PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

coolgod said:

MSS needs to figure this out and convince the key ROC commanders to be the hero. The person responsible will be forever remembered in the history books, not a bad deal for some KMT general who is say under DPP investigation or something. How about the hero decides to fire an air-to-surface missile from an F-16 at the Chinese Mainland, is that a plausible scenario?

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drowingfish said:

it's best for China to not be provoked into initiating AR, but rather to do it at a time of its choosing, in order to maximize the element of surprise and minimize the likelihood of foreign intervention.

a seemingly "unprovoked" move on Taiwan is politically acceptable so long as China wins. And if China loses, no amount of legitimate excuse would save it anyways, so better to forego political niceties and focus on winning.

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AndrewS said:

Prior to Patchwork's departure, he mentioned that it would take too much time to organise a brigade-level armoured counter-attack. There would be enough time for overhead UAVs to identify and then strike the vehicles as they prepared.

Since then, we've seen what is happening in Ukraine.

So I think that the side with control of the air (and therefore overhead drones) has made massed tank warfare infeasible.

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drowingfish said:

have you ever seen how an offensive operation is supposed to pan out? once again you are just drawing arrows on a map, that is not warfighting.

in order to conduct a formidable assault you need to assemble your forces in a secure area, conduct reconnaissance, organize logistics and coordinate timings. it is impossible to do this while the enemy has air superiority.

but lets assume that ROC was able to pull off a counterattack, then what? their most elite force in one sector is now exposed to enemy fire, they will inevitably suffer huge losses even if they succeed in defeating the first wave of landing force. Now here comes the second wave. moving forces from other sectors is not feasible because it takes too long and too easily detected.

In the end, if ROC can't stop the PLA in the water, they sure as heck cannot stop the PLA on land.

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zhangjim said:

This risk is too high, because once the war begins, it will not only be a problem between China and the United States.

I read another retired officer(TomCat团座)'s explanation, and his viewpoint is that DPP/KMT has its own plan.
His explanation of modern Chinese history, especially the revolutionary war and the War of Resistance Against Japan is very good.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This video is a recording of an online live stream, so the playback time is very long. Starting from 26 minutes later, the video will discuss the content of the new century.
He explained in this video the defense policy factors for purchasing M1A2T.
These DPP/KMT politicians have a clear weakness: a lack of awareness of the progress of modern warfare. They may be aware of their own situation, but they underestimated the defensive difficulty brought by the geographical location of the island.

This makes them more inclined towards a decisive battle. And their strategic goal is quite opportunistic: hoping to turn this war into an opportunity to permanently defeat the enemy (somewhat similar to the Ukraine War). They are well aware that the United States will abandon them at any time, so they must strive to prove their value and drag the United States into war. Due to the public's fear of urban warfare(Lessons from 1995-96), it is politically necessary to defeat the enemy on the beach.

This means that they must take the initiative and prove their ability to defeat the PLA in direct confrontation, give the US an easy opportunity to destroy its enemy ,so that the United States and Japan can confidently intervene in the war.
DPP has a strange judgment that future military actions are military adventures similar to the Falklands War to save the regime. Simply put, military action is only taken when the economy encounters problems. It may sound funny, but it is clear that they have been committed to the destruction of China's internal forces and firmly believe in the ultimate collapse of their enemies.
So, as long as they persist for a few months, their enemy's reputation will be ruined due to the prolonged war stalemate, and ultimately collapse completely. Their work will be an auxiliary role behind the United States.

This made them more inclined to purchase expensive planes, tanks, and warships until the outbreak of the Ukrainian War, they have to purchased weapons for urban warfare under pressure from the United States.

In the era when KMT briefly regained power, some policy adjustments were made. They want to improve their position in negotiations through the "hedgehog tactic". And faithfully carry out the American task of delaying and killing the enemy as far as possible.

As DPP regained power and became more aggressive, the defense strategy was adjusted back to its previous state, but details were modified to emphasize relying on its own strength to resist attacks in the long term.
This is largely due to learning from Chen Shui bian's lesson, the United States does not want to be manipulated by chess pieces. But the purpose of DPP has not changed, they need to prove that the enemy is a broken house can collapse with just one kick. Just like Ukraine, Zelensky successfully took advantage of the Russian military's failure and pushed NATO to intervene in the war, seizing the "initiative".

