PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Mohsin77 said:

Now, coming back to your previous question, the objective would be to establish air dominance and make landfall on Taiwan's shores before US-backed forces have a chance to respond, thereby removing Taiwan as a base of operations from the equation. If this is achieved, at that point, the US will have 2 options. A) Trigger WWIII. B) Give up Taiwan. In both of these outcomes, Taiwan is no longer relevant. On the other hand, if the first waves fail, then attrition becomes a massive cost and will likely trigger a stalemate/ceasefire.

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If the first waves fail, then how much attrition can Taiwan take?
Taiwan would be blockaded from outside ships and cargo aircraft.
The electricity and communications networks would be destroyed. Food, water and fuel are running out, etc etc

It would be worse than Japan after Operation Starvation in 1945.
Although I doubt China will use nukes to force a Taiwanese surrender and end the war, like the US did previously.

AndrewS said:

If the first waves fail, then how much attrition can Taiwan take?
Taiwan would be blockaded from outside ships and cargo aircraft.
The electricity and communications networks would be destroyed. Food, water and fuel are running out, etc etc

It would be worse than Japan after Operation Starvation in 1945.
Although I doubt China will use nukes to force a Taiwanese surrender and end the war, like the US did previously.

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In my mind if the operation is destined to comes to a war of attrition, then the point of launching it would be lost as well. If landfall could not be made during the first wave, then the entire operation is good as considered dead on arrival. The success of the operation depends on the making of landfall or not. Unable to do so would be purely a waste of time, lives, money and energy for everyone.

AndrewS said:

If the first waves fail, then how much attrition can Taiwan take?

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A lot, since the stakes are much higher for them. But it's kind of a moot point, because China wouldn't trigger the invasion unless it had already achieved an extreme overmatch.

Mohsin77 said:

But it's kind of a moot point, because China wouldn't trigger the invasion unless it had already achieved an extreme overmatch.

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This is key, and also the reason for the whole discussion being strictly a theoretical exercise in my opinion...for at least the next decade, given the specifics in the region.

I don't believe we would see PRC commiting before the outcome was priori assured. Unless of course you have the invasion as a reaction to something drastic, like an independence declaration from ROC (highly improbable).

Dante80 said:

Unless of course you have the invasion as a reaction to something drastic, like an independence declaration from ROC (highly improbable).

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Yep, and that's included in the costs of stretching the Time variable in that equation.

What's clear, is that China has bet that Time is on its side. I think that's the right move, because the US is getting weaker over time. Theoretically, China may be able to get Taiwan without even triggering an invasion (#SunTzu), as there is a possibility that Taiwan will simply accept fait accompli, if the US position in the region collapses. It's sort of like what's already happening in the Middle East. The US-exit signaled to Saudi Arabia that it no longer has a security guarantee, which is why SA is opening up negotiations with Iran. Taiwan may eventually do the same.

A lot of the fault-lines in the world are caused by Western 'security guarantees' to its 'allies'. Once those guarantees are no longer there, those divisions may begin to disappear automatically. This is a feature of the collapse of Western Colonialism, which began the neo-colonialism era. And now, even that era is coming to an end as the West's power further degrades.

Mohsin77 said:

Yep, and that's included in the costs of stretching the Time variable in that equation.

What's clear, is that China has bet that Time is on its side. I think that's the right move, because the US is getting weaker over time. Theoretically, China may be able to get Taiwan without even triggering an invasion (#SunTzu), as there is a possibility that Taiwan will simply accept fait accompli, if the US position in the region collapses. It's sort of like what's already happening in the Middle East. The US-exit signaled to Saudi Arabia that it no longer has a security guarantee, which is why SA is opening up negotiations with Iran. Taiwan may eventually do the same.

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It's not that the US is getting weaker over time. That is possible, but most likely it will continue to grow slowly at around 2% per year.

It's that China continues to grow faster and that it takes time to convert this into economic/political/military influence.

The US, Taiwan, Korea, Japan are all mature slow-growing economies with stable-ish levels of military spending over the decades, so the size of their stockpiles of advanced weapons are relatively stable, as they typically have 30 year lifespans.

In comparison, China only started to spend larger sums on the military about 10 years ago, so the Chinese stockpile of advanced weapons is growing much faster than just economic growth. Even if Chinese economic growth dropped to zero tomorrow (unlikely), the current low levels of military spending (1.7% of Chinese GDP as per SIPRI) would still mean a Chinese military trending towards a steady state which is around two-thirds the size of the US military. That would imply 7 nuclear-powered supercarriers, 1000+ stealth fighters, etc etc

Mohsin77 said:

A lot of the fault-lines in the world are caused by Western 'security guarantees' to its 'allies'. Once those guarantees are no longer there, those divisions may begin to disappear automatically. This is a feature of the collapse of Western Colonialism, which began the neo-colonialism era. And now, even that era is coming to an end as the West's power further degrades.

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I'm not too sure about that. I think many of these (tribal/religious) divisions are pre-existing, and we'll simply have the law of the jungle as the US role as hegemon declines.

AndrewS said:

The ratios have changed since then.

