PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Indeed, but the calculus adds up if it's assessed that America wouldn't back out in the first place. Essentially, "If they're gonna fight us, we may as well do as much damage as possible while they're still at a peacetime posture."

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Hey Patchwork, really appreciate your insight!

I remember you said that if PLA is to strike first with full strength, in 3~4 hours all ground based sorties from Guam/Japan/TW will be halted, i want to dig a bit closer into that.
Lets say if PLARF managed to completely take out Kadena, Misawa and other major air hubs, along with the permanent squadrons stationed there. My assumption for what happens next is,
1, USAF then immediately try to move other units from Alaska, Hawaii and CONUS to the theater, which i think include at least 12 combat coded gen5 squadrons, which outnumber J20 units (3~5?) by a large margin
2, with ACE, these new-arrival units will be spreads across many (civilian) Japanese airports, which i think at least 50 of them are large enough to operate C17
3, PLARF will continue to strike these facilities, but then it will be really difficult to score too many hits because of a combination of countermeasures including ACE, decoys on the ground, etc, and eventually PLARF runs out of ballistic missile
4, USAF will continue to operate these gen5 units and gradually wears out PLAAF with favorable exchange rate
5, with air dominance in westpac, US side can choose to either expel PLA from the island or continue to strike mainland targets

So i always thought for PLA to win this, the key is a comparable-to-US gen5 fighter force, maybe somewhere around 2030 this can achieved. I would love to hear your comment for above

caohailiang said:

Hey Patchwork, really appreciate your insight!

I remember you said that if PLA is to strike first with full strength, in 3~4 hours all ground based sorties from Guam/Japan/TW will be halted, i want to dig a bit closer into that.
Lets say if PLARF managed to completely take out Kadena, Misawa and other major air hubs, along with the permanent squadrons stationed there. My assumption for what happens next is,
1, USAF then immediately try to move other units from Alaska, Hawaii and CONUS to the theater, which i think include at least 12 combat coded gen5 squadrons, which outnumber J20 units (3~5?) by a large margin

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You simply can't just move them there. They are stationed all across America and Europe for different reasons and needed for defense of different regions and training/evaluation squads and other reasons. Are they actually available for usage? Not all of the F-22/35s squadrons are mission capable. More importantly, these aircraft have to land somewhere. Where they land needs to have hardened bunkers and support facilities for 5th generation aircraft. Those don't pop up over night. That's just not how things work.

caohailiang said:

2, with ACE, these new-arrival units will be spreads across many (civilian) Japanese airports, which i think at least 50 of them are large enough to operate C17

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Any civilian airports would have to be allowed by the Japanese government which would be facing a full Chinese blockade at this point.

caohailiang said:

3, PLARF will continue to strike these facilities, but then it will be really difficult to score too many hits because of a combination of countermeasures including ACE, decoys on the ground, etc, and eventually PLARF runs out of ballistic missile

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Once you destroy the runways and air defense, they wouldn't be just attacking with Ballistic missiles anymore, they will be using PGMs and stand off missiles. The initial salvos of ballistic missiles are just to allow them to make it safer for follow on strikes

caohailiang said:

4, USAF will continue to operate these gen5 units and gradually wears out PLAAF with favorable exchange rate

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Where are these aircraft operating from? Will they have supporting ISR structure around them? Wherever they might use will be heavily targeted by PLAAF precision strikes.

caohailiang said:

5, with air dominance in westpac, US side can choose to either expel PLA from the island or continue to strike mainland targets

So i always thought for PLA to win this, the key is a comparable-to-US gen5 fighter force, maybe somewhere around 2030 this can achieved. I would love to hear your comment for above

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Don't overrate the importance of 5th gen aircraft. They are just another key in the cog. With the ISR and EW structure they have around and PL-15, 4th gen aircraft like J-16s will also be quite dangerous to F-35s. Think of air combat as a system of sensors and shooters. China has spent a lot of resources in build up this network of sensors and fusing those data.

