PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Totoro · Jan 31, 2022

How many Chinese planes will be available for what mission/theater anyway? Very hard to predict. A lot would be used over Taiwan. But some would also be used over the seas nearby. Some would be used over Ryukyu islands. If even part of those runways in Japan proper would be attacked - some planes would inevitably be used over Japan as well. There's some powerful air defenses on both sides. So both US and China would be losing quite a few planes in such attacks.

Even without spreading the war to many other countries - the core of countries China would going against would be Taiwan, US and Japan. All those added planes, even though those based in Taiwan might be suppressed to a large degree - would still mean the sheer numbers China is facing would be considerable.

US might be able to surge better part of their flat top fleet for the initial months. Then upkeep a smaller number over the long term. Certainly, once the war starts, surging more ships would be beneficial to the US, as the numerical advantage in those moments might be more important than the ability to field more carriers on average over a longer, year long period.

Given all those other US planes, USN ones from carriers, USMC ones (it's questionable if LHDs would be used as F-35B mini carriers as their assault capabilities might be better utilized in defending various ryukyu islands. (or even threatening various SCS islands, who knows)
And given the US and japanese planes operating from Kyushu and various Ryukyu islands not needing tankers to reach Taiwan, (mostly F-15s for Kyushu, smaller planes for Ryukyu) - the entire mix of US/Japan planes available over ECS/Taiwan might number well over 1000 aircraft. By 2025 for example that'd mean some 1000 stealthy fighters, while the rest are advanced 4.5 gen fighters.

If for example China manages to produce 150 more J20 by then, that'll be some 250. And, of course, some 1000+ 4.5 gen fighters. Over taiwan, sortie rates and dwell times might favor China two to one, or more. But over Ryukyus that'd drop to equality. And over Japan China's sortie rates would be worse than JP/US sortie rates.

It's questionable if either side would really put too much effort into upkeeping CAPs. It might prove to be more worthwhile to just keep striking enemy bases and concentrations of power (Air power and other) on the ground. So extended loiter over an area might not be even THAT much of a factor. Instead, it might be a series of strike attempts and interception attempts. One side hides/disperses, other side looks for targets. Constantly shifting target set. One side on the initiative in one moment, then defending in another moment.

As both sides lose their equipment - both SAM sites, ships and aircraft - the side with the more such equipment waiting in overall inventory- to be brought in to the frontline to replace the lost equipment - might eventually gain an upper hand if the numbers gap becomes apparent.

Almost any of the points I mention here could be discussed and debated and not settled on. Heck, probably if you asked 10 different generals in China and 10 different Generals in US, you'd get 20 different answers on most of these issues. Any war is unpredictable. And this particular war is so complex and so variable dependent on input parameters which can't be defined even today, and let alone in 2025 or 2030 that it's impossible to predict anything.

tphuang · Jan 31, 2022

I find the idea that America can somehow deploy 400 F-22/35 to the theater to be unlikely. If we use my original timeline of 6 years from now, then USAF would have around 550 to 600 F-35As in service by then (about 300 now, 43 to 48 delivery by per year for the foreseeable future). Deploying even a quarter of that to Pacific theater would be hard to do since America has so much other commitment. The availability of F-22 is a lot lower (far and away the lowest in USAF and only about 110 is even in active/non national guard squadrons IIRC). Getting 1 squadron of F-22 is probably the most they can do. And as I described earlier, it would not be practical to expect more than 120 F-35B/Cs in theater. PLAAF would have a huge numbers advantage between J-20/J-35 in any conflict. On top of that, there should be a small number of H-20 and JH-20 available for combat by then.

Air strips are not created equally. Military ones are defended and have personnel available to repair runways. Air strips along Ryuku islands are not. More importantly, military air bases have people trained to maintain the aircraft and have shelters that at least offer some protection from missile strikes. You are not going to get that with non-military bases where even PGMs can probably put it out of use. USAF will also not risk its F-35As get destroyed on the ground.

