Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Gloire_bb said:

This is not how naval building strategy works. Precisely because "light forces"(mobilization ones) are (1)fastest to build, (2)expensive to maintain(relatively and absolutely), (3)manpower intensive, (4)have insufficient peacetime use, (5)decay quickly in their capability(mechanical obsolescence), (6)suffer the most from theoretical as opposed to practical wartime experience.
Building the wrong craft at the wrong time won't buy you more preparedness. It'll only turn a lot of precious resources away from what actually matters - and those who'll start actual buildup later will get a better force.

Many countries tried this "fast" route and suffered for it pretty hard, wasting a lot of resources (and continuous expenses) for little gain.

PLA doing naval buildup the way they're doing it only says that the quality of governance in China is actually high. People making decisions either know naval theory themselves or, at least, listen to those who do - and continue to do so for several terms of various heads of the state. This is actually impressive, and god bless those who are still blind to see it.

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You seem to be neglecting one possibility: continuous replacement. You aren't contesting @Hendrik_2000's statement that the LST/LSM landing boats are cheap. So why not continue to build them? Just retire the oldest boats and replace them with fresh new ones, and keep doing it, for decades if necessary. Why not, they're cheap!

I also agree with @plawolf's suggestion of bringing prefabricated docks. Perhaps the PLA can do both: use landing boats to take and hold beachheads, then install prefabricated docks. Then fewer LST/LSMs would be needed.

PUFF_DRAGON said:

You wanna build ten amphibious assault ships? Easily 50 billion.

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You're implying that amphibious assault ships cost $5 billion each -- at least. Perhaps you are using inflated Pentagon pricing, I don't know. I do know that the , the Symphony of the Seas, costed less than $1.5 billion. Of course, military boats need to be sturdy and survivable. But I find it hard to believe that one of them would be several times more expensive than a giant luxury cruise ship, especially if the military landing boat doesn't have to defend itself.

Wow the US seems pretty determined to demoralise Taiwan as much as possible

A senior Biden administration official said US "policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed" and analysts said it appeared that Biden had misspoken.

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Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked about Taiwan this week and called it a "fundamentally different question in a different context" to Afghanistan.

"We believe our commitment to Taiwan ... remains as strong as it's ever been," he said, without specifying what the commitment was.

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supersnoop said:

How bizzare, can't imagine going to a place to train and have no official contact with people on the ground.

One of my uni classmates had to do NS (came to Toronto for school), he really hated it because he got hurt, so never really talked about it.

I think PLA watchers are actually a little less taken in by the dog and pony tricks because PLA was behind for so long. That's why everyone is always looking for the tiniest of clues to find the reality.

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All three branches of the Singapore Armed Forces has very little space to train in domestically.

As far as the Army is concerned, we have negotiated training spaces in Australia, Brunei, Germany, India, New Zealand, Taiwan and Thailand. This is not counting joint-exercises that encompasses an even broader list of locations. These training areas are for our own programs. That is, in none of those areas do we train with the locals. It's not in the program. Each unit rostered will fly in-country, process into the perm facility we have there, admin, train, admin, R&R, fly out.

OTOH, I've been involved in 2 joint exercises, not in the above list of countries. The training is totally different. Lots of nice daytime jointness walkthroughs and cultural stuff taking up training slots and nightimes in barracks. One nice easy dog-and-pony show exercise at the end to tie it all together. Under our own program, we would have been out in the field most of the time, in tactical conditions being miserable to our core. Given the expense, time slots at overseas trainings are not wasted.

The camps, at least the ones I had to be in, are mostly fully allocated for our use so no chance of running into local troops even at the canteen or mess hall. There are official contacts, liaisons and embeds within the camp we occupy but they don't feature on a daily basis. From what I know of the agreements, all the host countries maintain full observer rights but in 7 overseas training deployment, I have never personally seen one out in the field with us.

Re: Taiwan, that one had one strange practice different from all the others.
For quite a while, for training in Taiwan, we left our uniforms in Singapore and were issued with plain uniforms that resembled the Taiwanese ones but absolutely devoid of formation patches, rank, name or any identifiers of any sort. We were always bemused by this one. I mean, the training area was spread over rural Taiwan with plenty of villages and small towns within our training grid. Every villager and his dog knew we were from Singapore. No idea what the subterfuge was meant to achieve. In any case, that practice has stopped, afaik.

I would imagine Kinmen & Matsu can be skipped in the early phases of the reunification but Penghu would be a thorn in the side of any amphibious operation. Its around 180km from the mainland but only 20kms from Taiwan so would be a porcupine at the best of times.

Here is a question, how much resources would PLA need to commit, and how long would it take for them to capture Penghu island, then turning that into a fire support base for the artillery/SAM to extend coverage over Taiwan? Does the PLA have enough assets to conduct this operation while simultaneously conducting assaults on the main island? All the while without alarming the Taiwanese defense with the mobilization? How long a mobilization window would that be before its detected?

