PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Gloire_bb · Dec 13, 2024

Biscuits said:
No? US only has staging areas on one side, China is a geographical fortress, being shaped like a semicircle with mountains overlooking the ocean.

If Russia is in the fight - whole north is naked, because Russia won't be able to protect it(4 regiments of dated interceptors from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk, whopping 8 planes on standby). b-21s(order for which now appears likely to go into hundreds) will be able to pass that and launch. So either you're sending good third of your fighting strength to the north(welcome to -60 gentlemen) to old Soviet airfields, to do a task Chinese fighters aren't built for, or, well, missiles will come.

There are still beautiful borders with countries such as Bangladesh or Myanmar. Convenient 1000 km JASSM-ER range of endless mountains, right to Chengdu and CAC; right within reasonable strike range from bay of Bengal. Or through central Asia by same b-21s from middle East - stans won't stop them either.

Yes, US cares about sovereignty of defenceless neutral and hostile countries, like in Syria or Iraq.

No, China is not a semicircle. China is a nation aggressively placed in Asia right next to american bases, in all directions.
And until they and global US Navy exist - it's a vulnerability.

Also, convenient semicircle is 9500 miles of coastline, most of it with worthwhile targets. It isn't a fortress, it's a nightmare.

AndrewS said:
It boils down to how many missiles could the US realistically launch in a single salvo?

Let's say the US launches a massive airstrike from 3 carriers or 3 airbases.
So call it 75 fighters with 2 JASSMs each, plus another 75 fighters for air cover.

Salvo warfare equations are for exactly that, warfare. CSG on CSG, SSG striking a SCS base, that sort of thing.

Concentrated forces at high readiness exchanging mathematics. It's fair. Americans aren't really known to fight fair, it's a nation of warriors no further than their own media.

I'd instead suggest to consider an occasional Virginia TLAM lo strike, launched under thick overcast or typical SCS mist(no space IR and likely no IRST too) with no forewarning.
Not full salvo, just a few to probe.
Or B-21, etc. Or simply leaky replicator munitions from Luson(shaheds basically).

I.e. not even saturation attacks( which for CSG should be counted with cells and air cover/ew actively contesting interception). Simple LO LACM infiltration, just spread over unreasonably huge vulnerable area.
You can make Israel out of Shanghai (though even Yangtzee delta is larger than Israel and is very inconvenient to defend). You can't make Israel out of south-eastern coast of China. And there's more than South East Coast of China, there's rest of the coast, rest of the country, and ideally some aircraft to do something smarter than just sit and wait.
In any case, even Israel can't make Israel out of Israel - while Iranian shahed attack with days of warning, intercepted by whole hel havir, centcom, Jordan and Saudi air forces was decimated - single Houthi missiles get through Red Sea, despite heavy monitoring.

Sinnavuuty · Dec 13, 2024

AndrewS said:
As for the 2IC, it comprises a handful of potential bases and because of the distance, you need large supporting aircraft like tankers, transports and AWACs. But those large aircraft are expensive and are very vulnerable on the ground because you can't hide them

The big problem with this approach is that these aircraft will also be vulnerable if China targets the runways and taxiways. The way to make American air logistics unfeasible in the conflict is to simply make the airfields unusable for these support aircraft, which will affect the persistence of American aircraft in the air conflict.

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It's even funny how they try to analyze alternatives for this situation in the article above. China doesn't even need to achieve air supremacy/superiority, air denial is enough to win the conflict over Taiwan, this would be the way for the US to go to war without entering the war, because they will be limited in support.

Blitzo · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
There are still beautiful borders with countries such as Bangladesh or Myanmar. Convenient 1000 km JASSM-ER range of endless mountains, right to Chengdu and CAC; right within reasonable strike range from bay of Bengal. Or through central Asia by same b-21s from middle East - stans won't stop them either.

Yes, US cares about sovereignty of defenceless neutral and hostile countries, like in Syria or Iraq.

No, China is not a semicircle. China is a nation aggressively placed in Asia right next to american bases, in all directions.
And until they and global US Navy exist - it's a vulnerability.

Also, convenient semicircle is 9500 miles of coastline, most of it with worthwhile targets. It isn't a fortress, it's a nightmare.

That comes right back to the matter of salvo size -- certainly if the US was able to deploy the vast majority of its air assets and strike assets to the middle east and Indian ocean and strike at the PRC from that theater, it would also in turn required the PLA to conduct strategic reorientation to defend from that direction.

I do understand where you are coming from of course -- in terms of positional warfare, on the map it appears like the PRC is "surrounded" by multiple US bases/strong points as well as ocean with US mobile fires platforms that are difficult for the PLA to track and neutralise currently (like SSNs/SSGNs).

