PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Where do you see Chinese people "demanding" reunification?

It is possible that China will be more economically prosperous after reunification in the longer-term.
But there is no doubt that in the short-term, there will be economic pain due to sanctions or war with the US.
Everyone on this Earth will suffer, the West will suffer much more.
 

Serb

Junior Member
Registered Member
Everyone on this Earth will suffer, the West will suffer much more.
Suppose we are talking about conventional war only. In that case, everyone on Earth will suffer economically for a few years, before the recovery completes, and the world ushers in an unprecedented level of development never seen so far under Chinese leadership. The current economic system is becoming dysfunctional, paralyzed by the Western exploitative economic model, especially now in terms of exported inflation, no one grows in the slightest anymore, and it's questionable if there was even ever any qualitative growth in the Global South in recent decades, or if it was just all quantitative growth and global elites getting richer. In that case, the only loser of the US defeat, at the hands of China, would be the West, which would probably fragment and revert back to its natural historical mean (before colonialism). It also implies that China profits most.
 
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dirtyid

New Member
Registered Member
Can someone try to crunch napkin ordnance math, 100xB21s with charitable 60% availabilty rate flying 40+ hours missions delivers about ~300s tons per day to Pacific Theater. Or roughly what a large carrier delivers on non surge tempo. Trying to guestimate if B21 fleet can replace lost fires from multiple CVNs and seems like it's not even close, as in fraction of what US+co delivered during peak Iraq War, granted munition quality is better now.
 

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Can someone try to crunch napkin ordnance math, 100xB21s with charitable 60% availabilty rate flying 40+ hours missions delivers about ~300s tons per day to Pacific Theater. Or roughly what a large carrier delivers on non surge tempo. Trying to guestimate if B21 fleet can replace lost fires from multiple CVNs and seems like it's not even close, as in fraction of what US+co delivered during peak Iraq War, granted munition quality is better now.
Where will the tankers be based on and how many sorties can they support?
 

dirtyid

New Member
Registered Member
Where will the tankers be based on and how many sorties can they support?
Asking because I don't know, I'm guestimating off B2 sorties being 20 hour mission time + 20 hours turn around time and peak availiblity of ~60% from Whiteman AFB. I think that's pretty generous, assuming not bottleneck on pilot health and tanking. I suppose to Pacific would be shorter with tanking over Alaska on arctic route. Cursory look and tanking off California -> Hawaii (but not Guam) is 1000km longer trip. I'm also looking for those who know more to crudely guestimate/speculate how much this will drop i.e. 1:1 -> 4:1 maintanece to flight ratio and less availability, as airframes accrue stress over high tempo operations. IIRC Iraq War F15s / 16s availability dropped by ~15% after a few weeks.
 
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