covering each site. I can't see how they can keep up with turn-around times without massively increasing personnel size. With the US military manpower shortages and recruitment already a present problem, this would just worsen their workload and make retention even worse, as people burnout and quit.
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One can only hope. How nice it would be for one of China's major problems to just solve itself.
Only one SINGLE F35 has definitively been able to land on a highway. No guarantee that this can be replicated en masse, but even if it could what he says is partially correct.
OK so you landed your F35 on a highway...you still need to get it back to a place where you can:
1) Refuel
2) Rearm
3) Repair
4) Rest for pilot
So either you bring all or partially some of those things you need to the F35 where it landed or you bring the F35 to where it can do all of that.
If for some odd reason you'd like to meet halfway and do something like drive the plane to somewhere that's not a normal airbase and then have the crew and repair teams from the airbase leave the damn airbase itself and drag all that stuff with them then ...why exactly? What benefit does this convoluted method that offers neither of the benefits of either options but certainly the risks has that's making you choose such a weird choice?
If you bring the F35 back to a base of some kind then the problem remains from the beginning.
China will simply destroy wherever it is that you think you are safe with your F35s.
If you try to bring the repair team, fuel, munitions to the F35 while it's sitting out in the open like that you are just ASKING for a logistical nightmare.
If the F35s follow even the most wildly unpredictable of patterns on where it lands it becomes easy for China to simply use predictive analytics to figure out where the F35 will be and then wait until everyone gathers in one place then destroy both aircraft and support crew all in one fell swoop.
Please also remember that it takes hundreds of man hours of repair and retrofit for each 1 hour of flight time for fighter jets like F35s. There will be a lot of people and a lot of supply vehicles moving very obviously and conspicuously with no way of hiding..
Even if this method is successful think about how much longer and how much more inconvenient it is to have to constantly drive EVERYWHERE everytime an F35 has to land.
And all of this is assuming that this is an undamaged F35.
For an f35 that sustained damage but was able to limp back to safe territory...I'm not sure there is a way to do the necessary repairs on-site. You may very well have no choice but to haul the damn thing back...F35s cannot be stuffed like sardines inside the trailer of a semi-truck. It's gonna be easy to figure out what is being used to transport them.
There is a reason why no military has ever relied on the idea that landing their planes in any stretch of road as a viable strategy of minimizing risk and damage. Because the logistical challenges offers other opportunities for your enemy to weaken you, drag out the time in between your aircraft sorties, or to figure out predictable patterns.
But that's the thing about showcasing a capability. It doesn't need to be practical or even achievable, PLA planners will need to consider and adjust their strike strategies based on the possibility that f-35s can at a minimum refuel and rearm on a stretch of road. It provides an opportunity for opfor to deceive Chinese recon complexes by moving empty trucks around to simulate a resupply at a adhoc airport. They can arbitrarily block off a stretch of road to confuse recon satellites.
PLA can't simply assume that it is impossible and ignore that possibility, because the consequences is that Japan will use those tactics to keep the air fleet alive past the massive initial salvo and offer strong resistance to PLA air and naval operations, i.e failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
This is true, but we must also take into account that such a strategy is still a less-than-ideal scenario.
No matter what the PLA should be destroying or at least targeting pretty much any airport in Japan, SK, etc. since Murica and lackeys have already admitted that they're going to use all airports. Civilian or not.
In such a scenario, the west and its slave-states doing this strategy is still vastly reducing the quantity of sorties, air missions, air attacks, air reconnaisance, air everything. You cannot possibly rearm, refuel, and repair as fast in random civilian roads far away from your main base(s) of operations as you would if you can get the F35s to land in one easy and convenient place.
Also, I want to again really stress the dire necessity that not all repairs can be made in an impromptu and, quite frankly, shitty environment as a random road in the middle of nowhere.
Take any heavy, complex machinery that weighs tons and costs tens of millions (hundreds in the F35's case). There are things that can't be fixed, polished, replaced, calibrated, etc. without the usage of tools and a working environment of industrial size/power.
Let's just use a regular semi truck as an example. If you want to replace certain internal parts you NEED to put that thing in a rig of some kind or elevate it above the ground and keep it stabilized. Basically, a big holding thing. Such a holding thing is going to be a building. Not a mobile asset. A solid structure.
And that's just a semi-truck. Something that's piece of cake compared to even Korean War era jet fighters. Much less an F35.
F35s will need a similar such setup to do their repairs sooner or later. Sure they can do some sorties and some missions in quick succession with only refueling and rearming (this is not a very high limit and honestly it has not been a high figure since at least the 80's due to how advaned the technology is). Eventually, you have to bring them somewhere. Land wherever you want. Now bring them back. A very vulnerable target in transit.
