PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

tphuang said:

I mean expend. you want to quickly get Taiwan to give up without using most of your inventory.

ballistic missiles and cruise missiles are expensive. They can be intercepted. You can't replace them quickly. You can't keep air bases offline with them.

bombs are less expensive and quite numerous. You can even put satellite guidance kits (like LS-6) on dumb bombs and have them glide to the right location. You can even drop 1000 KG bunker busters. H-20 can carry 20 ton of munition and bomb a target. it's a lot harder to recover an air base after 20 ton of destruction vs. few ballistic/cruise missiles. cruise/ballistic missiles are good to exhaust or takeout the air defense of that air base. H-20 is good to actually take it out.

All of this assumes H-20 will be VLO and be available in non trivial numbers. Even if they have 10 H-20s, it would be a pretty bid deal.

Click to expand...

going back to the point you made a while ago, I think JPN has more than enough airports to accormodate large quantity of USAF fighters, maybe with a lower sortie but i dont expect them to be grounded for long or largely destroyed on the ground

so USAF will deploy many of its units to the theater

tphuang said:

I mean expend. you want to quickly get Taiwan to give up without using most of your inventory.

ballistic missiles and cruise missiles are expensive. They can be intercepted. You can't replace them quickly. You can't keep air bases offline with them.

bombs are less expensive and quite numerous. You can even put satellite guidance kits (like LS-6) on dumb bombs and have them glide to the right location. You can even drop 1000 KG bunker busters. H-20 can carry 20 ton of munition and bomb a target. it's a lot harder to recover an air base after 20 ton of destruction vs. few ballistic/cruise missiles. cruise/ballistic missiles are good to exhaust or takeout the air defense of that air base. H-20 is good to actually take it out.

All of this assumes H-20 will be VLO and be available in non trivial numbers. Even if they have 10 H-20s, it would be a pretty bid deal.

Click to expand...

If missiles can take out air defenses, then why do you need a stealth bomber? Any old bomb truck would be enough to do the job.

Bltizo said:

People on this forum have recently talked about how China could use long range conventional hypersonic weapons to strike at US production facilities in CONTUS for this specific reason

Click to expand...

Tactical nuclear weapon HGVs, please. Thank you.

tphuang said:

Also, you cannot keep Japanese/US bases offline with ballistic missiles or cruise missiles. There is not enough of them. They can't do enough damage that the repair crew won't be able to fix up. PLAAF will have to rely on H-20 to keep those bases offline.

Click to expand...

Why not? PLARF is not gonna target the runways. They are gonna target the fuel depots. Try to resupply the island bases with ships is not gonna be easy

I don't believe there's any "Taiwan contingency" scenario independent of a broader Westpac conflict. I'd go further than Bltizo's take that China should pause a landing on Taiwan if the US interfered to handle it first before resuming the amphibious assault. I'm saying cut out the middleman entirely and just go after the US from day one. The US is the problem, not Taiwan - with the US defeated and gone, Taiwan will be resolved with a phone call.

This pushes the timeline for resolution out around a couple of decades from now, but that's always been the real state of play. China can never completely discount the possibility that the US would intervene, thus it would always plan to take it on. Given this, I think we should look beyond bean counting LSTs/LPDs/LHDs, etc. and consider more broadly what military capabilities China would require and what changes to its economy would be necessary to address its vulnerabilities. To that end, I propose the following:

1. A nuclear deterrent that is at least at rough parity with the US qualitatively and quantitatively and adopting a launch-on-warning posture.
2. Novel capabilities like intercontinental HGVs/powered hypersonic missiles with tactical nuclear weapons to credibly threaten soft military-industrial targets on the US mainland to deter the US from launching even purely conventional strikes on similar targets in China.
3. A bomber and missile force sufficient to shut down US and allied bases (principally Japan) for the duration of the conflict. H-20s will be particularly useful during the initial phases.
4. An amphibious "island hopping" campaign in the Pacific to seize US holdings like Okinawa and Guam.
5. Carrier fleets sufficient to provide the firepower and distant ISR for this campaign.

That's the PLA part. The following is a bit OT but I feel should be mentioned in the broader scope:

1. The decarbonization of China's economy. I feel people sleep on this one, but China's plans to be carbon neutral by 2060 have enormous strategic implications. By fully electrifying its economy and powering it with secure sources like nuclear and renewables, China would be immune to an interdiction of its hydrocarbon imports. Total decarbonization is unnecessary, just decarbonization sufficient for domestic and friendly nearby suppliers (like Russia) to meet.
2. Reduced trade dependency of the Chinese economy. Trade can and should still expand, but its share of GDP should contract.
3. Technological self-sufficiency in critical sectors like semiconductors so China would be immune from sanctions.
4. Dedollarization of the Chinese financial system for obvious reasons.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I don't believe there's any "Taiwan contingency" scenario independent of a broader Westpac conflict. I'd go further than Bltizo's take that China should pause a landing on Taiwan if the US interfered to handle it first before resuming the amphibious assault. I'm saying cut out the middleman entirely and just go after the US from day one. The US is the problem, not Taiwan - with the US defeated and gone, Taiwan will be resolved with a phone call.

