PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

[AndrewS]

Taiwan's eastern side is mountainous and offers very few operational maneuvering opportunities for tanks without the support of engineering weapons, weapons that need constant protection to operate. Access to much of Taiwan's west side is blocked by muddy plains that stretch many kilometers off the coast, and to a country that has more than 200 Patriot PAC-3 launchers (15 batteries) and a dozen more Sky Bow II and III an air strike becomes expensive. An attack against the far north of the island in the Taipei area would quickly turn into urban terrain operations of a type that would likely not produce decisive results quickly, no wonder the Taiwanese army has so many ATGMs and attack helicopters. Similar difficulties would arise with attacks in the southern area between Tainan and Kao-hsiung.

From the perspective of the Chinese military, I think Desert Storm is the model to follow.

Eliminate the Taiwanese Air Force and all the high-altitude SAM systems like the Patriot, which they should be able to do within a week or so. That gives them high-altitude air superiority, which is then translated in overall air superiority and constant surveillance. Smaller Chinese UAVs and UCAVs would monitor everything on the ground and also conduct attacks.

Everyone agrees that the Chinese Air Force will be able to achieve air superiority over Taiwan, and the cost shouldn't be too heavy because the runways and bases in Taiwan will be under near-constant attack.

----
Then the plan would be to systematically cripple the whole of Taiwan eg. food distribution, water supplies, electricity, internet, phones, vehicle fuel and road networks etc. I expect this would mostly be done in a few days.

At the same time, eliminate the command and control links for the Taiwanese military, and any targets of opportunity that arise.
Literally every radio signal would be tracked and destroyed.

I would expect this phase would last at least 2 weeks.

---

Whilst Taiwanese defenders may hide until an invasion, if they expose themselves in order to attack, they only get 1 shot before being identified, tracked and destroyed by overhead UCAVs.

---

I also don't expect to see any air-dropped paratroopers.
Remember that only a thin strip of Eastern Taiwan is inhabited. Call it 20-40km wide.
And if I look back to Normandy, the paratroopers were only dropped within 15km of the coast.
It's far better to insert paratroopers via helicopters flying very close to the ground, and mainland China is less than 200km away.

 

[gelgoog]

Most if not all of the hard to set up air defense systems like Patriot can be spotted by satellite assets or high altitude reconnaissance drones. The targets can then be hit at standoff ranges with rocket artillery with precision guidance or short range ballistic missile barrages. Drones can then be used to secure the air space while troops can be dropped via mass helicopter and parachute drops before the proper naval invasion even begins.

 

[Suetham]

From the perspective of the Chinese military, I think Desert Storm is the model to follow.

Eliminate the Taiwanese Air Force and all the high-altitude SAM systems like the Patriot, which they should be able to do within a week or so. That gives them high-altitude air superiority, which is then translated in overall air superiority and constant surveillance. Smaller Chinese UAVs and UCAVs would monitor everything on the ground and also conduct attacks.

Everyone agrees that the Chinese Air Force will be able to achieve air superiority over Taiwan, and the cost shouldn't be too heavy because the runways and bases in Taiwan will be under near-constant attack.

----
Then the plan would be to systematically cripple the whole of Taiwan eg. food distribution, water supplies, electricity, internet, phones, vehicle fuel and road networks etc. I expect this would mostly be done in a few days.

At the same time, eliminate the command and control links for the Taiwanese military, and any targets of opportunity that arise.
Literally every radio signal would be tracked and destroyed.

I've already seen a claim that the Chinese are studying the Inchon campaign for amphibious landings. There is no doubt that Operation Desert Storm could be an option to consider in the air campaign against a contingency against Taiwan.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

According to this RAND study above, Taiwan is vulnerable due to ground-launched ballistic missiles, which can achieve numerous losses for the Taiwan Air Force as well as naval bases, the PLA must certainly take into account that it needs to destroy Naval bases to prevent Taiwan's naval campaign against the PLA, the already non-existent Taiwan Navy would be completely annihilated early on in the campaign, which would leave naval forces free in the Taiwan Straits, giving more leeway to possibly contain Japanese and Americans.

Taiwan's command centers would be attacked by DF-15B(C), this would make it impossible to coordinate Taiwan's troops at the beginning of the campaign, as well as air bases and try to kill the maximum number of Patriot launchers.

 

[Suetham]

I've already seen a claim that the Chinese are studying the Inchon campaign for amphibious landings. There is no doubt that Operation Desert Storm could be an option to consider in the air campaign against a contingency against Taiwan.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[AndrewS]

I've already seen a claim that the Chinese are studying the Inchon campaign for amphibious landings. There is no doubt that Operation Desert Storm could be an option to consider in the air campaign against a contingency against Taiwan.