Assuming if Taiwan's military doesn't capitulate too quickly, wouldn't most of the PLA civilian fleet then be used to stage troops and equipment (regular ground troops) onto Penghu as a stepping stone so smaller and more numerous amphibious assets can be used for the 20km journey to either exploit the secured beachhead on the main island, or attract Taiwanese troop concentration to the South so alternate landing locations can be exploited elsewhere?

Hendrik_2000 said:

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?

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Not really. The Indian army vs Pakistani army was two peer forces going at it. The NVA was lavishly equipped with Soviet and Chinese arms. The Egyptian forces in the Sinai were not that much less advanced than the Israelis. The Iraqi forces in the first Iraq war may have been hilariously unmotivated but they were roughly as well equipped as the ROC forces.

Please, admit your error. It's not hard.

Also, vis a vis Y-20 production rates, did you not think they can't scale that up? It's worth noting that the domestic engines for the Y-20 were only fully developed in 2020. They probably were slow rolling production to wait for the new engines.

Nutrient said:

You're implying that amphibious assault ships cost $5 billion each -- at least. Perhaps you are using inflated Pentagon pricing, I don't know. I do know that the

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, the Symphony of the Seas, costed less than $1.5 billion. Of course, military boats need to be sturdy and survivable. But I find it hard to believe that one of them would be several times more expensive than a giant luxury cruise ship, especially if the military landing boat doesn't have to defend itself.

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You have to pay for all the helicopters, parasite landing vessels, fuel, maintenance, refits, repairs, sailor and soldier salaries, pensions, etc. If you add in costs like personnel, the shit the boat is carrying, and upkeep, it's easily a lifetime cost of several times the original purchase price.

Of course if you are just thinking about sticker price it is like $10 billion, which is still 50 times $200 million lol


Also @Hendrik_2000 your mention of the failed Operation Market Garden in 1944 isn't quite the gotcha you think it is. Consider Operation Versity in 1945 which was the largest single day airborne drop in human history and was quite successful at rolling up German resistance along the Rhine river. Or Operation Herring in 1945 which broke German resistance along the Gothic river. I also like how you failed to mention that the drops into Normandy preceding Market Garden were quite successful at delaying German attempts to reinforce the coastlines.

PUFF_DRAGON said:

Not really. The Indian army vs Pakistani army was two peer forces going at it. The NVA was lavishly equipped with Soviet and Chinese arms. The Egyptian forces in the Sinai were not that much less advanced than the Israelis. The Iraqi forces in the first Iraq war may have been hilariously unmotivated but they were roughly as well equipped as the ROC forces.

Please, admit your error. It's not hard.

Also, vis a vis Y-20 production rates, did you not think they can't scale that up? It's worth noting that the domestic engines for the Y-20 were only fully developed in 2020. They probably were slow rolling production to wait for the new engines.

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I say there is room for airborne operation such as flanking operation. That is why they were kept But it was never meant to be stand alone operation. The last one it was attempted was market garden and it is failed miserably . Small scale operation does not count. Market garden involve something like 100,000 personnel. It was never repeated again ever!

Nutrient said:

You seem to be neglecting one possibility: continuous replacement. You aren't contesting @Hendrik_2000's statement that the LST/LSM landing boats are cheap. So why not continue to build them? Just retire the oldest boats and replace them with fresh new ones, and keep doing it, for decades if necessary. Why not, they're cheap!

I also agree with @plawolf's suggestion of bringing prefabricated docks. Perhaps the PLA can do both: use landing boats to take and hold beachheads, then install prefabricated docks. Then fewer LST/LSMs would be needed.

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Main problem with cheap-numerous options, when they're taken at the long run - is they're surprisingly expensive.
They've cheap upfront costs, that's true. But their yearly maintenance is (while cheap per se) takes a notable chunk of their initial cost (it's actually true for all ships, but small units especially).
Long-term maintenance of an excessively big fleet of mobilization units creates a disproportionally big burden on the navy budget.
What's more important is it's completely unnecessary because China already has the very same personnel, which, unlike them, participates in the country's economy and pays for themselves. I am talking about cute girls from my avatarmaritime militia.
Basically - necessary level of LST-level ships can and shall be in fleet - and it actually exists in China. But craft necessary for the large-scale invasion itself may and shall be built closer to the conflict - either when the decision is taken, or when the conflict has already started.

Sleepyjam said:

Lol what is a $200 million large-scale amphibious fleet?

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US spends more than that in a single day in Afghanistan. It's really unfathomable either how cheap China is... or how it really really doesn't want/expect to go to war with Taiwan.

Ninja edit:
Okay, say the true cost of an large-scale amphibious fleet is $10 Billion instead of $200 million.... the Chinese spent on reclamation of Fiery Cross reef artificial island. Chinese spent on Two Aircraft Carriers (Type 002 and 003) that very limited relevance in an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. The only conclusion I can draw is.... China doesn't want/expect to go to war with Taiwan, since it's spending a bunch of money on sand castles and floating fortresses that have no value in invasion of Taiwan.