PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

AndrewS said:

Let's say an Amphibious/Medium Brigade is as follows:

440 Amphibious/Armoured Vehicles + 380 JLTV/Humvee + 500 Trucks.
For an initial wave, call it 880 vehicles in total, with the rest following 12+ hours later. You could do it with

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Just one example, the smallest component of the USMC is the MEU, in which about 2100 marines are counted. That's before the Force Design 2030 that Berges is introducing to the USMC.

Each MEU is divided between three battalions (excluding the CE), Ground Combat Element (GCE) which has a personnel component of 1200 marines, the other element is the Aviation Combat Element (ACE) component composed of 420 marines and finally, the last one element, the Logistics Combat Element (LCE) which totals 270 marines.

The GCE has the following vehicles:

4x M1A1
15x Assault Amphibious Vehicle(AAV) - Will be replaced by ACV
8-17x M1161 Internally Transportable Vehicles (ITV)
31x Medium Tactical Vehicles
7-17x Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) - Will be replaced by ARV
105x HMMWV - Will be replaced by JLTV

The ACE has the following aerial elements:

3x UH-1Y Huey
2x KC-130J
4x AH-1Z
5x RQ-21A Small Tactical Unmanned Air System (STUAS)
6x Harrier (AV-8B) - Will be replaced by F-35B

The LCE has the following vehicles:

15 MTVR - Will be replaced by LVSR
18 HMMWVs - Will be replaced by JLTV
2 wreckers
2 bulldozers
3 forklifts
4 bulk fuel trucks
2 water trucks
1 tank retriever
1 AAV recovery

The MEU which is the smallest organization of the MAGTF structure that has a total of 2100 marines has about 240 amphibious/armored vehicles.

Today, the USMC cannot transport an entire MEF by sea, unless it brings together all the landing ships of other ARGs available to be employed under a single MEF, the III MEF in Japan/Okinawa which is the smallest of the others. two MEFs could be transported by sea if this described situation occurred.

AndrewS said:

Option 1. 49x Type-072A LST. 18 vehicles each. $637 Million Ship Cost
Option 2. 15x Type-071 LPD. 60 vehicles each. $3000 Million Ship Cost
Option 3. 22x Type-075 LHD. 40 vehicles each. $22000 Million Ship Cost

So you can see that the LST option is by far the lowest cost option and because there are so many of them, you can afford to take losses. In comparison, there are a lot fewer Type-071 and Type-075s, and it still only takes 1 antiship missile to take any of these ships out.

In fact, you could buy 49x LSTs plus 4x Type-052D Air-Defence destroyers and it would still be the lowest cost option.

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If you really believe that just one anti-ship missile is enough to neutralize a Type 071/Type 075, you are certainly unaware of the anti-missile capability of PLAN ships.

I already reported this capability in a previous post on this same topic, I don't see the need to repeat it, but pay attention, I'm not questioning the value of LSTs in an Op Amp, you're making a comparison that doesn't make sense.

An LST cannot reach the beach without first having complete coastal superiority, and this is achieved through LPD, LSD, LHD and LHAs, without complete coastal superiority, an LST would be easily neutralized and sunk that has only minimal point defenses such as cannons anti-aircraft.

Therefore, as a first wave attack, an LST is not capable of landing on the beach, it will always act in the rear of an amphibious force that will make the initial attack and the landing on the initial beach, conquering the position in the field of operations, that if can only with the large ships like LPD, LSD, LHD and LHAs, not with LSTs.

Matheus S said:

If you really believe that just one anti-ship missile is enough to neutralize a Type 071/Type 075, you are certainly unaware of the anti-missile capability of PLAN ships.

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1 missile hitting the well deck of a Type-071 will neutralise the vessel. The same applies to the Type-075. In a landing, there would have to be air superiority and therefore there would be a surplus of available fixed wing aircraft overhead plus helicopters which can operate from land.

Matheus S said:

I already reported this capability in a previous post on this same topic, I don't see the need to repeat it, but pay attention, I'm not questioning the value of LSTs in an Op Amp, you're making a comparison that doesn't make sense.

An LST cannot reach the beach without first having complete coastal superiority, and this is achieved through LPD, LSD, LHD and LHAs, without complete coastal superiority, an LST would be easily neutralized and sunk that has only minimal point defenses such as cannons anti-aircraft.