This pushes the timeline for resolution out around a couple of decades from now, but that's always been the real state of play. China can never completely discount the possibility that the US would intervene, thus it would always plan to take it on. Given this, I think we should look beyond bean counting LSTs/LPDs/LHDs, etc. and consider more broadly what military capabilities China would require and what changes to its economy would be necessary to address its vulnerabilities. To that end, I propose the following:

1. A nuclear deterrent that is at least at rough parity with the US qualitatively and quantitatively and adopting a launch-on-warning posture.
2. Novel capabilities like intercontinental HGVs/powered hypersonic missiles with tactical nuclear weapons to credibly threaten soft military-industrial targets on the US mainland to deter the US from launching even purely conventional strikes on similar targets in China.
3. A bomber and missile force sufficient to shut down US and allied bases (principally Japan) for the duration of the conflict. H-20s will be particularly useful during the initial phases.
4. An amphibious "island hopping" campaign in the Pacific to seize US holdings like Okinawa and Guam.
5. Carrier fleets sufficient to provide the firepower and distant ISR for this campaign.

That's the PLA part. The following is a bit OT but I feel should be mentioned in the broader scope:

1. The decarbonization of China's economy. I feel people sleep on this one, but China's plans to be carbon neutral by 2060 have enormous strategic implications. By fully electrifying its economy and powering it with secure sources like nuclear and renewables, China would be immune to an interdiction of its hydrocarbon imports. Total decarbonization is unnecessary, just decarbonization sufficient for domestic and friendly nearby suppliers (like Russia) to meet.
2. Reduced trade dependency of the Chinese economy. Trade can and should still expand, but its share of GDP should contract.
3. Technological self-sufficiency in critical sectors like semiconductors so China would be immune from sanctions.
4. Dedollarization of the Chinese financial system for obvious reasons.

Click to expand...

I think the gist of your post, including the part about the decarbonization, is that if China had the luxury of time, it should just push out the US influence in the area. Which I agree can be done without escalation into warfare, provided the US was also unwilling to start a war.

Unfortunately, that's the key point. Mainland is not going to start armed reunificiation without Taiwan declaring independence. Taiwan is not going to declare independence without US approval. So it all goes back to, will the US risk starting a war with China over West Pacific influence?

Their window of opportunity is slipping away quickly, so any hot conflict will happen in the next decade, or not at all.

caohailiang said:

going back to the point you made a while ago, I think JPN has more than enough airports to accormodate large quantity of USAF fighters, maybe with a lower sortie but i dont expect them to be grounded for long or largely destroyed on the ground

so USAF will deploy many of its units to the theater

Click to expand...

The number of bases USAF would actually be able to usage is much smaller than that due to distance from Taiwan theater, shelter protection and air defense. If they can knock out all the military bases that's within a reasonable distance from Taiwan (as in within F-35A combat radius) and harass US tankers, then there really isn't much point for USAF to participate in the affair.

solarz said:

If missiles can take out air defenses, then why do you need a stealth bomber? Any old bomb truck would be enough to do the job.

Click to expand...

it's not going to take it out completely. Taking out local air defense and long range air defense warning system is different. There will also probably be aircraft in the air that would have no issue tracking H-6.

H-20s are very important. If they send H-20 with J-20 EW variant as escort, they can probably get in completely undetected and just bomb away.

vincent said:

Why not? PLARF is not gonna target the runways. They are gonna target the fuel depots. Try to resupply the island bases with ships is not gonna be easy

Click to expand...

They can probably overcome Okinawa and ryuku islands like that. Longer ranged stuff would be harder to overcome with all the Patriot missiles. More importantly, how are you doing to take out all fuel supply from Guam or Kyushu or Shikoku with just ballistic missiles?

long range cruise missiles alone cannot do this. You need to drop a lot of guided bombs targeting command centers, fuel depots, runways, radar installations, air defense batteries. For long range targets like Guam, you really need H-20s. For Japan, you can send a fleet of EW aircraft, bombers, strike aircraft and escorts, but they'd be more at risk.

1. A nuclear deterrent that is at least at rough parity with the US qualitatively and quantitatively and adopting a launch-on-warning posture.
2. Novel capabilities like intercontinental HGVs/powered hypersonic missiles with tactical nuclear weapons to credibly threaten soft military-industrial targets on the US mainland to deter the US from launching even purely conventional strikes on similar targets in China.
3. An amphibious "island hopping" campaign in the Pacific to seize US holdings like Okinawa and Guam.

Click to expand...

