PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

drowingfish said:

I think the obssession with not letting a single ROCAF aircraft takeoff stemmed from the days when ROCAF held qualitative advantage over PLAAF. Given the current balance of power in the air, as well as the accuracy of ballistic missiles, PLARF can afford to shift some of their focus to the destruction of other core capabilities rather than being pre-occupied with bombarding runways. if a few ROCAF fighters make it in the air it really isn't a big issue, since they will not have adequate support and guidance.

neither is it too difficult to suppress a majority of ROCAF's runways. take the two easter coast airports for example. lets assume that an initial barrage of 30 missiles hits each airport and disables them as repair teams attempt to repair, PLARF only has to harrass those engineers with 3-5 missiles at an hour intervals to render further damage and prevent any work from being done (since engineers will have to reassess after each barrage). this means 50 missiles will be able to suppress a single airport for 7-8 hours, that is a lot of time for a modern air force to do a lot of damage. and this is all discounting all other PLA assets.

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Agreed.

But the issue is that runways are relatively easy to repair and we're looking at an overall campaign lasting at least a month.
Even if the entrances/exits to the mountain bases are caved in, they can be excavated and the planes start flying again.

I agree that the mountain airbases can be kept permanently non-operational, but it would require low levels of continuous strikes from aircraft, drones or land-based missiles.

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China potentially faces the same issue with attacks on its 40 hardened underground/mountain airbases by standoff missiles or bombs dropped by stealth aircraft.

But at a campaign level over the course of a month, China will have air superiority and/or active SAM systems over its numerous bases for 99% of the time. So runway repairs or excavating caved in exits/entrances is not an issue.

If the ability to repair runways is as crucial as some suggest then China can just target the repair crews and their equipment first, it could be as easy to do as using small drones and bomblets.

They could automatically destroy all the diggers, tractors, etc within a 2km area, no one is going to want to drive one of them to the airport with killer drones buzzing around.

I don't think the runway repair job would bother the PLA (all branches) too much. In a Taiwan scenario IMO the most important thing is time. As long as the runway is disabled for the first hours of the conflict then I would be happy

As military tech advances and mil operations are becoming faster, at this time we are not talking about months or weeks of significant operations. The crippling attack will happen in the first hours. As long as the fighters remain on the ground for that period then that's a success

Andy1974 said:

If the ability to repair runways is as crucial as some suggest then China can just target the repair crews and their equipment first, it could be as easy to do as using small drones and bomblets.

They could automatically destroy all the diggers, tractors, etc within a 2km area, no one is going to want to drive one of them to the airport with killer drones buzzing around.

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Except for the combat engineers who would keep going in at random times.
So you still need a low-level of attacks or the capability to attack.

AndrewS said:

Agreed.

But the issue is that runways are relatively easy to repair and we're looking at an overall campaign lasting at least a month.
Even if the entrances/exits to the mountain bases are caved in, they can be excavated and the planes start flying again.

I agree that the mountain airbases can be kept permanently non-operational, but it would require low levels of continuous strikes from aircraft, drones or land-based missiles.

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China potentially faces the same issue with attacks on its 40 hardened underground/mountain airbases by standoff missiles or bombs dropped by stealth aircraft.

But at a campaign level over the course of a month, China will have air superiority and/or active SAM systems over its numerous bases for 99% of the time. So runway repairs or excavating caved in exits/entrances is not an issue.

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Once the PLAAF have established air supremacy, they are not going to gift it back or waste it.

That means anything that moves dies. Anything military out in the open dies, and anything hiding in pre-prepared shelters dies since China has had literally decades to find all those hidey holes and bunkers.

Runways can be repaired, but not when drones are taking out the heavy machinery needed to make quick work of repairs. If you throw loads of conscripts at the problem with shovels, a cluster bomb will deal with them neat as you please.

The problem the coalition encountered during the Gulf War, even with its small percentage and absolute numbers of PGMs used was that they couldn’t find targets to hit. Even with only 8% of bombs dropped being PGMs they were reduced to bouncing rubble with million dollar missiles because they couldn’t find where the Iraqi military have dispersed to.

Taiwan’s small size, close proximity to China and close links as well as numerous defections and decades of very successful spying by China has massively alleviated that issue. Drones will fill the few gaps left but allowing persistent all encompassing surveillance of the battlespace to allow very short kill chains to deal with anything that survives the initial shock and awe blitz.

