PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

We're dancing to the US tune when we restrict ourselves to a Taiwan scenario that is both limited in scope and imminent. There's no indication China's planning any such contingency, certainly not a war over Taiwan waged to the US's liking. The US media hyping such a war is just a symptom of the US's complex of delusions and its attempt to negate reality's intrusion into those delusions.

The fundamental dynamic to consider here is that China's position in the broad conflict with the US - not just over Taiwan - strengthens over time while the US's weakens, and despite the best ill-wishes of Western analysts these trends will continue into the indefinite future.

Given this, why would China have a fight today where it must necessarily limit the scope of said fight and endure severe hardship when it can simply push the fight to tomorrow when it will have overwhelming dominance and be assured victory at minimal cost, even in a war of greatly expanded scope? Anyone can see that the move to play is to postpone the fight to tomorrow.

The only sound objection to this is that it's not China's choice alone and that the enemy gets a vote too. But here we are fortunate in that the enemy is the US and the enemy's hallmark is self-deception. The US will not start a war against a foe who can hurt it; it will just comfort itself with delusions that its enemy will just collapse from within, which is why we see the increasingly fevered proclamations of China's long-term economic stagnation if not collapse.

The idea of Taiwan making a move on its own is beneath consideration. I only raise it here because it technically exists in the space of logical possibilities.

I don't think a Taiwan scenario that doesn't involve H-20 strikes on Hawaii and Type 09-V and intercontinental HGV strikes on military-industrial sites on the US mainland is a Taiwan scenario worth considering. That's bare minimum. Even if you think the war should be limited in scope, you have to consider the possibilities for escalation and ensure you have dominance in all of them. China must be prepared to confront a fully united, fully committed, fully prepared US and still be strong enough to beat it into submission. So strong that it isn't even close.

The only PLA landing on Taiwan in a well-planned scenario should be one soldier carrying the instrument of surrender for whatever's left of a government there to crawl out of the rubble and sign.

Exactly agree with @ZeEa5KPul

China has a long-term approach to eviction of US troops/bases from East Asia region. Taiwan, Korea, Okinawa, it's all inter-linked. If you resolve one without consider the other pieces, then hey, you got yourself a nuclear SK/Japan. It all has to be resolved at the same time, at the time of China's choosing, not US choosing.

Blitzo said:

even if the PLA and PRC declares the conflict as "over," so long as combat operations on the island continue and it is not objectively pacified, then the PLA and PRC will need to continue to guard and reinforce its bridgeheads and continue pouring in logistics, support and conducting air and naval fires operations in support of ground operations.

Click to expand...

You keep thinking of the wrong coast and the wrong methods.

What you need to do is carefully read detailed maps of the area and cross-reference them with military engineering and logistical manuals with the intention of exploring how PLA ground force can defend that area. You'll be surprised how the entire problem changes once you approach it properly.

I devised this scenario after wargaming a hypothetical Russian aerial-amphibious operation aimed at capturing the Black Sea coast of Ukraine which ended up being more effective than what has been done. Russia couldn't do it because they have insufficient number and quality of auxiliary assets and the command structure makes any joint planning extremely difficult but in theory China has all the necessary elements.

Also if Russia managed to neutralise Ukrainian air defenses during the first three days of the war which gave it effectively free reign of the skies, and had to abandon the approach only because the extent of jamming disrupted their own offensive operations on the ground, why do you assume PLA wouldn't be able to do the same?

Blitzo said:

However, if it is judged that US intervention is likely/inevitable, then regional US bases/staging areas would also be struck when they start its Taiwan bombardment.

Click to expand...

Translation from Washingtonese doublespeak:

if US prepares for military intervention while conducting active measures via proxies on Taiwan and others then it means that US is already engaged in undeclared war against China and is preparing casus belli so a pre-emptive strike is rational and justified.

You can't say "when we decide on an act of aggression" and remain in the Beltway.

This is not the same as what you were discussing here. From the scenarios which are currently plausible only a Korean conflict provides sufficient justification for the scale of deployment that is necessary but Korea is more valuable to US than Taiwan so I can't see how it would be traded here.