US public is not looking for an all out war with China (aside from few fringe extremist elements). Don't turn this into one. Keep conflict localized and don't do permanent damage with your largest trade partner.

tphuang said:

it's not going to take it out completely. Taking out local air defense and long range air defense warning system is different. There will also probably be aircraft in the air that would have no issue tracking H-6.

Click to expand...

Where would those aircrafts be coming from? China will be heavily degrading the operational effectiveness of all American air bases with missiles alone. Any remaining operational aircrafts will be limited in number and can be taken out by escort fighters.

I feel there's this unspoken assumption here that if even one American aircraft can still fly, then the PLAAF is in mortal danger.

tphuang said:

They can probably overcome Okinawa and ryuku islands like that. Longer ranged stuff would be harder to overcome with all the Patriot missiles. More importantly, how are you doing to take out all fuel supply from Guam or Kyushu or Shikoku with just ballistic missiles?

long range cruise missiles alone cannot do this. You need to drop a lot of guided bombs targeting command centers, fuel depots, runways, radar installations, air defense batteries. For long range targets like Guam, you really need H-20s. For Japan, you can send a fleet of EW aircraft, bombers, strike aircraft and escorts, but they'd be more at risk.

Click to expand...

China doesn't need to completely destroy all American bases to win the war. Sure US can resupply from Guam, just like China can resupply from Sichuan.

The objective here is to take back Taiwan and beat back an American attack on Chinese forces.

Sure, H-20 is nice when they come into service, but they're not indispensable. The PLA can get the job done with the tools they have now.

Taking out air base and keeping them unusable with cruise missiles/ballistic missiles is really expensive. We can see that with the Syrian example where 59 cruise missiles could not stop Syrian planes from taking off less than a day later

This article examined how many cruise missiles are needed to just take out SCS air bases where repairs are limited

Disabling the airstrips themselves would be an even taller order. The United States fired 59 Tomahawks at the Shayrat Air Base in Syria in 2017, all but one of which hit, yet the runway was back in operation just a few hours later. Considering that China has deployed

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

and constructed

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

at all these bases, some percentage of missiles fired would never reach their target. And much of the infrastructure has been hardened, including China’s

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, and

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

. The most effective means of cratering the runways themselves would be to drop heavier ordnance from the air, but that would put high-value U.S. bombers at unacceptable risk in a secondary theater (more on that below). So a safer bet would be to just focus on hitting key information nodes with longer-range munitions. A hundred cruise missiles per outpost would not be an unreasonable estimate to effectively disable the bases. That amounts to 300 missiles just for the major bases in the Spratlys, another 100 for Woody Island, and dozens more if the United States wanted to disable smaller facilities (for instance, the

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

on Duncan Island that would likely be used for anti-submarine warfare operations).

Click to expand...

Here is link about USAF's ability to repair runways

Now think about facing well protected air defense protected by a whole lot of Patriot missiles, short range air defense systems around these places. How many missiles would be needed in a scenario like that?

China absolutely do need to keep Guam and south/western Japanese military bases out of action in the event of a US intervention. And they have a much better chance of doing so with H-20s in service. After initial H-20 bombing, you still needed repeated bombing by less capable bomb/strike fighter groups after the air defense/command structure is degraded.

solarz said:

Unfortunately, that's the key point. Mainland is not going to start armed reunificiation without Taiwan declaring independence. Taiwan is not going to declare independence without US approval. So it all goes back to, will the US risk starting a war with China over West Pacific influence?

Their window of opportunity is slipping away quickly, so any hot conflict will happen in the next decade, or not at all.

Click to expand...

I don't believe so. I believe the US is fundamentally too cowardly to start wars with countries like Russia and China, so all China needs to do for the near term is freeze the status quo. That will do just fine while the balance of power continues to shift in the background. China has long been able to inflict enough damage on the US and its allies to deter them from starting a war, and I expect that to continue.

This, however, is contingent on China improving and expanding its nuclear deterrent as quickly as possible. I believe those three silo fields should reach at least some form of operational capacity by 2025, when a certain insane former president might seize power. That alone will do a great deal for China's security.

tphuang said:

US public is not looking for an all out war with China (aside from few fringe extremist elements). Don't turn this into one. Keep conflict localized and don't do permanent damage with your largest trade partner.

Click to expand...

I dispute your premise that the US public is not looking for an all out war with China. The only thing keeping them from that is the damage China would be able to inflict on them in retaliation - which is precisely why I advocate China expanding its nuclear arsenal to parity, which you quoted as an objectionable suggestion. Fortunately for me (and perhaps unfortunately for you), the Chinese leadership seems to share my view on this subject.

The US public must understand that the damage China can inflict on them is catastrophic. They and the politicians they are elect are the ones who brought it to this.

There is no keeping the conflict localized and that's entirely America's fault. There wouldn't even be a conflict if it wasn't sticking its nose into China's affairs. But that's just fine, China is going to make sure that for however long America exists, it will never again aspire to the place in the world it had in the post WWII order.