PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Sinnavuuty

Senior Member
Registered Member
Sure, just like TOWs will be able to sink the PLAN landing fleet.
I never claimed that.
The only way they will get to even have a pop at PLA helicopters is if the PLA majorly messed up previous steps.
Helicopters will be part of the entire amphibious operation, from start to finish, which means that helicopters will necessarily be within range of small arms engagement such as MANPADS, where their suppression through preparatory air strikes is aimed at reducing and not completely eliminating this threat.
The big drones will be outside of the range of MANPADs (just look at how many Predators have been downed by MANPADS world wide, and the kind of SAMs used to actually achieve kills against Predators and the like); Stingers will be a waste against medium to small drones, and they frankly struggle against such targets, just look at Ukraine and how much impact on drones Stingers have had.
MALE drones (like BZK-005, ASN-209, WZ-6, WL-1 among others) are under the MANPADS engagement altitude. Furthermore, the impact on Ukraine is almost zero because both sides almost never use MALE drones, only now the Russians have started using MALE drones, but in previous periods, drones like Bayraktar were shot down by Russian Iglas.
Investing so heavily on MANPADs is likely blowing your small arms budget on pistols. Can they be useful? Sure. Are they likely to make much impact? Not really.
In order to not have much of an impact, the PLA will need to suppress most of Taiwan's MANPADS positions and units as well as completely reduce the combat power of the ROCA, if they fail in this, Taiwan will certainly be able to inflict losses on the PLA. I won't make any claims to that effect because I'm obviously not clairvoyant, but the operational implications surrounding the operation are under these conditions.
Such heavy investment in MANPADs only makes sense if you think PLAAF CAS is at the same level as Russia’s that relies on low flying Su25s doing strafing runs and rocket attacks.
No. Investing in MANPADs makes sense when you want to create an integrated air defense structure and layer; MANPADs are the first layer of this integrated structure.

It is worth remembering that Taiwan will be on the other side of the war, the side that will be defending. Every doctrinal manual foresees the enemy's attrition in a counter-amphibious landing operation, so in order to effectively oppose an amphibious landing, the ROC troops in charge of defense actions will seek to wear down and disorganize the PLA as much as possible. They will try to take advantage of the critical moment for the operation, hitting it with fire from the moment the troops transfer to the landing craft, as well as during the movement to the landing area, aiming to inflict heavy losses in personnel and material, which will contribute to the neutralization of this operation, before the start of ground operations. If this is not possible, the ROC ground force, as a whole, will seek to limit the beachhead and attack the PLA to destroy it. Most of these conditions will depend greatly on the surprise (from strategic to tactical) that the PLA can offer in an amphibious operation.

In order to be successful in an amphibious operation, it is necessary to achieve surprise. From marsh landings such as those that occurred in the Iran-Iraq war to large amphibious operations such as Inchon, the element of surprise was a critical factor. However, the plethora of naval assets involved, no matter how small the scale of the planned amphibious operation, and modern detection equipment, especially satellites, practically invalidate strategic surprise. However, tactical surprise will always be desirable, seeking to disguise, as much as possible, the movement of the Task Force that will carry out the amphibious assault, with some operational attraction, aiming to deceive the defender, inducing him to adopt an unfavorable course of action, as to the time and true location where an amphibious landing operation is intended to be conducted.

China has an advantage in Taiwan because I seriously doubt that the Chinese would land amphibious forces on the first day. This would be foolish on the part of the PLA commanders, considering that Taiwan could mobilize its forces and obtain numerical and even material superiority in the first few days. This is because the PLA is unlikely to put all of its effective power on land simultaneously with the ROCA units responsible for defending the coast. It will have the flexibility and combat power to contain the penetration and carry out counterattacks against the PLA amphibious brigades. Because it has strong fire support and good air defense coverage, which are essential for operations of this nature, and because it has a tactical operations center that allows the coordination of this same support and also the use of airspace, a large unit equivalent to an Army Division, integrated by at least two Large Units, seems suitable for conducting the amphibious counter-landing operation, under better conditions. It should also be considered that a Division has greater flexibility to respond to attempts to achieve tactical surprise by the enemy Amphibious Task Force that carries out a diversionary action.

China would follow a course of action of bombing to reduce the combat power of the ROCA/ROCN/ROCAF as much as possible, regardless of how long it lasts. Taking the ROCAF and ROCN out of action in particular will give the PLA much more freedom to plan and execute the amphibious operation at a later date, allowing it to carry out all preparations before and during the landing.