US has to act in a certain way due to market reaction. Public opinion can be swayed but market can't be controlled. This is why US always "reacts". This is the only way to buffer against markets sinking any war plans. This is also why any overt conflict with China will likely be preceded by proper takeover of both the federal government and the main financial institutions. As soon as those moves are made it's effectively war because China is the only threat that would justify such actions, considering that the reaction from markets would still occur to a significant extent, despite counter-measures.

Blitzo said:

I will not speak for him, but yes logistics, supply, and basing and readiness are all things he has considered as well.

Click to expand...

He hasn't. He only indicated in very general terms how those variables influence military operations. This limited amount of theoretical knowledge won't allow you to make informed decisions in a problem we're discussing here. That answer requires actual numbers being tested in a number of scenarios to see which of these scenarios are viable for the available force being deployed in theater, then which are efficient in achieving desired outcomes, and finally which of them are sustainable in conditions of systemic disruption by the enemy. Actual military planning is a lot of very meticulous work mostly concerning resource expenditures.

This is what "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics" actually means. It's not that logistics is better approach than tactics. They're not substitutes because they're the two ends of the same stick. It's simply that in most situations tactics is not a variable in military planning but a constant i.e. a multiplier on the resources being committed. Logistics is the function of the resources being committed and therefore it influences the variable. Only in extreme situations logistics and tactics switch places. Which is why logistics is the main problem in war because it's the thing that can change fluidly and dynamically while tactics are hard-limited by whatever your personnel is capable of at the moment, and that's usually not very much.

Amateurs talk about what interests them as enthusiasts of military history or technology. Professionals talk about what is necessary for them do to their job which is mostly getting stuff from A to B and filling tons of paperwork about it.

Amateurs like to experiment with tactics in their fantasy scenarios because they don't have to bear the consequences of their actions. Professionals have to deal with these consequences, so they use what has been trained and tested and has the lowest margin of uncertainty or error. At war too many things go wrong at the same time to approach it the way you guys do it on SDF.

Warfare is one of the most conservative cultural phenomena known to mankind because the filter is death. Wars are not won by whoever scores more style or innovation points but whoever makes fewer mistakes. Revolutionary military operations were deadly not because creativity beats routine but whenever defenders are surprised they respond without a plan and therefore make an order of magnitude more errors trying to adapt than the attackers who have a plan.

Some time ago I've done some very preliminary numbers and that was enough. US simply can't sustain sufficient force to counter PLA over Taiwan, let alone to defeat it. US is in a similar situation as Russia was on 24/2/22. It can choose either volume or density.

If you ever wonder why Republicans insist on making good with Russia then this is your answer: Russia is the key to securing viable logistics in a war with China.

Top map indicates shortest route with Russia remaining properly neutral i.e. not aiding or disallowing PLA activity in its EEZ. Bottom map indicates typical route with Russia at current posture.



Also this:


Indicative travel times for ships at different march speeds - large image, zoom in:


It should explain the actual reason behind the recent joint Chinese and Russian naval and air patrols.

This is also why I return regularly to the "Russian question". Russia becomes de facto hostile to China as soon as it becomes neutral, but it isn't hostile to the US until it is overtly hostile.

All right, this is barely touching the subject and it already took too long to write. The best I can offer is this: I am making a very counter-intuitive non-traditional approach to the problem so if you approach it with conventional plans and criticism in mind you won't give yourself the opportunity to understand it and I can tell that you misunderstand most of it. But it would take too long to explain all of it. So try to approach it as if it you agreed with it, and try to make it work first. Only then try to see if you can criticise it. There are definitely problems with it, and I by no means claim that it's a perfect solution but the problems are not where you imagine them to be. Take care.

MarKoz81 said:

You keep thinking of the wrong coast and the wrong methods.

What you need to do is carefully read detailed maps of the area and cross-reference them with military engineering and logistical manuals with the intention of exploring how PLA ground force can defend that area. You'll be surprised how the entire problem changes once you approach it properly.
-snip-

Click to expand...