Don't understimate older tech like JH-7A and H-6K. They are not survivable by themselves. However, they function very well as low coast bomb trucks that contain significant fire power.

tphuang said:

You simply can't just move them there. They are stationed all across America and Europe for different reasons and needed for defense of different regions and training/evaluation squads and other reasons. Are they actually available for usage? Not all of the F-22/35s squadrons are mission capable. More importantly, these aircraft have to land somewhere. Where they land needs to have hardened bunkers and support facilities for 5th generation aircraft. Those don't pop up over night. That's just not how things work.

Any civilian airports would have to be allowed by the Japanese government which would be facing a full Chinese blockade at this point.

Once you destroy the runways and air defense, they wouldn't be just attacking with Ballistic missiles anymore, they will be using PGMs and stand off missiles. The initial salvos of ballistic missiles are just to allow them to make it safer for follow on strikes

Where are these aircraft operating from? Will they have supporting ISR structure around them? Wherever they might use will be heavily targeted by PLAAF precision strikes.

Don't overrate the importance of 5th gen aircraft. They are just another key in the cog. With the ISR and EW structure they have around and PL-15, 4th gen aircraft like J-16s will also be quite dangerous to F-35s. Think of air combat as a system of sensors and shooters. China has spent a lot of resources in build up this network of sensors and fusing those data.

Don't understimate older tech like JH-7A and H-6K. They are not survivable by themselves. However, they function very well as low coast bomb trucks that contain significant fire power.

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1，the 12 USAF gen5 squd i counted are non-training/evaluation/testing/europe/ng/reserve units

2, when push come to shove, i think JP government will comply to the use of civilian airports for USAF. or at least i think PLA planner ought to assume that rather than opposite

3, like i said, these new arrival fighter units will be speading out across dozens of civilian airports, there are over 100 runway or taxiway, there is simply no way to kept them closed with BM.

4, i assume the point of ACE (agile combat engagement) is to take care of gen5 logistics within a C17, no?

5, on top of that, ACE enables a F35 to stay on the ground only for minutes instead of hours before taking off again, which makes it much more difficult for PLARF to hit, no? and i think with decoys on the ground, it will be extremely difficult to tell and PLARF could end up wasting a lot of BM before running out on ammo

5, not in anyway over estimate gen5 fighters, just assuming they have a 3-to-1 kill ratio to gen4

caohailiang said:

1，the 12 USAF gen5 squd i counted are non-training/evaluation/testing/europe/ng/reserve units

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Sure, but there are down times to aircraft availability. PLA will pick an attack time that's most advantageous to itself. More importantly is the next part.

caohailiang said:

2, when push come to shove, i think JP government will comply to the use of civilian airports for USAF. or at least i think PLA planner ought to assume that rather than opposite

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I'm not sure if @Patchwork_Chimera will agree with me here, but things are going to get pretty brutal for Japan if China does attack. I've posted some thoughts here #1,717 , but Japan will be a major part of this. If China is going to deal with the terrible consequences of attacking Taiwan, then it will not leave any stone unturned. Unless Japan publicly state that it will not allow its bases to be used by America, China will have to plan with the assumption that it needs to destroy Japan's capability of supporting USAF in the conflict. That mans, it will need to attack strategic oil reserve, power grid, military fuel depot, major infrastructure. It will need to hit enough strategic key points that Japan simply will have no way of organizing air defense and supporting USAF in any way. Having civilian airports is useless if Japan runs out of natural gas in a few days or if the trained crew member that are capable of supporting an air base can't get there. All you will have are aircraft that are waiting to get struck by PGMs. PLAAF would glad use a cruise missile to destroy F-35s sitting in the tarmac.

And even beyond that, China will want to ensure that Japan can never be used as a staging point by US military to corner it. It will blockade Japan until Japanese government no longer allows US military on its soil. And it will make sure that possible power in the region including Japan and South Korea, will never obtain nuclear weapon.

caohailiang said:

3, like i said, these new arrival fighter units will be speading out across dozens of civilian airports, there are over 100 runway or taxiway, there is simply no way to kept them closed with BM.

4, i assume the point of ACE (agile combat engagement) is to take care of gen5 logistics within a C17, no?

