One other specific point I'm curious about is how much this sort of withdrawal to boundary of ASBM range can actually even increase CSG survivability. Perhaps a few years ago, pulling back from say 1500km to 3-4000km would've made a much larger difference in salvo sizes they would've had to contend with, when systems like DF-21D & DF-100 played a larger role. However, they are now either retired or marginalized. The DF-26 likely has near 5000km range. If you're still within 5000km, does it make that much difference? I suppose you might reduce the specific DF-26 brigades/TELs you are within range of due to their scattered locations on the mainland, but I don't know how much that matters. This is of course not factoring in even longer ranged systems like DF-27 & ALBMs. I suppose the main benefit would be reduced salvos from land based strike fighters.
PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
- Thread starter SEAD
- Start date
Bomb and destroy all infrastructure on the first island chain (Japan, Korea, Philippines and Guam). No refuelers on the first island chain, little to no bombers from CONUS
US strategic aviation doesn't need tankers based in the 1IC to conduct standoff strikes against the mainland & return, whether sortieing from Aus or CONUS..
Then the bomber sorties will be severely limited.
He also talked about PLA's CONEMP
Translation:
Also a comment on beating the US... It's not how some people imagine lol
Also a comment by Ayi
The end game for China should be kicking the Americans out of the Western Pacific. Smashing everything on the First Island Chain will make the fight easier.
Those ideas are just pure fvcking bollocks.
I agree with Ayi.
I should also add that instead of focusing on the attempted amphibious assault against Taiwan Island itself, China oughta be better enforcing a blockade on the rebel island while keeping the rebel island under sustained, comprehensive suppression bombardment.
At the same time, such focus should be directed against the main outlying islands under rebel control (Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu), the Batannes Islands south of Taiwan, and (especially) the Ryukyu Islands northeast of Taiwan.
Penghu is needed both as a forward staging base for further sustained military operations against southern Taiwan, and as a potential diversion point for PLA warplanes conducting missions to land in case of suffering from wartime damages.
Meanwhile, the securing of the Batanes and (especially crucial) Ryukyus means breaking the stranglehold on the entrances into the "True Blue" WestPac for the warplanes and warships of both the PLAAF and PLAN. Capturing the Ryukyus (and particularly those air bases on Okinawa) means not just extending China's defensive strategic depth eastwards of 800-1500 kilometers, but also capable of acting as forward staging (refuel, rearm and repair) bases for land-based combat (fighters, bombers) and non-combat (AEW&C, ASW, ELINT/EW, tankers etc) warplanes of the PLAAF and PLAN to further extend the PLA's reaches into the WestPac (and potentially up till the 2IC).
This is also crucial towards achieving what @万年炎帝 has stipulated in his Weibo post, i.e. establishing safe aerial and naval corridors for PLAAF and PLAN warplanes and warships to transit through, whilst both acting in support of each other towards achieving the same wartime objectives in the wider WestPac conflict.
Last but not least - Dealing with a large island with 24 million people concentrated on it is much harder than dealing with an island chain with only at most 2 million people spreaded out across multiple islands, so there's that too.
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High time to kick the hegemonist out for good!
As much as the strategic advantage exists for seizing the Ryukyus I don't think it is a good idea (despite myself having argued in favor of it in a couple other posts- also against it in other posts).
The US can let Taiwan fall and back out, Taiwan is basically in the same state as Ukraine pre-2022. Invading Okinawa is like Russia invading the Baltics, or the Warsaw Pact invading Denmark. That is going to trigger nuclear use from the United States (assuming any US attempt to take back the Ryukyus fails).
As much as the US likes to talk about a years long war, they don't have the industrial base to do that, nor do they have the theory and cohesion to do so. Especially if say, a war starts in the year prior to a US presidential election, the US president will face self-pressure and pressure from his political party to not be the one who lost a war.
Real, traditional, thoroughly institutionally ingrained US strategic culture and thinking is about using tactical nuclear weapons once your conventional forces are destroyed. Not this "do the Long March back to Pearl Harbor and then try and fight a years long naval insurgency along China's SLOCs" crap that has come out of think tanks in recent years.
The US can let Taiwan fall and back out, Taiwan is basically in the same state as Ukraine pre-2022. Invading Okinawa is like Russia invading the Baltics, or the Warsaw Pact invading Denmark. That is going to trigger nuclear use from the United States (assuming any US attempt to take back the Ryukyus fails).
As much as the US likes to talk about a years long war, they don't have the industrial base to do that, nor do they have the theory and cohesion to do so. Especially if say, a war starts in the year prior to a US presidential election, the US president will face self-pressure and pressure from his political party to not be the one who lost a war.