However, in practice whether those strongpoints/bases and mobile forces are capable of militarily effectively carrying out their mission, versus having their fires significantly thinned out, or even versus those strongpoints/bases themselves being vulnerable to defeat in detail, depends on the balance of mutual sortie and salvo size/effectiveness versus totality of relevant defenses.

Gloire_bb said:
Salvo warfare equations are for exactly that, warfare. CSG on CSG, SSG striking a SCS base, that sort of thing.

Concentrated forces at high readiness exchanging mathematics. It's fair. Americans aren't really known to fight fair, it's a nation of warriors no further than their own media.

I'd instead suggest to consider an occasional Virginia TLAM lo strike, launched under thick overcast or typical SCS mist(no space IR and likely no IRST too) with no forewarning.
Not full salvo, just a few to probe.
Or B-21, etc. Or simply leaky replicator munitions from Luson(shaheds basically).

I.e. not even saturation attacks( which for CSG should be counted with cells and air cover/ew actively contesting interception). Simple LO LACM infiltration, just spread over unreasonably huge vulnerable area.
You can make Israel out of Shanghai (though even Yangtzee delta is larger than Israel and is very inconvenient to defend). You can't make Israel out of south-eastern coast of China. And there's more than South East Coast of China, there's rest of the coast, rest of the country, and ideally some aircraft to do something smarter than just sit and wait.
In any case, even Israel can't make Israel out of Israel - while Iranian shahed attack with days of warning, intercepted by whole hel havir, centcom, Jordan and Saudi air forces was decimated - single Houthi missiles get through Red Sea, despite heavy monitoring.

I don't quite understand, how does launching occasional small salvo strikes help?

That would simply make such salvos less effective due to the ability to defend against them easier.

Unless you intend to use small salvos to target less well defended (and thus less important) areas, in which case that is certainly viable but also of dubious military effectiveness.

Gloire_bb · Dec 13, 2024

Blitzo said:
I don't quite understand, how does launching occasional small salvo strikes help?

That would simply make such salvos less effective due to the ability to defend against them easier.

Unless you intend to use small salvos to target less well defended (and thus less important) areas, in which case that is certainly viable but also of dubious military effectiveness.

You're seeing attack through equation, trying to overwhelm surge capacity of the system to defend.
It's generally stupid from American perspective, unless there's a different goal(lure out and engage interceptor force, for example)

What I am describing is trying to overwhelm attention of the system, spreading it over time and over entire length of the border.

Any country, at low altitude, Is not one endless uninterrupted information field. China especially so, because country has difficult landscape over wast areas. To some degree, lofted radars help(AEW, balloons, etc), but they're no panacea against LO cruise missiles and even slower drones.

Coast is controlled well, but within large countries there's only local defense at best: China has orders of magnitude more targets than it have missile batteries. When missiles pass the coast, it's rather easy to go on - fighters will likely have to individually search, identify and prosecute leakers; some will likely be missed.

Other borders, away from main threat vectors (but perfectly accessible to US strike), are controlled much worse - there's no convenient coast to setup a sensor barrier and there was less incentive.
But they're still vulnerable to GAC.

Biscuits · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
If Russia is in the fight - whole north is naked, because Russia won't be able to protect it(4 regiments of dated interceptors from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk, whopping 8 planes on standby). b-21s(order for which now appears likely to go into hundreds) will be able to pass that and launch.

Where do those B-21s fly from? China still has its sea and land based early warning, besides Russia's own IADS which is still somewhat dense.

Right now there's less B-21s than there's Su-57.

B-21s can't go solo but need fighter escort, or they will be easy pickings for J-20/35. How will the fighters have anywhere close to the ranges to fly in Siberia?

Gloire_bb said:
So either you're sending good third of your fighting strength to the north(welcome to -60 gentlemen) to old Soviet airfields, to do a task Chinese fighters aren't built for, or, well, missiles will come.

Even as missiles come in, they're flying over what essentially amounts to 3 or 4 israels worth of air defenses stacked lengthwise. Sure US missiles are mostly better than Iran's, but you're looking at 100s of missiles to hit single digits.

China doesn't need to proof itself 100%, even a country like Ukraine that maybe has 1/100th as competent IADS as China can still retain much of its industry simply due to sheer size absorbing the punishment.

Gloire_bb said:
There are still beautiful borders with countries such as Bangladesh or Myanmar. Convenient 1000 km JASSM-ER range of endless mountains, right to Chengdu and CAC; right within reasonable strike range from bay of Bengal. Or through central Asia by same b-21s from middle East - stans won't stop them either.

Yes, US cares about sovereignty of defenceless neutral and hostile countries, like in Syria or Iraq.

With which bases? If US flies from Al Udeid, that would mean Qatar participating in the war. Same for wherever they would fly above Myanmar for.