Inchon and WW2 for the actual amphibious assault part.
But Desert Storm and also Iraq/Kosovo are models for air superiority.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

According to this RAND study above, Taiwan is vulnerable due to ground-launched ballistic missiles, which can achieve numerous losses for the Taiwan Air Force as well as naval bases, the PLA must certainly take into account that it needs to destroy Naval bases to prevent Taiwan's naval campaign against the PLA, the already non-existent Taiwan Navy would be completely annihilated early on in the campaign, which would leave naval forces free in the Taiwan Straits, giving more leeway to possibly contain Japanese and Americans.

Taiwan's command centers would be attacked by DF-15B(C), this would make it impossible to coordinate Taiwan's troops at the beginning of the campaign, as well as air bases and try to kill the maximum number of Patriot launchers.

The way it probably would work would be a massed ballistic missile launch to keep the Taiwanese Air Force on the ground.
That allows Chinese aircraft to deliver missiles/bombs against airbases, runways and air defences first.

We're probably looking at the Chinese Air Force operating 500-800? air sorties per day for Taiwan.
Aircraft can launch low-cost guided glide bombs (SDB-1 approx $40K) from 60-110km away.
Remember the vast majority of Taiwan's population and industry (and presumably military) lies within 30km of the coast.

 

[DarkStar]

I’m of the school of thought that believes any PLA strategy to reunify Taiwan should coincide with the expulsion of all western armies from east Asia, the strategy to take Taiwan must also include destroying American presence in the asia-pacific

 

[solarz]

While I'm sure all of those models are being studied and prepared, the most likely scenario is that the Taiwan defenses will collapse in the first hour after the PLA announces they have captured English Vegetable and her entire cabinet.

 

[lcloo]

The Assassin's Mace against Taiwan's defence is Fear and information black-out. Fear creates chaos, rumours and confusion and destroys morale of civilians and military services.

Combination of Psychological warfare and massive strikes by stand-off bombs, rockets and missiles before the defenders can see the attackers set foot on the island will create a similar type of frustration and demoralization faced by American soldiers in Vietnam (where they can't see the attacking vietcon while under fire).

Priority before actual landings by helicopters, paratroopers, beach landing, airport seizures etc, is to destroy all communications (including TV and radio stations), radars, area air defence, military air fields and motor highways that have been designed for emergency take-off/landing for fighter jets, and navy port blockades.

If the Mainlanders can recreate the scenario in the 1945-1949 civil war, they will likely attempt to induce some of the defenders to change side, and create fifth columns.

Actual mass landing (by sea and air) will be a later phase after gaining air-superiority and elimination of islanders' SAM and blockade of all navy bases. The mopping up operations might take much longer time than earlier phases of the war.

 

[gelgoog]

The easiest way to take most of the communications and systems out is just to blow up the power stations in Taiwan.

 

[supersnoop]

I've already seen a claim that the Chinese are studying the Inchon campaign for amphibious landings. There is no doubt that Operation Desert Storm could be an option to consider in the air campaign against a contingency against Taiwan.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

According to this RAND study above, Taiwan is vulnerable due to ground-launched ballistic missiles, which can achieve numerous losses for the Taiwan Air Force as well as naval bases, the PLA must certainly take into account that it needs to destroy Naval bases to prevent Taiwan's naval campaign against the PLA, the already non-existent Taiwan Navy would be completely annihilated early on in the campaign, which would leave naval forces free in the Taiwan Straits, giving more leeway to possibly contain Japanese and Americans.

Taiwan's command centers would be attacked by DF-15B(C), this would make it impossible to coordinate Taiwan's troops at the beginning of the campaign, as well as air bases and try to kill the maximum number of Patriot launchers.

While you’ve considered the capability of the ROC platforms in isolation and relative to their own strengths, you haven’t really realistically gauged them to the PLA.

Some examples
1. Taiwan AA capability is numerous, but so was Iraq. The allied forces relied on heavy EW to suppress the Iraqi capability. Any surprise that Y-8 ELINT craft are always part of the flybys? Any surprise J-16D was was recently unveiled?

2. How do you expect E-2D to survive? It is within range of surface launched AA from the mainland or PLAN. I think it is an important asset, but basically probably only expected to survive guiding one salvo of AShM from the island.

3. It is well-known that the 1.6 million man figure is a joke. “Well trained marksmanship”? You are putting that much value in the 4 weeks of training? Furthermore, how do you expect them to have supplies when they are on an island? How well stocked do you think these underground bases are?

4. Ballistic missiles are a huge threat to the ROC military, but the more recent threat is the GPS guided rockets capable of launching from the mainland. These are cheap and plentiful.

5. Hiding under jungle canopy penalizes your own capability as well. Radar will be cluttered, IR works best with sight, etc.