PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

HardBall said:

The carriers are actually only of secondary importance. This is true of most platforms that are most valuable in a blue water context. The most useful thing they could do is probably as a fleet in being, a foil basically, to force the opposition to hold some of their naval and air force in reserve.

The most important things we should look at are really what can have the most impact operating in those environments, with shallow sea green water (where land based tactical aircraft can comfortably operate), those platforms that can cross the strait in large numbers, and those that can fire across the strait.

Most obviously are those amphibious vessels between 500 - 4000 tonnes of a number of types (LSM, LST, large LCACs, etc), basically shpe made for those type of environments and distances. Almost as obvious are the large RoRo ships and other civilian ships built to handle military equipment, and some novel platforms like those resembling Mulberry harbours. Then you have other things that are critical in maintaining local superiority of air, and sea control, as well as fire support for such an operation, such as these things to watch in no particular order:

• the number of artillery units equipped with long range MLRS (e.g. PHL-16)
• the number of land based medium range UAV in ISR and CIS roles
• the number of guided SRBM and MRBMs available to target critical military infrastructure
• the pace of fully modernizing the SSKs to block certain geographic choke points
• a large increase in the number of MPAs + fully modernized ASW helo fleet
• a large increase in the number of VLO tactical platforms that can operate over contested air space (J-35A might be critical here to provide the sufficient mass)
• the number of available ASW platforms that can be stationed to around the theatre to minimize presence of foreign subs (mainly 056A and 054A/B here)
• availability of long range SAM systems with coverage over the island
• availability of air defence destroyers on approaches to the theatre (e.g. from Okinawa or Luzon)
• land based platforms that are available to launch ASM (e.g. some H-6 variants)
• a large increase in the available AEWACs and ELINT fleet
• any a number of other things.

Capital ships like carriers and other systems like strategic bombers should only play a support role.

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I don't disagree with these points with regards specifically to the Taiwan operation, but I consider the A2/AD part a much bigger challenge than conquering the island itself, hence the importance placed on assets that operate between 1IC and 2IC.

I agree that we should see more of these items you've mentioned during the years leading up to the fight.

00CuriousObserver said:

One should examine the projected IOC dates (not just the commissioning dates) of various PLA platforms. The following is extremely rough and not meant to be accurate—merely to illustrate the point. The items in quotes are rumoured platforms

PLAN Platforms	Rough Estimation for Initial Operational Capability
003 Fujian	2028+
"004 CV"	2033+
"005 CVN"	2035+
076 Sichuan	2028/2029+
075 #4	2026+
"075 #5"	2028+
Batch IV 052Ds	2028+
Batch II 055s	2028+
"Next gen 055 successor"	2030+
"Next gen 052D successor"	2030+
Batch I 09IIIB	2027+
09V	Late 2020s to early 2030s
PLAAF Platforms	Rough Estimation for Initial Operational Capability
J-36	2033-2035+
6th gen CCA	2030+
Y-30 (and associated variants)	2032/2033+
KJ-3000	2028-2030+
Z-21	2028-2030+
700th J-20	2029+
50th J-35	2028+

Again, this is not meant to be accurate. We can also make a projection on US and Japanese forces. By choosing a date, a degree of capabilities on both sides is implied, with what meets the “时间节点“ / "critical time" and what doesn't.

As an aside, note that PLA's growth should be viewed in relative terms and might have diminishing returns. The first aircraft carrier will make a bigger impact than the fifth one, all else being equal, for example.

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I would put it as follows:

In terms of Chinese procurement of major naval platforms, we see:

Aircraft carriers: Currently 1 every 5 years. Probably ramping to twice this rate.
Destroyers: 4 per year
Frigates: 4 per year
Nuclear Attack Submarines: 3-4 per year

So we're looking at a situation where Chinese naval procurement is twice the US level.
Given enough time at these production rates, the Chinese Navy will:

1. firstly surpass the US Navy
2. then trend towards twice the size of the US Navy

So even though there are diminishing returns (eg. 5th carrier versus 1st carrier), the absolute gains are still worth it.

NB. And we haven't accounted for procurement of other naval platforms like amphibious ships or conventional submarines, which is even more favourable to China.

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In terms of the Chinese Air Force, we're again looking at a situation where in terms of comparable aircraft, the Chinese will likely be adding significantly more aircraft every year than the US.

So again, we'll likely see a situation where the Chinese Air Force surpasses the USAF and then continues trending upwards. My *guess* is that the gap would reach somewhere between 20-40% larger than the USAF, and then remain at this level.

00CuriousObserver said:

I don't disagree with these points with regards specifically to the Taiwan operation, but I consider the A2/AD part a much bigger challenge than conquering the island itself, hence the importance placed on assets that operate between 1IC and 2IC.

I agree that we should see more of these items you've mentioned during the years leading up to the fight.

