Well, what will run out first? US marines or precision bombs?
US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? If two guys on an island with a few Javelins can force you to divert some of your limited fires bandwidth to that island instead of... say, Guam, I'd say that's not much of a loss as you think.
GJ-11 is not tasked for Guam.
PLA can parachute a few solar power UGVs on the islands in the West Pac. Any lost of signal will be investigated by UAVs. Any hostile forces discovered on the islands will be bombed.
Because:
1. Jungles are hard to see through via drones even if the Marines are discovered
2. EW
Force Design 2030 is betting on smaller/less flashy Marine formations that can blend in with their environment and basically shoot and "hide"/scoot with ships that act as mobile bases and transportation hubs. The Marines are basically going to be engaging in naval guerilla warfare.
There is also the fact where Japan has around 6850 islands and islets, while the Philippines has around 7640 islands and islets.
Good luck trying to scout every single one of them for the US Marines while getting jammed and/or fired upon.
PLA doesn’t have to cleanse tens of thousands of islands free of US marines. It can focus on a few points on the First Island Chain and make sure the islands in those exit points don’t have marines on them. Naval task forces and nuclear subs then can exit those safe points and do whatever they need to do in the West Pac.
Sure, but only if your enemy has shore-based cannons that can fire out to ten kilometers - And not loitering drones that can fly for 10s or 100s of kilometers - Or AShMs that can fly for 100s and even 1000-2000+ kilometers.
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Of course PLAAF needs to be able to contest air superiority in the West Pac. The US forces need to have ISR assets that can enter the contested area and provide targeting information to the Marines which is not gonna be easy.
There are ISR drones that can be made expendable, if not attritable. Sparrowhawk and Eaglet, both under the Air Launched Effects (ALE) program by General Atomics are among the prominent examples. Besides, there is also the RQ-180 VLO ISR drone, which would be very hard to detect.
Combine that with missiles that has autonomous targetting capabilities even without external assistance and guidance such as the LRASM, the strike package will be even more lethal than before. And just like @LawLeadsToPeace has mentioned - The US Marines is looking to fight a naval guerilla-style warfare, so don't expect them to go gung-ho, guns-blazzing all the time like the US Army does.
Besides, fighting a war in the WestPac means that the PLA is basically dealing with a continent-sized theater of war. There is also another important factor at play, whereby China is facing a combined-force peer enemy that is expected to simultaneously employ both symmetrical and asymmetrical forms of warfare in the WestPac.
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MwRYum
Major
It'll depend on how US' logistics play out in the coming war, and specifically China's ability to sever it.
Then again, that also depends on whether the Pentagon plans and sell the drawn-out war plan to the White House, or they do have one as backup while selling the more rosy "blitzkrieg" plan.