That part of my post was not particularly in support of one particular coast or one particular method. I was saying that regardless of the method or the coast, your proposed strategy (assuming the PLA are able to achieve local air superiority and sea control) would still leave the PLA vulnerable to US interdiction if the US has not significantly drawn down its westpac military presence and committed to non-intervention, due to the need to continue with maritime resupply and air support.

I'm sure your research for the Russia-Ukraine war was fascinating, but unless you want to spend lots of time to justify its relevance here, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.

MarKoz81 said:

Translation from Washingtonese doublespeak:

if US prepares for military intervention while conducting active measures via proxies on Taiwan and others then it means that US is already engaged in undeclared war against China and is preparing casus belli so a pre-emptive strike is rational and justified.

You can't say "when we decide on an act of aggression" and remain in the Beltway.

This is not the same as what you were discussing here. From the scenarios which are currently plausible only a Korean conflict provides sufficient justification for the scale of deployment that is necessary but Korea is more valuable to US than Taiwan so I can't see how it would be traded here.

US has to act in a certain way due to market reaction. Public opinion can be swayed but market can't be controlled. This is why US always "reacts". This is the only way to buffer against markets sinking any war plans. This is also why any overt conflict with China will likely be preceded by proper takeover of both the federal government and the main financial institutions. As soon as those moves are made it's effectively war because China is the only threat that would justify such actions, considering that the reaction from markets would still occur to a significant extent, despite counter-measures.

Click to expand...

Actually what you wrote is the same as what I am discussing here.
My point is that if the PLA carries out opening strikes against the US as part of the opening strikes in an overall Taiwan contingency, it would be done so based on significant existing diplomatic warning and maneuvering and based on assessments of US military intent.

MarKoz81 said:

He hasn't. He only indicated in very general terms how those variables influence military operations. This limited amount of theoretical knowledge won't allow you to make informed decisions in a problem we're discussing here. That answer requires actual numbers being tested in a number of scenarios to see which of these scenarios are viable for the available force being deployed in theater, then which are efficient in achieving desired outcomes, and finally which of them are sustainable in conditions of systemic disruption by the enemy. Actual military planning is a lot of very meticulous work mostly concerning resource expenditures.

This is what "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics" actually means. It's not that logistics is better approach than tactics. They're not substitutes because they're the two ends of the same stick. It's simply that in most situations tactics is not a variable in military planning but a constant i.e. a multiplier on the resources being committed. Logistics is the function of the resources being committed and therefore it influences the variable. Only in extreme situations logistics and tactics switch places. Which is why logistics is the main problem in war because it's the thing that can change fluidly and dynamically while tactics are hard-limited by whatever your personnel is capable of at the moment, and that's usually not very much.

Amateurs talk about what interests them as enthusiasts of military history or technology. Professionals talk about what is necessary for them do to their job which is mostly getting stuff from A to B and filling tons of paperwork about it.

Amateurs like to experiment with tactics in their fantasy scenarios because they don't have to bear the consequences of their actions. Professionals have to deal with these consequences, so they use what has been trained and tested and has the lowest margin of uncertainty or error. At war too many things go wrong at the same time to approach it the way you guys do it on SDF.

Warfare is one of the most conservative cultural phenomena known to mankind because the filter is death. Wars are not won by whoever scores more style or innovation points but whoever makes fewer mistakes. Revolutionary military operations were deadly not because creativity beats routine but whenever defenders are surprised they respond without a plan and therefore make an order of magnitude more errors trying to adapt than the attackers who have a plan.

Some time ago I've done some very preliminary numbers and that was enough. US simply can't sustain sufficient force to counter PLA over Taiwan, let alone to defeat it. US is in a similar situation as Russia was on 24/2/22. It can choose either volume or density.

If you ever wonder why Republicans insist on making good with Russia then this is your answer: Russia is the key to securing viable logistics in a war with China.

Top map indicates shortest route with Russia remaining properly neutral i.e. not aiding or disallowing PLA activity in its EEZ. Bottom map indicates typical route with Russia at current posture.