And then, we need to look at air bases themselves. PLAAF air bases would be in land (or far in land) and can be refueled well within their air space. It would be among the most well defended air space in the world. Keep in mind that B-2s operate from continental USA. Maybe a B-2 can get in without detection, but they have limited sorties and the payload they drop would have a hard time overcoming the air defense. Even if they do, they are unlikely to generate enough sorties to actually keep those air bases out of operation. If US want to actually take out of those bases, they'd need to mount a full scale incursion deep into Chinese air space. Aside from being political unpopular, it would be even harder to do than take back Taiwan. They'd be facing the same sortie and range issues that operations over Taiwan would face. The situation would be even more exaggerated since the aircraft group would have to travel even further off the carriers to make this incursion. On top of PLAAF fighter jet, they'd face more air defense radar and SAMs along the way. All very appealing options for aircraft group doing the incursion. It'd be hard to imagine non-stealth aircraft, especially tankers/AEWC&C surviving such a scenario.

If we compare this to Japan, most of the journey from mainland to Japanese waters will not have to face air defense radars or SAMs. One must ask how many air bases in Japan is even capable of hosting USAF F-35s and keeping them protected from LACMs. That would require hardened aircraft shelter and ground staff who are capable of maintaining F-35s. I would imagine that's a small number that H-20/JH-20 would have an easier time of taking out. Just as importantly, the flight route from Japan to Taiwan would be over international waters without air defense radar/missiles for protection. The tankers would be really facing the danger of PLAAF interception. It remains to be seen how well USAF/USN tankers can survive the J-20 threat in real combat. Needless to say, I think F-35A coming to the rescue of Taiwan to really be limited. So, the vast majority of effective F-35 protection hours would rest in the 100+ F-35B/Cs in the area. PLAAF would not have to strike down significant number of F-35s in such a scenario. They just need to not lose too many of their own advanced aircraft. They will likely also send a lot of J-6 drones and UAVs into the air space also. It won't just be fighter jet vs fighter jet. At a certain point, the air wing and their crew member would get worn out by repeated sorties.

Above all, the willingness for US public to actually fight for an extended period of time is quite low if Taiwan itself gives up quickly. I also find it hard to believe JMSDF being actively involved in such a conflict unless China starts to bomb air bases that don't have USAF presence. There is a lot of delusional US generals who think that Taiwanese people are going to wage a guerrilla warfare against a mainland invasion. That's just not going to be the case for the vast majority of Taiwanese that live in the cities.

Maikeru · Jan 31, 2022

tphuang said:
This is a great discussion we are having on future Chinese carrier fleet size. Btw, I don't think we can use annual operating cost of an USN carrier to infer the cost for Type 003 and its air wing. PLAN crew members are just going to be paid a lot less. PLAN activities will also be less demanding than what's expected out of a USN group. Once China really gets its carrier construction going, I think $4.5 billion might also be an overestimate to production cost.

Having said that, carrier groups obvious cost a lot of money. In the past, people have often suggested that PLAN will eventually settle in with 6 carrier groups, which would work out to be 2 groups per fleet. I'm not sure there is any evidence that's how many groups PLAN planners are looking at. We have seen them having great ambitions than even the most optimistic projections. Their carrier program is progressing at much faster pace than what I would've expected. Their LHD program is also progressing faster than I would've expected. If they do end up with 10 carrier groups, I would not be shocked. It does seem to me that 6 is a more likely number until they can match up more evenly with USN air wing and nuclear submarine fleet. It would take them launching a super carrier every 4 years to just get to 6 carriers in service by 2035(that's assuming CV-16 doesn't retire by then). If we assume that can be reduced to one every 3 years after the first couple of unit, they would not get to 6 CATOBAR capable carriers until 2040 and 8 by 2045.

If USN, with 11 carriers, thinks that it only needs 273 F-35C and a larger number of super hornets, I think it'd be unrealistic to expect more J-35s than that. So, I'd say a production run of 270 J-35s is the most likely we will see. The remaining of the fixed air wing will be KJ-600s, J-15B and J-15BDs (maybe 160 of them in total).

