Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

[Mohsin77]

in fact, using established transportation infrastructure is so much more efficient for moving forces and logistics than moving cross country, it might be tempting to leave transportation infrastructure intact just so the enemy would be tempted to use it while you have air superiority, because that channelizes his movement and makes him substantially more vulnerable to interdiction by your airpower.

recall the epic avenue of death where a huge convoy of iraqis retreating on the main highway outside kuwait city was massacred by US air power.

Destroying opposition ground infrastructure in the process of attaining air supremacy has occurred in every major war in the past 80 years. US didn't leave the Ho Chi Minh trail alone after all. They tried to destroy a single bridge in Hanoi something like 9 times.

Using the infrastructure is not so important in a small theater. Attrition of enemy forces is.

You're both right, since both tactics are valid, it just depends on your objectives.

You may want to dislodge dug-in forces by luring them with an extraction route.

Or you could keep them pinned and destroy them where they stand.

If/When you achieve air supremacy, a lot of options become available.

Of course, this is one-dimensional, as a lot of other considerations have to be taken into account concurrently.

 

[Petrolicious88]

Russia is not fighting Ukraine. It’s actually fighting the US and to some lesser degree NATO. US is providing Ukraine with massive and near real-time intelligence on where the Russian troops are and where Russian missiles intend to strike. This directly resulted in the death of thousands of Russian troops.

Expect similar intelligence sharing if fighting breaks out in Taiwan or with India.

 

[Michaelsinodef]

Expect similar intelligence sharing if fighting breaks out in Taiwan or with India.

Eh, I think we might see PLAAF aggresively jamming and the likes on US planes trying the same that they're doing now around Ukraine.

As for what to do against US providing satelite info and the likes, depends on how well the PLA can disrupt info/Taiwan headquarters etc.

 

[Richard Santos]

As a logical step, the PLAN at the onset of the hostility should find all the underwater fiber optics and wire cables leading to taiwan and cut them.

however, blanket jamming wireless satellite datalink would be difficult because high directionality of these communications. Only attacking the satellites constitute reliable way to severe taiwan’s satellite data links.

So cutting taiwan off to the degree where military communication with outside is fully interrupted would be very difficult.

 

[supersnoop]

As a logical step, the PLAN at the onset of the hostility should find all the underwater fiber optics and wire cables leading to taiwan and cut them.

however, blanket jamming wireless satellite datalink would be difficult because high directionality of these communications. Only attacking the satellites constitute reliable way to severe taiwan’s satellite data links.

So cutting taiwan off to the degree where military communication with outside is fully interrupted would be very difficult.

Most of TW undersea cables terminate in HK or Japan. You wouldn’t even need to cut them all to severely degrade available bandwidth

 

[pmc]

OT, but this is interesting, the article was published all the way back in June 30 2021, where long covid hasn't gotten mainstream attention yet, so Russia is looking out for long covid patients earlier than everyone else? Also what's with the vaccine comment there being next to covid recovered people?

i am saying those who make decisions they have alot more data not only about its own society but also societies where they have primary interest. Covid and response to Covid played big part. you have to read between the lines as it will become OT.
it is nonsense that any one else could do better what Russia has achieved when the primary objective is integration and distribution of population. to minimize casualties practically entire air campaign is from low altitude with rockets/atgm. thing that dont have big blast radius. the reliability and pilot skills of Su-25/Ka-52 is second to none when you consider sortie rate and they are using it from multiple airbases. I doubt A-10 can be supported from multiple airbases for such long duration round the clock. from high altitude a guided unpowered bombs can deflect from target. there is nothing 100% reliable. even Su-34 that is using Kh-29 is at slow speed and low altitude.

 

[Skywatcher]

@Skywatcher Sir your possible scenario? From my discussion with my brother in law, he will fight IF the Chinese invade BUT he support a peaceful reunification. If the Chinese use blockade It may intensify their resistance? I think this Ukraine war, the Chinese may adopt some of the Russian Tactic and may use a lot of Fifth column elements to induce defection among prominent Taiwanese politician while targeting the hardcore traitors.

A lot of people will probably take a "wait and see attitude" I expect, short of a sudden victory by either side in the first several days.

 

[Skywatcher]

Bleeding in the wrong kind of war doesn’t always help much. Not analyzing the experience with intellectual rigor can diminish the impact of even applicable experience. The Russians had plenty of experience in Donbas as well as Syria too. Didn’t help them very much in Ukraine

History has other examples of the larger and more respected army that seemingly had much more practical experience, but in a different kind of war, being trounced by another army with less experience but whose staff had been much more diligent and more intellectually inquisitive and honest about using rigorous war games and and exercises to feel out what the next war is going to be like.

One sterling example is to be found in the Franco Prussian war of 1870. The French army of Napoleon III was widely considered to be the most powerful, most experienced and most proficient army in the world. Almost all commentators in Europe, including the very Karl Marx and Frederick Engels hallowed in communist pantheon, predicted a quick and overwhelming victory for France over Prussia because the amount of experience the French had under its belt. Yet the Prussia general staff’s rigorously intellectual approach to studying war enabled the prussians to be better trained, better equipped and have better doctrine, and be generally better prepared for the actual type of war that would be fought. As a result, the Prussians trounced the French and founded modern German state.

Someone who's been shot at and shelled will be a much more reliable soldier than some random conscript (whose entire military service consisted of several weeks of "basic training"). If nothing else, the veteran is less likely to 1) panic and run away/freeze/surrender at the first sign of the enemy (a la the Iraqis in the First Gulf War soon as the first American recon drone showed up), 2) have basic skills for operating, say a recoilless rifle and point it in the right direction, while under fire.

 

[Richard Santos]

Plenty of hastily conscripted armies with no prior experience under fire exhibited remarkable steadiness when under fire that no veteran can readily surpass. whether the conscripts exhibit this at the moment of truth depends on whether the conscripts really are fighting for something they believe, and whether they see the consequence of defeat to be so severe that they individually regard defeat to be an Unacceptable price for life.

When a conscript army has steadiness for these reasons, this steadiness is not always enough to win. But this steadiness would make by far the biggest difference to the outcome of the war if it came as a surprise to an enemy, and the enemy did not account adequately in their planning for this possibility, and made the opposing conscripts not fighting, or melting away at the first shot, a critical condition needed for their own success.

We saw this time and again since the first mass conscript revolutionary French army trounced the professional armies of the monarchies of Europe. Most recently we see this in Ukraine.

 

[HulkHogan]

If China was to go for Taiwan i believe it would be a 'bolt from the blue' no prior warning just a massive cruise missile strike followed by whatever forces the PLA and PLAN can throw in before the west can attack. seeing as China is not the west and you can actually keep things secret it should not be impossible.

The Ukraine comparison is interesting, the AFU had advanced knowledge of a invasion for nearly a year and was still taken by surprise. what does that say for Taiwan?