View attachment 123035

Also this:

US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

The US laser project is not that secret. And the many failed experiments show us that we have to have doubts about these capabilities. You mentioned the airborne laser. Lasers are impractical weapons. This is obvious to anyone who spends an hour reading about the limitations of lasers. They...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

Indicative travel times for ships at different march speeds - large image, zoom in:
View attachment 123036

It should explain the actual reason behind the recent joint Chinese and Russian naval and air patrols.

This is also why I return regularly to the "Russian question". Russia becomes de facto hostile to China as soon as it becomes neutral, but it isn't hostile to the US until it is overtly hostile.

All right, this is barely touching the subject and it already took too long to write. The best I can offer is this: I am making a very counter-intuitive non-traditional approach to the problem so if you approach it with conventional plans and criticism in mind you won't give yourself the opportunity to understand it and I can tell that you misunderstand most of it. But it would take too long to explain all of it. So try to approach it as if it you agreed with it, and try to make it work first. Only then try to see if you can criticise it. There are definitely problems with it, and I by no means claim that it's a perfect solution but the problems are not where you imagine them to be. Take care.

Click to expand...

All you've written here is that you have more knowledge than he does, and how you are more professional than him and everyone else who are only mere amateurs. Now, I think in your posts you bring in good points, sometimes with sufficient justification and evidence for it, but waxing poetic about the basics of logistics and the nature of military operations and how professional you are, doesn't actually make up for the fact that you don't seem to have read the totality of his publicly available posts (not your fault, they were deleted after all) and yet are so confident to say that he doesn't know what he is talking about, or so confident to declare based on such limited content, that you are able to say that he hasn't considered things as simple as logistics, supply or basing.
I've talked to the guy a fair bit, and those are aspects that he is very much aware of. Out of respect of his privacy I won't go into anymore detail about his actual past work, but I do think at minimum you don't have the grounds to make such confident proclamations about what you think his degree of knowledge is.

And frankly, trying to parse through what you are actually saying between the waxing poetic and tangential remarks, I actually think you and him would actually agree in a variety of ways for this specific scenario, but obviously I'm not going to speak for him or be the go between.

MarKoz81 said:

This is what "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics" actually means. It's not that logistics is better approach than tactics. They're not substitutes because they're the two ends of the same stick. It's simply that in most situations tactics is not a variable in military planning but a constant i.e. a multiplier on the resources being committed. Logistics is the function of the resources being committed and therefore it influences the variable. Only in extreme situations logistics and tactics switch places. Which is why logistics is the main problem in war because it's the thing that can change fluidly and dynamically while tactics are hard-limited by whatever your personnel is capable of at the moment, and that's usually not very much.

Amateurs talk about what interests them as enthusiasts of military history or technology. Professionals talk about what is necessary for them do to their job which is mostly getting stuff from A to B and filling tons of paperwork about it.

Amateurs like to experiment with tactics in their fantasy scenarios because they don't have to bear the consequences of their actions. Professionals have to deal with these consequences, so they use what has been trained and tested and has the lowest margin of uncertainty or error. At war too many things go wrong at the same time to approach it the way you guys do it on SDF.

Click to expand...

I don't think it is appropriate to use this quote on Patchwork. Patchwork is literally a professional and you are an amateur.

ZeEa5KPul said:

Given this, why would China have a fight today where it must necessarily limit the scope of said fight and endure severe hardship when it can simply push the fight to tomorrow when it will have overwhelming dominance and be assured victory at minimal cost, even in a war of greatly expanded scope? Anyone can see that the move to play is to postpone the fight to tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Yes, I agree that if China-US actually get into a real war, there is no point in China limiting the theatre just to the Western Pacific.

For example, China doesn't officially have to get involved in Ukraine or Israel, but instead supplies a modest amount of weapons in a proxy war.

---

If Syria/Iran/Hezbollah were operating from locations in Syria or Lebanon, look at how vulnerable Israel is to an A2AD complex and accompanying blockade.
Think large numbers of drones, Shaheeds, MLRS rockets, antiship missiles, air defences etc

Also consider how popular a blockade of Israel would be in the region, and also the wider world. Where could the US military safely operate from?

