Jeff Head
In order to even attempt something like that, you not only have to get everything in place for it to all happen at once...which will be noticed in todays world in the many days and possibly weeks leading up to it...and will be responded to, but you then also have to sustain it.
Why would it be noticed? Possibly the troop movements, but can they really notice anything that portends a possible air strike? How will they have warning of a possible ARM attack from Su-30MKKs already deployed close to Taiwan? How will they have warning of an airlift from IL-76MDs, which are far off from Taiwan? It would be easy to blow that off as a training exercise in some region far distant from Taiwan. Can they really notice LS-6s kits being move to airbases hundreds of miles away and account that into their calculations? It would simply be them inducting it into service and equipping all their forces.
I'm curious as to what exactly would be noticed. Are you referring to something more along the lines of preparing air crews for increased sorties needed for such a conflict?
And then, when the actual attack comes off, 100% attrition or suppression, or anything substantially close to it, with 0% loss is just entirely unreasonable...and if you will pardon the comment, and it is not meant personally...it is in fact laughable. You would do your entire scenario a real favor by not stretching things so much with such comments in my opinion.
Am I saying it would be perfect? No. However, its doesn't have to be perfect to achieve the needed goal. There are the small SAM systems, shorter-range and man-portable SAMs that might catch a few aircraft unprepared. Any ROCAF aircraft in the air may be able to take down several aircraft. The ROCN may have a few ships that survive intially and may even sink a few subs.
I'm simply saying that the potential for 100% success with 0% loss is there. The U.S. often goes against countries with much wider area, much more warning than a few weeks even, let alone a few days or hours, and we often have no real intent of launching a completely crippling attack in the first hour.
Gollevainen
Yeas, exactly what I ment also. The six day war by best presented how 'easy' warfare can be when the enemy lacks all the intiativeness. But the situation in the middle east was completely counter to the one in the Taiwan. All the arab nations were prepared for war, but to a war where they set the pace and were the attacker. The possipility that Israel would attack never occured their minds.
And to add to that that the Arab armies were absording the most stiffest and unflexible elements of Soviet doctrines really didnt give them any change, nor did the fact that Arab armies didnt actually had any clue to what to do with their new soviet toys.....
Hmmm, are the Taiwanese really trained much with their F-16s, Mirages, and Patriots? They certainly don't have enough missiles to conduct many live fire exercises. They get a lot of flying hours no doubt, but will that do them any good if they have no idea what it will be like in real combat. Are they still not training using dissimilar aircraft?
However, Operation Focus succeeded not because of Egyptian lack of preparations, but the fact that nothing they had was prepared for the exact attack they found themselves against.
What Taiwan has isn't sufficient to shoot down hundreds of ballistic missiles. There's no real arguing that point and I don't think anyone here will. These missiles all aimed at airbases and radar would immediately erode Taiwan's air defense capabilities to near zero effectiveness by themselves.
In Taiwan the situation isent the same. To predict war you have to predict your opponents moves and You are clearly neglecting this factor, covering behind some vague dreams how taiwanese people would abandon their homes and belives and social systems by the same claims that PRC propaganda uses.
I believe in the power of massive untold destruction to heavily sway public opinion for good or ill. I'm not Chinese BTW.
An economic, naval, and air blockade as well as near-complete destruction of their military in so short a time would be more than traumatizing for the Taiwanese public.
Ahem to that. Wargames are by nature a bit silly things, and to have any meaning to them you need to be objective to all factors. The mentioned scenario wants to PRC to succee so it is written in that way, highligthing all favorable aspects to the goal and simply passing all the negative ones.
I don't particularly care about whether the PRC wants Taiwan or not, let alone whether they get Taiwan. I simply think too many people don't want to see China to succeed and are willing to ignore the gravity of Taiwan's situation.
Nearly 1,000 ballistic missile in range of Taiwan. That could pretty much render the entire ROCAF and all of Taiwan's air defenses useless by itself. Hell, it could even have a significant impact on the ROCA and ROCN.
China doesn't even have to use that entire arsenal to ground the entire ROCAF and Taiwan does not have a viable defense against such an attack.
The ballistic missile attack renders any mention of the ROCAF almost, if not completely moot. Operation Focus saw about 200 aircraft launch mainly short-range attacks and, if I'm not mistaken, mostly unguided weapons. China has assets the Israelis couldn't have dreamed of at the time and it significantly changes the way a strike would be carried out.
The_Zergling
Frankly, it would take days to evacuate all the civilians from the outlying islands while keeping the soldiers there and ship them back to Taiwan. Ever been to Penghu? Are you seriously suggesting that the PLA round up every single non-combatant and deport them so they can kill all the military soldiers there if they do so wish as a chip in negotiations? It's not going to work, at least not without a significant amount of time.
Plus, public opinion is against them. A single report about an old woman who has lived in Penghu all her life and could care less about "the Glorious Chinese Motherland" being forcefully evicted, maybe even beaten by soldiers when she refuses to leave is enough to increase resolve. I admit this is a strawman that I am beating down here, but these are all factors that you choose to ignore in your fantasies.
You misread my statements. My intent was merely to portray one way China would act to prevent public opinion turning against them. If someone wants to stay in Penghu and doesn't mind living with a Chinese military presence, that person would be more than free to stay. The idea would be for China to allow any civilian who wants to leave to leave.
