PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

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HighGround

Senior Member
Registered Member
BoraTas said:
There are reading material about this from South African wars. Copper wire guided missiles don't do well over the water. Torpedos apparently have a lot of measures to have copper wire guidance work in the water that ATGMs like the TOW lack. Not surprising to be honest considering the difference in cost and the intended use. I haven't found anything unclassified about fiber-optic wire guided missiles. The Spike NLOS was marketed for maritime applications a lot, though. So I guess fiber optic cables have it better in this matter.

If I stay specific to the topic, I think the Taiwanese bet on ATGMs is more of a media hype rather than reality. It just doesn't make sense. These weapons are very short ranged and they aren't going to do anything to landing craft. LSMs and LSTs could tank a lot of hits. Even LCACs should be able to. Furthermore PLA will for certain use a lot of dispersion* to force Taiwan to disperse even more. Smokelaying and communications jamming will be heavily used. If we are talking about the 2030s, APS will be common on AFVs too. These are major problems for ATGM units even without the accounting of the PLA airpower and UCAV fleet.

*: 4-14 beaches stuff is another meme too. Most of Taiwan's West Coast is of shallow gravel reaches. Which means a substaintial portion of the coastline is good enough for an amphibious assault. Especially for tracked vehicles and air cushioned landing craft which are both common in PLA inventory.
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"Amphibious Operations are hard" is a common trope, but realistically speaking.

Can defenders survive a thorough preparation campaign on a beach? Especially when they don't know which beach will be attacked? There is no Atlantic Wall on Taiwan's West Coast. The most they could do on short notice would probably be tank traps, trenches, and a few rudimentary bunkers.

So is it even reasonable to expect beaches to survive artillery and missiles from PLA's ships, aircraft, and drones?

I genuinely think an amphibious operation would heavily favor PLA. It is PLA who would choose which location/s to land on. When they will do it and they can concentrate far more firepower far quicker than Taiwan.
 
Wrought

Wrought

Junior Member
Registered Member
HighGround said:
"Amphibious Operations are hard" is a common trope, but realistically speaking.

Can defenders survive a thorough preparation campaign on a beach? Especially when they don't know which beach will be attacked? There is no Atlantic Wall on Taiwan's West Coast. The most they could do on short notice would probably be tank traps, trenches, and a few rudimentary bunkers.

So is it even reasonable to expect beaches to survive artillery and missiles from PLA's ships, aircraft, and drones?

I genuinely think an amphibious operation would heavily favor PLA. It is PLA who would choose which location/s to land on. When they will do it and they can concentrate far more firepower far quicker than Taiwan.
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It's perfectly true that amphibious operations are difficult in a vaccuum. The problem is when people take it as some kind of immutable axiom instead of an ever-shifting dynamic. If an equal force was defending, then it would be a hopeless operation. But the forces aren't equal, are they? The question is where along that spectrum the current (and future) reality sits w.r.t. the time needed, casualties taken, etc. And there's only one way to know that.
 
S

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
ember said:

On Day One. An economic contingency plan for conflict with China​

The United States lacks an economic contingency plan for conflict with China. Hard decoupling through sanctions is not viable. Instead, the United States should prepare a “Day One” plan based on economic leadership and recovery. By harnessing incentives and market forces, Washington and core US allies can trigger avalanche decoupling in trade while working with the interests of third states and preserving dollar hegemony and the rules-based trading system.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The strategy presented in this paper was advocated by Philip Zelikow, one of the jews behind 9/11, in one of his recent articles.

I think this is basically what China can expect within the next 2-3 years. All major conflicts started by the US happened in the second or third year of a new presidency, so 2026 is a safe bet.
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I don’t have the time to read this, so I’m curious what the author actually has planned. At some point there are countries that are just going to take dumped smartphones, telecom equipment, motor vehicles, etc. as economy drivers, it will be too attractive regardless of US sanctions. Basically the same way India is buying Russian oil.

meanwhile the price of the iPhone goes up like 200% and Apple shares plunge. Same with Google. The next revolution in smart phone design is a 2 dollar injection Mold plastic back that looks like complete sh*t, but at least fee of Chinese product.
 
BoraTas

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
HighGround said:
"Amphibious Operations are hard" is a common trope, but realistically speaking.

Can defenders survive a thorough preparation campaign on a beach? Especially when they don't know which beach will be attacked? There is no Atlantic Wall on Taiwan's West Coast. The most they could do on short notice would probably be tank traps, trenches, and a few rudimentary bunkers.

