How will they receive supplies from allies if they do that? You can’t completely rely on air lifts for this.
Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
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How will they receive supplies from allies if they do that? You can’t completely rely on air lifts for this.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Ports on the western side of the island would be useless for receiving supplies, so it is reasonable to assume that the will be sabotaged. Which is also why the PLA would be expecting that and have suitable countermeasures ready to go.
I am sure PLA combat engineers would be able to construct suitable unloading ramps in pretty short order, especially if they bring them in prefabricated blocks.
But I think that all misses the key point in that the PLA is no longer a quantity driven force.
China doesn’t need to bring in more troops than what Taiwan has available when it owns the skies and have both modern strikers and UCAVs in abundance. Not since WWII had a ground force been able to stand against air power in open combat, especially when enemy ground forces advance to flush them out into the open. And we are not even talking about naval fire support and even land based long range MLRS and missiles based on the mainland itself.
All this moaning about sea life capacity is assuming the PLA needs numerical superiority to take Taiwan when that is patently untrue.
With the kind of air dominance China can expect to enjoy, PLA marines, airborne, air Calvary and special forces would be overkill to smash Taiwan’s conscript army.
It will be PAP that will be needed in much greater numbers to police the island after reunification, but you don’t need amphibious assault ships to get them over.
I recall the plan back in 1996 was that a minimum of two existing harbour had to be captured to allow Ro-Ro ships to offload enough troops quick enough to push inland.
An option that did not exist back in 1996 is artificial floating harbour ala D-Day Mulberry harbour. PLA has done a lot of work in this regard so if a landing were to occur today instead of hard target of capturing two existing harbours with amphibious troops the target might be just 1 or even zero. Or more likely amphibious troops will still try to capture harbours while artificial harbours will be set up concurrently regardless of their progress just in case.
If US can dump $2.3 Trillion on Afghanistan, I'm sure China can spare $200 Million on a large-scale amphibious fleet for Taiwan, IF it truly cared about reunification with Taiwan via invasion.
Rather than trying to backwards justify why China should retain a conservative/limited amphibious landing fleet.... it's more credible to admit that China is more development-focused and has zero intentions of an amphibious landing invasion of Taiwan, therefore it doesn't bother with a large-scale peacetime amphibious landing fleet due to cost (however tiny relative to total defense budget).
Just admit China has zero intentions of invading Taiwan, so it lacks a large-scale amphibious fleet. I'd admire that much more than trying to backwards rationalize how it's more efficient use of China's dime and cents, and how 'X objective' can be achieved with less resources. This isn't a business deal, this is about 'reunification', therefore no expense should be spared IF China was truly seriously about it... which it is not.
Rather than trying to backwards justify why China should retain a conservative/limited amphibious landing fleet.... it's more credible to admit that China is more development-focused and has zero intentions of an amphibious landing invasion of Taiwan, therefore it doesn't bother with a large-scale peacetime amphibious landing fleet due to cost (however tiny relative to total defense budget).
Just admit China has zero intentions of invading Taiwan, so it lacks a large-scale amphibious fleet. I'd admire that much more than trying to backwards rationalize how it's more efficient use of China's dime and cents, and how 'X objective' can be achieved with less resources. This isn't a business deal, this is about 'reunification', therefore no expense should be spared IF China was truly seriously about it... which it is not.
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Taiwan strait is choppy and prone to Typhoon hit. So artificial harbor is very vulnerable to storm. The mulberry was hit by the storm and completely mauled. But fortunately 2 Weeks after D day.
Airpower alone can never decide the outcome of war campaign. airborne is limited by the fact that resupply is difficult Sooner or latter they will run out of food, munition, medicine, etc. No one attempt large airborne operation again after the failure of market garden campaign. You need boot on the ground
Lol what is a $200 million large-scale amphibious fleet?
A single major surface combatant costs $500 million. You can buy 40% of a destroyer or 20% of an LPD for $200 million. Me thinks you have no idea how naval combatant production or amphibious invasions work.
For a supposed invasion of Taiwan to succeed without major risk of catastrophic failure you'd need to overmatch the US Pacific fleet and the Japanese navy. This means you'll need an armada of anti-submarine planes, helos, and frigates. Then follow it up with a thousand or so large fast jets to interdict JASDF and USN/USMC naval aviation. Maybe some carriers to shove out the CAP bubble. Then you'll need an armada of LSTs, Roros, LPDs, and LHDs to ram helicopters, amphibious tanks/IFVs etc into the very few beaches in Taiwan. A full set of ISR satellites, UUVs, SOSUS grid, etc to provide targeting data for the anti-shipping ballistic missiles.
Individual helicopters and jet fighters cost $20-100 million a pop. Individual tanks cost $1-2 million a piece. An LPD or LHD is easily $500 million a boat. A carrier is a billion a pop. Annual salary and benefits for a soldier can easily be $250,000-$500,000 a year assuming you factor in amortized pension and healthcare. A hundred J-20s will set you back $10 billion already. You wanna build ten amphibious assault ships? Easily 50 billion.
Now it is my personal opinion that the Taiwanese will fold only marginally less quickly than the Afghan national army. However, if you are a military planner you have to assume the enemy will actually fight otherwise you should be fired for gross negligence.
Also, scaling up military production isn't that easy. You need to train skilled engineers and workmen which takes 10ish years. Naval construction yards also take 5ish years to build up. Training sailors is also a generational project. It's not just a matter of cranking money into the system.
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Actually wrong. The reason airborne (parachutist and glider) based forces have declined precipitously is because helicopter-borne motorized assaults are better in almost every regard and situation.
List of successful parachute assaults since Operation Market Garden.
--Operation Machbesh by the IDF during the Suez crisis
--Operation Musketeer by the French and British paratroop forces during the Suez crisis
--Indian parachutists cut off the Pakistani army's route of retreat during the fall of East Pakistan in 1971
--1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor, a concurrent marine and paratroop assault
--Operation Junction City, US Army Airborne in the Vietnam war
--Rhodesian Fire-force strategies in the Rhodesian Bush war relied on concurrent helo-mobile and parachutist assault
--Initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by the VDV and Spetsnaz
--US forces used extensive parachute forces in Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan
--French forces parachuted into Mali to capture Timbuktu in 2013
I could go on. Point is you are wrong.
And even if you want to quibble, I will point out that both Russia and the US maintain divisional sized airborne formations and the PLA is saying it will build 1000 Y-20 air lifters which implies divisional sized airborne formations.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
All the operations that you mention are pitting an advanced army fight against peasant army with sandal and ak 47. It does not apply in Taiwan contingency where you are up against well equipped army with IAD. Of course the caveat is will Taiwan army fight? But you should never assume they won't. so you are comparing apple and orange!
Well sofar only 30 Y 20 are produced and it has been how long since they start production 6 years?. So assuming the same rate of production it will take 180 years before it reached 1000 Can you wait that long?