It would be a nightmare scenario for the US Navy, but they will likely will have to do whatever it takes, because of the influence of the Zionist Israel Lobby in Congress.

Now, Israel does have nukes and with US support, an actual invasion of Israel is very unlikely.
But that still doesn't stop a collapse of the Israel economy, with Israel limping on with US support.

And there is no end in sight to such a conflict, unless there is a genuine and fair 2-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

But will Israel have the stomach for this?

For example, over the decades, 450K Jewish colonists have moved into the Palestinian West Bank with the support of the Israeli government.

How do you "persuade or force" such Jewish religious fanatics to leave, given that they believe God gave them this land and that it is their duty to remove the Palestinians, one way or another.

---

You can do such an analysis for Ukraine/Russia as well, which is partly why I think Europe will be neutral in a potential US-China war.

If US launches an invasion of China, any country that sides with US will be punished in accordance to what degree they're involved.

An attack on Taiwan is massively illegal according to international law, the backlash in UN you see from the Gaza conflict would pale in comparison.

Besides blocking US in Asia, China would also block US and other invasion supporting countries from using the middle east and Suez.

The deterrent of NATO is that if you attack one of those countries, US will fight for them, but if US already begun to attack China first, it doesn't cost anything to start killing the rest of NATO. Using the threat of total economic blockade or even full scale military action into Europe/Israel, these countries can be forced to condemn American aggression, effectively cutting them off from the whole world.

To preserve peace in Asia, China should expand the scope of counter-targets and make it clear to US side.

AndrewS said:

You can do such an analysis for Ukraine/Russia as well, which is partly why I think Europe will be neutral in a potential US-China war.

Click to expand...

Even when a single nation holds a dominant position within an alliance, as the United States does in NATO and the West, the reality of collective decision-making often means progressing at the pace of the least agile member in practice. This stems from many factors: different legal and political systems, varying contractual frameworks, different national interests, mutual jealousies, and the influence of local political climates. I don't have to explain the behemoth of bureaucracy that the Western countries, the EU especially, today are at the end of the day. These factors collectively complicate the management of any issue, and that's before even considering potential technical disagreements about the problem.

The idea of compelling Europe, situated on a different continent, to take concerted action for Taiwan, which they don't even recognize, in offensive warfare, is even more far-fetched. That's because, despite the proximity of the Ukraine conflict, Europe's support has been relatively limited, with the United States playing a more substantial role. In response to China’s ascent, which has seen it surpass the United States in numerous metrics, Europe might extend symbolic economic and political sanctions toward China, but substantial collective action is unlikely.

This perception of the United States exerting full control over the entirety of the Western alliance by many people is problematic, especially in the context of a potential military conflict in the Pacific. The limited success (to be honest embarrassment) of recent initiatives like starting the operation "Prosperity Guardian" in the Red Sea, where the United States secured the involvement of just 30 officers from other Western nations in entirety, with basically no further commitments, and the other half of Western countries exiting the initiative completely, exemplifies this too.

Blitzo said:

That part of my post was not particularly in support of one particular coast or one particular method. I was saying that regardless of the method or the coast, your proposed strategy (assuming the PLA are able to achieve local air superiority and sea control) would still leave the PLA vulnerable to US interdiction if the US has not significantly drawn down its westpac military presence and committed to non-intervention, due to the need to continue with maritime resupply and air support.

I'm sure your research for the Russia-Ukraine war was fascinating, but unless you want to spend lots of time to justify its relevance here, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.

Click to expand...

It wasn't "fascinating" but instructive.

My scenario for Taiwan is unique in that it hinges on a land battle, specifically the quick formation of a secure perimeter around the target area for deployment of land-based A2/AD assets. This is why naval and air superiority isn't the deciding factor, because by the time USN can deploy sufficient counter-force the A2/AD assets are already in place which radically changes the nature of the engagement. The main challenge is achieving all objectives in a limited timeframe of 5 days and maximum of 7 days. Why - see transit times.

Modelling of land warfare is prohibitively complex compared to naval and aerial warfare because of the scale of human element. Which is why the solution is to apply statistical data from historical precedents, adjust safety margins and use that to inform the standard proportions of force balance.

