PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

Patchwork_Chimera said:

On the other hand, ample AEW, EWR, naval radar, and SAM system-level radars are capable of detecting even VLO munitions at a respectable distance, and can maul even large salvos of CMs. We've had sim iterations where luck and competent pathing has been the difference between complete destruction of a target and the salvo being torn to tatters by GBAA.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

I agree. I believe the US's best course is to, well, be serious. If we want to not just survive, but win a conflict in the WESTPAC - we'd have to basically rebuild our procurement, sustainment, and employment systems from the ground. That way we'd be a lot more efficiently spending what money we can spend on the military. We'd need to invest in large, modern shipyards unlike the ones we currently work with, we'd need to expand Pearl and Guam's naval basing, construct air and naval facilities along the Marianas and ensure they were capable of efficiently replenishing VLS, fuel, stores, etc. to allow us a larger force to work with (currently we can sustain at most ~4 CSGs and a few SAGs operating simultaneously in the WESTPAC when doing so at a sustainable tempo). We'd need to expand our land-based SAM procurement in a big way (PATRIOT is a really REALLY awesome system, and the Bn (1-1 ADA) we have at Kadena for instance is fantastic, but it's still just not enough), and integrate those air defenses widely across our Western Pacific force posture (including getting JADC2 and IBCS up and running pronto). We'd need to do all this, and so so so much more; which is doable - but extraordinarily difficult. So difficult, in fact, that I personally am quite pessimistic about it ever happening. If we aren't willing to put the time, effort, and money into taking back the lead in the WESTPAC - especially the effort to make sure our money isn't being wasted hand over fist - then we may as well save ourselves the bloodletting and cut our losses. At least that way, we wouldn't be wasting what time, money, and effort we do oblige.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

The East Coast carriers have an even longer trip ahead of them, and comprise 3 of the 6 "rapid deployment requirement" carriers.

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vincent said:

If I’m a PLA planner, i will sink a number of fully loaded container ships in both Suez Canal and Panama Canal (preferably in the locks) just before the start of hostilities.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

The current OFRS (Optimized Fleet Response Plan) calls for 6 CVNs total to be (theoretically) deployable within 30 days, and one more within 90 days, including those already underway. This does not include CGs or DDGs, only the Carriers themselves. Deployed also doesn't always mean what you may think it does - currently there are 4 CVNs deployed, but only two of them are operating in CSGs. The other two are conducting their COMPUTEX ahead of a scheduled operational deployment later in the year. Thus, in those 30 days (barring the PLA deciding "yeah screw it let's turn up the difficulty slider" and initiating hostilities just as new CSGs are about to deploy in earnest), the 2-3 CSGs operating typically would only require 3-4 additional CVNs, which would require additional time to conduct a wartime workup before heading to the fight (it is not a good idea to put inexperienced sailors into an immeasurably complex weapons system like a CSG and throw them at an enemy who has been training for this exact moment for months, and who has already been fighting and learning for a minimum of 30 days prior). The transit time for those CSGs is another factor to consider - they would likely try to incorporate some of their training into the transit, but getting to Pearl takes ~5 days at 15-20kts and the transit from Pearl to an area they could get into the fight from from would take 8-9 days at ~20kts. All together, it's likely that the first FRP quick deployment carriers would begin hitting the "front line" anywhere from 1.5-2 months after the beginning of the conflict. This is, of course, pretending that the CVNs are all from the West Coast. The East Coast carriers have an even longer trip ahead of them, and comprise 3 of the 6 "rapid deployment requirement" carriers. This is also assuming that CVN-76 isn't one of the CVNs able to deploy within 30 days. If that were the case, you may as well drop the FRP requirement by 1 CVN, because CVN-76 in port is a complete writeoff.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

PACAF's response could certainly be a little bit quicker. F-35 and F-22 Sqns from Alaska would likely redeploy to Anderson, Pearl, or to Australia, along with a myriad of 4/4.5gen TACAIR, AAR, AEW, ELINT, etc. aircraft. However, this just... well, it's not enough quite honestly. With East Asian basing out of the fight (Japan, South Korea - being unlikely to join the fight in the first place, but if they did, they would also be grounded rather sharpishly, Philippines - again, highly unlikely to join the fight, but the same caveat of "if they did they'd get put on the backfoot rather quickly", and of course Taiwan would all possess airbases that are either crippled - even if temporarily, too far into the PLA's skies to actually operate, or which do not permit the US to fight out of), it essentially leaves those bases as the only ones able to generate sorties for the time being. Furthermore, not only would it be the bases, but it would be the broader airpower system of those spots that would be attacked - meaning even with a runway and a few barrels of jet fuel, aircraft attempting to operate out of those bases would have a very difficult time being armed, being maintained, being coordinated, and not being killed (both on the ground and while airborne). By flying out of these bases, the real sortie generation capability of PACAF is simply not large enough to meaningfully contest the PLAAF in their own backyard. Some civilian airports may be employed by the US to base aircraft, but they lack munitions storage, don't store large quantities of JP-8 in anything resembling hardened tanks (civilian aircraft use Jet-A, which is still okay but lacks some of the additives that JP-8 does and may cause modest performance changes), and have plenty of other miscellaneous drawbacks. They'll work for basing support airframes, but would need to be brought up to military standards as soon as possible to efficiently generate combat aircraft sorties. The Marianas would also be subject to cruise and ballistic missile attacks, which may taper off slightly after the initial salvo, but which would still be a significant impedance to air ops.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Yea, people are kind of underestimating how huge the first strike advantage is these days. On land, initiative can be re-won after it is lost, even between equals; the same is not true of the air/sea domain. There was no coming back from Operation Focus. There was no coming back from the first day of Desert Storm. A concerted, competent, and extensive employment of air/naval operational fires while the target has not yet employed their own munitions (nor, potentially, is operating at maximum readiness and/or alertness) can be utterly devastating. Should Air Force Global Strike Command decide "buckle up" and generate a maximum bandwidth salvo, about 1000 JASSM-ERs could reasonably be salvo'd at targets in the PRC. TLAMs from, what I assume would be a "built-up" naval presence would be able to contribute another 600+ TLAMs. This would all occur as a synchronized, coordinated action; and would enjoy a significantly less "ready" PLA defending against it. Whereas wartime subsonic CM Pa figures are put anywhere from .1 to .3 against mainland targets (for coordinated strikes), the values could be well over .8, even close to .9 as part of a true "first strike." This can be the difference between successfully striking (if we assume the targets have an average of 5 aimpoints) 32 targets and striking 256 targets. That is big.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