Now, 270 is still a pretty small number for a 5th generation project. The cost per aircraft will be quite high if they end up producing 20 J-35s a year in peak production. In some years, they wouldn't even need to produce J-35s if a new carrier is still waiting to be launched. J-20 would be cheaper than J-35 to produce, operate and support in that scenario. In order to keep SAC and the J-35 suppliers healthy, they absolutely need a land version of this aircraft. They cannot make the same mistake that USAF did in shutting down F-22 production so early. The question is what would be a good number of land based version of FC-31 to purchase. I originally anticipated more land based version of FC-31 than J-20. However, given the headstart that J-20 has, that seems to be unlikely. If CAC can actually keep 4 assembly line going, 50 aircraft a year should be easily achievable. With that level of production, they will probably have 300 to 400 J-20s in service by the time they are ready to mass produce land based FC-31. PLAAF is showing an urgency for J-20s. They are not waiting along for WS-15. And even when we look at J-10s vs flankers, the annual production rate between the two weren't that far apart. I don't buy the theory that PLAAF will necessarily purchase more of the smaller aircraft. I think we are more likely to see CAC and SAC eventually building about the same number of 5th generation aircraft per year. If we make the assumption that they will mass produce FC-31 line of aircraft for 20 years (2025 to 2045), that could be up to 800 over its life time, or about 500 in PLAAF. You might have 800 J-20s built from 2020 to 2040. That would be a pretty large run of 5th generation aircraft. I think they have the budget to do so. During peak years, they might procure more 5th generation a year than America does.

It may be that J15B will be fully replaced by J35, which would significantly up the numbers. There are good reasons to do this beyond stealth, such as the amount of space the very large J15s take up on a CV. Also I don't think PLAN would have went to the expense of developing J35 and KJ600 if they weren't going bigly into CATOBAR CVs. Once they get a a design they're happy with I can see PLAN going 'dumpling mode' on carriers - and they actually have the shipyard capacity to do this.

tphuang · Jan 31, 2022

Maikeru said:
It may be that J15B will be fully replaced by J35, which would significantly up the numbers. There are good reasons to do this beyond stealth, such as the amount of space the very large J15s take up on a CV. Also I don't think PLAN would have went to the expense of developing J35 and KJ600 if they weren't going bigly into CATOBAR CVs. Once they get a a design they're happy with I can see PLAN going 'dumpling mode' on carriers - and they actually have the shipyard capacity to do this.

There are roles that J15s can perform that you might not want J-35s to perform. If we look at USN carriers, F-35Cs will eventually become the main force of air wing, but they still plan to only procure 273 F-35Cs, which works out to be around 24 per carrier along with some additional ones for training. I think there are good reasons for USN keeping super hornets around. Similarly, there are good reasons for PLAN to keep J-15Bs around in some form. There are obviously specialized role like EW variant. Beyond that, you probably can't have J-35 carry too many anti-ship missile due to a greater desire to maintaining stealth. J-15B would do really well as a bomb truck type of platform. They also can carry really large and powerful electronics that can be shared with J-35s to allow the latter to keep their radar off in some cases. They could act as mini-AWACs and direct UAVs. You can also use J-15Bs for the purpose of Buddy-to-buddy refueling. Their great size and payload could allow them to potentially refuel 2 J-35s before landing. I think there are a lot of roles that J-15s would be uniquely able to perform for a while.

I think there is greater need to develop land based version of FC-31 rather than more specialized variants of J-35. I think 270 J-35s would already be a pretty large naval fighter jet order. I just don't see them putting this level of investment into FC-31 program and only go with a naval variant. I'm also curious to just see what the eventual cost of land based FC-31 vs J-20. Even if they are able to ramp up production, I don't think a medium-large sized fighter jet with 2 engines will be that much cheaper than a heavy fighter with 2 engines.

AndrewS · Jan 31, 2022

tphuang said:
This is a great discussion we are having on future Chinese carrier fleet size. Btw, I don't think we can use annual operating cost of an USN carrier to infer the cost for Type 003 and its air wing. PLAN crew members are just going to be paid a lot less. PLAN activities will also be less demanding than what's expected out of a USN group. Once China really gets its carrier construction going, I think $4.5 billion might also be an overestimate to production cost.