This is why Ukraine is so relevant because in a land battle the conditions and outcomes of Russian operations in Ukraine can be used to inform the conditions and outcomes of Chinese operations on Taiwan.

Here's an example:





Populations per county:

• Pingtung (south of Fangshan & Shizi) - 60k
• Taitung (total) - 212k
• Hualien (total) - 318k

Total population of captured area is ~600k.

The area in Ukraine was captured with relatively small contingent of forces from the total force of approx. 10 000 by March which were deployed both in Tokmak-Mariupol and Kherson-Mikolaiyv directions. The units involved were:

• 58 Army (19 and 42 motor rifle divisions)
• 49 Army (34 and 205 motor rifle brigades)
• 22 Corps (126 motor rifle brigade)
• 336 naval infantry brigade
• 177 naval infantry regiment
• 7 airborne division
• 11 airborne brigade

Of those 22 Corps and 49 Army, as well as at least one regiment of 7th VDV were sent toward Kherson-Mikolayiv.

Also due to the legal constraints on employment of conscripts every brigade or divisional regiment in the operation fielded a single battalion tactical group which means that the deployed force actually consisted of about 9 regular army BTGs and equivalents of 2 naval infantry BTGs and 2-3 VDV BTGs with supporting elements.

Type 072s carry up to 250 troops. Combined they are enough for the equivalent of Russian force at Melitopol-Mariupol direction. ~400km of transit over sea takes ~24h at 10-12kts one way which gives first trip at day 1, second at day 3 and third at day 5. And this is just the core amphibious fleet, not counting the many non-military assets that PLA can muster for the operation, both for transport and cover or the Type 075s and 071s reserved for other duties incl. supporting landings and airborne element targeting Ludao, Lanyu, Hengchun and Taitung and key crossings and bridges.

This is why Ukraine is relevant. It is the most current real-world precedent that can be applied at scale. I'm rather surprised you think it requires justification.

And incidentally there is no aerial or naval equivalent because all the comparable scenarios are painfully outdated. Land battle is the only one that has a viable reference point. And it is being used, although mostly incorrectly IMO.

I don't have anything else to add. The analysis is really not something I'd post here. Too much unstructured info, way too much work.

Blitzo said:

All you've written here is that you have more knowledge than he does, and how you are more professional than him and everyone else who are only mere amateurs. Now, I think in your posts you bring in good points, sometimes with sufficient justification and evidence for it, but waxing poetic about the basics of logistics and the nature of military operations and how professional you are, doesn't actually make up for the fact that you don't seem to have read the totality of his publicly available posts (not your fault, they were deleted after all) and yet are so confident to say that he doesn't know what he is talking about, or so confident to declare based on such limited content, that you are able to say that he hasn't considered things as simple as logistics, supply or basing.
I've talked to the guy a fair bit, and those are aspects that he is very much aware of. Out of respect of his privacy I won't go into anymore detail about his actual past work, but I do think at minimum you don't have the grounds to make such confident proclamations about what you think his degree of knowledge is..

Click to expand...

This is very confused. In this thread I made:

• a single direct claim about Patchwork which was a factual statement on what he has written on SDF and reddit
• no direct or indirect claims as to his knowledge, competence, professional experience or even my personal opinion of his posts (!)

To clarify any misunderstanding that could arise from my careless use of sarcasm in my first post I wrote another one where I used neutral and more precise language to explain my position. At this point it falls on the reader to demonstrate reading comprehension, emotional maturity or good will.

My second post should inform your interpretation of my first post. What you did was to use my first post to inform your interpretation of my second post. It is a valid approach but this way you're preventing correction from occurring and you're reinforcing the misunderstanding rather than clearing it.

You're misreading me by using my sarcasm as reference which is wrong because that's fundamentally not how I communicate. I am very open and direct in my criticism as can easily be seen from my posts. If I disagreed with Patchwork I'd state it simply as "he is wrong about X" and I never said that because I don't think he was wrong. My tone is irrelevant.

