PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
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Looks like there is massive labor shortage for reforesting Inner Mongolia…
Discussion continued from the Ukraine War Thread.
Attacking is the easier part. Defending is the harder part.
I'm mainly concerned about how the PLA would defend their bases and facilities against similar kinds of mass, coordinated and well-planned swarm drone attacks in times of Operation AR, or even conflicts in other regions (such as a reignited Korean War). There are also the critical dual-use infrastructures to think about.
After gleaning through the key details of this attack (including the depth at which the attacks took place, how long the attacks have been pre-planned beforehand, and how the attacks were coordinated and executed) - Given the number of 殖人s, 反贼s and 汉奸s still inhabiting on Chinese soil, you can never know whether there are literal traitors and enemy agents hidden amongst the population, waiting for a good chance to be activated and unleash the type of attacks on PLA bases and facilities like what Russia is facing now.
China also has very long land and maritime borders - Smuggling weaponry and explosives across the more porous parts of the border (dense forests in the mountainous regions along the border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, for instance) is going to be a big challenge to deal with.
In any case - There must be no half-measures. The entire populace must be mobilized to support the war effort.
(Russia is still China's best 大体老师 - by far.)
Attacking is the easier part. Defending is the harder part.
I'm mainly concerned about how the PLA would defend their bases and facilities against similar kinds of mass, coordinated and well-planned swarm drone attacks in times of Operation AR, or even conflicts in other regions (such as a reignited Korean War). There are also the critical dual-use infrastructures to think about.
After gleaning through the key details of this attack (including the depth at which the attacks took place, how long the attacks have been pre-planned beforehand, and how the attacks were coordinated and executed) - Given the number of 殖人s, 反贼s and 汉奸s still inhabiting on Chinese soil, you can never know whether there are literal traitors and enemy agents hidden amongst the population, waiting for a good chance to be activated and unleash the type of attacks on PLA bases and facilities like what Russia is facing now.
China also has very long land and maritime borders - Smuggling weaponry and explosives across the more porous parts of the border (dense forests in the mountainous regions along the border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, for instance) is going to be a big challenge to deal with.
In any case - There must be no half-measures. The entire populace must be mobilized to support the war effort.
(Russia is still China's best 大体老师 - by far.)
Shelters are needed everywhere at minimum. Doesn't have to be hardened shelters
Even reinforced normal shelters should be enough to defend against a few drone attacks like what happened
IMO practice of leaving planes out in the open should be eliminated asap. An uncovered plane, is just another plane waiting to be attacked and damaged/destroyed
Constant rotation, distribution and rearrangements of aircrafts across multiple different bases should also be a must during wartime, even for those based in the deep interiors and far from the frontlines. Can't just have the same warplanes be based from the same bases for most of the (if not all the) time, especially the important ones (bombers, tankers and special mission aircrafts).
plawolf
Lieutenant General
That will be too disruptive and is still basically a dice game.
But fortunately for the PLAAF, past Chinese strategists and planners have done them massive favours by locating major airbases significant distances from the coast. It would not be possible to launch a similar operation against PLAAF air bases from boats. So the only way to do that would be via trucks.
The most obvious and easy way to deal with such attacks would be prevention. So the burden will fall on customs and police.
Container scanners are already standard at ports around the world to tackle smuggling. So I can see that being rolled out on a much larger scale so that it’s not just a sample of containers that are scanned, but all. Exclusion zones for heavy civilian trucks can also be established around sensitive sites.
The PLA itself has also already done a lot of planning on how to deal with drone saturation attacks, and China is a world leader in laser weapons and drones. So it has a lot more tools available for point defence options.
Another option that I have not seen much talk about would be rapidly deployable barrage balloon based netting.
You can quite easily design a system that deploys ultra fast inflating helium balloons that drags out an anti drone net under the balloon to quickly erect netting walls dozens of metres high around assets and structures.
With a little more engineering, you can easily incorporate charges and secondary balloons and weights to rapidly deploy a box net around a target such that there is no way in for an FPV.
The only downside with such an approach is that it will take time to get your assets out of the boxes afterwards, so they could be more vulnerable to a one-two combo attack of FPVs and conventional munitions.
Distance is not major factor in this case.
Those drone swarm attacks were conducted where the launch platforms (modified/retrofitted trucks) were situated less than 10 kilometers from their target airbases - Literally up-against-your-face type of distances.
No amount of distance from the frontlines can guarantee against such kinds of infiltration sabotage attacks. Such types of attacks can only be conducted with 内鬼s involved from deep within.
FPV drones similar to the ones used in the attacks are widely available on the consumer market all across China. And to be honest, the enemy agents won't really need to smuggle explosives (or equipment required to make them) across national borders either - Those things can be obtained domestically. Even if the explosives are harder to be obtained by suspicious/non-related individuals and entities in China than in Russia, such possibilities can never be discounted.
Unfortunately, I'd say that similar types of FPV drones and their payloads used in the present attack on Russian strategic air force bases can be obtained and made completely domestically.
As for exclusion zones for heavy civilian trucks - It would be rather unrealistic if those sensitive/critical sites themselves are located near regions and locations where heavy civilian truck movements are common (e.g. sea/inland ports, freight train stations, industrial estates, major artery roadways/expressways, etc) in the first place.
As dystopian as it sounds - Not just a state-of-emergency, but literal Police State measures would be required to effectively combat against such adventures from enemies hidden deep within.
Of course, full mobilization and cooperation from all levels of the society is fundamental.
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Actually there is a much easier way to defend against drones. A much more older and effective way. Just have more AA gun units in these important bases. WW2 era AA gun batteries will completely pulverize these slow drones.
The reason why bases like this are so vulnerable now is because all militaries have given up on AA guns and focused on SAM missiles. Those SAMs are great against fast flying planes and cruise missiles, but these are too few and too valuable and cannot fight against cheap drones.
But AA guns are practically designed for these kinds of drones. Yes, you will need to have a lot more manpower to man these AA guns. But radar and AI controlled AA guns can be developed.
I expect AA guns to make a comeback in militaries again to combat the drone threat
In addition to lasers and microwaves, using high-speed drone ohysical collision to intercept drones is also one of the solutions. CETC exhibited the intercept drone at the Zhuhai Air Show in 2022. It is part of the Sky Dome/AUICS-3000 anti-drone system, which includes distributed sensors, EW jamming, laser and drone interception, and command systems.
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