PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Aval said:
I'd been mulling over this myself, and I've arrived at 2035 being the optimistic estimate and 2040 being the more cautious one. This is basically napkin maths, but I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions on timeframes versus my own speculation.

Acute geopolitical events aside (which are unpredictable over a 10-15 timeframe anyhow), I believe China is waiting for maturation of key civilian industries and military systems as a prerequisite for Armed Reunification due to consideration of worst-case assumptions.

There worst-case assumptions are:
  • AR would cause complete Western bloc military intervention
  • AR, regardless of outcome, ends the post-WW2 world order and thus China's current economic trend of sustained, smooth growth
The key prerequisites for AR are namely:
  • Semiconductors and AI
  • Next-gen air force
  • Carrier fleets for blue water ops
Semiconductors and AI, along with other technologies like sustained nuclear fusion for cheap energy, are critical for the 4th Industrial Revolution and the immense productivity benefits it brings. This is a prime chance for China to leap ahead of the Rest of World (ROW), like Britain did with the 1st Industrial Revolution. China's EUV prototype is currently nearing completion but hasn't produced chips yet, which places it around 2010 of ASML's EUV project that reached mass production in 2019. So, 9 more years from now until Chinese EUVs start mass production, and then 5 more years to finish scaling with multiple EUV foundries established and Chinese chips flooding the high-end market worldwide. That's 2039.

Next-gen military air force structure, including 6th-gen fighters for tactical overmatch, KJ-3000 and co. for comprehensive anti-stealth, and H-20 for affordable long-distance strategic strikes are all crucial for overmatch in peer conflicts and would ultimately be the weapon that determines the new world order. Chinese 5th-gen broke cover in 2011, achieved IOC in 2017 and reached FOC with military significant numbers (equal numbers of J-20s to F-22s) around 2022. So, for 6th-gens the extrapolation is 6 more years until J-36/50 achieve IOC and then 5 more years until there's enough military mass. That's 2036.

Aircraft carriers, especially CVNs, are necessary for global power projection. While not necessary for AR, we can expect a war over Taiwan to be a spark leading immediately to chaos and opportunities worldwide. Should China win regionally (i.e., AR), then it would strongly benefit an existing fleet of CVNs capable of true blue water ops to immediately seize opportunities and and set a new world order. Type-003 Fujian was laid down in 2017, launched in 2022, IOC in 2025 and likely FOC in 2027, which is 10 years. The first CVN (likely a testbed like Type-001 and Type-003) is under construction and won't be finished until 2028, at which point the improved CVN slated for mass-production should be laid down, and likely multiple concurrently. So, it will be 10 more years since then for their FOC. That's 2038.

Based on China's tendency towards caution, I'd say 2040 is more likely. The centenary of both the People's Republic and the end of Century of Humiliation is still 9 years away, in 2049. A rough date of 2040 for armed reunification leaves a buffer of 5-9 years for prerequisite delays or a protracted total war (for reference, WW2 was 6 years).
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The Reuters report said the target for the first Chinese EUV chips is 2028, but that 2030 is more likely. Then add a few years to work out the bugs and scale up production.

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Also remember that you can use DUV machines to make chips, but you just need more chips (and electricity) to get the same performance.

Last year, NYTimes was reporting that SMIC's de-Americanised fab had gone past pilot production, presumably using Chinese DUV machines. There is currently a ~3? year stockpile of ASML DUV machines in China, so my guess is that in 4 years time, we'll see a lot of Chinese DUV machines being delivered.

Bernstein also project that in 2028, China's overall AI semiconductor production will catch up to Chinese demand, and China will become a net exporter of AI semiconductors. I think this is because most future AI applications will be used in embodied products (like a $5K Unitree humanoid robot or $10K electric vehicle) and can't justify NVidia chips that use EUV and cost thousands.

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My read of the military balance is:

~2030: At a minimum, China capabilities would be able to impose an air-sea blockade of the 1IC relatively easily (including Japan and the Philippines). But I think air-sea superiority is more likely.