5, on top of that, ACE enables a F35 to stay on the ground only for minutes instead of hours before taking off again, which makes it much more difficult for PLARF to hit, no? and i think with decoys on the ground, it will be extremely difficult to tell and PLARF could end up wasting a lot of BM before running out on ammo

5, not in anyway over estimate gen5 fighters, just assuming they have a 3-to-1 kill ratio to gen4

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ACE is not magic. You still need airports with people that can support them and with air defense system to protect the aircraft, since there won't be any hardened bunkers anywhere. After that initial wave of ballistic missiles, China will be attacking with strike aircraft launching PGMs an have plenty of ISR targets to detect incoming aircraft. The initial attacks is just to give China the ability to attack strategically important points with strike aircraft without taking big losses. 5th gen aircraft requires supporting structure and aviation fuel. You can't just fly them 4000 km and expect them to take off again right afterward. They need heavy maintenance. If you don't have the people there to get them ready. If you don't have the people planning out the mission because all the command structure is destroyed. If you don't have the people who know how to put missiles onto an F-35. How do you expect them to be combat ready? These things all take time.

As for your last question, I would say to not generalize anything. If you have overwhelming system of sensors and longer ranged missiles, a 4th generation aircraft could very well shoot down a 5th generation aircraft that's operating with not much help. And in this case, China will have an overwhelming ISR and EW presence around. That's why we talk about the need for USN to send over multiple CSGs at the same time.

You send 1 CSG over and it's toast. But if you are able to send 3 or 4 over, it's exponentially hard for China to defeat that.

watdahek said:

Sure, Nazi Germany is more aggresive, evil, and fanatical than US, no problem with that.

If Nazi Germany restrained itself from using chemical weapons on enemy states that possess chemical weapons, I think it is more delusional to say modern great powers will use WMD on another great power possessing WMD even when there are no existential threat. I will stop here, since it is off topic, I just felt this example shows the incredibly high threshold for situations that warrant using WMD.

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Quick comment: to be fair, chemical weapons would have contaminated the areas the Germans wanted to take back. So using chemical weapons would be more detrimental to their efforts.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Look, I don't want to come off as mean, but you should probably do some more reading on how airpower works as a system before you start making speculation like this. I'd like to respond to your points with some primer questions that'll hopefully get you thinking about the right things, and to do some more research on them:

1 - Which Sqns are these (name them)? how many PMAI aircraft do they host? What missions do they typically train for, and what kind of supporting facilities do they have to support them?

2/3 - What is it about a military airfield/airbase that is better for flight ops than a civilian airfield? Once an aircraft shows up somewhere, what does it need so as to contribute to the system of airpower? How do aircraft get to an airfield this far away?

4 - What ***exactly*** do you put in those C-17s, where do you land them, how do you get them close enough *to* land them, who unloads them and transfers those supplies to active aircraft, what facilities support those aircraft, etc.?

5 - Lol I'm not even gonna grace this one with a response. This one is just a simple "no, please stop saying stupid things"

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Oh come on be nice man.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Responding to all of the positions he took would have taken many hours and tens of thousands of words. I think it's more useful to him, and less wasteful of my time to ask him questions that he can go research and learn about. The last response is important to make absolutely clear that no, F-35s cannot simply land, get hot refueled, and head back up to conduct ops in a matter of minutes in real combat environments; and that he shouldn't even entertain it as a concept.

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Yes. People treat military operations like video games.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Responding to all of the positions he took would have taken many hours and tens of thousands of words. I think it's more useful to him, and less wasteful of my time to ask him questions that he can go research and learn about. The last response is important to make absolutely clear that no, F-35s cannot simply land, get hot refueled, and head back up to conduct ops in a matter of minutes in real combat environments; and that he shouldn't even entertain it as a concept.

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You mean you don't just press '~' and type
setcheats 1
F35.addmunitions
F35.addfuel
?

Probably played too much Ace Combat games where every single fighter in the game can carry 100+ missiles and no G-force restrictions...

To be fair to @caohailiang, he probably got some of the ideas from some writings similar to the following article:


The USAF routinely conducts independent training operations in the FAS, as demonstrated in 2020 when Guam-based F-22s received hot-pit refueling from a Yokota C-130J at an airfield in Palau.

Coincidentally, a plethora of island chains give the FAS an expansive geographic footprint replete with austere locations ideal for establishing new airfields and housing USAF assets with minimal degradation to operational readiness.