Yes, the operating costs for a Chinese carrier will be less due to lower labour costs, materials costs, plus the fact that the Chinese Navy will not be flogging their carriers on 6+ month deployments all over the world. But for illustration purposes, these costs demonstrate that China starting serial carrier production in 2025 isn't that expensive compared to a growing Chinese military budget.

tphuang said:
Having said that, carrier groups obvious cost a lot of money. In the past, people have often suggested that PLAN will eventually settle in with 6 carrier groups, which would work out to be 2 groups per fleet. I'm not sure there is any evidence that's how many groups PLAN planners are looking at. We have seen them having great ambitions than even the most optimistic projections. Their carrier program is progressing at much faster pace than what I would've expected. Their LHD program is also progressing faster than I would've expected. If they do end up with 10 carrier groups, I would not be shocked. It does seem to me that 6 is a more likely number until they can match up more evenly with USN air wing and nuclear submarine fleet. It would take them launching a super carrier every 4 years to just get to 6 carriers in service by 2035(that's assuming CV-16 doesn't retire by then). If we assume that can be reduced to one every 3 years after the first couple of unit, they would not get to 6 CATOBAR capable carriers until 2040 and 8 by 2045.

Given the 2 new submarine assembly halls at Bohai, my guess is that they are ramping up to a minimum of 3 SSN equivalents per year by 2025.
So every 5 years, they could launch a total of 15 new SSNs. So by 2030, my guess is that 20+ SSNs will be in service. By 2035, it would be 35+ SSNs in service. By 2040, there would be 50+ SSNs. If a single SSN is assigned to each carrier, I don't see additional carriers impacting SSN availability materially.

tphuang said:
If USN, with 11 carriers, thinks that it only needs 273 F-35C and a larger number of super hornets, I think it'd be unrealistic to expect more J-35s than that. So, I'd say a production run of 220 J-35s is likely if we anticipate 80 J-15B/BDs to complement that in the air wing. That would work out to about to about 50 fighter jets per carrier.

Now, 220 is still a pretty small number for a 5th generation project. The cost per aircraft will be quite high if they end up producing 20 J-35s a year in peak production. In some years, they wouldn't even need to produce J-35s if a new carrier is still waiting to be launched. J-20 would be cheaper than J-35 to produce, operate and support in that scenario. In order to keep SAC and the J-35 suppliers healthy, they absolutely need a land version of this aircraft. They cannot make the same mistake that USAF did in shutting down F-22 production so early. The question is what would be a good number of land based version of FC-31 to purchase. I originally anticipated more land based version of FC-31 than J-20. However, given the headstart that J-20 has, that seems to be unlikely. If CAC can actually keep 4 assembly line going, 50 aircraft a year should be easily achievable. With that level of production, they will probably have 300 to 400 J-20s in service by the time they are ready to mass produce land based FC-31. PLAAF is showing an urgency for J-20s. They are not waiting along for WS-15. And even when we look at J-10s vs flankers, the annual production rate between the two weren't that far apart. I don't buy the theory that PLAAF will necessarily purchase more of the smaller aircraft. I think we are more likely to see CAC and SAC eventually building about the same number of 5th generation aircraft per year. If we make the assumption that they will mass produce FC-31 line of aircraft for 20 years (2025 to 2045), that could be up to 800 over its life time, or about 600 in PLAAF. You might have 800 J-20s built from 2020 to 2040. That would be a pretty large run of 5th generation aircraft. I think they have the budget to do so. During peak years, they might procure more 5th generation a year than America does.

If you're looking at a 2045 timeframe, it's conceivable to see the Chinese economy as 2.5x larger than the USA.
So if the US continues to spend 3.5%-4% of GDP on the military, and China continues to spend at half this level, you end up with Chinese military spending as 25% larger.

If the US still maintains 11 supercarriers, a Chinese fleet of supercarriers 25% larger would mean 14 Chinese supercarriers, with a corresponding increase in the number of aircraft required.