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What I've tried to explain is that in Desert Storm, as the stories indicate, it was precision warfare, but that's far from true. The majority of spent ammunition was unguided, compared to today's USAF, most of its ammunition is guided even though it has comparatively fewer aircraft today. Some analysts say the USAF could carry out the same campaign against Iraq in 1991 with half the air force it deployed in that battle scenario, and that with the same percentage of guided and unguided munitions. An air campaign today would be completely different from that envisioned in Desert Storm, with most if not all dropped ammunition being guided, which would increase the accuracy of the blows and therefore becomes a force multiplier.

I wasn't trying to bring prices to reality today, I just made a comparison with the reality of the time.

AndrewS said:

A GBU-49 500pound laser guided bomb costs $49K.
An unguided 500pound Mk82 bomb costs $4K

That's a ratio of 1:12

So if you take the total costs (fuel/escorts/tankers) and assume 10 unguided bombs = 1 guided bomb, it looks to me like the laser-guided bomb has a slight advantage.

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If the comparison is between 500pound JDAMs ($21K+$4K) versus unguided 500pound bombs ($4K), the JDAMs definitely win.

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But GPS guided glide-bombs are the big change since Desert Storm, because they have similarly low costs combined with standoff ranges eg.

SDB-1. $39K. 110km range
JDAM-ER. $43K? 70km range

That is beyond the range of most SAM systems and hugely improves survivability, and also reduces the need for escorts/tankers.

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Exactly. For example, the GBU-12 Paveway II which is a laser guided bomb derived from the Mk 82 bomb, would fall between the price of the Mk 82 bomb and the GBU-49 bomb, the estimated price would be between US$21,000.

The ratio would be 5:25. It makes it even more advantageous to use the Paveway II bomb than the Mk 82 bombs. The USAF inventory today is estimated to be +30,000 GBU-12 Paveway II bombs and some +3,000 for the US Navy.

plawolf said:

Nope, none of those bases are remotely ‘safe’ against Chinese retaliation. Besides, have a look at a map and distances involved to see how unsustainable any air campaign launched from those bases will be, especially when you need significant assets to protect your tankers or there are no missions.

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Kadena/Naha are easy targets, not only because they are very close to China, but also because they are isolated set of targets. Once PLARF disable the runway, there is a few hour window in which PLAAF can first clear whatever are still flying in the sky, then use cruise missile or PGM to hit everything on the ground including stranded aircrafts.
I dont think above can be replicated with cases like Hamamatsu/Komatsu/Nagoya, because they are too far away for Chinese tactical aircrafts to reach, while there are too many well-defended targets if you plan to strike with just ballistic missile and KD20.
Think of this in a reverse manner, do you think US side can easily destroy in-land PLAAF bases? i think the reason would apply both ways.

plawolf said:

This is because the US doesn’t have good AShMs and they don’t have the range or airframes to bring enough missiles to the fight to have any chance of punching through the PLAN fleet air defences.

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LRASM might not have the number required, what about anti-ship tomahawk?

Mohsin77 said:

Yep, and that's included in the costs of stretching the Time variable in that equation.

What's clear, is that China has bet that Time is on its side. I think that's the right move, because the US is getting weaker over time. Theoretically, China may be able to get Taiwan without even triggering an invasion (#SunTzu), as there is a possibility that Taiwan will simply accept fait accompli, if the US position in the region collapses. It's sort of like what's already happening in the Middle East. The US-exit signaled to Saudi Arabia that it no longer has a security guarantee, which is why SA is opening up negotiations with Iran. Taiwan may eventually do the same.

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Just did a back of the envelope calculation on the Chinese stockpile of advanced weapons.

If we assume 20% of Chinese military spending went into actual weapons procurement and a typical system lasts 30 years, I get a total procurement amount of 3512 Billion RMB over the past 30 years.

But in 2020, Chinese military procurement would actually be running at 343 Billion RMB per year (assuming 20% is spent on procurement).
If it continues at this level for 30 years, the stockpile increases to a steady state of 10290 Billion RMB (30 years x 343) in total.

So the Chinese military still has to *triple* in size before it reaches a peak. It also means China is adding about 10% per year to its stockpile of advanced weapons.

Of course, this excludes the effect of economic growth (another 5% per year). So every year, the weapons stockpile increase by about 15% or so. Call it a 30% increase in advanced weapon stockpiles every 2 years.

This also excludes the effect of any increases in military spending due to the Cold War. China only spends 1.7% of GDP, so this figure would have to double to match the 3.5%-4% that the US regularly spends.

caohailiang said:

LRASM might not have the number required, what about anti-ship tomahawk?

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LRASM has fewer than 120 units currently in operation in both the US Navy and the USAF. The number of orders of 48 units per year is not a considerable increase in the AShM capacity of the US Navy and USAF.

The Tomahawk (Block V) anti-ship missile is now in operation, and such units will still need to be ordered in large quantities to achieve credible anti-ship capability. Even if all Tomahawk Block IV missiles will be upgraded to the Block V version, thus gaining the anti-ship capability, this will still take some time to be completed.