Similarly I said that my understanding of military planning is better than most of the users here because I have very good evidence to support that claim. But I'd rather demonstrate it by explaining it rather than appealing to authority e.g. reserve status or experience. I appeal to authority when I don't think that the explanation is appropriate, usually when it falls outside of the topics discussed here e.g. when engineering knowledge is relevant. Explanation would constitute an OT, often a massive one. And if I did that with valid topics then I would only create a situation where I build up my online reputation, without contributing actual knowledge of the problem. I'd much rather people judge me on the merits of my posts. They're not meant to show off how smart I am. They're a form of payment for the information that I find valuable here. I take, so I give. Knowledge for knowledge. In other words I'm trying to contribute to the internet that I'd like to see more of. Drama is something that I want to see least of. When it happens it's by accident which is also why I tend to ignore it as if it didn't happen.

I understand that if someone spends a lot of time on social media platforms promoting journalistic work that perception will be inverted. There drama is the norm or the goal. But that's precisely why I'm not on social media. Those are not the standards that I want to conduct my online conversations and I hate that it has become the norm - including here. When I do "drama" it's not really drama but I understand why others would read it as such. What I won't understand is others contuing to interpret it that way after all that's been said here. If someone reads this and continues to focus on drama, that's by their choice. It will happen because some people can't live without drama but that's not on me.

And that's all that needs to be said on that matter so I'll end it here. Apologies for OT. Take care.

MarKoz81 said:

It wasn't "fascinating" but instructive.

My scenario for Taiwan is unique in that it hinges on a land battle, specifically the quick formation of a secure perimeter around the target area for deployment of land-based A2/AD assets. This is why naval and air superiority isn't the deciding factor, because by the time USN can deploy sufficient counter-force the A2/AD assets are already in place which radically changes the nature of the engagement. The main challenge is achieving all objectives in a limited timeframe of 5 days and maximum of 7 days. Why - see transit times.

Modelling of land warfare is prohibitively complex compared to naval and aerial warfare because of the scale of human element. Which is why the solution is to apply statistical data from historical precedents, adjust safety margins and use that to inform the standard proportions of force balance.

This is why Ukraine is so relevant because in a land battle the conditions and outcomes of Russian operations in Ukraine can be used to inform the conditions and outcomes of Chinese operations on Taiwan.

Here's an example:

View attachment 123124

from	population	to	population	distance	arrival time	from	population	to	distance	population
Chonghar Kherson	1,4k	Melitopol Zaporozhzhia	149k	117km	24h / 1d by 24/2/22	Checheng Pingtung	8k	Taitung Taitung	110km	103k
Melitopol Zaporozhzhia	149k	Mariupol Donetsk	425k	190km	120h / 5d by 1/3/22	Taitung Taitung	103k	Xiulin Hualien	202km	17k Xiulin 99k Hualien

Populations per county:

• Pingtung (south of Fangshan & Shizi) - 60k
• Taitung (total) - 212k
• Hualien (total) - 318k

Total population of captured area is ~600k.

The area in Ukraine was captured with relatively small contingent of forces from the total force of approx. 10 000 by March which were deployed both in Tokmak-Mariupol and Kherson-Mikolaiyv directions. The units involved were:

• 58 Army (19 and 42 motor rifle divisions)
• 49 Army (34 and 205 motor rifle brigades)
• 22 Corps (126 motor rifle brigade)
• 336 naval infantry brigade
• 177 naval infantry regiment
• 7 airborne division
• 11 airborne brigade

Of those 22 Corps and 49 Army, as well as at least one regiment of 7th VDV were sent toward Kherson-Mikolayiv.

Also due to the legal constraints on employment of conscripts every brigade or divisional regiment in the operation fielded a single battalion tactical group which means that the deployed force actually consisted of about 9 regular army BTGs and equivalents of 2 naval infantry BTGs and 2-3 VDV BTGs with supporting elements.

Type 072s carry up to 250 troops. Combined they are enough for the equivalent of Russian force at Melitopol-Mariupol direction. ~400km of transit over sea takes ~24h at 10-12kts one way which gives first trip at day 1, second at day 3 and third at day 5. And this is just the core amphibious fleet, not counting the many non-military assets that PLA can muster for the operation, both for transport and cover or the Type 075s and 071s reserved for other duties incl. supporting landings and airborne element targeting Ludao, Lanyu, Hengchun and Taitung and key crossings and bridges.

