PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

SunlitZelkova said:

If the alternative to total victory is nuclear war, that's not a good strategy. I'm of the opinion there should be more options on the escalation ladder, and that the US, Japan, and whoever else joins the "Coalition of the Willing" will try to find a way out after suffering heavy losses.

It's up to China to give them a way to do that without losing more face than they already have. If a Taiwan contingency escalates to regional war, victory will mean asserting dominance on the global stage. The US isn't going to magically disappear after Taiwan is taken, thought needs to be given to how the relationship with the US will be managed afterwards.

Click to expand...

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.

Click to expand...

1. Priority targetting will be long range radar, air defense and airbases. Otherwise you're just sending missiles and planes into the grinder for nothing. This step must be done with long range cruise missiles as to do it with dumb bombs is suicidal. Note that this includes PLAN naval assets but for ease of understanding we can wait on counting those.

2. Secondary targetting will be direct command/control facilities and logistics facilities, only once all air defenses and airbases are suppressed. Otherwise planes can still scramble from highway strips and be armed from roadside warehouses to shoot down bombers like in the Vietnam War.

3. Only then will targetting production facilities be possible.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Total

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

To suppress all 100 bases for a few hours ala Syria takes 5900 missiles. Can't be done. OK let's say it takes 150 to totally destroy a base which requires a 2 month rebuild. This is a fair assessment I'd say, if a few hours of suppression requires 59. And let's say you only need to destroy the biggest 20 bases. Still 3000 missiles required.

OK let's look at air defense.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

(see conclusion). Let's say 90% of them are found to be not SAM sites by the human analysts. That's still 210 SAMs that are possible from satellite imaging. They can't send a scout to verify as the scout will be shot down - they need to actually hit those sites. 5 missiles per site since the vehicles are spread out (see photos). That's 1000 missiles.

So now we're down to 3000/4000 missiles available for airbase suppression, since they need to hit all the SAM sites.

That's assuming every one of those can launch, none of them will be shot down. In reality,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

will have AWACs scrambled, SAMs on high alert and fighters in the air ready to shoot down slow, unstealthy subsonic cruise missiles.

Click to expand...

FairAndUnbiased said:

fundamentally, being surrounded isn't bad because of being surrounded. being surrounded is bad because of no external resupply of food and munitions.

this doesn't apply to a continent sized nation-state that generates its own food and munitions. then it is more like a medieval castle siege.

In those situations, the besieged can and do sally out and annihilate surrounding forces by defeat in detail, since it is easier for the defenders to concentrate force than the besiegers. The besiegers have the burden of supplying and defending a large area, while supply lines are short for the besieged.

also, they just outright don't have enough munitions. See analysis here:

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Firstly, munitions is only part of the equation. The cost of launching such a campaign includes the man-hours of work needed to keep your delivery system in operational condition, the fuel and supplies needed to repair any damage of your assets and the risk of losing your strike platforms. Think...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

Note that even against Vietnam, US had a 0.5 air to air kill ratio by their own statistics in one of their premier campaigns with high volume munitions. US had a decisive industrial lead against Vietnam's backers, not just Vietnam alone.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

montyp165 said:

Chinese industrial strength would enable direct strikes on the continental US if the US were to attack mainland China on top of sustaining pressure on US frontline units, so strategic attrition in this case would work precisely against the US position here.

Click to expand...

1. Long-range aircraft launched from bases in South America or northern Russia
2. Cruise missile salvos launched from surface vessels in the Pacific or Arctic oceans
3. Cruise missile salvos launched from nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific or Arctic oceans

Neurosmith said:

China's probability of hitting CONUS doesn't depend on its industrial strength but instead the posturing of its forward-deployed forces, makeup of delivery systems, and overseas military infrastructure.

Arguably, there are three theoretical ways in which a country like China could carry out such strikes:

1. Long-range aircraft launched from bases in South America or northern Russia
2. Cruise missile salvos launched from surface vessels in the Pacific or Arctic oceans
3. Cruise missile salvos launched from nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific or Arctic oceans

The fact that China has no military airfields within aviation range of CONUS automatically rules out #1. Option #2 would require extensive logistical support for the surface fleet and for the said fleet to bypass US carrier groups, making it extremely difficult to achieve.

This leaves China with option #3. In the past two years, we have seen a huge expansion of China's submarine-building capacity as well as what are believed to be multiple Type 09IIIB units being launched. If we are to believe that the Type 09IIIB each has 12-24 VLS cells and substantially improved acoustics compared to older versions, a notional task force of just four of these boats could threaten CONUS with 48-96 missiles. The pace at which the PLAN is supposedly building these boats leads me to believe that this is a strategy they are considering to employ. Submarines, which have historically been the bane of the PLAN fleet, could very well be the trump card in China's overall strategy against the US.

Note that I have not included the possibility of the PLARF using intermediate- or intercontinential-range BMs against CONUS targets as I do not think the PLA brass would risk nuclear confrontation for that.

Click to expand...

Neurosmith said:

This leaves China with option #3. In the past two years, we have seen a huge expansion of China's submarine-building capacity as well as what are believed to be multiple Type 09IIIB units being launched. If we are to believe that the Type 09IIIB each has 12-24 VLS cells and substantially improved acoustics compared to older versions, a notional task force of just four of these boats could threaten CONUS with 48-96 missiles. The pace at which the PLAN is supposedly building these boats leads me to believe that this is a strategy they are considering to employ. Submarines, which have historically been the bane of the PLAN fleet, could very well be the trump card in China's overall strategy against the US.

Click to expand...

Maikeru said:

ISTR seeing a US report on here that PLAN subs were frequently operating South of Mexico. Could be practice for #3 strategy?

Click to expand...

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.

Click to expand...