Real, traditional, thoroughly institutionally ingrained US strategic culture and thinking is about using tactical nuclear weapons once your conventional forces are destroyed. Not this "do the Long March back to Pearl Harbor and then try and fight a years long naval insurgency along China's SLOCs" crap that has come out of think tanks in recent years.
My comments on @万年炎帝's Weibo post:
1. War is an extension of politics and the US political justification for intervention preventing Chinese reunification with Taiwan is that a Chinese control Taiwan will break the 1IC, enabling easy power projection against Japan and into the Pacific, thus ending American hegemony in East Asia and leading to Chinese hegemony. The goal for saving Taiwan is to save the 1IC. If the US is willing to abandon the defense of Japan and the Philippines to focus on a long range denial strategy, then the entire political justification for intervention collapses.
2. China will invest heavily on UCAV anti-cruise missile capability. A notional drone interception task force will have one KJ-500 commanding perhaps a dozen MALE drones. Each drone is equipped with electro-optical sensors and a large number of anti-JASSM specialized missiles of similar size to the TY-90. These specialize missiles need very low G maneurverability but a decent range and midcourse command+terminal IIR guidance. A drone interception task force can then intercept hundreds of JASSM at a very favorable cost exchange ratio. This will cripple the American strike capabilties due to its massive overreliance on subsonic LO cruise missiles.
3. Without active contest by the USAF/USN fighters, it should be very straightforward for China to achieve air dominance from mainland Japan to the Philipines. Threats should be sanitized to the extent where even KJ-500, H-6K, Y-9 EW/ASW and Y-20/U can cross and operate outside the 1IC. This will greatly expand the Chinese defense bubble while enabling long range strikes against US CSGs near the 2IC.
4. The PLA can trivially seize the Penghu archipelagos. This strategic location 40km from Taiwan will allow the PLAGF to set up rocket artillery, air defenses and heliports. PLAGF HQ-16s can defend the mainland-Penghu corridor while vast amounts of materiel are prepositioned on Penghu for a rapid landing on south Taiwan.
4. While all of this is going on, Taiwan is still being blockaged and heavily bombed by shorter ranged PLA assets like J-10s and rocket artillery. Taiwanese defenses will be exponentially attrited through kinetic and non kinetic means. Eventually, after both American long range strike capabilities and Taiwanese defenses are sufficiently close to zero, the PLA should then execute the amphibious landing.
1. War is an extension of politics and the US political justification for intervention preventing Chinese reunification with Taiwan is that a Chinese control Taiwan will break the 1IC, enabling easy power projection against Japan and into the Pacific, thus ending American hegemony in East Asia and leading to Chinese hegemony. The goal for saving Taiwan is to save the 1IC. If the US is willing to abandon the defense of Japan and the Philippines to focus on a long range denial strategy, then the entire political justification for intervention collapses.
2. China will invest heavily on UCAV anti-cruise missile capability. A notional drone interception task force will have one KJ-500 commanding perhaps a dozen MALE drones. Each drone is equipped with electro-optical sensors and a large number of anti-JASSM specialized missiles of similar size to the TY-90. These specialize missiles need very low G maneurverability but a decent range and midcourse command+terminal IIR guidance. A drone interception task force can then intercept hundreds of JASSM at a very favorable cost exchange ratio. This will cripple the American strike capabilties due to its massive overreliance on subsonic LO cruise missiles.
3. Without active contest by the USAF/USN fighters, it should be very straightforward for China to achieve air dominance from mainland Japan to the Philipines. Threats should be sanitized to the extent where even KJ-500, H-6K, Y-9 EW/ASW and Y-20/U can cross and operate outside the 1IC. This will greatly expand the Chinese defense bubble while enabling long range strikes against US CSGs near the 2IC.
4. The PLA can trivially seize the Penghu archipelagos. This strategic location 40km from Taiwan will allow the PLAGF to set up rocket artillery, air defenses and heliports. PLAGF HQ-16s can defend the mainland-Penghu corridor while vast amounts of materiel are prepositioned on Penghu for a rapid landing on south Taiwan.
4. While all of this is going on, Taiwan is still being blockaged and heavily bombed by shorter ranged PLA assets like J-10s and rocket artillery. Taiwanese defenses will be exponentially attrited through kinetic and non kinetic means. Eventually, after both American long range strike capabilities and Taiwanese defenses are sufficiently close to zero, the PLA should then execute the amphibious landing.