PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

I'm going to repost a couple of items where US commanders think China will outnumber US in 5th generation assets in the pacific by 2025 and already make it impossible for US to defend Taiwan.



I think F-35 induction is slower than people realize. Here is an idea of the current F-35A procurement by USAF. This is from September 27th.

The Air Force has signaled that it will buy about five fewer F-35s per year over the next few years, preferring to wait for the Block 4 jets as they start coming off the production line in fiscal 2023. It

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submitted to Congress, which has added 12 jets per year to the Air Force’s request for 48 jets in the last few years.

The Air Force currently fields about 300 of its planned 1,763 F-35s. If it continued to buy the jets at a rate of 48 per year, it would complete its purchases of the fighter in the early 2050s. Original plans called for the Air Force to buy F-35s at a rate of 110 per year starting in the mid-2010s. Current plans do not forecast an Air Force production increase before 2025 at the earliest.

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FY2022 defense authorization act: The FY2022 defense authorization bill funded F-35 procurement at $8.7 billion for 85 aircraft (48 F-35As, 17 F-35Bs, and 20 F-35Cs, the numbers requested by the Administration.) The joint explanatory statement accompanying the bill included language

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So for USAF, they are at around 300 F-35s and adding about 48 a year. They will get to around 600 in 6 years time. For F-35C, they only have 2 active squadrons at the moment. 1 for USS Carl Vinson and the other for testing and evaluations. No other carriers even have F-35Cs. In 6 years time, they might have half of the carrier groups with F-35Cs? Based on this, I actually have to reduce the number of F-35Cs that can be made available in a conflict. I'd guess 2 squadrons at most (that'd be 48 F-35Cs in total). And that's only if they are able to keep 2 carrier groups nearby with F-35Cs nearby. Easier said than done when only half of the carrier groups have F-35Cs and when USN have no certainty on when China might attack.

Due to F-35Bs shorter range, they are only usable if stationed on a LHD or taking off from one of the nearby islands. I do find it unlikely that US/Japan can keep Okinawa air base open. I'd assume the initial wave of attacks will take the radar and SAMs offline. After that, you could rebuild command structure, but replacing destroyed SAMs and radar station would take a lot longer time. Under this scenario, it's hard for me to see how these air bases can fend off attacks from even JH-7 series aircraft and UAVs if it doesn't have operational radar station or SAMs or command stations. I don't think they will need many stand-off missiles to keep them offline once attacking aircraft. Guided bombs can do most of the damage. The other islands off Japan would be much less well defended and have fewer people to do the repairs. Therefore, I think it would be even easier to keep them offline. Imo, USMC could deploy at most 3 LHDs in the region, which would be about 60 F-35Bs at most. And the F-35Bs will have much lower endurance than F-35Cs.

Which brings us back to F-35As. They should be operable from most JASDF air bases. I don't think Japan will allow USAF to operate them from civilian airports and risk getting large airports bombed. That'd be crazy. They also probably would not want USAF to operate from near major population centers and risk those getting bombed. It also doesn't make sense for USAF to fly from that far out since that just reduces the range and loiter time of their aircraft. I haven't looked a how many air bases Shikoku and Kyushu. But those are the places where you'd want to operate F-35As. How many of these air bases have fortified shelter for the fighter jets and some level of air defense battery and support staff to help keep the airport going? I don't think the number is going to be that high. I also don't think USAF will be willing to deploy more than 1/3 of its F-35As in the region when there is still homeland security, NATO and Middle East commitments. That would be a really tough sell for the American public. But I think the bigger limiting factor is just how many Japanese air bases actually make sense for USAF to operate out of? I don't think the number is that large. Those are also unlikely the places where Japan put its best air defence system at. And they will be facing daily cruise missile strikes. That causes a lot of operational disruption.

It is 800 miles from FUK airport to TPE airport. So 700 to 900 miles is about how far F-35As would need to go in order to get into action. That is right at the edge of F-35A combat radius without refueling. I'm assuming it would be higher than that with drop tanks. But either way, there is an obvious big limit if tankers are not around. We can have a discussion how well larger tankers can survive when a lot of J-20s are around. I think USAF will at least have to plan for the scenario where a good number of its tankers don't make it.