AndrewS · Jan 31, 2022

Totoro said:
How many Chinese planes will be available for what mission/theater anyway? Very hard to predict. A lot would be used over Taiwan. But some would also be used over the seas nearby. Some would be used over Ryukyu islands. If even part of those runways in Japan proper would be attacked - some planes would inevitably be used over Japan as well. There's some powerful air defenses on both sides. So both US and China would be losing quite a few planes in such attacks.

Even without spreading the war to many other countries - the core of countries China would going against would be Taiwan, US and Japan. All those added planes, even though those based in Taiwan might be suppressed to a large degree - would still mean the sheer numbers China is facing would be considerable.

US might be able to surge better part of their flat top fleet for the initial months. Then upkeep a smaller number over the long term. Certainly, once the war starts, surging more ships would be beneficial to the US, as the numerical advantage in those moments might be more important than the ability to field more carriers on average over a longer, year long period.

Given all those other US planes, USN ones from carriers, USMC ones (it's questionable if LHDs would be used as F-35B mini carriers as their assault capabilities might be better utilized in defending various ryukyu islands. (or even threatening various SCS islands, who knows)
And given the US and japanese planes operating from Kyushu and various Ryukyu islands not needing tankers to reach Taiwan, (mostly F-15s for Kyushu, smaller planes for Ryukyu) - the entire mix of US/Japan planes available over ECS/Taiwan might number well over 1000 aircraft. By 2025 for example that'd mean some 1000 stealthy fighters, while the rest are advanced 4.5 gen fighters.

If for example China manages to produce 150 more J20 by then, that'll be some 250. And, of course, some 1000+ 4.5 gen fighters. Over taiwan, sortie rates and dwell times might favor China two to one, or more. But over Ryukyus that'd drop to equality. And over Japan China's sortie rates would be worse than JP/US sortie rates.

It's questionable if either side would really put too much effort into upkeeping CAPs. It might prove to be more worthwhile to just keep striking enemy bases and concentrations of power (Air power and other) on the ground. So extended loiter over an area might not be even THAT much of a factor. Instead, it might be a series of strike attempts and interception attempts. One side hides/disperses, other side looks for targets. Constantly shifting target set. One side on the initiative in one moment, then defending in another moment.

As both sides lose their equipment - both SAM sites, ships and aircraft - the side with the more such equipment waiting in overall inventory- to be brought in to the frontline to replace the lost equipment - might eventually gain an upper hand if the numbers gap becomes apparent.

Almost any of the points I mention here could be discussed and debated and not settled on. Heck, probably if you asked 10 different generals in China and 10 different Generals in US, you'd get 20 different answers on most of these issues. Any war is unpredictable. And this particular war is so complex and so variable dependent on input parameters which can't be defined even today, and let alone in 2025 or 2030 that it's impossible to predict anything.

I would dispute the part about the Taiwanese Air Force being suppressed.

I expect it to be largely destroyed within the first 2 days, if there is no outside intervention.
Then it would take up to 7 days for it to be rendered completely ineffective, even with outside intervention.

The Chinese Air Force has sufficient numbers of J-20 (100+), J-16 (200+), J-10C (170+) and J-11BG aircraft which can spam PL-15s beyond the range from which any Taiwanese fighters can respond. Then the Chinese fighters could just turn back to safety.

We can see how the Chinese Air Force regularly conducts training missions with 24+ fighters at a time.
A J-16 formation could launch at least 144+ PL-15s. And let's say the pK is 50%.
Initially, the Taiwanese Air Force might be able to get 100 fighter jets in the air, but would see most of them wiped out in the air at long range.

And the Chinese Air Force would do a minimum of 8 fighter sweeps every day, although I expect later fighter sweeps to be smaller due to the lower numbers of opposing fighters left in Taiwan.
And each of these fighter sweeps would be providing cover to H-6 or JH-7 strike aircraft.

