PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Why do we automatically assume these barges are for the unification of China? The western propaganda drawings even have Carrier Battle Groups in them, are the Chinese going to deploy CSGs right beside Taiwan?

I think these ships can be very useful if god forbid say Japan had a major earthquake or a large tsunami devastates the Philippines. China should always be prepared to lend a helping hand to their neighbours. If we take these articles at face value, we might even start questioning why China is building so many hospital ships.

RoastGooseHKer said:

We may need clearer pictures to see if those special barges would be equipped with CIWS or not. Having extra CIWS and short-range low-altitude air defence radar could mitigate such exposures and threats posed by anti-shop missiles.

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Once they're emplaced, you might as well use land-based trucks with CIWS and SAMs

meh i am still young and dont wanna die

coolgod said:

Why do we automatically assume these barges are for the unification of China? The western propaganda drawings even have Carrier Battle Groups in them, are the Chinese going to deploy CSGs right beside Taiwan?

I think these ships can be very useful if god forbid say Japan had a major earthquake or a large tsunami devastates the Philippines. China should always be prepared to lend a helping hand to their neighbours. If we take these articles at face value, we might even start questioning why China is building so many hospital ships.

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No wonder they look like arks to me.

drowingfish said:

jesus christ, this is what it looks like when you have overwhelming engineering and manufacturing prowess. Taiwan's coastal topography has been noted as one of the major impediments to invasion. rather than looking for exclusively tactical solutions to this, the PLA simply tackled it with engineering solutions.

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Guancha trio recently discussed this, prior to these photos coming to light that there's vast number of medium to small scale ship building companies that's not producing to capacity, you know those ones that could build ships up to several thousand tons and launch them with airbags instead of a proper slipway. The government is well aware of their capabilities because of multiple waves of 工业大摸底 and can at a moment's notice issue them orders to build the landing fleet once the political decision have been made.

So the conventional wisdom of amphibious capability building up giving years of advance warning is questionable. They expect a landing fleet could be built within 6 month of the go ahead.

I don't think discovery of these barges mean armed reunification is due 6 month from now, but on the other hand instead of 6 month full speed everyone and their mother building the landing fleet it could be built in say, 2 years at a measured pace.