Taiwan's Reaction to PLA Force Modernization

fishhead said:

That's still true today. The M2000s are basically out of action since no enough man power to operate/maintain them.

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No, this is not true. M2000 is still flying and training but the government has funding issues and the re-organization did have some negative impact.

No, they're fully aware of what's happening, but abandoned any hope of a serious fighting. They're just counting on Americans, true or false.

"If you guys overthrow the table and open fire, we simply surrender, no point to fight" a hardcore TIer told me before, he has the secret service background.

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This is simply only taking the negative, and sometimes not entirelly accurate news to evaluate. I am not saying ROCAF does not have any serious problems. They do and some of the problems are not easy to overcome.

On the other hands, lots people really hope PLA would think and evaluate in this way.:rofl:

crobato said:

True.

But there isn't stuff there that I have not read before.

I remember reading about American advisers coming to Taiwan to evaluate the ROCAF modernization. Their comments were in effect, that despite all the new hardware coming in, their software has not come to match. On the other hand, on the other side of the straits, the PLAAF has been upgrading their software to match their hardware.

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If you read the report form US two to three years ago, it said ROCAF had issues regarding training, especially with air to ground and close support, plus different type of aircrafts training together. To traditional air combat training, it's different story.

That time, ROCAF had its problems. It has problems keeping pilots in the airforce, because the civil airliner business pays much better. (The JASDF had this problem too, so its not just a local phenomenon, and so I wonder to what extent S. Korea and even mainland China has this phenomenon. Quite likely too I would think, because the PLA as a whole has been complaining about their salaries.) At one point, the ROCAF had more modern fighters (IDF+F-16+M2000) combined than pilots to fly them.

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So many people still read this wrong.

The shortage of pilots was due to ROCAF put a restriction to pilots only with certain flying hours could fly F-16 or M2000. In the late 90s, there were problems with F-5Es fleet and that's where the gap started: if those young pilots could not get enough flying hours sooner to transfer to F-16 or M2000 squadren, then there would be less for the two but more than enough for F-5Es.

The re-organization did have some negative impact to the whole air force, but this has been cleared more than once.
That was years ago though. Hard to say if the situation still exists now.

I do think that in my opinion, the ROCAF "slept". They did not take the PLAAF modernization efforts seriously until it was too late. They had the attitude that the PLAAF was technologically inferior, that they could not even operate their Su-27s properly. I'm sure they love those stories about those Su-27s either falling out of the sky or not getting off the ground at all.

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This is wrong opinion and when you only take one side information, then it would happen.

But arrogance leads to complecency until it is too late. The PLAAF, by keeping its modernization close to its chest, also helped kept those alarms from sounding off.

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I really hope you would get more information from both sides, not just negative ones.

With the airforce battle between PRC and ROC the edge that the ROC had couple years ago was modern aircrafts and better trained pilots. But now as the PRC is obtained and is till obataining aircrafts far more superior that ROC. The only edge that the ROC now has is better trained pilot. But this advantage is also beginning to slip as PRC pilots are getting more and more training hours every year, becoming more professional and better trained. These are only the ordinary PRC pilots not to mention PRC aggressor squad who's training hours are catching up to US pilots training hours. This squad is definatly no push over for the ROC. Not to mention the amount of PRC aircrafts swamping the air keeping the ROC boys busy and also there airdefence.

SO, in your mind, only PLAAF has aggressor and ROCAF does not?

Chengdu J-10 said:

These are only the ordinary PRC pilots not to mention PRC aggressor squad who's training hours are catching up to US pilots training hours. This squad is definatly no push over for the ROC. Not to mention the amount of PRC aircrafts swamping the air keeping the ROC boys busy and also there airdefence.

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I really hope you would get more information from both sides, not just negative ones.