The big problem afterwards will continue to be the ROCA, which could still contribute to the attrition of the PLA, even after the successful landing on the beaches of Taiwan. I have already written two comments under the same logic of the ROCA's strategy around an operation to wear down the PLA's amphibious landing:
 

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
Come to think of it, there actually aren't that many examples of failed large scale amphibious assaults in modern times (since 1900). Battle of Gallipoli and Battle of Kinmen are the only ones that I can think of.
It is probably a bit self-selecting. A country wouldn't try a landing before neutralising the enemy navy and air power near the landing zone.
Rather than disproving the original point, you basically proved it more! Taiwan and America are obviously looking at Su25s in Ukraine when thinking of PLAAF CAS to suggest stingers as the solution.

Against the kinds of weapons the PLA will be deploying for an actual landing, stingers will be about as much use for Taiwan as Stingers were for the Taliban against the Americans.
I agree. MANPADSes get too much credit for what they do in Ukraine. They worked because Ukrainian S-300s and Buks forced RuAF aircraft to fly low. Back then they were more relevant because effective tactical A2G required low altitude flight regimes.

Their biggest limitation besides their range is they depend on an infantryman's eyes for target acquisition. A MANPADS launcher can not be used for detection. This is also why they are substantially less effective during the night.
 

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
You write so much, but chances are the attack is 3month siege, where food is delivered, but Taiwan is out of fuel, energy, parts under bombardment. The landing is barely opposed. Then they surrender after first city fall.

No food is going either. The ROC isn’t going to allow any humanitarian supplies from China and insist that China allows US cargo ships dock. Neither is China going to allow the US to ship tons of Canned American Spam Bullets, Organic Deli Missiles, Meals Ready to Fly Drones, etc.
 

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
I never claimed that.

Helicopters will be part of the entire amphibious operation, from start to finish, which means that helicopters will necessarily be within range of small arms engagement such as MANPADS, where their suppression through preparatory air strikes is aimed at reducing and not completely eliminating this threat.

MALE drones (like BZK-005, ASN-209, WZ-6, WL-1 among others) are under the MANPADS engagement altitude. Furthermore, the impact on Ukraine is almost zero because both sides almost never use MALE drones, only now the Russians have started using MALE drones, but in previous periods, drones like Bayraktar were shot down by Russian Iglas.

In order to not have much of an impact, the PLA will need to suppress most of Taiwan's MANPADS positions and units as well as completely reduce the combat power of the ROCA, if they fail in this, Taiwan will certainly be able to inflict losses on the PLA. I won't make any claims to that effect because I'm obviously not clairvoyant, but the operational implications surrounding the operation are under these conditions.

No. Investing in MANPADs makes sense when you want to create an integrated air defense structure and layer; MANPADs are the first layer of this integrated structure.

It is worth remembering that Taiwan will be on the other side of the war, the side that will be defending. Every doctrinal manual foresees the enemy's attrition in a counter-amphibious landing operation, so in order to effectively oppose an amphibious landing, the ROC troops in charge of defense actions will seek to wear down and disorganize the PLA as much as possible. They will try to take advantage of the critical moment for the operation, hitting it with fire from the moment the troops transfer to the landing craft, as well as during the movement to the landing area, aiming to inflict heavy losses in personnel and material, which will contribute to the neutralization of this operation, before the start of ground operations. If this is not possible, the ROC ground force, as a whole, will seek to limit the beachhead and attack the PLA to destroy it. Most of these conditions will depend greatly on the surprise (from strategic to tactical) that the PLA can offer in an amphibious operation.

In order to be successful in an amphibious operation, it is necessary to achieve surprise. From marsh landings such as those that occurred in the Iran-Iraq war to large amphibious operations such as Inchon, the element of surprise was a critical factor. However, the plethora of naval assets involved, no matter how small the scale of the planned amphibious operation, and modern detection equipment, especially satellites, practically invalidate strategic surprise. However, tactical surprise will always be desirable, seeking to disguise, as much as possible, the movement of the Task Force that will carry out the amphibious assault, with some operational attraction, aiming to deceive the defender, inducing him to adopt an unfavorable course of action, as to the time and true location where an amphibious landing operation is intended to be conducted.

China has an advantage in Taiwan because I seriously doubt that the Chinese would land amphibious forces on the first day. This would be foolish on the part of the PLA commanders, considering that Taiwan could mobilize its forces and obtain numerical and even material superiority in the first few days. This is because the PLA is unlikely to put all of its effective power on land simultaneously with the ROCA units responsible for defending the coast. It will have the flexibility and combat power to contain the penetration and carry out counterattacks against the PLA amphibious brigades. Because it has strong fire support and good air defense coverage, which are essential for operations of this nature, and because it has a tactical operations center that allows the coordination of this same support and also the use of airspace, a large unit equivalent to an Army Division, integrated by at least two Large Units, seems suitable for conducting the amphibious counter-landing operation, under better conditions. It should also be considered that a Division has greater flexibility to respond to attempts to achieve tactical surprise by the enemy Amphibious Task Force that carries out a diversionary action.