~2035-2040: China will likely be able to win blue-water naval-air battles in the 2IC, and be able to seal off the Western Pacific. (Currently the US can hope to resupply Taiwan, along with Japan and the Philippines). If the US recognises this, then an armed reunification will not be necessary, and there will likely be a negotiated settlement like Hong Kong.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Temstar said:
I've been tracking down supergun discussion in Chinese social media which resulting in me to finding this article:
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This is an aerodynamic analysis for extremely long range guided artillery rounds, the proposed round, intended for a 300mm gun with the goal of maximising range looked like this:

View attachment 167510

Muzzle velocity out of the gun is 700m/s. Projectile weight 530kg with 230kg of filling (surely meaning rocket propellent here). Launch angle is 55 degrees. The rocket assist kicks in 10 seconds after firing and provides a further 1000m/s or so during flight over a 40 second burn time. Maximum altitude reached is 55,620m. Before reaching maximum altitude the shells flies in an unguided mode with the four small canards undeployed.

The paper at this point simulates two scenarios:

1. Unguided flight - the canards remain undeployed and the round flies under pure inertia

Velocity over time:
View attachment 167512
Ballistic trajectory:
View attachment 167513
The round ends up travelling 280km over 241s of flight. Impact velocity in the area of 1200m/s


2. Guided flight - the canards deploy and maximises round glide ratio with an AoA between 5 to 8 degrees
View attachment 167514
In this scenario the round flies 420km and impacts at about 297.8m/s, thus trading impact velocity for a 33% range improvement.

Scaling this up to a 400mm gun, adding some other innovations (ramjet, better glide vehicle, higher muzzle velocity etc) and maybe 1200km could be reachable.

300mm gun with 420km range already has some interesting applications.
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It's not really an artillery round anymore, as that implies the artillery gun provides most of the impulse.

43% of munition weight is rocket fuel, which provides the vast majority of the impulse/range.
So I think it is better to call this a rocket which happens to receive an initial boost from being fired from an artillery barrel.
 
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A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Ringsword said:
We had better believe that in an ARTW situation that PLA SF's will try to capture key gov't offices/official while securing/neutralizing entire defences(as bloodless as possible)-it is all or nothing and after the head of this hydra is cutoff remember this monster bleeds from Washington and Tokyo and has to be dealt with accordingly-no small or easy task with enormous repercussions for China/world.Venezuela and indeed all Latin American countries are entirely different .
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It's more likely the PLA special forces would decapitate rather than capture key government officials/offices that are hostile.

EDIT. Just a thought. Has the DPP ever considered that in a wartime scenario, the PLA would seek to eliminate the DPP? I could see a thousand people on such a kill list, down to the local town and village level.
 
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plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Acauntis said:
Thats one of the things keeping the supposed stealth Z-20 program alive
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Absolutely not. The stealth Z20 programme was primarily designed for CSR missions in the Taiwan Strait and even on Taiwan island itself, to give the PLAAF greater safety margins and options when it comes to rescuing downed aircrews in contested zones or even behind enemy lines.

If anyone proposed a project for launching snatch and grab ops against heads of states in the PLA, they would not so much as be laughed out of the room as be laughed into a mental asylum psyche ward for monitoring and evaluation.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
siegecrossbow said:
If they paid off the body guards so that they purposefully get on a Z-20 instead of a Blackhawk due to “misidentification under low light conditions”, then yes. But what’s the point? There are other DPP politicians who’d love the promotion. You have to not only decapitate the hydra but cauterize the wounds as well so heads don’t grow back.
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AndrewS said:
It's more likely the PLA special forces would decapitate rather than capture key government officials/offices that are hostile.

EDIT. Just a thought. Has the DPP ever considered that in a wartime scenario, the PLA would seek to eliminate the DPP? I could see a thousand people on such a kill list, down to the local town and village level.
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An actual decapitation strike requires destroying all C&C infrastructure, not just eliminating the president. The Israelis tried this against Iran in the war last year, but despite their string of claimed successes, Iran was still able to retaliate.
 
