PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

SinoAmericanCW said:

I'm very, very skeptical that China would ever resort to nuclear use for the sake of battlefield effects, however significant they could be.

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You are right other than only for the very niche use of concluding the KMT threat in a scenario where conventional responses would be too slow because of an approaching US invasion force.

In any other case and when outside of China, China would rather use the increased tactical options from being able to spam conventional ballistic missiles risk free of nuclear escalation.

vincent said:

PLAAF will be actively hunting ROC offensive systems unimpeded by ROC air defenses.

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Without a doubt, but the ROC would also do its utmost to shield its "trump cards" from the initial bombardment by way of hiding them in caves/tunnels (à la Iran) or distributing them sparsely throughout the countryside (making it more difficult for PLA forces to find/track/destroy them). This would almost mirror the "Scud-hunting" phases of the Gulf War, although in this scenario the area is much smaller and the weapons much more potent.

Blitzo said:

There was no particular post I could see that suggested the comparison was only about offensive missile systems in a vacuum, but it rather appeared to be comparison of offensive missile systems in a conflict scenario.

The Taiwan contingency is gamed out so comprehensively and it is so multi-domain by nature, that single domain comparisons are broadly useless but instead should be system of systems by default.



A superficial comparison of their offensive missile systems directly is about as useful as superficially comparing PLAAF vs ROCAF directly; it indirectly implies (deliberately or not) that such a comparison makes sense to do in the first place.

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I agree that missile systems need to be evaluated as part of a whole rather than a standalone component, but how capable a particular missile system is can certainly change the calculus of the overall campaign, even with ancillary platforms (SAMs, radars, etc etc) taken into account.

FairAndUnbiased said:

HF-2E is just a subsonic Tomahawk copy.

Yun Feng is interesting. I doubt that it can pull sustained Mach 6 like the Wikipedia article tries to imply. At best it is Mach 6 terminal with a lo hi hi flight profile and cruises at lower speeds at altitude.

An unstealthy, atmospheric, high flying cruise missile is just an aircraft that is blind and doesn't maneuver much. It would also pass over the strait and inhabited land to hit targets, plenty of time and space to be intercepted in cruise phase or even boost phase by PLAN destroyers in the Strait.

In comparison, PLA missiles launched at Taiwan spends 90% of its flight trajectory in friendly territory. Only the terminal phase is anywhere near Taiwan.

There's a reason why the US stopped development of the Regulus supersonic cruise missile the minute they got Jupiter ballistic missiles.

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The Yun Feng's greatest advantage is its speed. The missile itself might be quite visible on radar and easy to track, but whether or not the PLA can detect the target, track it, launch interceptors, and get a kill in time is another question.

I'd imagine that the PLA have exercised this scenario with their own CJ-100 missile, which should be similar to the Yun Feng in terms of flight profile and kinematics.

FairAndUnbiased said:

IDK about how big it is but based on its claimed satellite delivery capabilities (lol, good luck with an airbreather doing that) its warhead is 50-200 kg.

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Note that a subsonic cruise missile of comparable claimed range has 500 kg warhead.

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Reactor containment is rated to survive an airliner ramming it with no damage.

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An airliner carries ~25 tons of fuel, which is of comparable specific energy to a conventional warhead payload.

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if something can survive 25 tons of payload, it can probably survive 0.2 tons of payload.

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These are alleged photos of its transporter vehicle:




It's a big missile, certainly larger than the CJ-100 and almost DF-26 sized (or even bigger). Not sure how much space the actual missile (or missiles) is taking up, but it is without a doubt that this would be the biggest threat to China in a hypothetical Taiwan operation.

Biscuits said:

They can attempt but shouldn't have enough stockpiled missiles to break through. You'd need to concentrate high hundreds or maybe a thousand to fire at once. The thing is China unlike Israel can actually attack the launchers on the ground rather than being forced to be reactive in the air due to lack of range platforms.

In this situation it would also be on the table to tactical nuke the most major KMT bases like Hualien, which would make continued resistance impossible.