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Frankly people here know very well what are the PLAAF's problems. But compared to the ROCAF, I think the PLAAF has it a lot better, starting with a government that is more committed to them, greater availability of budget and resources, and a much larger and increasingly competent local military-industrial complex to back them up. On the other hand, not only does the ROC government lack a backbone, but any plans of acquisition will get Beijing making a ruckus, forcing a political battle with every acquisition.

Lets start for example, the ratio of missiles to fighters. 200 seekers from Motorola were imported to make the TC-2. That's against 200 fighters. For 60 Mirage 2000, around 400 MICA was imported. For a 150 F-16s, you just brought in 120 AMRAAMs and are now trying to get nearly 240 more.

I remember from an old KANWA or Jane's article that the order for R-77s for China was about a thousand. You have a hundred MKKs. Thats a ratio of 10 to one plane. You have about 180+ Su-27s/J-11s. According to SIPRI, nearly 1900 R-27s of all types were imported. Almost the same ratio.
With J-8Fs, J-10s and J-11Bs, no problemo, they actually make the missiles locally like the PL-12.

Pakistan is ordering 24 new F-16s, plus a dozen older F-16s that will be MLU'ed, and the current ones will be upgraded as well. For them, they plan to acquire 500 AMRAAMs. Almost the same ratio. This is for comparison.

Then look at the upgrade plans. Ching Kuo C/Ds. Maybe Block 52+ F-16s after this decade providing the budget enpasse is resolved. After this decade. Both of whom lack a significant and comfortable technological advantage to the planes the PLAAF is now getting. You need the outright, decisive technological superiority to compensate for your numerical inferiority, which can worsen in any scenario once airbases are attacked, lowering your operational availability. In some areas, you are already in a technological disadvantage (example HMS/HOBS missiles).

About the training. The airspace in Taiwan does not offer much opportunity for that, especially when training with ECM, not without affecting civilian air traffic. At least the F-16 pilots can go to Luke AFB, and do their training there (though recently they stopped going to the William Tell competitions), but what about the IDF and Mirage pilots? The PLAAF has the remote deserts in the north and northwest to do intensive training, complete with replicas of ROCAF bases to bomb on.

Another problem of the ROCAF, like the PLAAF, you don't exercise with anyone much, not without Beijing mouthing a big diplomatic process against the other country involved. The PLAAF on the other hand, is now opening up to do international exercises, starting with Russia.

Now let's talk about aggressor units. You have the flexibility to do Red and Blue flag exercises. But while the PLAAF can use J-10s to simulate F-16s and Mirage 2000s, what does the ROCAF can use to simulate the Flankers? Maybe the guys going to Luke can exercise against USAF Aggressor F-15s, but what about IDF and Mirage pilots? Even if you have pilots going to the States for training, its not really that convenient, because you cannot wargame-exercise on a completely organizational level.

crobato said:

Lets start for example, the ratio of missiles to fighters. 200 seekers from Motorola were imported to make the TC-2. That's against 200 fighters. For 60 Mirage 2000, around 400 MICA was imported. For a 150 F-16s, you just brought in 120 AMRAAMs and are now trying to get nearly 240 more.

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I really do not have to read whole your post to find errors.

1. TC2, the public records are 200 against 130 fighters from years ago. The production stopped? According to sources, yes due to the switch to other missiles but no confirmation.

2. MICA, wrong number since even the total number of missiles imported was not confirmed by any official and most of the numbers reported were in 900 to 1200 range. Also there were no records indicating how many of them were MICA or Magic 2.

3. AIM-120, not accurate again. There were at least two shipment to make the public reported number to more than 200. Please remember, ROCAF's F-16 fleet is still under going major upgrade to use AIM-120 and, possibly, JDAM.

Since I read posts here, I wonder you would like a balance voices with comparable facts or just one side of stories?

crobato said:

I remember from an old KANWA or Jane's article that the order for R-77s for China was about a thousand. You have a hundred MKKs. Thats a ratio of 10 to one plane. You have about 180+ Su-27s/J-11s. According to SIPRI, nearly 1900 R-27s of all types were imported. Almost the same ratio.

