PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

JamesRed said:

The controversial part isn't whether IADS can be overwhelmed, it's whether you can get enough assets in place to overwhelm it. The Chinese will surely detect any large scale attack, and thus be positioned and prepared for it.

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Those are actually 2 separate issues.

But before we even get to those, the following premise needs to be accepted: If the enemy accumulates and launches first, there is no "preparation" that will help you (some people were even challenging this premise.)

Now, if that premise is agreed upon, we can proceed with the open questions:

1. What is the count of offensive fires required to do catastrophic damage (for both sides) ?
2. Can both sides technically fulfill this requirement?

I would think that if both sides actually dedicate their resources, then 2=Yes. (The underlying assumption being that both sides have the R&D and economies to support such offensive fires, if they really go for it.)

However, if 2=No, then whichever side fails to accumulate, will most likely change their geopolitically posture or withdraw from this theater altogether. There's also the possibility of a global economic meltdown which might change all of this, but let's leave that aside.

Mohsin77 said:

Exactly! For some reason, this is a controversial idea here. Except for a few people like @Blitzo, many seem to think you can simply 'absorb' the enemy's 1st strike offensive fires and then casually retaliate.

Any IADS can be saturated, for much less the cost of the IADS. In fact, all evidence indicates IADS don't even work as advertised. And if you get enough CMs/BMs through, you can do a ton of catastrophic damage in the opening wave. Add to that the degradation of the kill chains which would be required for retaliation, it just makes more sense to focus on offense rather then relying on defense.

This general principle has always been true in strategy, but it is even more pronounced in the age of CMs.

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It's not just about whether an IADS can be saturated from a quantity perspective.
Part of the calculation is whether you can do this affordably and place your opponent on the unfavourable side of the cost equation regarding spending on defensive or offensive systems

For ICBM and IRBM class missiles, I see the cost of defensive missiles as significantly exceeding the cost of the incoming missiles.
For SRBM and MRBM class missiles, I see the cost of defensive missiles as being less than the incoming missiles. Some numbers are posted at the bottom.

Note that in both cases, the defenders can still be overwhelmed through sheer numbers, and therefore offensive ballistic missiles can penetrate to reach high-value targets which justify the initial losses to missile defence. That opens the door to attacks using lower cost munitions and aircraft.

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However, for slow cruise missiles, remember they can be engaged by air defences that have very low engagement costs.

1. CIWS gun systems use ammunition that has a cost of nearly zero.
2. Pantsir SAMs are in the region of $10K? , the last time I looked.

When you compare this against the $1M+ cost of JASSMs or Tomahawks, you can get a very favourable exchange ratio from defensive investments, assuming the defending platforms can survive.

Medium-range SAMs also look like they have a equal or favourable cost ratio versus incoming cruise missiles.
So it would be worth investing in defences against cruise missiles.

But in summary, yes, the optimum military strategy is to invest in more offensive missile systems rather missile defences.
And we can see China is very focused on offensive missiles below:

tphuang said:

Just an amazing statistic, which is public but it’s worth repeating, is that the U.S. has done roughly 10 or 11 hypersonic tests. I think there was another one yesterday that the Air Force claimed was successful. China, last time I checked, had done 280

fyi, here is the article

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When you apply this to the context of the Western Pacific, China does have the strategic depth to place its missile and air units at the optimum distance to their prospective targets. In many cases, this is deep in the Chinese interior which is relatively safe because high-performance (and therefore expensive) systems are needed to reach that far.

In comparison, the 1st and 2nd Island Chains have very little strategic depth or land mass to work with.

For example, Chinese offensive missiles with a range of 1500km can comfortable range all over Japan, which means no rear area bases in Japan that can safely host AEW, tanker or bomber aircraft.

In comparison, missiles based in Japan would need a range of 3000km if they wanted to reach rear-area Chinese airbases, which means more expensive missiles are needed AND which have to travel through many more air defence systems AND provide a lot more early warning to the targets.

AndrewS said:

If we're talking about SRBMs or MRBMs, the ranges are up to 2000km or so.
The majority of the 1st Island Chain lies within 1200km (eg. all of Korea, Japan, Taiwan and half of the Philippines)
That is workable distance for aircraft to launch regular strikes using lower cost munitions, after any initial missile strikes.

