PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

FriedRiceNSpice said:

Would still need thousands of missiles. And that is only for a single city, China has 100+ cities with a population of over one million. With such a smaller industrial base, attempting to conduct strategic bombing via ballistic missiles is suicidal for the US. 1) China would produce much more missiles 2) a much greater of Chinese industrial targets would need to be hit than American industrial targets to achieve the same level of impact on industrial production.

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I don't think the US would target all cities in China，hit just a few coastal cities will inflict enough damage on China, since China‘s economic and technological centers are all located along the coast such as Shenzhen shanghai hongkong. PLA general acknowledge this fact.

As for missile production. Yes, China can produce missiles much faster than the US，I already said that in previous post. But in the end，you can hit Japan Korea Taiwan as much missiles as you want the US won't care because it's not US soil. You can also hit Saipan Guam，but I don't the damage to the US by hitting those island，is even remotely comparable to the damage to China when shenzhen shanghai got hit

tonyget said:

I don't think the US would target all cities in China，hit just a few coastal cities will inflict enough damage on China, since China‘s economic and technological centers are all located along the coast such as Shenzhen shanghai hongkong. PLA general acknowledge this fact.

As for missile production. Yes, China can produce missiles much faster than the US，I already said that in previous post. But in the end，you can hit Japan Korea Taiwan as much missiles as you want the US won't care because it's not US soil. You can also hit Saipan Guam，but I don't the damage to the US by hitting those island，is even remotely comparable to the damage to China when shenzhen shanghai got hit

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Hitting a few coastal cities will not have any impact on military production. And if Chinese cities are hit, there is nothing stopping PLARF from retaliating with conventional warheads launched by DF-31 (which would be able to hit the US).

tonyget said:

I don't think the US would target all cities in China，hit just a few coastal cities will inflict enough damage on China, since China‘s economic and technological centers are all located along the coast such as Shenzhen shanghai hongkong. PLA general acknowledge this fact.

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I think the military balance has changed since then.
If I look at the realistic largest salvo sizes that the US could launch at China, they can mostly be blunted by Chinese air defences and the Air Force

tonyget said:

As for missile production. Yes, China can produce missiles much faster than the US，I already said that in previous post. But in the end，you can hit Japan Korea Taiwan as much missiles as you want the US won't care because it's not US soil. You can also hit Saipan Guam，but I don't the damage to the US by hitting those island，is even remotely comparable to the damage to China when shenzhen shanghai got hit

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The US will care if Japan/Korea/Taiwan are hit.

Because if the US can't provide military protection or economic prosperity to its "allies", then a US alliance is pointless. So why should they allow themselves to be used by the US? Better to be neutral instead.

I would say that we're already past the point where China can enforce an effective blockade on Taiwan and Korea.

But I think Japan needs a few more years, before the military balance changes and it becomes obvious.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

Hitting a few coastal cities will not have any impact on military production. And if Chinese cities are hit, there is nothing stopping PLARF from retaliating with conventional warheads launched by DF-31 (which would be able to hit the US).

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Realistically, how many DF-31s are available?

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At the moment, I don't see any alternative to a grinding, years long campaign where China's industrial machine gets going and builds a huge Navy. As the US Navy notes, China does have 242x the shipbuilding capacity of the US.

Eg. There's theoretically enough space for 20 SSNs to be simultaneously assembled in the 2 new assembly halls at Bohai. Assuming a conservative module assembly time of 8 months, then that's capacity for 30 SSNs per year.

And there would also be a huge aircraft carrier construction programme, akin to the 24 fleet carriers built (with 35+ planned) in American shipyards during WW2.

AndrewS said:

I think the military balance has changed since then.
If I look at the realistic largest salvo sizes that the US could launch at China, they can mostly be blunted by Chinese air defences and the Air Force

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Firstly air defence can not intercept all incoming missiles，that's a common knowledge

AndrewS said:

The US will care if Japan/Korea/Taiwan are hit.


ecause if the US can't provide military protection or economic prosperity to its "allies", then a US alliance is pointless. So why should they allow themselves to be used by the US? Better to be neutral instead.


I would say that we're already past the point where China can enforce an effective blockade on Taiwan and Korea.

But I think Japan needs a few more years, before the military balance changes and it becomes obvious.

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The US will provide assistances to Japan Korea Taiwan，that does not mean America cares about lifes in those places

Just like Ukraine，US and europe will provide them weapons to fight Russians. But as for how many Ukrainians die or how many Russian missile hits Ukrainian city，the West does not give shit. The US doesn't mind sacrifice their allies personnel in order to pursuit US interest

IMHO China should just establish military pre-eminence in East Asia and kick US presence out of there if not out of Asia in its entirety.
US military bases should be struck, and any country in the region continuing to host US military assets afterwards should be struck as well in its own port and airport facilities.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

Hitting a few coastal cities will not have any impact on military production. And if Chinese cities are hit, there is nothing stopping PLARF from retaliating with conventional warheads launched by DF-31 (which would be able to hit the US).

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There is no such thing as "conventional ICBM". If you shoot ICBM towards the US，the US will read it as nuclear attack，and will launch nuclear missiles towards China before those Chinese ICBM arrive US homeland

Not to mention conventional ICBM is total waste of money，if you have any idea how expensive ICBM is

tonyget said:

There is no such thing as "conventional ICBM". If you shoot ICBM towards the US，the US will read it as nuclear attack，and will launch nuclear missiles towards China before those Chinese ICBM arrive US homeland

Not to mention conventional ICBM is total waste of money，if you have any idea how expensive ICBM is

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Note that this is the same reason why the US won't launch ballistic missiles at China. These too will be read as nuclear attacks and may be responded to in kind.

4Tran said:

Note that this is the same reason why the US won't launch ballistic missiles at China. These too will be read as nuclear attacks and may be responded to in kind.

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The problem for China，is that it's difficult to determine which specific attack from US military is nuclear attack. Because all regular means of US firepower projection jet fighter/bomber/submarine/warship etc are nuclear capable，all can carry nuclear warhead on a given mission.

So China either deem all US attack as nuclear attack，or none of US attack as nuclear attack

tonyget said:

The problem for China，is that it's difficult to determine which specific attack from US military is nuclear attack. Because all regular means of US firepower projection jet fighter/bomber/submarine/warship etc are nuclear capable，all can carry nuclear warhead on a given mission.

So China either deem all US attack as nuclear attack，or none of US attack as nuclear attack

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In reality there is a nuclear hotline between the two countries. If the US launches a ballistic missile attack, they will notify the Chinese side. In which case the Chinese side simply replies they are also launching a conventional counterstrike. US early warning sensors would then verify that inbound Chinese ballistic tracks are not aimed at the US's strategic deterrent (straightforward because US ICBM silos are located far away from industrial centers).

In reality, since the US is behind in procurement of hypersonic weapons and conventional MRBMs, I dont see the US going for Chinese industrial targets with BMs if conflict occurs within the next 5-10 years. US can try with long range subsonic cruise missiles, but I dont believe such attacks would find much success.

As long as China continues to build up both its strategic and conventional deterrence, I don't forsee the US launching large scale conventional attacks on Chinese urban centers and civilian targets. US timidness in the Ukraine conflict should be informative regarding US appetite for escalation. What China should focus on is defensive countermeasures against hypersonic weapons and antiship BMs. If such systems are developed successfully by the US/Japanese and deployed in sufficient numbers, then the PLAN'S operational freedom within the first 2 IC may be severely limited unless countermeasures are in place.