PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

BasilicaLew said:

They might not have to, if Russia was a acutally advanced country with a advanced airforce they would've shot down Ukrainian aircraft in NATO airspace, which is totally fair game.

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Russia can't reach into most of Ukraine, and you ask for NATO which is even further. Politics aside, situation is different, Ukraine is a big country. Yes, Ukrainian jets sometimes run into NATO airspace when hard pressed, but after literally first day of war it never happened because they were running away from chasing flankers.

Taiwan can be encircled, and 100% of Taiwanese airspace can be engaged from the air(or with cued SAM) even without entering it. This doesn't mean ROCAF can't escape at all, but since later 2010s they don't have no brainer escape geography.

Almond98 said:

Plus stationing their fighter jets to other countries is not going to help taiwan either. the respond time would be way slow.

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Some of Japanese airstrips are quite close. This is a shaky and political thing (internment/breaching neutrality/possibility of sudden resurrections) which I personally avoid.

Decision in any case will be taken at the very top in Beijing and Tokyo. I am deeply skeptical Japan will remain outside of this conflict though: Taiwan has no value as Ukraine, it's valuable in it's own right.

manqiangrexue said:

Did you ever play a bootleg or beta game that keeps crashing/glitching/lagging/freezing? You didn't wanna play it for long, did you? That's probably how ROCAF pilots felt flying the "upgraded" F-16s.

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Sometimes bootleg/hacked games are better. I remember playing an arcade romhack version of Street Fighter 2 where you could do fireballs in the air and switch characters, it was a blast. The ROCAF just wished the F-16 romhack was using the PL-15

Gloire_bb said:

It shouldn't be the main limitation(how power will limit RWR in the first place, it isn't Voyager outside of solar system). The problem is different. As far as I understand, Vs as of yet didn't update defensive subsystems, it's only coming for vipers in the coming years(either AN/ALQ-257 domestic, AN/ALQ-254 export, incl. Taiwan). I.e. right now it's old antennas/system or literal plugs. Very old (144:1 era).
That's how it should eventually look like.

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(which makes twitter wars between gripen E and f-16v fan squads literal cripple arenas).

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From electronics point of view, if you have limited power supply, that limits how much can be used for your active RF going out and for the passive receivers. You can argue around it, but upgraded systems using newer technology also require more power for the most case (for both the active and passive stuff).

If they have to retain old antennas (which is very likely), a big reason would be newer antennas require too much power. And there is not enough incentive for companies to develop upgraded antennas that use the same footprint (in terms of space constraint, wiring, cooling & power)

Mission computer itself also requires more power if it's expected to process an order of magnitude more data.

tphuang said:

From electronics point of view, if you have limited power supply, that limits how much can be used for your active RF going out and for the passive receivers. You can argue around it, but upgraded systems using newer technology also require more power for the most case (for both the active and passive stuff).

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Passive antenna is just that - it's passive. It by itself doesn't emit(use energy) at all, it receives it, and the more power is around, the worse (noise isn't exactly advantage for receiving antennas).
Yes, RWR itself obviously needs power like any computer, but it's quite a low requirement(it's ultimately a frequency analyzer with very elaborate antennas). You're recently a bit overly focused with power everywhere. Power is part of this equation, but it most certainly isn't responsible for RWR missing things.
You're right in the active part(aka jamming), and american self-defense jamming solutions are explicitly moderate in their footprint. But here it is again not because of general lack of power (Gripen with way smaller engine powers way more ambitious Arexis just fine), but rather a legacy design and conscious choice: unlike F-16E/F(blk.60/62), they wanted commonality. Commonality bites back.
We know well enough, that it's possible to squeeze way more EW into F-16, if you actually want(F-16I Sufa, F-16E/F IEWS (predecessor of IVEWS btw). But it'll be a different airframe with more drag/volume/cooling capacity.

tphuang said:

If they have to retain old antennas (which is very likely), a big reason would be newer antennas require too much power. And there is not enough incentive for companies to develop upgraded antennas that use the same footprint (in terms of space constraint, wiring, cooling & power)

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For active system(in terms of scale overall design), you're half right. Half, because we're on 4th gen aircraft here - worst case scenario, you just add a pod and power it with RAT(ram air turbine) and/or batteries. Suboptimal, but solid.

Other points are hard to agree with - F-16 is single largest combat aircraft pool on the planet. By extension its EW is one of the juiciest parts of global aviation market available, and in US alone there are two systems(AN/APQ-254 and new AN/APQ-257 from Northrop Grummann) doing just that on top of (also updated) RWR (ALR-56M). "US alone", as apart and on top of basic/updated RWR(EW) setup from BAE systems, there are two competing Israeli ones from Elbit and Rafael, there's Danish PIDS (Terma), as well as new solution from Tubitak. Incentive isn't power or volume (F-16 has enough for RWR), incentive is money. 160 AN/APQ-254 on order will bring Raytheon over billion USD - those aren't cheap sets, and even ROCAF alone as a market is way more than that number.