These problems wouldn't just go away either. Even if all 3 Pacific rapidly-available CVNs were to be available after those 1.5 months, and were complemented by 2 CGs and 5 DDGs a piece, and PACAF were able to operate out of Guam without any further missile attacks, the amount of combat power that force could project into the PRC's near vicinity - while eye watering by the rest of the world's standards - would be insufficient to defeat the PLA on their home turf, after they had completely crippled Taiwan and Japan already, and subjected them to a complete blockade for likely upwards of a month. Frankly, after a month and a half, I'd expect Taiwan to have already been considered sufficiently attrited for the PLAGF/PLANMC to initiate the land component of the campaign - and I would expect it to have succeeded. At that point, the war is already over. Even if the US could then give the PLA a bloody nose bad enough for the history books to admire, what would the point be? We aren't going to invade the Eastern (worst-for-invasion) coast of Taiwan and push out the PRC.

As such, while yes, the US could certainly bring reinforcements to the fight - they'd simply be too little too late. A rewording, rather than a rewrite of how history records the conflict.

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tphuang said:

Is USN CSG going to cross through the canals? That seems incredibly dangerous for the ships themselves. I'd imagine they would go around Argentina or South Africa.

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Blitzo said:

At this stage it becomes a political question more than a pure military question -- but the way I've tended to game it out is to naturally extend it out to a war of attrition whereby the US would seek to wage an extended "blockade/siege" against China over the course of months and years, whereby the US military's pre-existing geostrategic positioning in the region would enable the US to gradually wear away at PLA defenses and military capability through containment, blockade, and siege, with the aim of trying to build up their own offensive capabilities to achieve decisive operations to achieve an armistice or peace that was heavily on the US favour, ideally with as much destruction of PLA in service fighting capabilities and power projection capabilities as possible.

Of course by this period it is assumed that the US and much of the western world would have been roused into a state of something close to resembling total war (at least from the economic and military-industrial complex pov), as would China.



I suppose what I am saying is that I don't think the war would necessarily be "already over" after a month and a half, because the US will still field substantial warfighting capabilities that could enable them to carry out operations to achieve terms of peace that is more in America's favour.

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vincent said:

China can hunker down and ration food and fuel to last out the siege. Chinese government has plenty of experience with rationing.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Lol hopefully you'll be able to by the end of the year,

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

We'd need to expand our land-based SAM procurement in a big way (PATRIOT is a really REALLY awesome system, and the Bn (1-1 ADA) we have at Kadena for instance is fantastic, but it's still just not enough), and integrate those air defenses widely across our Western Pacific force posture

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Yea, people are kind of underestimating how huge the first strike advantage is these days. On land, initiative can be re-won after it is lost, even between equals; the same is not true of the air/sea domain. There was no coming back from Operation Focus. There was no coming back from the first day of Desert Storm. A concerted, competent, and extensive employment of air/naval operational fires while the target has not yet employed their own munitions (nor, potentially, is operating at maximum readiness and/or alertness) can be utterly devastating. Should Air Force Global Strike Command decide "buckle up" and generate a maximum bandwidth salvo, about 1000 JASSM-ERs could reasonably be salvo'd at targets in the PRC. TLAMs from, what I assume would be a "built-up" naval presence would be able to contribute another 600+ TLAMs. This would all occur as a synchronized, coordinated action; and would enjoy a significantly less "ready" PLA defending against it. Whereas wartime subsonic CM Pa figures are put anywhere from .1 to .3 against mainland targets (for coordinated strikes), the values could be well over .8, even close to .9 as part of a true "first strike." This can be the difference between successfully striking (if we assume the targets have an average of 5 aimpoints) 32 targets and striking 256 targets. That is big.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

What is an aircraft carrier? F*&%ing useless, that's what.

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