This is why Ukraine is relevant. It is the most current real-world precedent that can be applied at scale. I'm rather surprised you think it requires justification.

And incidentally there is no aerial or naval equivalent because all the comparable scenarios are painfully outdated. Land battle is the only one that has a viable reference point. And it is being used, although mostly incorrectly IMO.

I don't have anything else to add. The analysis is really not something I'd post here. Too much unstructured info, way too much work.

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I don't disagree with the idea that there are useful lessons to take away from the current conflict in Ukraine, in fact I would agree that there are lots of useful lessons that can be taken away from it.

However, the rapid deployment of "A2/AD" assets onto Taiwan island after securing a beach head and a secure perimeter would not alleviate the core question that the PLA beachhead/perimeter still will require resupply and reinforcement (as you described on days 2-5 and afterwards) which necessitates continuing air superiority and sea control, which in turn requires the US military threat to either be diplomatically neutralized before conflict, militarily neutralized at the outset of conflict, or to be militarily deterred and monitored and defended against during the conflict.

Besides, whatever "A2/AD" assets they can bring to shore will be rather limited in context of the theater level air defense, airborne and sea assets that the PLA will have operating in the immediate proximity around Taiwan as well as beyond Taiwan's proximity.

MarKoz81 said:

This is very confused. In this thread I made:

• a single direct claim about Patchwork which was a factual statement on what he has written on SDF and reddit
• no direct or indirect claims as to his knowledge, competence, professional experience or even my personal opinion of his posts (!)

To clarify any misunderstanding that could arise from my careless use of sarcasm in my first post I wrote another one where I used neutral and more precise language to explain my position. At this point it falls on the reader to demonstrate reading comprehension, emotional maturity or good will.

My second post should inform your interpretation of my first post. What you did was to use my first post to inform your interpretation of my second post. It is a valid approach but this way you're preventing correction from occurring and you're reinforcing the misunderstanding rather than clearing it.

You're misreading me by using my sarcasm as reference which is wrong because that's fundamentally not how I communicate. I am very open and direct in my criticism as can easily be seen from my posts. If I disagreed with Patchwork I'd state it simply as "he is wrong about X" and I never said that because I don't think he was wrong. My tone is irrelevant.

Similarly I said that my understanding of military planning is better than most of the users here because I have very good evidence to support that claim. But I'd rather demonstrate it by explaining it rather than appealing to authority e.g. reserve status or experience. I appeal to authority when I don't think that the explanation is appropriate, usually when it falls outside of the topics discussed here e.g. when engineering knowledge is relevant. Explanation would constitute an OT, often a massive one. And if I did that with valid topics then I would only create a situation where I build up my online reputation, without contributing actual knowledge of the problem. I'd much rather people judge me on the merits of my posts. They're not meant to show off how smart I am. They're a form of payment for the information that I find valuable here. I take, so I give. Knowledge for knowledge. In other words I'm trying to contribute to the internet that I'd like to see more of. Drama is something that I want to see least of. When it happens it's by accident which is also why I tend to ignore it as if it didn't happen.

I understand that if someone spends a lot of time on social media platforms promoting journalistic work that perception will be inverted. There drama is the norm or the goal. But that's precisely why I'm not on social media. Those are not the standards that I want to conduct my online conversations and I hate that it has become the norm - including here. When I do "drama" it's not really drama but I understand why others would read it as such. What I won't understand is others contuing to interpret it that way after all that's been said here. If someone reads this and continues to focus on drama, that's by their choice. It will happen because some people can't live without drama but that's not on me.

And that's all that needs to be said on that matter so I'll end it here. Apologies for OT. Take care.

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Well, as I've alluded to you before, I generally appreciate the things that you write and they are always interesting, but the sarcasm (if that's what you call it) you integrate into your posts really makes it difficult to tease away what your positions are and can detract from what are otherwise good posts.