On the other end, I think PLAAF has a lot of advantages here. It is 400 miles from PVG to TPE airport. It is 580 miles from WUH to TPE. Most of the air bases where J-20 would operate from will be a lot closer to Taiwan. More importantly, the PLAAF tankers will be well protected by China's air defense system. They can fly within Chinese airspace and still refuel J-20s coming back. On top of that, J-20s should have more fuel capacity than F-35A due to its size. Therefore, you are likely to get a lot more mileage out of J-20s than F-35As. Only the F-35Cs are likely to match the sortie rate and endurance of J-20s.

Again, I must emphasize that having stealth bombers and fighter bombers is a big part of this. That helps keeping Okinawa and Japanese air bases offline without having to deploy a lot of cruise missiles. Having complete air dominance over Taiwan in the initial part of the war without using medium/longer range cruise/ballistic missiles are the other part of this. Taiwan having 350 PAC missiles are not useful when SAMs have no air protection. Those will get neutralized by PLAAF without a lot of loss. In the past, war planners would always assume that a large portion of Chinese land based missiles would be utilized in taking out Taiwanese air defence. That's simply no longer the case. This makes a huge difference.

tphuang said:

I don't think Japan will allow USAF to operate them from civilian airports and risk getting large airports bombed. That'd be crazy.

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Pretty much all has been already said so i'll just comment on this one more line.
To wave one's hand at it and not prepare for that eventuality, considering it crazy - could be a mistake for any Chinese commander.
Operating existing runways (civilian ones) is an option like any other for the US and Japan. It has its drawbacks and its strong points. If the US/JP decide the pros outweigh the cons, they'd definitely use them. So, it can't be categorically labeled as nearly impossible.

Totoro said:

Pretty much all has been already said so i'll just comment on this one more line.
To wave one's hand at it and not prepare for that eventuality, considering it crazy - could be a mistake for any Chinese commander.
Operating existing runways (civilian ones) is an option like any other for the US and Japan. It has its drawbacks and its strong points. If the US/JP decide the pros outweigh the cons, they'd definitely use them. So, it can't be categorically labeled as nearly impossible.

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Exactly. At the very least China has to prepare to fight both the forces of both the US + Japan. Not to mention other anglo countries like UK and Canada. The US alone is only a part of the US empire. Fortunately Japan is killing itself with the low birthrates and idiotic corporate culture and will become much weaker in 20 years.

tphuang said:

It is 800 miles from FUK airport to TPE airport. So 700 to 900 miles is about how far F-35As would need to go in order to get into action. That is right at the edge of F-35A combat radius without refueling. I'm assuming it would be higher than that with drop tanks. But either way, there is an obvious big limit if tankers are not around. We can have a discussion how well larger tankers can survive when a lot of J-20s are around. I think USAF will at least have to plan for the scenario where a good number of its tankers don't make it.

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For a J-20 with a pair of drop tanks, I ended up with a figure of an additional 1100km of cruise range. So you could have J-20s based on the Chinese interior running with drop tanks before the drop tanks are jettisoned shortly offshore. That gets around the issue of outbound airborne refueling for the J-20. That potentially applies to inbound airborne refueling as well.

The F-22 can do something similar with drop tanks, although its internal fuel load looks like only half of the J-20. Plus if I look at basing options, the F-22 has to jettison its drop tanks much further away from its mission areas than a J-20 would.

I would also assume that the F-35 will have drop tanks in the future, if not already. But again, it still faces similar issues as the F-23 in terms of fuel capacity, range and when the drop tanks have to be jettisoned.

For stealth fighters, the larger internal fuel load of the J-20 looks like a much better design decision in the context of long range operations and not being reliant on large vulnerable tankers

Totoro said:

Japan getting involved in such a war is a given, really.
And with many bases being literally shared by US and JPN forces, with incursions of Chinese assets into JPN territory and JPN SAMs shooting at Chinese planes, and JPNs SAM assets being attacked by China - it's basically inevitable that Japan would very quickly go all in against China, since the US be there, also all-in, as well.
If for any reason Japan DOESN'T want to get involved - the US would choose not to participate in the war either. Japan is simply that crucial.

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A hypothetical question.

In your opinion, how big of a military would China need in order to deter the USA and/or Japan from choosing to go to war with China?
That arguably is the biggest question from the Chinese side.