Therefore, as a first wave attack, an LST is not capable of landing on the beach, it will always act in the rear of an amphibious force that will make the initial attack and the landing on the initial beach, conquering the position in the field of operations, that if can only with the large ships like LPD, LSD, LHD and LHAs, not with LSTs.

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LSTs would release amphibious vehicles offshore first. But then there will be non- amphibious vehicles which would have to be landed on the beach. Plus coastal superiority is not achieved with LPD, LSD, LHD or LHA. These are all too big and high value to want to risk near a shoreline. Helicopters can operate further offshore and amphibious vehicles can launch from an LST anyway.

It would be better to send a mix of smaller ships, helicopters and overheard aircraft to clear the beaches and also clear the surrounding areas. I don't expect the LSTs to go in until other forces have mostly cleared the area.

AndrewS said:

LSTs would release amphibious vehicles offshore first. But then there will be non- amphibious vehicles which would have to be landed on the beach. Plus coastal superiority is not achieved with LPD, LSD, LHD or LHA. These are all too big and high value to want to risk near a shoreline. Helicopters can operate further offshore and amphibious vehicles can launch from an LST anyway.

It would be better to send a mix of smaller ships, helicopters and overheard aircraft to clear the beaches and also clear the surrounding areas. I don't expect the LSTs to go in until other forces have mostly cleared the area.

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No. An LST Type 072A has a shallow draft of only 10 feet, this only allows launching the amphibious vehicles close to shore in shallow water and the other vehicles when landing on the beach. The Type 072A does not have this ability to launch the amphibious vehicles in deep water, this mission is still done by LHDs and LPDs in the case of the PLAN/PLANMC. I don't know about the Type 072III, but it probably also has this limitation of operating in shallow water, not being able to launch the amphibious ships in deep water. Just out of these two classes, we are talking about 26 LSTs out of the 29 Type 072 LSTs that the PLAN has in its in-service inventory.

Matheus S said:

No. An LST Type 072A has a shallow draft of only 10 feet, this only allows launching the amphibious vehicles close to shore in shallow water and the other vehicles when landing on the beach. The Type 072A does not have this ability to launch the amphibious vehicles in deep water, this mission is still done by LHDs and LPDs in the case of the PLAN/PLANMC. I don't know about the Type 072III, but it probably also has this limitation of operating in shallow water, not being able to launch the amphibious ships in deep water. Just out of these two classes, we are talking about 26 LSTs out of the 29 Type 072 LSTs that the PLAN has in its in-service inventory.

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That doesn't make any sense.

Why would a LST be unable to open its bow doors in deep water and have an amphibious vehicle just drive off the ramp directly into the water?

AndrewS said:

That doesn't make any sense.

Why would a LST be unable to open its bow doors in deep water and have an amphibious vehicle just drive off the ramp directly into the water?

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A low draft vessel cannot produce stability for the landing of amphibious vehicles in deep water, for this to happen, the vessel would need to fill the well deck with seawater and this water has to be pumped to produce a draft vessel shallow, as the Type 072 LSTs already have a shallow draft, there is no way to disembark amphibious vehicles at sea because they must have a large draft, some LSTs actually have this capacity, the PLAN Type 072 LSTs do not have large drafts, the Type 072 have drafts shallow.

In short, for an LST to have the ability to disembark amphibious vehicles at sea in deep waters, this vessel must have a large draft, so it can capture seawater and pump it to produce a shallow draft vessel.

If an LST that the PLAN builds and has a high draft, in that condition I would bow to your argument that the PLAN can effect the landing of amphibious vehicles from an LST.

Precisely because USMC landing craft have to capture large amounts of water on the well deck, they need to create a condition for the high draft vessel to reproduce the effects of the shallow draft vessel in order to stabilize the vessel.

For example:

Matheus S said:

A low draft vessel cannot produce stability for the landing of amphibious vehicles in deep water, for this to happen, the vessel would need to fill the well deck with seawater and this water has to be pumped to produce a draft vessel shallow, as the Type 072 LSTs already have a shallow draft, there is no way to disembark amphibious vehicles at sea because they must have a large draft, some LSTs actually have this capacity, the PLAN Type 072 LSTs do not have large drafts, the Type 072 have drafts shallow.