So is it even reasonable to expect beaches to survive artillery and missiles from PLA's ships, aircraft, and drones?

I genuinely think an amphibious operation would heavily favor PLA. It is PLA who would choose which location/s to land on. When they will do it and they can concentrate far more firepower far quicker than Taiwan.
Click to expand...
Amphibious operations should be harder than normal operations. They require multimodal logistics (which needs to be protected) and force the landers to fight outgunned and outnumbered during the initial phases. But the thing is, how hard they are is probably an exaggeration. There are many successful amphibious assaults in history such as:

- Turkish landings in Cyprus
- French-British-Israeli landings in Egypt
- Iranian landings in Iran-Iraq War
- American landings in Korean War
- Entire WW2 Japanese SE Asia campaign
- Entire WW2 American Pacific campaign
- British landings in North Africa and Madagascar in WW2
- Allied landings in Southern France and Italy during WW2
- Soviet landings in Crimea in late-WW2
- And of course, the D-Day. The Normandy Landings involved more troops than the totality of the current ROC Army.

Also, non of those assaults involved the attacker landing multiple times the defender's military in a single day. Which, bizarrely, people think China needs to achieve against Taiwan. I wonder if they think you need to outnumber the other side in the first day or your soldiers instantly die?
 
vincent

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
BoraTas said:
Amphibious operations should be harder than normal operations. They require multimodal logistics (which needs to be protected) and force the landers to fight outgunned and outnumbered during the initial phases. But the thing is, how hard they are is probably an exaggeration. There are many successful amphibious assaults in history such as:

- Turkish landings in Cyprus
- French-British-Israeli landings in Egypt
- Iranian landings in Iran-Iraq War
- American landings in Korean War
- Entire WW2 Japanese SE Asia campaign
- Entire WW2 American Pacific campaign
- British landings in North Africa and Madagascar in WW2
- Allied landings in Southern France and Italy during WW2
- Soviet landings in Crimea in late-WW2
- And of course, the D-Day. The Normandy Landings involved more troops than the totality of the current ROC Army.

Also, non of those assaults involved the attacker landing multiple times the defender's military in a single day. Which, bizarrely, people think China needs to achieve against Taiwan. I wonder if they think you need to outnumber the other side in the first day or your soldiers instantly die?
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Why PLA needs to land troops on the island on day one? PLA should bomb the island for a month or two first.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
vincent said:
Why PLA needs to land troops on the island on day one? PLA should bomb the island for a month or two first.
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Boratas didn't say the PLA needed to land troops on the island on day one.
You've misread or misunderstood what he wrote.

What he said was "non of those assaults involved the attacker landing multiple times the defender's military in a single day. Which, bizarrely, people think China needs to achieve against Taiwan. I wonder if they think you need to outnumber the other side in the first day or your soldiers instantly die?"

He's saying that the sometimes circulated idea in some western "analyses" of the PLA having to land multiple times the defender's military on the first day of their amphibious assault/invasion (which is not the same as the first day of conflict, because obviously the amphibious assault would be preceded by an extensive air/naval/bombardment campaign first) is silly.
 
J

jiajia99

Junior Member
Registered Member
vincent said:
Why PLA needs to land troops on the island on day one? PLA should bomb the island for a month or two first.
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China should be capable of surgical strikes, economic sanctions, blockades and the use of saboteurs to take out the offending leadership well before carpet bombings, landings and human waves are even considered. With all the accidents and issues in the Taiwanese government along with a military populated by joy boys, China doesn’t have to do anywhere near as much as the west thinks to take back Taiwan.
 
Wrought

Wrought

Junior Member
Registered Member
Blitzo said:
Boratas didn't say the PLA needed to land troops on the island on day one.
You've misread or misunderstood what he wrote.

What he said was "non of those assaults involved the attacker landing multiple times the defender's military in a single day. Which, bizarrely, people think China needs to achieve against Taiwan. I wonder if they think you need to outnumber the other side in the first day or your soldiers instantly die?"

He's saying that the sometimes circulated idea in some western "analyses" of the PLA having to land multiple times the defender's military on the first day of their amphibious assault/invasion (which is not the same as the first day of conflict, because obviously the amphibious assault would be preceded by an extensive air/naval/bombardment campaign first) is silly.
Click to expand...

Pursuant to that, roughly how many troops are even prepared for amphibious operations? I've heard the number 60,000 tossed around (6 combined arms brigades from PLAGF + 6 more from PLANMC), but I've also heard that marine brigades only have two amphibious battalions out of nine. At the same time there are rumours of the marines adding more brigades, possibly up to 15 total.
 
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