But how it happened? Easy.
Pay close attention to EW beam on photos:
F-16V ROCAF:

Note both the old rear emitter and old ALR-56M configuration. I.e. upgrade at this stage is only refurbished airframe, radar and new mission computer. How do we know? Now, stage 2, newly delivered Slovak F-16:

Note that while active antenna is the same, ALR-56M configuration expanded (changed - new RWR antennas on the balance beam).

Final stage is as in the previous post photo of Bahraini F-16 with AN/ALQ-254 from last spring, where jammer antenna changed as well. As Taiwan was sort desperatewilling tester for F-16V configuration, its defensive side just wasn't ready. But incentive is obviously there, and they're listed as customer.

latenlazy said:

Look some of these copeposters just *really* want the fullsend spanking. They got a taste last year and are now addicted it seems.

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No, they couldn’t really care less. They just really want that sweet sweet NED propaganda supplement payment.

Gloire_bb said:

Passive antenna is just that - it's passive. It by itself doesn't emit(use energy) at all, it receives it, and the more power is around, the worse (noise isn't exactly advantage for receiving antennas).

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Seems like you don't understand how electronics work at all. There is frankly no point in me engaging with you if you do not think passive receivers need power to operate.

tphuang said:

Seems like you don't understand how electronics work at all. There is frankly no point in me engaging with you if you do not think passive receivers need power to operate.

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(1)It misses the main point - F-16V/F-16 blk.70 in ROCAF service didn't upgrade RWR, and this upgrade is coming soon. So your original theory wasn't on point - you based your thesis on power, when simple fact is it's a dated system from 1990s regardless of onboard power. There's enough onboard power for it. The problem on vanilla F-16 is cooling if anything, not lack of power - and in any case on specific aircraft balance is closed.

And as you explain too much things with power - you miss the actual situation - aka significant lag in development of ROCAF defensive subsystems for all their main aircraft - as ROCAF spent all of its budget into F-16V/blk.70 and accepted all the first customer privileges(bugs), while their defensive subsystems are absolutely inadequate until ~2027, by design.
As if it isn't enough - F-CK-1 also is stuck with old RWR. There the situation is even worse, as it was born just in time when DRFM EW was only becoming world standard, and it was born without it. Even in expansion form(EW pod) they're only looking to add that to it in the coming years; furthermore, it doesn't really have convenient stations to setup self 360 deg protection without significantly harming aircraft combat potentiall.
Mirage is obviously just as bad and without future improvement path.

Which, in turn, means that it isn't powerrr. It's combination of delays and conscious choice by ROCAF, which makes them super vulnerable for the crucial several years to come.

(2)Of course it requires electricity - it's, again a spectrum analyzer with attached computer; it doesn't run on faith alone. The question is of course how much.
Spectrum analyzers are indeed quite power hungry, requiring from few W to even several hundred. I.e. small ones can go alright from USB, big fancy lab ones will take an actual socket.
F-110 - related core(CFM56) in energy applications achieves 25 mW. This is of course an upper limit of how much energy you can get from this turbine, but it should give an idea.
On real late model F110, installed generator is ~60kva, which will give us ~45-48kW. As you can see, there's a comfortable overmatch. Which they'll indeed use to install a really modern, broadband and capable AN/APQ-254 with upgraded ARM-56M ... soon.

I honestly don't mind what you think about me, i don't have public profile beyond these forums. Your car and tech threads are nice.

Gloire_bb said:

(1)It misses the main point - F-16V/F-16 blk.70 in ROCAF service didn't upgrade RWR, and this upgrade is coming soon. So your original theory wasn't on point - you based your thesis on power, when simple fact is it's a dated system from 1990s regardless of onboard power. There's enough onboard power for it. The problem on vanilla F-16 is cooling if anything, not lack of power - and in any case on specific aircraft balance is closed.

And as you explain too much things with power - you miss the actual situation - aka significant lag in development of ROCAF defensive subsystems for all their main aircraft - as ROCAF spent all of its budget into F-16V/blk.70 and accepted all the first customer privileges(bugs), while their defensive subsystems are absolutely inadequate until ~2027, by design.
As if it isn't enough - F-CK-1 also is stuck with old RWR. There the situation is even worse, as it was born just in time when DRFM EW was only becoming world standard, and it was born without it. Even in expansion form(EW pod) they're only looking to add that to it in the coming years; furthermore, it doesn't really have convenient stations to setup self 360 deg protection without significantly harming aircraft combat potentiall.
Mirage is obviously just as bad and without future improvement path.

Which, in turn, means that it isn't powerrr. It's combination of delays and conscious choice by ROCAF, which makes them super vulnerable for the crucial several years to come.

