PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Biscuits said:

Relative to other non state armed actors.

Click to expand...

I don't think it makes sense to compare Taiwan to a non-state actor. Taiwan may be a de facto separatist province, but it still has a state structure.

In terms of them actually going kinetic with the PLA, yes, the air defenses can be all but disregarded.

Click to expand...

I don't think we should. Taiwan's AD may be managed, but it can't simply be disregarded.

The underestimation of the adversary is what led Russia to its current quagmire in Ukraine.

***

Otherwise, as per the latest (2023) issue of The Military Balance, Taiwan's AD assets are:

792nd SAM brigade: 1x bn with TK-3 (ABM), 2x bn with AAA/SHORAD
793rd SAM brigade: 1x bn with TK-2, 1x bn with Patriot system, 1x bn with Hawk system (to be retired in 2024)
794th SAM brigade: 1x bn with TK-2, 1x bn with Patriot system, 1x bn with Hawk system (to be retired in 2024)
795th SAM brigade: 1x bn with Patriot system, 2x bn with AAA/SHORAD

Overall, these four brigades have ~200 major launchers (Tien Kung II and III/Patriot/Hawk). The Patriot systems can be used both for anti-aircraft and ABM engagements.

As for ammunition, according to Taiwan received:

-236 MIM-23A Hawk interceptors
-665 (or 762) MIM-23B Hawk interceptors
-200 Patriot PAC-2 interceptors (anti-aircraft)
-386 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors (ABM)

In addition to these, an unknown number of TK-2/3 interceptors have been locally produced.

SinoAmericanCW said:

Otherwise, as per the latest (2023) issue of The Military Balance, Taiwan's AD assets are:

792nd SAM brigade: 1x bn with TK-3 (ABM), 2x bn with AAA/SHORAD
793rd SAM brigade: 1x bn with TK-2, 1x bn with Patriot system, 1x bn with Hawk system (to be retired in 2024)
794th SAM brigade: 1x bn with TK-2, 1x bn with Patriot system, 1x bn with Hawk system (to be retired in 2024)
795th SAM brigade: 1x bn with Patriot system, 2x bn with AAA/SHORAD

Overall, these four brigades have ~200 major launchers (Tien Kung II and III/Patriot/Hawk). The Patriot systems can be used both for anti-aircraft and ABM engagements.

As for ammunition, according to

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Taiwan received:

-236 MIM-23A Hawk interceptors
-665 (or 762) MIM-23B Hawk interceptors
-200 Patriot PAC-2 interceptors (anti-aircraft)
-386 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors (ABM)

In addition to these, an unknown number of TK-2/3 interceptors have been locally produced.

Click to expand...

The number we should pay attention to is how many radars do they have

vincent said:

The number we should pay attention to is how many radars do they have

Click to expand...

Sadly, The Military Balance doesn't provide that information.

Is the US strategy during the Gulf War in neutralizing Iraqi air defenses useful for a Taiwan conflict? I looked on wikipedia and it said Iraqi air defenses were set up for point defense, so there were substantial gaps in coverage. US forces used these gaps to go in and launch anti radiation missiles to destroy Iraqi radars. Once these radars were gone then other forces can go in and clean up.

Vincent mentioned the number of radars is important. This is absolutely true. I was so focused on the number of missiles. Missiles need guidance and that can only be provided by modern and numerous radars. Otherwise even thousands of missiles will be sitting around being useless.

Taiwan has 9 Patriot batteries, so 9 PAC radars. the homegrown SAMs have more numerous radars but nothing too extreme.

grulle said:

how good is PLA's SEAD? Taiwan has a lot of modern SAMs with launchers that are highly mobile and can be hidden. I think this is probably the biggest problem for the PLA.

Click to expand...

That is debatable… Although it is often touted as the most heavily defended air space in East Asia, a large majority of Taiwanese SAMs are MANPADs or outdated relics like HAWK.

grulle said:

Is the US strategy during the Gulf War in neutralizing Iraqi air defenses useful for a Taiwan conflict? I looked on wikipedia and it said Iraqi air defenses were set up for point defense, so there were substantial gaps in coverage. US forces used these gaps to go in and launch anti radiation missiles to destroy Iraqi radars. Once these radars were gone then other forces can go in and clean up.

Click to expand...

Although Iraq, unlike Taiwan, was not a part of the country that was about to militarily crack down on them, signficant parallels can actually be drawn between the reliance of the Iraqi government, economy and population to USA vs the reliance of Taiwan on the rest of China's economy and population.

A huge part of the US success was also the complete lack of opsec among Iraqi forces, helped by the leaking of designs and their locations to US forces. The same principles would be true when China has to crack down on ROC.

During the freezing of the civil war, the government's agents would have continously surged within Taiwan, especially now that large portions of Taiwanese stash their wealth and work in the mainland. These entry ports likely guarantee a similar dominance of the intel field as US past influence on Saddam and Iraqi elites had, prior to the invasion.

siegecrossbow said:

That is debatable… Although it is often touted as the most heavily defended air space in East Asia, a large majority of Taiwanese SAMs are MANPADs or outdated relics like HAWK.

Click to expand...

By what metric? Yes, it is probably the most heavily defended airspace, but only because of the PLA forces there meant to prevent an US/Japanese invasion. 300+ 5th gens, some of the best long and mid range SAM systems in the world, deployed in huge amounts. Not to mention all the high performance radars from the PLA and navy in the region.

I don't think there's any place with more well guarded airspace and water approaches in the whole world, let alone just Asia. But given that it is the PLA projecting this zone, it's not something that bothers them, if they're forced to carry out operations here.

It has nothing to do with strategy, but it has to do with the means of combat: China vs Taiwan

Ground Forces:

Air Forces:

Naval Forces:

PLARF:

Link:

still need strategy. you can't just throw your men and equipment into a meat grinder lol.

PLARF:



I don't understand these numbers at all. How come China has more launchers than missiles in the ICBM category? There should be atleast 1 missile per launcher minimum when it comes to ICBM. For IRBM, each launcher has just 1 reload? PLARF looks very disappointing from these numbers.