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I had chace to chat with a friend from China who has lots experience with military information over there. I asked him about the 100 upgrade kits you mentioned and he said he never heard of it. Also according to the experience with China's local forum, if this is true, there would be tons of posts against or brag about it.

However, there is no thing like this spreading as other news like J-10. Also, AWST published an article in 2004 (I think) ablut passive R27. In that article it also mentioned that the production no of R77 was couple hundered. So, plus those export customers' interview, I wonder the number here is way way too high. Plus, China is going to have PL-12, why purchase R77? That's not what their usual wisdom.

3. AIM-120, not accurate again. There were at least two shipment to make the public reported number to more than 200. Please remember, ROCAF's F-16 fleet is still under going major upgrade to use AIM-120 and, possibly, JDAM.

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Do you have any solid evidence back this up, cause I remember seeing a taiwan law maker blast an airforce general about having more "guns then bullet"(refer to the F-16 and their AIM-120s) on TV not too long a ago.

The SU-30MKKs can't use PL-12s, similiar to F-16s can't use TC-2s.

Personally, unless ROCAF purchase large numbers of F-35s, there is no way the currect fleet have that much tech advantage to over come the numerical disadv.

optionsss said:

Personally, unless ROCAF purchase large numbers of F-35s, there is no way the currect fleet have that much tech advantage to over come the numerical disadv.

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It depends what you see to be the numbers. China can only field part of its airforce against Taiwan. Also there would have to be a reserve of its modern jets that China would want to keep, lest it be left open to bullying from a neighbour.

re the missile numbers:
somehow I could imagine that in an event of armed conflict the US would transfer missiles to Taiwan if needed. Perhaps Taipe counts on that and wants to safe some money. A good idea it is probably not. The transfer would have to occur rather fast.
Though I don't know exactly about missile numbers, the stocks in general (not only A-A missiles) would exhaust rather fast it seems.
The limited missiles aspect appears from time to time.

FuManChu said:

It depends what you see to be the numbers. China can only field part of its airforce against Taiwan. Also there would have to be a reserve of its modern jets that China would want to keep, lest it be left open to bullying from a neighbour.

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There are a lot of ways to define modern aircraft, but at least the bird should be able to engage target at BVR.

Taiwan 334 fighters that can go on BVR, and China have about over 400 aircraft .Then taiwan also have to worry about H-6 with their cruise missiles, which can attack Taiwan vital bases at the defence of S-300s. And JH-7 would pose a problem as well. The bombers can't completely destroy Taiwan's airforce, but they do pose a major threat. Then there is the issue of 500-700 J-7s vs the F-5 tiger.

In terms of threat from other countries, China can keep about 20% of its airforce as reserve, that would still be a considerable number advantage over Taiwan, and the thing is that 500-700 J-7 will not remain there for long. J-10/11B will enter mass production soon, maybe J-10 already did. Things are not getting easier for ROCAF.

I think the worst part is that the government seems more concerned about changing aircraft names and adding weight to IDF, which uses engine designed for business jets.

You have to consider that there is still a realistic limit as to how many aircraft can be fielded by each side simultaneously over the Taiwan strait. Avoidance of friendly fire, keeping track of all operations by your side, different branches of the military all fighting in the same very limited area...

It is not reasonable to hypothesize that China would be able to field all of its advanced fighters against Taiwan, and likewise it's not reasonable to assume Taiwan could do the same. At the most, I think coordinating 50~80 jets at a time in the air is already strain for the battle commanders of each side - look at past air campaign operations in other military conflicts.

As such, the ratio of attrition and the rate at which resources can be replaced becomes increasingly important. Taiwan has little to lose by tossing all of its Air force into battle (obviously not at the same time), while it is strategically unwise for China to go all in, seeing as it has additional priorities to worry about - which is a reason why I play with the numbers loosely when imagining scenarios.