And if we look at the maths for IRBMs and ICBMs, the approximate costs are as follows:

ICBM ($60 Million) versus ($75 Million) per GMD interceptor x2
DF-26 IRBM ($21 Million) versus ($11-18 Million) per THAAD interceptor x2

Then you have the costs of the ABM radar and other equipment. A THAAD battery with 48 interceptors costs up to $3 Billion in total

So missile strikes do generally work out at all levels ie. SRBM, MRBM, IRBM, ICBM.
Particularly if they are used against airbase runways and/or use cluster munitions to destroy any large aircraft on the ground.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

And yes, it is a supremely underrated weapons system. I really hate that sim programs like cough COMMAND cough make it out to be this borderline fisher price difficulty, push-button shoot-missile sort of system, and that it models them as so vulnerable when in reality it's actually one of the harder targets an IADS can be asked to prosecute.

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This is the second or third time I've seen you trash C:NAO. I have my own problems with how it models Chinese hardware (and doesn't allow me to edit the stat db) but I don't think I hold it in as low regard as you do. Can you recommend another sim that's publicly available?

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Sadly, it's difficult to palate for many people, being told "no, we would not win, so we're not even going to try; we're just going to kill as many of them as we can before we lose."

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Now that's just a bit spiteful. It's customary in chess games between grandmasters not to play out a losing endgame; not resigning when the game is obviously lost is considered impolite. Perhaps there's some lesson there applicable to the current situation.

Jokes aside, people find that difficult to palate for good reason. You said you're not a politics guy, but the political angle is very important here. Japan is not going to transform its armed forces along the lines of North Korea's for several reasons:

• The secret sauce to North Korea's deterrent strategy is that North Korea is worthless. There's nothing to be gained by attacking North Korea. If there actually were a good reason, the US would bite the bullet and do so. It would take a black eye and send the DPRK to the morgue. Japan, unlike the DPRK, is very much worth attacking and China would take a black eye if necessary.
• Doing significant damage to China is the difference between facing an overwhelmingly powerful PLA and an overwhelmingly powerful, very pissed off PLA. The PLA can shift its attacks on Japan from purely military targets to the infrastructure necessary to support human life.
• Japan signed a mutual defense pact with the US, not a mutual suicide pact. If the Japanese bureaucracy's thinking on Chinese power shifts far enough, they'll not respond by putting on a bomb vest. They'll respond by turning to the US and saying, "Well, it's been fun but now's the time we hop off your bandwagon and hop on theirs."
• Last but not least, hubris and institutional inertia. No country with some cash in its wallet ever willingly embraced guerrilla tactics, certainly not suicide bomber tactics like you're proposing. Everybody likes their shiny capital ships and big-ticket items.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

The people I work with, when they say something like, "well, we'd know! we'd have plenty of warning!" I'm forced to restrain nearly every fiber of my being from turning around and smacking them in the face. Would sure show them a thing or two about whether or not you'll actually see unpredictable things coming.

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That almost sent my coffee through my nose!

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Plus, they'd have earned it by actively putting the rest of us in more danger, and potentially getting real people, with families, and dreams, killed because of a hubris-laden underestimation of the PLA.

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That's also another reason why your ultra-FIRES strategy isn't going to find purchase. Ultimately, the US allies who would implement it are real people with families and dreams who would be killed in that kind of war. The much better option for them when confronted with China's might is just to shrug and say, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Well, I'd get a spanking were I to talk about specific USN operational COA plans, but remember - if CSG5 is pulled out far enough to not get hit, that also means it's far enough out not to hit you. That's called winning.

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There's a difference between a temporary tactical withdrawal and a full and permanent retreat from the western Pacific. That's why my fundamental view is that for all China has accomplished so far that you find so impressive, it's still woefully incomplete. The map you posted on page 15 of your PDF response illustrates the problem perfectly - there's still a zone you coloured in blue where US submarines can operate in relative safety. China has to take that away from the US. It has to take everything away.

AndrewS said:

However, for slow cruise missiles, remember they can be engaged by air defences that have very low engagement costs.

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1) You can also saturate those defenses with drone swarms + decoys.

2) What is the actual rate of interception of "slow" CMs?

Patriots failed in Arabia. S400s failed in Syria.

And how many CMs have actually been intercepted by Pantsir-class SAMs?

In any major peer-level war, I suspect these IADS are going to be the first casualties.

Mohsin77 said:

1) You can also saturate those defenses with drone swarms + decoys.

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China is aware, so they are in fact working on this.

Mohsin77 said:

2) What is the actual rate of interception of "slow" CMs?

Patriots failed in Arabia. S400s failed in Syria.

And how many CMs have actually been intercepted by Pantsir-class SAMs?

In any major peer-level war, I suspect these IADS are going to be the first casualties.

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We honestly don't know, there's cases of patriot failing in Saudi against the various stuff the houthis are firing at them, but also many cases of them actually working.