In short, for an LST to have the ability to disembark amphibious vehicles at sea in deep waters, this vessel must have a large draft, so it can capture seawater and pump it to produce a shallow draft vessel.

If an LST that the PLAN builds and has a high draft, in that condition I would bow to your argument that the PLAN can effect the landing of amphibious vehicles from an LST.

Precisely because USMC landing craft have to capture large amounts of water on the well deck, they need to create a condition for the high draft vessel to reproduce the effects of the shallow draft vessel in order to stabilize the vessel.

For example:

View attachment 81229
View attachment 81230

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You're not actually talking about deep waters if you're referring to ship stability.

So the limitation looks more like the sea state that an amphibious vehicle is designed to handle.
If you were to dump vehicles off a steep ramp, there's no way the vehicle is going to be washed back in, especially if the ship is moving in the opposite direction.

Plus the waters of the Taiwan Strait are actually shallow. If they launch vehicles over the horizon at 20km, it looks like the water is only 50m deep. The mountains on Taiwan also shelter the Strait from most winds and waves.

AndrewS said:

You're not actually talking about deep waters if you're referring to ship stability.

So the limitation looks more like the sea state that an amphibious vehicle is designed to handle.
If you were to dump vehicles off a steep ramp, there's no way the vehicle is going to be washed back in, especially if the ship is moving in the opposite direction.

Plus the waters of the Taiwan Strait are actually shallow. If they launch vehicles over the horizon at 20km, it looks like the water is only 50m deep. The mountains on Taiwan also shelter the Strait from most winds and waves.

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I just researched the depth of the strait, the average depth is 60 meters, and it can reach a depth of 70 meters.

It's definitely shallow water, but marine conditions remain. I don't know about the climatological condition of the winds in the strait, but they are certainly not waters that provide small swells and currents to make it possible to disembark on an LST vessel that was not built for that purpose. It is not simply the ship opening the hatch and lowering the ramp for the amphibious vehicles to disembark in the water, the amphibious operation is much more complicated than it appears, and the landing at sea is probably the most difficult.

Even for an amphibious ship to land on the beach, the marine conditions of that beach are evaluated with a tolerance of waves and low currents in an Amp Op.

I still stick with the idea that the PLAN cannot land amphibious vehicles at sea with the Type 072 class.

Matheus S said:

I just researched the depth of the strait, the average depth is 60 meters, and it can reach a depth of 70 meters.

It's definitely shallow water, but marine conditions remain. I don't know about the climatological condition of the winds in the strait, but they are certainly not waters that provide small swells and currents to make it possible to disembark on an LST vessel that was not built for that purpose. It is not simply the ship opening the hatch and lowering the ramp for the amphibious vehicles to disembark in the water, the amphibious operation is much more complicated than it appears, and the landing at sea is probably the most difficult.

Even for an amphibious ship to land on the beach, the marine conditions of that beach are evaluated with a tolerance of waves and low currents in an Amp Op.

I still stick with the idea that the PLAN cannot land amphibious vehicles at sea with the Type 072 class.

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So what depth would you say that an LST can launch amphibious vehicles at?

AndrewS said:

So what depth would you say that an LST can launch amphibious vehicles at?

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I would definitely say that the LST Type 072 cannot operate in deep water, which is not the case with the Taiwan Strait, so I would say that there is probably a very remote chance that the Type 072 will land vehicles in the sea due to current and the wave of the strait, but for that to be evaluated, I would need to study about the condition of the winds, waves among other subjects to find out the landing capacity of a Type 072, what I know in what I read a long time ago is that during a period, due to these maritime conditions of the strait, the amphibious landing in Taiwan is more difficult, we will probably find this information by searching the internet.

Interesting book review by David P. Goldman:

Can We Contain the Dragon?​

Never does Colby ask why China would take the risk of invading Taiwan. As long as the West adheres to the One China policy, Taiwan’s eventual unification with the mainland is all but assured. Western analysts make a great deal of China’s demographic problems, but Taiwan’s are far worse. With a total fertility rate of just one child per female, Taiwan will run out of workers in a generation and will have to import people from the mainland. If the West abrogates the One China policy and promotes Taiwanese sovereignty—for example by attempting to make the island impregnable to a Chinese invasion—China will preempt Western efforts to reinforce the island and exercise its option to use force before it expires.

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