tphuang · Jan 31, 2022

I'm not sure how can ROCAF hope to get 100 aircraft in the air. What we've seen in the past year is the current weakness of the Taiwanese air defense. At this point, ROCAF has shown that it will be completely at PLAAF's mercy in the future. ROCAF no longer attempts to intercept every PLAAF air group. Which has basically put their entire air defense structure at the mercy of PLAAF. Since Taiwan's air defense radar system is quite old, the PLAAF EW aircraft will pretty soon have a full understanding of all the main radar mode/signals used by the Taiwanese radar system and be able to deceive them. You can already see in some of the recent incursions where Taiwan thought 36 J-16s and 12 H-6s were coming at the same time in a really tight space in the southwest corner. These kind of things just don't seem to be plausible. All of these incursions have already caused ROCAF to fatigue to the point where they keep having fatal crashes. As PLAAF continues to introduce more J-16s/J-10Cs, you will see even larger/more frequent incursions. This type of activity really has a demoralizing effect on ROCAF. To the point where pilots are all either really old or really inexperienced. Why put your life at danger in a futile struggle when you can make a lot more money as commercial airline pilot? So ROCAF is right now an Air Force that is over fatigued but also have a lot of pilots without sufficient training. The intensity of PLAAF incursions have also taken a toll on ROCAF's ability to keep their aircraft functioning. Again, all of these will only get worse as PLAAF continues to improve. It's a pretty big change over 5 years ago when we still didn't know who was the better trained Air Force. Nowadays, it's clear PLAAF's elite units have much better training than ROCAF ones. Over time, the capability gap between the two will keep increasing.

One of the smart things PLAAF has done is normalizing this pattern where they continue to increase the tempo, size and complexity of their incursions. This shows a significant improvement in their operational capabilities and training. Again, things that we simply didn't see even 3 years ago. As they normalize these things, ROCAF will simply feel less urgency to be ready to fight back when China really does decide to do repeated incursion. Just imagine 5 years from now, PLAAF has figured out exactly how ROCAF reacts to every type of PLAAF incursions and all the air defense radar modes. They do a week of large incursions as they always have and ROCAF gets tired out and stops sending aircraft to incursion. Next you know, PLAAF comes into their usual location and do not turn back. Instead, they start manipulating Taiwanese air defense radar so Taiwan doesn't know what's coming. Then, the short range ballistic missiles start to come through and the radar are just not picking them up and J-16/Ds start launching ground attack missiles and ARM at the air bases, radar stations and SAM batteries. Knocks most of them offline. Now, the H-6s and other unsophisticated bomb truck come and drop a lot of guided and not guided bombs on all the major air fields around the country and destroy a good chunk of the ROCAF before they can take off. At the same time, most of the Taiwanese naval ships are activated, but are not equipped with modern SAMs or any air cover. They are going to be easy pickings for the flood of anti-ship missiles coming at them. At this point, the Taiwanese military will be very demoralized by what has already happened and ready to give up. I assume this is also when PLAN arrives with large amphibious warships over with attack helicopters and tanks. And for PLAAF transports to start air dropping troops in strategic locations.

ROCAF does their yearly demonstration of taking off from highways and such. But if they are already exhausted by a week of PLAAF incursion and lost out so much of their air defense infrastructure, why would we think they are capable of somehow rolling their aircraft to empty highways and get them off the ground. Keep in mind that PLAAF and ROCAF fighter jets have had their fair share of cat and mouse games. We are already at the point where PLAAF routinely locks on to ROCAF fighter jets. Do we think ROCAF is more likely to sacrifice pilots at this point or give up? PLAAF would've gotten to this Point with very little losses. The moment you are unable to put up defense when the other side comes with a large group of aircraft is the moment you lost the battle.

5 or 10 years ago, USAF planners would've assumed that a good chunk of China's ballistic missiles and cruise missiles would have to be devoted to taking out Taiwanese air defense. But in the current day, PLAAF is capable of achieving that goal without utilizing most of that BM/CM arsenal. That changes things quite a bit. It will allow more of those missiles to be used to target USAF bases in the pacific that can potentially reach Taiwan and any air bases in Japan that might make sense.

drowingfish · Jan 31, 2022

AndrewS said:
I would dispute the part about the Taiwanese Air Force being suppressed.

I expect it to be largely destroyed within the first 2 days, if there is no outside intervention.
Then it would take up to 7 days for it to be rendered completely ineffective, even with outside intervention.