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votran

Junior Member
Registered Member
solarz said:
An actual decapitation strike requires destroying all C&C infrastructure, not just eliminating the president. The Israelis tried this against Iran in the war last year, but despite their string of claimed successes, Iran was still able to retaliate.
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decapitation strike not only come from hard physical strike , if any nation dare to do that alone they gonna either end up like russia early 2022 or worst , even if they manage to win somehow that gonna be very costly victory

large part of it come from non-physical effort before the real strike happen . sactions , economic attack , blockable , sabotage ....etc destroy the target country economy , ability to make money , trash population quality of life to the point they basically low-key welcome invader , ready to sell out their boss/gov offical/president/leader once invader offer a better deal

US will not able to captured maduro easy like that if they don't heavily saction , sabotage venezuela to hell , ruin the country economy , trash the population quality of life so much for years before launching final strike , same as what they did with iraq

i dont know why i need to keep repeating this ...tbh this is how to regime chance 101 basic of basic for thousand of years already
 
V

votran

Junior Member
Registered Member
drowingfish said:
why is it that the US did this one thing, and suddenly people are trying to superimpose it on a scenario that has no resemblance with one another? absolutely China will not be replicating this venezuela move in Taiwan.
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can't even if they want to . maduro being sold out by lower rank offical , venezuela air defense slient , military have zero interest to protect the gov/country , population also have zero interest to fight .

people often don't like or willing to do those thing if their country not yet FUBAR

specially if we talk about taiwan case
 
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Tomboy

Tomboy

Captain
Registered Member
another505 said:
Ya, i don't really buy the super gun idea.

If it's a typical high velocity gunpowder cannon, that range is absurd and the gun barrel life will be very short, expensive and time consuming to replace. When it's being replaced, the ship or gun is doing nothing.

If it's an assisted rocket boast and other stuff, why not just have a missile instead? The rocket is already doing the heavy lifting, might as well make the rocket bigger and do the whole thing

The only option is a 400mm rail gun and I would be very impressed if china pulls it off.
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There are other technologies that can help with barrel life such as ETC technology, one of the big barriers to using it on tanks is the large amount of electrical power it needs however considering this gun is meant to be a ground based or naval platform, this should not be an issue. It could allow high muzzle velocity while also offering much reduced barrel use per shot.

As for gun vs missile, a guided projectile with a simple solid fuel ramjet is still going to be much cheaper than a cruise missile with a turbofan even assuming the same guidance package. Solid fuel ramjets are very easy and cheap to manufacture compared to turbofans, even single use ones in cruise missile. Also, you could carry much more shells compared to VLS for the same given volume in a ship allowing for sustained strikes over long distance all the while being cheaper per strike compared to ballistic or cruise missiles.
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
meez said:
But the problem remains the Chinese prototype was as big as factory floor according to report in reuters , compared to asml euv which is as big as a truck ,
so they need to minimise the euv homebuilt machine if they want it for mass production
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A “factory floor” is an extremely ambiguous description and might as well be indistinguishable in size from a truck. Not all factory floors are the size of giant warehouses, and it’s not clear to me if the factory floor description is just a reflection of the prototype being in a modularly assembled state to make it easier to do development work. When everything is packed together it’s much harder to do the constant repair, adjustment, and component swapping that’s typical of the development process. Either way size of the equipment is not really an issue here since they basically are all large enough to require very large exclusively dedicated spaces in fabs.

bsdnf said:
They will try, but if there is really no other way, consumers will absorb these costs.

How good could ASML's earliest prototypes really be? If EUV is just manufactured and not used, how can it be gradually refined and improved? If that's the idea, then there's no point in even planning to do EUV in the first place; you'll never succeed.
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ASML’s light source power was only at 10 watts in 2010. Figures thrown around for the Shenzhen instrument seem to range between 150 and 400 watts.
 
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