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The proximity of China to Taiwan works both ways; it gives China the ability to rapidly track and target military assets in Taiwan but it also gives the latter the ability to hit back with short reaction times.

And no, there is no scenario in which China involves nuclear weapons in such an operation.

Neurosmith said:

Without a doubt, but the ROC would also do its utmost to shield its "trump cards" from the initial bombardment by way of hiding them in caves/tunnels (à la Iran) or distributing them sparsely throughout the countryside (making it more difficult for PLA forces to find/track/destroy them). This would almost mirror the "Scud-hunting" phases of the Gulf War, although in this scenario the area is much smaller and the weapons much more potent.


I agree that missile systems need to be evaluated as part of a whole rather than a standalone component, but how capable a particular missile system is can certainly change the calculus of the overall campaign, even with ancillary platforms (SAMs, radars, etc etc) taken into account.


The Yun Feng's greatest advantage is its speed. The missile itself might be quite visible on radar and easy to track, but whether or not the PLA can detect the target, track it, launch interceptors, and get a kill in time is another question.

I'd imagine that the PLA have exercised this scenario with their own CJ-100 missile, which should be similar to the Yun Feng in terms of flight profile and kinematics.


These are alleged photos of its transporter vehicle:
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View attachment 149773
View attachment 149774

It's a big missile, certainly larger than the CJ-100 and almost DF-26 sized (or even bigger). Not sure how much space the actual missile (or missiles) is taking up, but it is without a doubt that this would be the biggest threat to China in a hypothetical Taiwan operation.


The proximity of China to Taiwan works both ways; it gives China the ability to rapidly track and target military assets in Taiwan but it also gives the latter the ability to hit back with short reaction times.

And no, there is no scenario in which China involves nuclear weapons in such an operation.

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The distance is not symmetric, because China's strategic assets aren't in Fujian while Taiwan's relevant strategic assets are in Taiwan (some are in the US but that's like Saddam's planes that flew to Iran in Desert Storm). That means that ROCAF only gets 1 chance at terminal interception while the PLA can intercept in boost, cruise and terminal phase multiple times.

also I notice that TEL is a non off-road 6 axle vehicle. You can tell from the tractor trailer + high center of gravity. Since such vehicles are road mobile only, while most of Taiwan is mountain, this makes tracking it relatively easy, especially with a 24/7 with 2.5 m resolution along with high res LEO satellites to aid in targeting. Taiwan is at a further disadvantage in that the entire island can be imaged at once while you can't actually see all of China at once due to swath size limitations.

China has domestic HQ-19, HQ-22 and HQ-9, as well as imported S-400s. Just with S-400s, they can handle targets to 27 km altitude at Mach 8.2. Combine that with Chinese radar and there is no escape from its engagement envelope as the Yun Feng missile is within its engagement envelope in all phases of flight, including boost phase where it necessarily starts stationary.

RoastGooseHKer said:

The supersonic drones would be useful in knocking out Taiwan's SAMs. Or just use ballistic missiles with MARVs and terminal speed of Mach 5+. But Taiwan does have one of the densest multi-layered air defense networks akin to Israel.

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High density of Cold-war-days old-fansioned AD is far not enough, you need to be sophisticated, against latest threats, such as stealth aircrafts, small drones, hypersonic missiles, etc. These are the real modern war stuff, which China has huge quantity meanwhile Taiwan doesn't have much.

Just look at Russia's AD perfermance in Ukraine War. Sucks. Ukraine's AD also sucks. How's Russia's AD density & complexity comparing to Taiwan?

SinoAmericanCW said:

Israel doesn't have that dense of an air defense network. It has:

-24x Arrow ABM launchers (in 3x batteries)
-12x David's Sling ABM/SAM launchers (in 2x batteries)
-40x Iron Dome SHORAD launchers (in 10x batteries)

It recently retired all of its Patriot PAC-2 systems.

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Israel's AD also sucks against Iran's missile & drone attack on last October.



Just comparing AD density is unprofessional fanboys' act. Unless oneday Taiwan can test/prove its capacity to defense these latest threats, otherwise I'll not take Taiwan's AD density seriously.