The Chinese Air Force has sufficient numbers of J-20 (100+), J-16 (200+), J-10C (170+) and J-11BG aircraft which can spam PL-15s beyond the range from which any Taiwanese fighters can respond. Then the Chinese fighters could just turn back to safety.

We can see how the Chinese Air Force regularly conducts training missions with 24+ fighters at a time.
A J-16 formation could launch at least 144+ PL-15s. And let's say the pK is 50%.
Initially, the Taiwanese Air Force might be able to get 100 fighter jets in the air, but would see most of them wiped out in the air at long range.

And the Chinese Air Force would do a minimum of 8 fighter sweeps every day, although I expect later fighter sweeps to be smaller due to the lower numbers of opposing fighters left in Taiwan.
And each of these fighter sweeps would be providing cover to H-6 or JH-7 strike aircraft.

i find that comparing number of fighters/missiles/ships are useful but lacks vitality, sorta like comparing stats of each player in a sports team.

maybe the US will have a smaller less sustainable force in the area, but all it needs is one successful strike on the Chinese fleet to deprive it of sufficient capacity for a landing operation, it does not have to defeat the PLAN or PLAAF. likewise, while ROCAF can no doubt scramble some fighters into the air, but those fighters will be useless because they are in the air to avoid getting stuck on the ground, not for a specific mission.

I suspect that should the US intervene in the strait, it will seek to conduct a pearl harbour style strike against PLAN landing vessels, or to hit them during transit across the strait. doesnt matter how good your air force is if you cant put boots on the ground. China's answer to this could be scattering its vessels all along the coast so as to not present a single target, or to send out small fleets against Taiwan's islets, both to clear these obstacles and to draw out US and ROCAF forces.

i hear analysis on how PLA might tackle the taiwan question. most are inclined to believe that PLA will attempt to end the war as quickly as possible, before the US can intervene. while this is very much the best case scenario that China would hope for, I do believe that there is a plan for a protracted conflict if the US intervenes in time. If the PLA cannot break down Taiwan's resistance within the first few punches, it will have to transition into a more defensive posture and attempt to win a war of attrition against the US and Japan. all in all, I think the PLA has a window of about three days to knock Taiwan completely out of the war (air force/air defence destroyed, C2 non-existent, islets occupied etc) so in case the US does decide to join in the PLA will be fighting them on an equal footing without the handicap of having to deal with Taiwan.

drowingfish · Jan 31, 2022

tphuang said:
I'm not sure how can ROCAF hope to get 100 aircraft in the air. What we've seen in the past year is the current weakness of the Taiwanese air defense. At this point, ROCAF has shown that it will be completely at PLAAF's mercy in the future. ROCAF no longer attempts to intercept every PLAAF air group. Which has basically put their entire air defense structure at the mercy of PLAAF. Since Taiwan's air defense radar system is quite old, the PLAAF EW aircraft will pretty soon have a full understanding of all the main radar mode/signals used by the Taiwanese radar system and be able to deceive them. You can already see in some of the recent incursions where Taiwan thought 36 J-16s and 12 H-6s were coming at the same time in a really tight space in the southwest corner. These kind of things just don't seem to be plausible. All of these incursions have already caused ROCAF to fatigue to the point where they keep having fatal crashes. As PLAAF continues to introduce more J-16s/J-10Cs, you will see even larger/more frequent incursions. This type of activity really has a demoralizing effect on ROCAF. To the point where pilots are all either really old or really inexperienced. Why put your life at danger in a futile struggle when you can make a lot more money as commercial airline pilot? So ROCAF is right now an Air Force that is over fatigued but also have a lot of pilots without sufficient training. The intensity of PLAAF incursions have also taken a toll on ROCAF's ability to keep their aircraft functioning. Again, all of these will only get worse as PLAAF continues to improve. It's a pretty big change over 5 years ago when we still didn't know who was the better trained Air Force. Nowadays, it's clear PLAAF's elite units have much better training than ROCAF ones. Over time, the capability gap between the two will keep increasing.