China would follow a course of action of bombing to reduce the combat power of the ROCA/ROCN/ROCAF as much as possible, regardless of how long it lasts. Taking the ROCAF and ROCN out of action in particular will give the PLA much more freedom to plan and execute the amphibious operation at a later date, allowing it to carry out all preparations before and during the landing.

The big problem afterwards will continue to be the ROCA, which could still contribute to the attrition of the PLA, even after the successful landing on the beaches of Taiwan. I have already written two comments under the same logic of the ROCA's strategy around an operation to wear down the PLA's amphibious landing:

Biggest problem is not number of launchers, they do not have enough people as it is, right now units are at 80% strength.
If you shift more people to AD (4X more), which branch suffers? Probably armoured?
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
They will be instrumental in taking down PLA helicopters and also the drones that provide real-time intelligence to the PLA.

And a Hellfire land-attack missile fired from an AH-64 or an MQ-9 can strike a target from 6-8 kilometers away, let alone some other models of glide bombs and missiles that can be launched from both aforementioned platforms which can reach beyond 10 kilometers.

In the meantime, how far and how high can a MANPADS actually reach? Trying to chase after and match the higher ranges of glide bombs and land-attack missiles launched from attack helicopters and UCAVs and it wouldn't be a MANPADS anymore.

And speaking of attack helicopters - I do anticipate (and hope) that the Z-21 and future iterations of/successors to the Z-10 and Z-19 to be equipped with MUMT capabilities that would enable attack helicopters to act as some sort of airborne command post + missile truck for the unmanned UCAVs or rotorcrafts while staying in the relative safety of the friendly forces' rear, and only going into combat environments when situations are deemed less threatening.
 
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Index

Senior Member
Registered Member
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.
There's also nothing wrong with a good old human wave either. Russians disparaged Ukrainian human waves in Kharkiv and outside Kiev but look at what happened when there wasn't enough forces to stop them. And Ukrainians are moving against enemy air superiority and massive drone, artillery advantage.

Using your superior numbers, which China would have, is no shame, especially not in the defense of your home.

During peacetime, the idea of surgical strikes and security raids work, but in the case of US and/or Japanese attack in cooperation with anti government fighters on Taiwan, this approach is downright negligent of national safety.

A basic warfare tenet is to deny the enemy armies chance to group up. China should take hyperaggressive measures to destroy as much of the 300 000~ strong KMT armed wing that's encircled away from the US and Japanese invasion armies as possible, before the latter two can potentially achieve local breakthroughs and link up inside Taiwan. Because it's a 1 of a kind opportunity to eliminate many enemies before they regain adequate supply lines/air cover.

After several weeks (before the onset of official US involvement) of target no building left standing outside of designated civilian safe zones will leave the KMT weak enough that PLA can move on to a mass number of small probing naval landings, the point of these landing being to bait and cluster any remaining ROCA fighters so they can be destroyed by air and artillery. Inevitably, there will be a more permanent beachhead captured, from which a full amphib force can land.

With this approach, it ensures that even if PLA loses the race on Taiwan and US or Japan lands first, they won't be able to take advantage of the KMT collaborator force. And even if PLA is forced to retreat from Taiwan, China has left US no infrastructure they can hijack to resupply/sustain troops.

Large wars like these are lost against expectation when overly cocky commanders want to play with surgical moves and spec ops, pinning the fate of large operations on a few out of a misguided, surefired assumption of individual superiority.
 

Sardaukar20

Captain
Registered Member
SEAL Team 6 training for a Taiwan AR scenario.
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SEAL Team 6, an elite military special missions unit, has spent more than a year planning and training for a potential Chinese invasion of the island at its Dam Neck base in Virginia Beach, per the FT.

The unit's contingency plans — in keeping with most of its missions — are highly classified. People familiar with its planning did not provide details to the FT about what specific missions it is preparing for.

I wonder what are they training for. Provocation, assistance, or rescue operations?
 
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TK3600

Major
Registered Member
No food is going either. The ROC isn’t going to allow any humanitarian supplies from China and insist that China allows US cargo ships dock. Neither is China going to allow the US to ship tons of Canned American Spam Bullets, Organic Deli Missiles, Meals Ready to Fly Drones, etc.
Then they bear the wrath of starving population. The starvation tactic working as intended. The blockade and starvation is legal, because the regime attacked the aid convoy itself.
 
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