For example, China having 30% more supercarriers than the USA for blue water sea control in the Western Pacific; 30% more stealth fighters than a combined Japan/USA, parity on nuclear weapons etc etc

Based on that, it's straightforward to come up with costings and potential timeframes.

Chinese military strategy and planning won’t be based around deterrence, but combat victory and expected cost of victory.

If in doing so they achieve deterrence and can win without having to fight the US, so much the better. If not, then they will still win but at higher cost.

plawolf said:

Chinese military strategy and planning won’t be based around deterrence, but combat victory and expected cost of victory.

If in doing so they achieve deterrence and can win without having to fight the US, so much the better. If not, then they will still win but at higher cost.

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I would say China's strategy is to win without fighting at all.

Hence successfully deterring the US is key, which will impact the calculations of Taiwan.

AndrewS said:

A hypothetical question.

In your opinion, how big of a military would China need in order to deter the USA and/or Japan from choosing to go to war with China?
That arguably is the biggest question from the Chinese side.

For example, China having 30% more supercarriers than the USA for blue water sea control in the Western Pacific; 30% more stealth fighters than a combined Japan/USA, parity on nuclear weapons etc etc

Based on that, it's straightforward to come up with costings and potential timeframes.

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Not that person but I think it will depend on the quality of the quantity especially over aircraft. Having a big military means nothing if they have bad equipment and lose air superiority

Now IMO. I don’t see anything deterring the US if push comes to shove. The public will go into Warhawk mode and the politicians have to force the military to take action due to public pressure.

If a war does happen. I think China needs enough air and missile assets to keep the US at bay until Taiwan is fully controlled and turned into a fortress plus some time after.

sndef888 said:

Exactly. At the very least China has to prepare to fight both the forces of both the US + Japan. Not to mention other anglo countries like UK and Canada. The US alone is only a part of the US empire. Fortunately Japan is killing itself with the low birthrates and idiotic corporate culture and will become much weaker in 20 years.

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This kind of comment is just not helpful. That's not how US or Japan or UK/Canada works. It's no secret that the past 2 years have been terrible for China in public opinion polls around the world. I don't want to get in an argument on the reasons, but that's what the polls are showing. As such, support against Chinese influence has risen in a lot of Western democracies. If China does make a real invasion of Taiwan, these countries responses will be tied to public opinions and their likelihood to repel a Chinese attack. Believe it or not, most Americans don't want to get dragged into long wars and see huge inflation because of supply chain disruptions or full blown trade wars. And as a pacifist country with a really old population, Japan has even less desire to get in a war.

Of course, if I'm a Chinese commander, I have to prepare for the possibility that Japan will go full on into a conflict. However, the Japanese public will not stand for their government allowing USAF to use major civilian airports and getting large populations bombed. That's craziness. Even more crazy than US generals thinking that the Taiwanese are going to wage a guerrilla warfare against mainland invasion. At most, Japan will let USAF use some of its military bases that are closer to Taiwan. I'm sure in that scenario, they'd anticipate facing Chinese missile attacks/bombers in those bases. A full blown war would be disastrous for the Japanese economy. Why would Japanese public tolerate that when Taiwan itself might not put up more than a couple of days of fight?

And even if Japan does get involved, how much additional hardware can it provide US? It would have to station F-35/F-15s in the same air bases that USAF would want to operate from. It would face the same range issues that USAF F-35s would face. There are finite capacity that those air bases can hold. If JASDF F-35s are there, then USAF F-35s can't be there.

As many have observed, one of the biggest questions is the involvement of US forces and bases on the Ryukus.

It seems, to me, that, should Japan allow US forces stationed there to participate, either actively or passively, in any anti-China campaign, this would, by necessity, invite (require) China to target and neutralize those forces and their bases. (And, I believe this to be true of any country in the region, as well.)

A question this potential scenario raises is whether Japan would consider such an attack upon Japanese territory as an outright declaration of war upon Japan as a whole. Under such circumstances, the Japan/US “alliance” might be emboldened to attempt attacks against the Chinese mainland (which, according to my assumptions, would be avoided, initially). I can only see this as ending poorly for all involved, with Japan being the biggest loser.

So, for me, the biggest question in the East China Sea, western Pacific, is what role will the Ryukus play!