And as US can strike from above those areas, so can China. Then US would need to deploy air defenses for those regions, otherwise China will level the US bases, destroy all energy infrastructure and kill everyone in those countries until they can't support US anymore.

Gloire_bb said:
No, China is not a semicircle. China is a nation aggressively placed in Asia right next to american bases, in all directions.
And until they and global US Navy exist - it's a vulnerability.

Also, convenient semicircle is 9500 miles of coastline, most of it with worthwhile targets. It isn't a fortress, it's a nightmare.

Salvo warfare equations are for exactly that, warfare. CSG on CSG, SSG striking a SCS base, that sort of thing.

Concentrated forces at high readiness exchanging mathematics. It's fair. Americans aren't really known to fight fair, it's a nation of warriors no further than their own media.

I'd instead suggest to consider an occasional Virginia TLAM lo strike, launched under thick overcast or typical SCS mist(no space IR and likely no IRST too) with no forewarning.
Not full salvo, just a few to probe.

Then that would just get shot down over the many miles of sea.

The reason you use large salvos is to make sure something can get through the really oppressive levels of IADS, DDGs, CAP and EW.

Gloire_bb said:
Or B-21, etc. Or simply leaky replicator munitions from Luson(shaheds basically).

And when Luzon participates in that war, US would need to share their limited air defenses for them.

Otherwise what's to stop China from bombing Philippines into the ground? Not the 4 spyder batteries they have.

You're expecting a communist government that has nowadays increasing nationalist sentiment with not even lip service regard for human rights to fight 100% fair.

They're not going let US do some guerilla campaign and overfly neutral countries.

They won't just hit above the belt with attack on military bases (even if that alone can be overwhelming). They'll use violence/economic threats to coerce US friendly nations, they'll use maritime militia/cargo ships to hit below the belt.

Just as US can try to spread out strikes, China will spread out counterstrikes. Who will be US' friend if trading with or supporting US means getting steadily bombed by whatever comes out of the megafactories in China?

Sure China needs to hold its coastline or even other borders, but US needs to hold everywhere in the empire then. From Europe to Middle East to SEA to Japan.

AndrewS · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
You're seeing attack through equation, trying to overwhelm surge capacity of the system to defend.
It's generally stupid from American perspective, unless there's a different goal(lure out and engage interceptor force, for example)

What I am describing is trying to overwhelm attention of the system, spreading it over time and over entire length of the border.

But it's China which will be overwhelming the small number of bases that the US can potentially operate from.

Remember that there are 150+ airbases scattered all over China. So China generally can concentrate enough aircraft (and missiles) against the small number of opposing US bases and carriers.

---

In the Middle East, what bases can the US operate from?

The Middle Eastern countries have agreed to sell a lot of oil and gas to China, and honour is a big thing in Arab culture.

In addition, in the event of a US-China war, I expect China to be supplying weapons to local actors for use against the Israeli military anyway. My guess is that 80-90% of the global population would support this.

So for example, we would see US bases in the Middle East being attacked with large numbers of low-cost short range rockets supplied from China.

So I simply don't see any Middle Eastern country allowing the US bases to launch attacks on China.

Also consider that the entire Persian Gulf is within range of DF-26 missiles launched from China.

ZeEa5KPul · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
Eventually, rise of bomber force and especially navy(as the big enabler as well as by itself) will do it. Who knows, maybe even space. No matter how unfortunate your geography is, what comes one way, can come another. And if unfortunate geography is used for military purposes, it ultimately can change management, reversing situation.
But all of it is far enough from now.

That's the point of the nuclear buildup. Strengthening the strategic deterrent buys China the time at peace to build up its conventional capabilities to the point where persistent strike at will on the all the US homeland becomes possible.

The nukes get us from now to then.

Blitzo · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
You're seeing attack through equation, trying to overwhelm surge capacity of the system to defend.
It's generally stupid from American perspective, unless there's a different goal(lure out and engage interceptor force, for example)

What I am describing is trying to overwhelm attention of the system, spreading it over time and over entire length of the border.

Any country, at low altitude, Is not one endless uninterrupted information field. China especially so, because country has difficult landscape over wast areas. To some degree, lofted radars help(AEW, balloons, etc), but they're no panacea against LO cruise missiles and even slower drones.

Coast is controlled well, but within large countries there's only local defense at best: China has orders of magnitude more targets than it have missile batteries. When missiles pass the coast, it's rather easy to go on - fighters will likely have to individually search, identify and prosecute leakers; some will likely be missed.

Other borders, away from main threat vectors (but perfectly accessible to US strike), are controlled much worse - there's no convenient coast to setup a sensor barrier and there was less incentive.
But they're still vulnerable to GAC.

What you are describing, is suggesting that the PRC would have to evenly spread out sensors (and by extension defenses) across its border, which sounds like not a strategy they would do during wartime let alone peacetime.