As for US stealth aircraft strikes against mainland Chinese air bases. Forget about that. Stealth doesn’t work when there is a sky full of enemies because you cannot plan a route to avoid all the radars. To try to conduct strikes against Chinese air bases without winning air superiority first is just useless suicide missions.

Overbom said:

As military tech advances and mil operations are becoming faster, at this time we are not talking about months or weeks of significant operations. The crippling attack will happen in the first hours. As long as the fighters remain on the ground for that period then that's a success

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The issue is that if Taiwan can safely store all its fighter aircraft inside hardened airbases, it won't be a crippling attack.

And it doesn't change how a Chinese invasion would take weeks before it happens.
Whilst a land campaign could have a quick ending, you can't rely on this happening.

Overbom said:

I don't think the runway repair job would bother the PLA (all branches) too much. In a Taiwan scenario IMO the most important thing is time. As long as the runway is disabled for the first hours of the conflict then I would be happy

As military tech advances and mil operations are becoming faster, at this time we are not talking about months or weeks of significant operations. The crippling attack will happen in the first hours. As long as the fighters remain on the ground for that period then that's a success

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Agreed, it could even be a single battle.

But China could afford to do it in stages if so desired, who knows what will happen.

That’s why I like my prediction:

China continues to develop for 25-30 years, it’s standard of living, it’s governance and people happiness and life satisfaction should all be better than Taiwans by then. China just keeps things stable, continue doings it job well, continues to make breakthroughs of all kinds, while the US continues it’s losing and selfish strategies and the population will come to realize that reunification will be much better than the status quo and will move for it.

All China has to do is continue what it is continually improving at, which is making friends and influencing people.

I’d like to see China focusing on a war against western media, capital’s influence and corrupt politicians, using science and technology to expose the tactics they use to unduly influence people and show their corruption for all to see. Kind of like the Facebook whistleblower. If China can win the battle for people hearts and minds, and they should because they are the good guys here, then war can be avoided, Taiwan reunites peacefully and we move fully into the new era.

This is what I think Chinese victory looks like, win without fighting.

plawolf said:

Once the PLAAF have established air supremacy, they are not going to gift it back or waste it.

That means anything that moves dies. Anything military out in the open dies, and anything hiding in pre-prepared shelters dies since China has had literally decades to find all those hidey holes and bunkers.

Runways can be repaired, but not when drones are taking out the heavy machinery needed to make quick work of repairs. If you throw loads of conscripts at the problem with shovels, a cluster bomb will deal with them neat as you please.

The problem the coalition encountered during the Gulf War, even with its small percentage and absolute numbers of PGMs used was that they couldn’t find targets to hit. Even with only 8% of bombs dropped being PGMs they were reduced to bouncing rubble with million dollar missiles because they couldn’t find where the Iraqi military have dispersed to.

Taiwan’s small size, close proximity to China and close links as well as numerous defections and decades of very successful spying by China has massively alleviated that issue. Drones will fill the few gaps left but allowing persistent all encompassing surveillance of the battlespace to allow very short kill chains to deal with anything that survives the initial shock and awe blitz.

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Until the air defences have been degraded enough, it's not feasible to conduct constant surveillance and prompt attacks with drones.
I reckon that will take up to a week. And within that period, you could get enough time to repair the runways

plawolf said:

As for US stealth aircraft strikes against mainland Chinese air bases. Forget about that. Stealth doesn’t work when there is a sky full of enemies because you cannot plan a route to avoid all the radars. To try to conduct strikes against Chinese air bases without winning air superiority first is just useless suicide missions.

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With stealth bombers, it is credible to avoid all the radars and get to targets over mainland China.

AndrewS said:

Until the air defences have been degraded enough, it's not feasible to conduct constant surveillance and prompt attacks with drones.
I reckon that will take up to a week. And within that period, you could get enough time to repair the runways

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A week to make it safe enough for manned aircraft maybe, but drones are expendable and can be send it from day one. If some get shot down, that will just make it easier and quicker to finish DEAD missions.

AndrewS said:

With stealth bombers, it is credible to avoid all the radars and get to targets over mainland China.

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Ground based radar maybe, airborne radar, no way.

plawolf said:

Ground based radar maybe, airborne radar, no way.

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A B-2 or B-21 should be able to stay at least 100km from any airborne radars that China is operating, and be able to slip through.
Remember China would have to create a single radar perimeter 3000km long from Hainan in the South to Liaoning in the North