One of the smart things PLAAF has done is normalizing this pattern where they continue to increase the tempo, size and complexity of their incursions. This shows a significant improvement in their operational capabilities and training. Again, things that we simply didn't see even 3 years ago. As they normalize these things, ROCAF will simply feel less urgency to be ready to fight back when China really does decide to do repeated incursion. Just imagine 5 years from now, PLAAF has figured out exactly how ROCAF reacts to every type of PLAAF incursions and all the air defense radar modes. They do a week of large incursions as they always have and ROCAF gets tired out and stops sending aircraft to incursion. Next you know, PLAAF comes into their usual location and do not turn back. Instead, they start manipulating Taiwanese air defense radar so Taiwan doesn't know what's coming. Then, the short range ballistic missiles start to come through and the radar are just not picking them up and J-16/Ds start launching ground attack missiles and ARM at the air bases, radar stations and SAM batteries. Knocks most of them offline. Now, the H-6s and other unsophisticated bomb truck come and drop a lot of guided and not guided bombs on all the major air fields around the country and destroy a good chunk of the ROCAF before they can take off. At the same time, most of the Taiwanese naval ships are activated, but are not equipped with modern SAMs or any air cover. They are going to be easy pickings for the flood of anti-ship missiles coming at them. At this point, the Taiwanese military will be very demoralized by what has already happened and ready to give up. I assume this is also when PLAN arrives with large amphibious warships over with attack helicopters and tanks. And for PLAAF transports to start air dropping troops in strategic locations.

ROCAF does their yearly demonstration of taking off from highways and such. But if they are already exhausted by a week of PLAAF incursion and lost out so much of their air defense infrastructure, why would we think they are capable of somehow rolling their aircraft to empty highways and get them off the ground. Keep in mind that PLAAF and ROCAF fighter jets have had their fair share of cat and mouse games. We are already at the point where PLAAF routinely locks on to ROCAF fighter jets. Do we think ROCAF is more likely to sacrifice pilots at this point or give up? PLAAF would've gotten to this Point with very little losses. The moment you are unable to put up defense when the other side comes with a large group of aircraft is the moment you lost the battle.

5 or 10 years ago, USAF planners would've assumed that a good chunk of China's ballistic missiles and cruise missiles would have to be devoted to taking out Taiwanese air defense. But in the current day, PLAAF is capable of achieving that goal without utilizing most of that BM/CM arsenal. That changes things quite a bit. It will allow more of those missiles to be used to target USAF bases in the pacific that can potentially reach Taiwan and any air bases in Japan that might make sense.

i agree with your last point. the idea of relying on BM to suppress Taiwan air defence is an outdated one rooted in the days when Taiwan had a superior air force. I would not be surprised if today's PLAAF can overpower ROCAF like the US did to Iraq in the gulf war. BM's will be reserved for more high-value targets rather than just runways.

Although I do not believe that BMs reserved for Taiwan will be redirected towards US bases. DF-17s will be used against US bases, and DF-11/15/16 will still be used against Taiwan.

pesoleati · Jan 31, 2022

tphuang said:
I find the idea that America can somehow deploy 400 F-22/35 to the theater to be unlikely. If we use my original timeline of 6 years from now, then USAF would have around 550 to 600 F-35As in service by then (about 300 now, 43 to 48 delivery by per year for the foreseeable future). Deploying even a quarter of that to Pacific theater would be hard to do since America has so much other commitment. The availability of F-22 is a lot lower (far and away the lowest in USAF and only about 110 is even in active/non national guard squadrons IIRC). Getting 1 squadron of F-22 is probably the most they can do. And as I described earlier, it would not be practical to expect more than 120 F-35B/Cs in theater. PLAAF would have a huge numbers advantage between J-20/J-35 in any conflict. On top of that, there should be a small number of H-20 and JH-20 available for combat by then.

Can you point out 'other commitments' American has that they have to keep large number of F35 for and with higher priority than defeating China? I don't think F22 is that much important here. F35 is the key player for US. F35's production number will be around 130 -150 this year, what make you think they can only get 43 to 48 delivered per year? With Japanese's support, it is entirely possible that USA can concentrate 1000 F35 over the battle of Taiwan 6 years from now. Yes, US will use 90% of their force to make sure US will be the winner of this war. They would be stupid if they do otherwise.

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