A nation does not spread its assets equally across its whole border for no reason -- instead, its assets are deployed based on intelligence of where the expected enemy's direction of attack is going to come from, and that is because the enemy does also has finite assets and will concentrate and maneuver their forces for maximum effectiveness in the theater which matters the most.

To put all of this in a US-China conflict scenario, what it means is that yes to an extent the PLA is going to have a degree of a fully surveilled border in terms of IADS, AEW&C, CAP etc, however the weight and density of that deployment will be done based on intelligence and knowledge of US strategy and US basing of relevant strike assets. In addition to the longer ranged sensors, air defenses and CAP, naturally higher value locations will possess their own organic medium and short range and point defense systems for leakers.
Certainly the US could try to launch strikes from other strategic directions that the PLA isn't expecting through subterfuge, concealment etc, but then that is just the normal question of applying strategic deception.

Furthermore, all of the above has to be viewed again in context of the actual deployable and in play offensive and defensive assets and their respective salvos.
But it's not the case that the entirety of the PRC border (or indeed, any nation's border) needs to be all be equally highly surveilled and defended, but instead it would be done via a dynamic defense in response to strategic intelligence.

AndrewS · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
If Russia is in the fight - whole north is naked, because Russia won't be able to protect it(4 regiments of dated interceptors from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk, whopping 8 planes on standby). b-21s(order for which now appears likely to go into hundreds) will be able to pass that and launch. So either you're sending good third of your fighting strength to the north(welcome to -60 gentlemen) to old Soviet airfields, to do a task Chinese fighters aren't built for, or, well, missiles will come.
.

You're talking about the US launching aircraft from Alaska, through Russia, then to China.

That is a 10000km+ round trip. Much of it though hostile Russian territory.

Then let's say it works.

What happens next?

The next day, would we see Russian or Chinese aircraft (through Russian airspace) conducting missions against that single base in Alaska, and the large vulnerable bombers on the ground.

So I simply don't see the US going through Russian airspace to attack China. I'm addition, just look at how careful the US is at getting into a war with Russia, over Ukraine.

drowingfish · Dec 13, 2024

Gloire_bb said:
If Russia is in the fight - whole north is naked, because Russia won't be able to protect it(4 regiments of dated interceptors from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk, whopping 8 planes on standby). b-21s(order for which now appears likely to go into hundreds) will be able to pass that and launch. So either you're sending good third of your fighting strength to the north(welcome to -60 gentlemen) to old Soviet airfields, to do a task Chinese fighters aren't built for, or, well, missiles will come.

There are still beautiful borders with countries such as Bangladesh or Myanmar. Convenient 1000 km JASSM-ER range of endless mountains, right to Chengdu and CAC; right within reasonable strike range from bay of Bengal. Or through central Asia by same b-21s from middle East - stans won't stop them either.

Yes, US cares about sovereignty of defenceless neutral and hostile countries, like in Syria or Iraq.

No, China is not a semicircle. China is a nation aggressively placed in Asia right next to american bases, in all directions.
And until they and global US Navy exist - it's a vulnerability.

Also, convenient semicircle is 9500 miles of coastline, most of it with worthwhile targets. It isn't a fortress, it's a nightmare.

Salvo warfare equations are for exactly that, warfare. CSG on CSG, SSG striking a SCS base, that sort of thing.

Concentrated forces at high readiness exchanging mathematics. It's fair. Americans aren't really known to fight fair, it's a nation of warriors no further than their own media.

I'd instead suggest to consider an occasional Virginia TLAM lo strike, launched under thick overcast or typical SCS mist(no space IR and likely no IRST too) with no forewarning.
Not full salvo, just a few to probe.
Or B-21, etc. Or simply leaky replicator munitions from Luson(shaheds basically).

I.e. not even saturation attacks( which for CSG should be counted with cells and air cover/ew actively contesting interception). Simple LO LACM infiltration, just spread over unreasonably huge vulnerable area.
You can make Israel out of Shanghai (though even Yangtzee delta is larger than Israel and is very inconvenient to defend). You can't make Israel out of south-eastern coast of China. And there's more than South East Coast of China, there's rest of the coast, rest of the country, and ideally some aircraft to do something smarter than just sit and wait.
In any case, even Israel can't make Israel out of Israel - while Iranian shahed attack with days of warning, intercepted by whole hel havir, centcom, Jordan and Saudi air forces was decimated - single Houthi missiles get through Red Sea, despite heavy monitoring.

when we make fun of officers drawing lines on a map, this is what we refer to lol.

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Gloire_bb

Captain

Sinnavuuty

Senior Member

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

Gloire_bb

Captain

Biscuits

Major

AndrewS

Brigadier

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

AndrewS

Brigadier

drowingfish

Junior Member