(2)Of course it requires electricity - it's, again a spectrum analyzer with attached computer; it doesn't run on faith alone. The question is of course how much.
Spectrum analyzers are indeed quite power hungry, requiring from few W to even several hundred. I.e. small ones can go alright from USB, big fancy lab ones will take an actual socket.
F-110 - related core(CFM56) in energy applications achieves 25 mW. This is of course an upper limit of how much energy you can get from this turbine, but it should give an idea.
On real late model F110, installed generator is ~60kva, which will give us ~45-48kW. As you can see, there's a comfortable overmatch. Which they'll indeed use to install a really modern, broadband and capable AN/APQ-254 with upgraded ARM-56M ... soon.

I honestly don't mind what you think about me, i don't have public profile beyond these forums. Your car and tech threads are nice.

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Again, if you are going to write crap like RWR don't use power, then I'm not going to bother with rest of your response.

And there is more components requiring constant supply of power than just spectrum analyzer.

Brainsuker said:

Well, I think Taiwan will follow Ukraine's tactic to not put their F-16V on Taiwan island when the war erupts. I can guess that they'll put it on US base at Philippine or Okinawa Japan. When that happen, will China strike those bases or not. That's the question. Because Russia doesn't dare to do it, even when they know Ukraine keep their Jet Fighters in NATO bases in Poland and others.

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you already got a lot of replies, but more simply, from a geography perspective, East China Sea is vast. It's not land where you can disperse at friendly or allied nations. The nearest military bases that can sustain such operations would be double or triple the distance away from Taiwan than PLAAF airbases are. You will not be seriously contesting air superiority as Taiwan in this case. It's like, trying to be cute with strategic deployments while tactically surrendering the entire island to PLA surveillance and bombing. Without Taiwan airbases, PLA A2AD has a humongous home turf advantage and can lob BVR missiles with impunity and make even the USAN hesitant in approaching. You absolutely have to base F16 on the island, just in much, much more hardened hangars.

tphuang said:

Again, if you are going to write crap like RWR don't use power, then I'm not going to bother with rest of your response.

And there is more components requiring constant supply of power than just spectrum analyzer.

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That's literally not what he wrote at all.

Gloire_bb said:

Passive antenna is just that - it's passive. It by itself doesn't emit(use energy) at all, it receives it, and the more power is around, the worse (noise isn't exactly advantage for receiving antennas).
Yes, RWR itself obviously needs power like any computer, but it's quite a low requirement(it's ultimately a frequency analyzer with very elaborate antennas). You're recently a bit overly focused with power everywhere. Power is part of this equation, but it most certainly isn't responsible for RWR missing things.
You're right in the active part(aka jamming), and american self-defense jamming solutions are explicitly moderate in their footprint. But here it is again not because of general lack of power (Gripen with way smaller engine powers way more ambitious Arexis just fine), but rather a legacy design and conscious choice: unlike F-16E/F(blk.60/62), they wanted commonality. Commonality bites back.
We know well enough, that it's possible to squeeze way more EW into F-16, if you actually want(F-16I Sufa, F-16E/F IEWS (predecessor of IVEWS btw). But it'll be a different airframe with more drag/volume/cooling capacity.

For active system(in terms of scale overall design), you're half right. Half, because we're on 4th gen aircraft here - worst case scenario, you just add a pod and power it with RAT(ram air turbine) and/or batteries. Suboptimal, but solid.

Other points are hard to agree with - F-16 is single largest combat aircraft pool on the planet. By extension its EW is one of the juiciest parts of global aviation market available, and in US alone there are two systems(AN/APQ-254 and new AN/APQ-257 from Northrop Grummann) doing just that on top of (also updated) RWR (ALR-56M). "US alone", as apart and on top of basic/updated RWR(EW) setup from BAE systems, there are two competing Israeli ones from Elbit and Rafael, there's Danish PIDS (Terma), as well as new solution from Tubitak. Incentive isn't power or volume (F-16 has enough for RWR), incentive is money. 160 AN/APQ-254 on order will bring Raytheon over billion USD - those aren't cheap sets, and even ROCAF alone as a market is way more than that number.

But how it happened? Easy.
Pay close attention to EW beam on photos:
F-16V ROCAF:

Note both the old rear emitter and old ALR-56M configuration. I.e. upgrade at this stage is only refurbished airframe, radar and new mission computer. How do we know? Now, stage 2, newly delivered Slovak F-16:

Note that while active antenna is the same, ALR-56M configuration expanded (changed - new RWR antennas on the balance beam).

Final stage is as in the previous post photo of Bahraini F-16 with AN/ALQ-254 from last spring, where jammer antenna changed as well. As Taiwan was sort desperatewilling tester for F-16V configuration, its defensive side just wasn't ready. But incentive is obviously there, and they're listed as customer.

Click to expand...