Before any country workout most sophisticated AD to significantly improve intercept ratio againt these new threats, victory always favors attackers.

Biscuits said:

The thing is China unlike Israel can actually attack the launchers on the ground rather than being forced to be reactive in the air due to lack of range platforms.

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The experience from Gulf War and 2003 Invasion of Iraq is that even if you have full domain awareness (via satellites, drones, surveillance aircrafts, etc.), it is still impossible to track mobile missile launchers. The U.S. had serious difficulties tracking and taking out every single Iraqi Scud launcher. Now the Taiwanese missiles are already disguised as civilian cargo trucks painted in gray. So I would expect the Taiwanese side being able to pop dozens of lucky shots. And of course, if the PLA have a serious policy of avoids collateral damages, it would be impossible to go after those launchers hiding in garages, supermarkets, office building parkings, etc. The key would then to intercept incoming Taiwanese missiles. However, given the extremely chaotic and crowded airspace over Taiwan in a war, such focus would in turn increase the chance of serious friendly fire incidents.

RoastGooseHKer said:

The supersonic drones would be useful in knocking out Taiwan's SAMs. Or just use ballistic missiles with MARVs and terminal speed of Mach 5+. But Taiwan does have one of the densest multi-layered air defense networks akin to Israel.

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Fun fact: Taiwan counts MANPADs when claiming it is the densest air defense network.

siegecrossbow said:

Fun fact: Taiwan counts MANPADs when claiming it is the densest air defense network.

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Is there a credible count of bigger systems like PAC 2/3, Sky Bow 2/3 series, etc. IISS military balance? Also, MANPADs used by Taiwanese die-hard troops during and after amphibious landing could still give the PLAGF helicopters serious headaches.

RoastGooseHKer said:

Is there a credible count of bigger systems like PAC 2/3, Sky Bow 2/3 series, etc. IISS military balance? Also, MANPADs used by Taiwanese die-hard troops during and after amphibious landing could still give the PLAGF helicopters serious headaches.

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Can’t be worse than 08 and before when PLA helos didn’t have chaff dispensers and had to putting aluminum strips in landing gear housing…

RoastGooseHKer said:

Is there a credible count of bigger systems like PAC 2/3, Sky Bow 2/3 series, etc. IISS military balance? Also, MANPADs used by Taiwanese die-hard troops during and after amphibious landing could still give the PLAGF helicopters serious headaches.

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Flare Decoys can divert manpad missiles, and small electric powered drones are very difficult to be locked by heat seeking manpad.

PLAGF has been exercised a lot with manpad, they are familiar with the strength and weakness of manpad. They know how to handle them.

Send out recon drones to identified all enemy strong point, including manpads, destroy them with suicide or strike drone, artillery or rockets minutes after recon drones completed their survey. Repeat the cycle again to mop up the survivors.

HALE drones, MALE drones, attack helicopters and transport helicopters, SUV, assault boats, LCAC, swimming tanks etc etc can come later after the beach has been turned into a waste land.

Of course a few lucky manpad may still shoot down some helicopters, this is normal battlefield casualty and to be expected.

RoastGooseHKer said:

The experience from Gulf War and 2003 Invasion of Iraq is that even if you have full. domain awareness (via satellites, drones, surveillance aircrafts, etc.), it is still impossible to track mobile missile launchers. The U.S. had serious difficulties tracking and taking out every single Iraqi Scud launcher. Now the Taiwanese missiles are already disguised as civilian cargo trucks painted in gray. So I would expect the Taiwanese side being able to pop dozens of lucky shots. And of course, if the PLA have a serious policy of avoids collateral damages, it would be impossible to go after those launchers hiding in garages, supermarkets, office building parkings, etc. The key would then to intercept incoming Taiwanese missiles. However, given the extremely chaotic and crowded airspace over Taiwan in a war, such focus would in turn increase the chance of serious friendly fire incidents.

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They're heavy 6 axle non off road vehicles with a significantly higher center of gravity to accommodate road widths and a dense payload. They won't be driving fast or maneuvering much.

SCUDs are off road vehicles. Can't be compared in terms of survivability.