So, why use such dangerous behavior to test the attitude of the United States? You think they are just bait, but the enemy obviously sees this as an opportunity to prove themselves. They are hoping for a major victory as a bargaining chip to win over American intervention.

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Sinnavuuty said:

In fact, the possibility exists depending on each circumstance. A PLA attrition while still on the beach is a very bad scenario for the Chinese, because if the defender (ROCA) seeks and succeeds in attrition of the enemy (PLA) in every way during the landing, it will force the PLA to further commit its support for the consolidation of the beachhead. The more the PLA is attritioned during the landing, the greater the challenges will be to maintain and consolidate the beachhead. In a highly risky operation such as an AmpOp, losses cannot exceed a rate of 25% of the composition of the units involved in the operation, a very restricted number of acceptable losses compared to normal land operations that can withstand losses of up to 50% of the composition of the units without losing military cohesion and combat capacity. If limiting human losses is fundamental to a successful AmpOp, material losses are still a fundamental implication, such as the loss of ships, mainly the logistical support ships for the landing forces, affecting the conduct of the landing operations and subsequent operations.

Taiwan must certainly be studying the war in Ukraine as a factor in wearing down the PLA using examples of naval drones, high artillery mobility, decentralized deployment of air defense and other lessons.

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Biscuits said:

KMT is a non factor in the war, the question is just if US will commit to a full scale invasion.

Beijing is learning much more than US from the conflict because for the most part, it's Ukraine making the sort of costly (counter) offensive that China will also have to do. That means they'll use their live access to Russia to see what Russia did correctly and "patch out" those exploits so that US cannot stop a PLA push in the same way.

Meanwhile to learn from Russia, US needs to setup a situation where their invading troops can enjoy such massive advantages in firepower as Russia did. That's a bottleneck in logistics that just having data on the Ukraine war doesn't help them with.

China is studying for example the tarkhanut cape and kherson landings as an example for how a small landing can disturb the enemy without committing large losses should the force be destroyed. Even if these were defeats for Ukraine, they proved that it is possible to not immediately commit brigade level amphibious forces and also to conduct landing in stealth.

At least initially, the US backed forces will have much worse battlefield intel than Russia, and they will likely never reach a firepower advantage level even after a full scale US arrival. Beijing also has literal 100s times more equipment to use in each assault than Kiev had. Such landings should have a high chance of success.

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Sinnavuuty said:

In fact, the possibility exists depending on each circumstance. A PLA attrition while still on the beach is a very bad scenario for the Chinese, because if the defender (ROCA) seeks and succeeds in attrition of the enemy (PLA) in every way during the landing, it will force the PLA to further commit its support for the consolidation of the beachhead. The more the PLA is attritioned during the landing, the greater the challenges will be to maintain and consolidate the beachhead. In a highly risky operation such as an AmpOp, losses cannot exceed a rate of 25% of the composition of the units involved in the operation, a very restricted number of acceptable losses compared to normal land operations that can withstand losses of up to 50% of the composition of the units without losing military cohesion and combat capacity. If limiting human losses is fundamental to a successful AmpOp, material losses are still a fundamental implication, such as the loss of ships, mainly the logistical support ships for the landing forces, affecting the conduct of the landing operations and subsequent operations.

Taiwan must certainly be studying the war in Ukraine as a factor in wearing down the PLA using examples of naval drones, high artillery mobility, decentralized deployment of air defense and other lessons.

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drowingfish said:

Incorrect. If PLA's air dominance enables it to land on Taiwan's beaches, then it can defeat ROC counterattacks from the air.

Assuming the US does not intervene, PLA will dominate air space over Taiwan, any attempt at counterattacking occupied beach head will be destroyed by airpower. The only way to survive would be to hide under ground or in urban areas. measures as you suggested, such as artillery and drones, are a non-issue because without air cover, they would not even know where to fire or how to coordinate their fire.

Assuming the US does intervene after PLA landing, then the nature of the conflict will change and PLA will likely just give up trying to protect their beach head and focus on defeating the US. If the PLA can win that battle, then no further action would even be required against Taiwan, the latter will simply surrender. The loss of landed troops is an acceptable price for defeating the US on the pacific. If the PLA cannot defeat the US, then no amount of landed troops will change the outcome of complete defeat. I have alluded to this possibility in my earlier posts, where the PLA could conduct a landing operation early to force the US to choose between prematurely engaging the PLA and to avoid getting involved, which would precipitate a collapse of ROC defence.

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