As for PLA's air defense, no idea, but they do practice it a lot and must themselves have a pretty good idea.

Likewise, patchwork-chimera did earlier say that it's quite likely that some cruise missiles will break through, but the smaller massed fire, the fewer breakthrough (think it was probability of effect he called it?)

AndrewS said:

It's not just if China concludes that an attack is imminent.

If China concludes that a war with the US is inevitable, that could also trigger a pre-emptive strike.

That would be the result of the US demonstrating more "resolve" to defend Taiwan.

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In other words Pearl Harbour 2.0.

Mohsin77 said:

1) You can also saturate those defenses with drone swarms + decoys.

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Drone swarms and large numbers of decoys implies that they operate from airbases/aircraft, and that they can penetrate whatever opposing air forces and air defences are present.

At the beginning of a campaign, it's credible for the Chinese military to disable the opposing airbases in the 1st and 2nd Island Chains along with any defending aircraft in the air. That would at least be able to achieve temporary air superiority.

But I don't see it being credible for the US to inflict enough damage on the much larger number of mutually supporting Chinese airbases (some of which are super-hardened) and prevent Chinese aircraft from being launched. So Chinese airbases could continue to launch Chinese fighters and AEW aircraft to shoot down incoming drones/missiles. At the same time, other Chinese airbases could continue to launch drones/decoys for offensive missions.

Mohsin77 said:

2) What is the actual rate of interception of "slow" CMs?

Patriots failed in Arabia. S400s failed in Syria.

And how many CMs have actually been intercepted by Pantsir-class SAMs?

In any major peer-level war, I suspect these IADS are going to be the first casualties.

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The point is that cruise missiles can be effectively engaged by very low-cost CIWS gun systems and short-range SAMs.
So the defensive systems don't have to be 100% effective because it's still a favourable trade in terms of defensive cost versus the cost of the attacking cruise missiles.

And remember that CIWS gun systems and short-range SAM systems are quite small and therefore difficult to find and target.

Mohsin77 said:

Those are actually 2 separate issues.

But before we even get to those, the following premise needs to be accepted: If the enemy accumulates and launches first, there is no "preparation" that will help you (some people were even challenging this premise.)

Now, if that premise is agreed upon, we can proceed with the open questions:

1. What is the count of offensive fires required to do catastrophic damage (for both sides) ?
2. Can both sides technically fulfill this requirement?

I would think that if both sides actually dedicate their resources, then 2=Yes. (The underlying assumption being that both sides have the R&D and economies to support such offensive fires, if they really go for it.)

However, if 2=No, then whichever side fails to accumulate, will most likely change their geopolitically posture or withdraw from this theater altogether. There's also the possibility of a global economic meltdown which might change all of this, but let's leave that aside.

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I can see China issuing ultimatums if she sees her enemies are piling offensive weapons in the West Pac long before the numbers reach critical levels

"there's still a zone you coloured in blue where US submarines can operate in relative safety"

Yes, submarines hidden behind Japan launching subsonic cruise missiles that having AWACS and modern aviation are like V-1s flying to London, nah, China's defense is simply spectacular today, a lot of time, money and patient effort has been put into it.

So now the question is whether to turn the Japanese into good, obedient and crazy Ukrainian pawns; but in that case China's wrath, as is logical and natural, would be colossal. Are the Japanese so crazy (?) I ask and I ask seriously, because I do not know and I am very interested in this.

AndrewS said:

Drone swarms and large numbers of decoys implies that they operate from airbases/aircraft, and that they can penetrate whatever opposing air forces and air defences are present.

At the beginning of a campaign, it's credible for the Chinese military to disable the opposing airbases in the 1st and 2nd Island Chains along with any defending aircraft in the air. That would at least be able to achieve temporary air superiority.

But I don't see it being credible for the US to inflict enough damage on the much larger number of mutually supporting Chinese airbases (some of which are super-hardened) and prevent Chinese aircraft from being launched. So Chinese airbases could continue to launch Chinese fighters and AEW aircraft to shoot down incoming drones/missiles. At the same time, other Chinese airbases could continue to launch drones/decoys for offensive missions.

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These scenarios have already been discussed back and forth on this thread already.

Your point was the following:

AndrewS said:

The point is that cruise missiles can be effectively engaged by very low-cost CIWS gun systems and short-range SAMs.

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How do you know that CMs can be "effectively" engaged by "low-cost CIWS" and "short-range SAMs" ?

How many CMs have been intercepted by these solutions to date? How many got through? What's the ratio?