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I do agree that A2/AD as important as the amphibious assault and the beachhead breakout, as well as the fire suppression from the continent. Most of what I listed already contains the AD portion of the equation, I highlighted below some that are explicitly AD, and some others would have a secondary effects that are AD (e.g. destroying nearby port facility would very much hamper ability for many opposing ground based systems and platforms to operate from any intervention force)

HardBall said:

• the number of artillery units equipped with long range MLRS (e.g. PHL-16)
• the number of land based medium range UAV in ISR and CIS roles
• [SECONDARILY AD] the number of guided SRBM and MRBMs available to target critical military infrastructure
• [PRIMARILY AD] the pace of fully modernizing the SSKs to block certain geographic choke points
• [PRIMARILY AD] a large increase in the number of MPAs + fully modernized ASW helo fleet
• [SECONDARILY AD] a large increase in the number of VLO tactical platforms that can operate over contested air space (J-35A might be critical here to provide the sufficient mass)
• [PRIMARILY AD] the number of available ASW platforms that can be stationed to around the theatre to minimize presence of foreign subs (mainly 056A and 054A/B here)
• [PRIMARILY AD] availability of long range SAM systems with coverage over the island
• [CLOSE-CORDON A2] availability of air defence destroyers on approaches to the theatre (e.g. from Okinawa or Luzon)
• [CLOSE-CORDON A2] land based platforms that are available to launch ASM (e.g. some H-6 variants)
• [CLOSE-CORDON A2] a large increase in the available AEWACs and ELINT fleet
• [Mostly A2/AD stuff] any a number of other things.

Capital ships like carriers and other systems like strategic bombers should only play a support role.

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There are some outer ring A2 capabilities that I have not mentioned, of which things like conventional IRBMs, Carriers and strategic bombers, and SSNs would be a part of. But those are not really in theatre, and to be honest, their implementation would necessarily be escalatory beyond a local conflict. So I am not even sure that any military planner would even count on them.

To use them specificlly in 2IC and beyond (which is what they are really optimized for), you would need a lot more considerations of political calculations and long term geostrategic plan to carry out.

TonPat19 said:

sorry. Not trying to start anything just all these comments left a bad taste in my mouth. I see you may have meant something else but the words could easily be understood as something else.

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Regardless of what anyone else meant or how it should have been taken, we should be clear on one thing: it is China's long-running historical tradition to execute rapists found in the military. In ancient China, such policies were regarded as the transformative line that is crossed when a gang of brigands turns into a professional military force. The biggest reason that China ended up under Mao instead of Chiang despite the Western military training and advanced weaponry of the KMT is that the PLA ensured that civilians recieved care and dignity that is equal or above that of soldiers while the KMT army regarded civilians as resources to feed and please the military. So while execution might be an ancient solution, the PLA is incredibly resolute in upholding the Chinese military tradition of dealing punishments to officers to the fullest extent of the law for crimes committed against civilians.

This is in contrast to the US military, which regards every one of its Asian "allies" as giant brothels where the locals should pay, in dignity if not in money, for American protection, and every one of its military bases as safehouses for its soldiers to retreat to should they find themselves in legal trouble. Because there, they will be tried and acquited by US military court run by other rapists, untouchable by all laws of the land.

manqiangrexue said:

Regardless of what anyone else meant or how it should have been taken, we should be clear on one thing: it is China's long-running historical tradition to execute rapists found in the military. In ancient China, such policies were regarded as the transformative line that is crossed when a gang of brigands turns into a professional military force. The biggest reason that China ended up under Mao instead of Chiang despite the Western military training and advanced weaponry of the KMT is that the PLA ensured that civilians recieved care and dignity that is equal or above that of soldiers while the KMT army regarded civilians as resources to feed and please the military. So while execution might be an ancient solution, the PLA is incredibly resolute in upholding the Chinese military tradition of dealing punishments to officers to the fullest extent of the law for crimes committed against civilians.

This is in contrast to the US military, which regards every one of its Asian "allies" as giant brothels where the locals should pay, in dignity if not in money, for American protection, and every one of its military bases as safehouses for its soldiers to retreat to should they find themselves in legal trouble. Because there, they will be tried and acquited by US military court run by other rapists, untouchable by all laws of the land.

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This, soldiers turning into undisicplined mob is the best way to lose battles despite having all on paper advantages. Case in point, Israel's performance in Gaza.

Invaders and anyone supporting them need to all be destroyed, but letting the military have cruelty while performing that necessary action will corrupt the soul of the forces, which undeniably will hurt fighting performance.

Looking back for a moral "blueprint" for how a deterrence counter-invasion into enemy ground (which will sooner or later show up if US, Japan or other countries attempt to take over Taiwan) should be conducted, we can maybe look back at the 1979 war against Vietnam. In these battles, PLA used tech and tactical supremacy to slaughter fighting enemies on the open field, but at the same time did not conduct any cruelty against the large numbers of civilians on PoWs that they came into possession of afterwards. Furthermore, the PLA was ordered to destroy the assistance given to northern Vietnam during the US war. By some accounts, so much industrial, agricultural and military equipment was destroyed that Northern Vietnam's economy was set back by more than a decade. Yet, few incidences of war crimes ever occurred.

The lesson here is that it is 100% achievable to comprehensively destroy a hostile nation on the military, economic and infrastructure level, while at the same time not committing any atrocities. Especially in today's era of AI assisted targeting and precision strike, which the soldiers in 1979 did not have.