I don't get why you think China would execute the soldiers either. I'm saying they'll just be treated as POWs and given the best accommodations possible. China will just not allow them to go to Taiwan to fight against the PLA sometime later.
To use slight hyperbole, you believe the Taiwanese people are generally weak-willed and docile, and 50% want to unify with the glorious motherland. This is gross generalization. You cannot simply look at the size of the pan-blue alliance in Taiwan and conclude that all of them are pro-unification. There are many who prefer to vote against the incumbent government because the economy is doing poorly and they need to hold the leaders accountable. There are those who got better kickbacks when the KMT was in power. There are those who believe the DPP is corrupt and therefore unfit to govern over Taiwan. None of this necessarily means that they are eager or even looking for unification.
I acknowledge not everyone in the pan-blue supports reunification, at least, not immediate. I'm sure a great deal of people in Taiwan, including those in pan-green, would have no problem with reunifying with a democratic China. In fact, I'd venture a guess the overwhelming majority would support such a move under those conditions.
My point was that there are general uncertainties about loyalty in the Taiwanese public and army to independence. Some may be willing to fight alongside China or just unwilling to fight. How many could that be? I don't know, hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. Hell, there may be millions of people who will not want to fight China.
If China offers a peace that would essentially give Taiwan all the freedoms it has now under a highly privileged status, moreso than Hong Kong, in exchange for reunification would the public support that instead of continued war that they will ultimately lose and will likely lead to military occupation?
Certainly at least some would advocate such an agreement not wanting to destroy Taiwan's economy or have to see more of its soldiers die and, least of all, innocent citizens.
Finn McCool
So now we must look at what this thread is really about, a Chinese attempt at a major landing on Taiwan. Simply put it cannot be done. Why?
Because you believe in some arduous struggle on the glorious field of battle?
1. Chinese transport capabilites: Gollevainen went over this ad nausem. The PLAN cannot get enough troops on the island quick enough to resist a counterattack on an unsecured beachead. On Omaha Beach, 2 days after the initial landings, there were still German occupied bunkers firing on the Allies. So when the counterattack comes, the Chinese will not be ready, and I find it unlikely that they will have been able to reinforce it (with diminished transport capabilites because of casualties) more than once if at all.
The D-Day comparison is so horrid it's just impossible to describe in words. Tactically, strategically, and technologically the differences are so huge it's unbelievable people still think the comparison makes any sense at all.
On a very basic level there's some similarity in that both are amphibious invasions. After that there is no real similarity.
2. Chinese Airborne Troops vs. Taiwanese Defenders: Chinese Airborne troops will be lightly armed, unsupported, forced to defend all sides and will be in combat from the second they take off. ROCAF and SAM units will target the transports, and when they hit the ground they will probably be confronted with low-order reserve units (isn't it called the Freedom Corps in Taiwan-that's what I'm thinking of, or some other National Guard type unit) followed by regiment sized RRU units carried in Clould Leopard AFVs and supported by lighter tanks. Against this will be arrayed-what, 3000 spread out lightly armed paratroopers. These troops could could probably hold out for days but I doubt they could actually capture much territory. And reinforcing will be difficult; landing helicopters and dropping troops directly into the confused 360 degree battle Chinese paratroopers would be facing would be a casualty heavy process, especially with Taiwanese Avengers on the prowl.
The first part is entirely contingent on there being something to shoot transports down with. I doubt Taiwan is really thinking about having to defend against a combined aerial and amphibious insertion right in the middle of an air and naval strike either.
3. PLAAF vs. ROCAF: I don't doubt that a PLAAF/2nd Artillery attack on the ROCAF at the very beginning of an invasion attempt would do damage. So the ROCAF would be at a disadvatage from the begining. But if the ROCAF is alerted to possible PLAAF action, as would be likely, the effects would not be nearly as heavy as many claim. Given the state of present PLAAF ability I believe it is very possible for the ROCAF to have quite a few planes in the air ready to meet a 2nd wave of attakers and/or escorted airborne transports. With 400 fighters,the ability to use higways as runways and more AMRAAMs on the way, the ROCAF has the ability fight for days and even use its Harpoons against a PLAN Amphib fleet as they would have to put to see very quickly to take full advantage of the aid provided by Airborne drops etc. The PLAAF vs. ROCAF situation is very similar to the RAF vs. Luftwaffe situation in 1940-its essentially up to the pilots and commanders.
This sounds more like daydreaming to me so it's odd I'm accused of having my head in the clouds. The whole landing on highways thing is nice, but not really all that tactically significant. In fact, it's a bit of a detriment. How long will it take to get them to get the air crews over to the highways, re-arm, and refuel the fighters. With hundreds of fighters you'll be shutting down much of the road system. How will that affect deployment of ground troops to engage PLA troops landing on Taiwan?
300 AMRAAMs won't last for days. Aircraft with the missiles will be getting shot down a lot and any storage of weapons will be targeted. That meager supply will quickly be drained. This is of course, whenever those 200 recently-ordered missiles actually make it to Taiwan.
So to me it seems almost impossible for China to quickly push aside the ROCAF and ROCN and land enough troops to resist a counterattack while all the while the are LOSING strength because of ships sunk, airplanes shot down, missles used etc.
It seems impossible, which is probably why it will work. I doubt Taiwan has any real way of preparing for such an attack and I doubt that they have. Surely they're aware of the danger, but being aware of the danger and being prepared for it are two entirely different things.