China's forces know to strike at these vulnberable and high value congregation points.
As for your other predictions about the false decoys and stuff. Also, accurate and not untrue at all. However, this is another problem for America and lackeys too.
If you must do fake transports and pretend to setup fake air landings then it means that you are using up valuable manpower and man hours along with other resources to do something that these people would've been better off doing like repairing the aircraft or manning some other mission-critical roles.
The guy who drives the fake...whatever truck or transport it's called to transport an F35 across japanese highways is not an official role, MOS, Rating, Specialty Code/ etc. in the military. In other words, they must take someone else away from their legitimate job in the military to be doing this glorified acting. Which translates to either recruiting more people to cover the downtime that this glorified actor is spending away from his real job and playing actor instead. Thus increasing costs and putting pressure on the rest of the supply chain in the military as well as the logistics back home. Remember that military service means people physically fit. The same kind of physical fitness you need to work in a factory, blue collar job, etc. to make ammunition and weapons for a war effort in the first place.
Bottom line is that this strategy of making people into glorified actors and pretending like they're driving around F35s or rearming them or whatever increases the human resources cost, and for little gain.
I'm not saying that it's entirely impossible for America and its ilk to use such strategy. On the contrary, once they realize taht there's no such thing as a safe airport anymore I'd be very surprised if they didn't at least try to do this kind of stuff. Like really? yoiu're not even going to at least try???
But what I am saying is that even this strategy, at its very best, means drastically reducing the potential number of attacks and potential damage American air assets can lob our way. Meanwhile, it will balloon the costs and the time costs for air missions as well.
One last thing I must mention is that of the willpower of the Japanese people.
It will crumble incredibly quickly. They always fancied themselves in WW2 as these epic badass bushido honorable samurai warriors. Lol qauite the opposite. It's why they commit unspeakably evil atrocities against women, children, elderly, and even babies and fetuses. B/c they have no mental fortitude nor mental toughness at all. If they did they wouldn't be so easily frustrated by the conditions of war to the point that they take out their anger and frustration on helpless and defenseless innocents.
This utter lack of mental toughness and fortitude is the same for their civilian population in today's world.
Once the Americans start using this strategy they will begin to encounter widespread discontent maybe even rioting. Why? Because they will see for themselves that they are now vulnerable and taking attacks. They, just like all western slaves and puppets, are more than happy to inflict pain and harm on others when the tyranny of distance favors them. They are more than happy to help America and western white supremacists massacre and bomb innocent muslims and latin countries when they can't suffer any sort of retribution, but now that the tables have turned they will be the first to cry and whine over the pressure of bombs on their homes and their schools and their weddings.
I know that in this thread there are some of you who still think that the psychological aspect means nothing.
I'm sorry, but you are very wrong. Like wayyyyyyy off the mark.
The psychological aspect will determine how long America and allies will fight for.
If America and its ilk maintained high support for Iraq and Afghanistan they would still likely be there. Instead, Barack Obama won in 2008 in large part due to war fatigue.
Imagine how much longer and how much worse those 2 wars would've been if they had maintained the same level of support that they enjoyed in the beginning. Which was like 90% support.
Same here.
Widespread japanese rioting and japanese discontent will eventuall spillover to the American population. Whom won't support this at all either.
It will mean the difference between if America fights with full ferocity like a mother bear protecting her cubs for more than a decade...or if America decides to cut its losses within 1 year.
Also, do not discount how much worse performance suffers when you are very unpopular. This is starting to drag on now so I'll just be quick and sum it up.
Have you ever worked at a very shitty and toxic company? Ya notice how much everything just sucked, results sucked, productivity sucked, quality of productions/results sucked, etc.
it's the same thing with war and the military. A popular war and a well-beloved military performs far better when enjoying the emotional support and comfort of a civilian population happy to help...a hated war and a military whom feel like they are hated by their civilians and whom actually are hated by civilians functions far worse than the first guy since they will be fighting every waking second of their day and even fighting in their sleep and dreams with the demons of low morale and bad psychological health.
time and resources dedicated to planning for and countering a potential/unproven capability needs to be proportionate to the risk it poses. f-35s refueling/rearming on highways are going to experience the following: longer turnaround time to become mission ready, unexpected delays, vulnerability to ambush, lower overall throughput of bombings/attacks. let's also not forget that highways themselves are vulnerable to destruction. as mentioned earlier, resupply vehicles can themselves be tracked and lead a potential ambusher to a very vulnerable f-35 on a highway, perhaps hidden by a tarp at best. protected by very little.
This is wishful thinking.
The expectation should be that the U.S. and its treaty allies will fight until they no longer have the material wherewithal to do so.