If it conforms to what the west wants to see, the west will take it
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
- Thread starter tphuang
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The same is true of countries that adopted Soviet doctrine and equipment without the industry or manpower of the Soviet Union, for example Arab states going against Israel.
Also, the Ukraine war is the first large war since the gulf war in 1990/1991. No modern military has experience in fighting a near peer. The last major conflict between two peer modern militaries was probably the second world war. Since then, the militaries that were modern at the time have focused on fighting weaker opponents. We have no idea what strategies might work best in a hot war between peer superpower armies, like a US China war.
The first Russian Army reform was basically about cutting down the amount of people in the army to focus the budget on equipment. It was also supposed to move the army from a voluntary towards becoming a professional force. The emphasis on future wars was perceived to be counter insurgency or peacekeeping operations with possibly expeditionary elements to them. Given the experience of Russia in the 1990s to early 2000s this was not an unreasonable expectation. So they reduced the size of the minimum deployed operational units from divisions to BTGs. A lot of older officers were perceived to be unfit and were sacked. Then NATO kept increasing the amount of troops deployed near Russia's borders. So the second reform started. To dramatically increase amount of contracted soldiers and start the move back to division structure. To improve living conditions in barracks for soldiers, military bases, to modernize and increase the amount of spots on military academies, etc.
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It's understandable that China hasn't focused as much time and resources on this yet, since its first priority is over the Air and Sea domains (versus the US) both of which are much more expensive and require a lot more R&D than the Land domain. Nevertheless, I've been waiting for the PLA to start focusing on heavy armor and heavy gunships (mostly so that Pakistan can start buying them lolz.)
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Well it's more that China has already won on land and all of it's opponents are much weaker on the ground overall, so too much investment into the ground forces is overkill. But PLA ground forces are still one of the strongest in the world and it would be foolish for any adversaries to try their luck.
The only high intensity ground combat possible is against India and South Korea led by far right nationalists. India has to emergency import winter coats. Koreans still use 800+ M48 tanks. Yes, Cold War era Pattons. Their boasted K-2s? Maybe 100.
In terms of doctrine, South Korea uses US doctrine without US industrial capability and military spending. We all know how that goes. Indian military uses British doctrine, and UK has never been good at ground warfare.
If China expects to fight in Taiwan they will need to do heavy city fighting. Looking at the issues Russia is having in Ukraine might help.
A lot of Russian military commentators are saying it was a mistake not to put a 152mm gun in the T-14 for example.
The T-95 was supposed to use a 152mm gun but it was removed from the design in the T-14 because it was thought it would lead to needless escalation with NATO in gun calibers. But right now a lot of people are claiming the 152mm round would be more helpful in dealing with enemy positions in concrete buildings. You would need one shot instead of two shots to disable a position. Because of this Russia has been using the Akatsiya SPG in urban assaults. But this is suboptimal. It does not have enough protection to enter places with intense firezones like that.
Then you have the new gun turret on the BTR-82A with the high elevation angle. The ZBD-04 has a turret with low gun elevation. That might prove problematic not just in urban settings but also in combat in hilly terrain like in the border with India. You also saw a couple of BMP-3 blown up due to ammo rack detonations. It might be better to move to a turret with a combination of autocannon with ATGMs outside the turret. It might also be helpful to change the design so it would be easy to add applique side armor quickly in the field.
A lot of Russian military commentators are saying it was a mistake not to put a 152mm gun in the T-14 for example.
The T-95 was supposed to use a 152mm gun but it was removed from the design in the T-14 because it was thought it would lead to needless escalation with NATO in gun calibers. But right now a lot of people are claiming the 152mm round would be more helpful in dealing with enemy positions in concrete buildings. You would need one shot instead of two shots to disable a position. Because of this Russia has been using the Akatsiya SPG in urban assaults. But this is suboptimal. It does not have enough protection to enter places with intense firezones like that.
Then you have the new gun turret on the BTR-82A with the high elevation angle. The ZBD-04 has a turret with low gun elevation. That might prove problematic not just in urban settings but also in combat in hilly terrain like in the border with India. You also saw a couple of BMP-3 blown up due to ammo rack detonations. It might be better to move to a turret with a combination of autocannon with ATGMs outside the turret. It might also be helpful to change the design so it would be easy to add applique side armor quickly in the field.
Eh I would not diss the South Koreans that much. They and Japan are the only US aligned nations which are even manufacturing whole new tanks. They have the most modern tank designs in their block. And South Korea has had several export wins with their IFVs and SPGs. The main reason for lack of production of the K2 is that they still cannot get their native transmission working properly. They still import the transmissions from Germany. But I think it is a question of time. At least they already got their own engine working.
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US (and Israel I guess) is the best at urban land war. It is the more experienced compared to even Russia with their involvement in Afghanistan and Chechnya. No one else's experience amounts to that much in comparison... not Turkey's, not Azeri or Armenian, not Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan or India. Listing those who have gone to some level of conflict in more recent decades.
Urban land war would surely be so different to the kinds of land war PLA is no doubt great at if for no other reason than pure size, strength, firepower, logistics, nifty artillery and drones and on and on and on.
PLA seems like it would not be able to use a great deal of its land war strengths in an urban setting without leveling the place. It would just be under-armoured vehicles that would depend a lot on infantry. It's main advantage over some others would be its electronic war, comms, recon, info sharing, and drone technologies but all those may or may not mean that much. No one is good at urban war against insurgents but one can be more experienced and hence understand more lessons from experience - US with Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. PLA's method for such a scenario may involve a lot of brute forcing and higher tolerance for losses until it learns and adapts IF it adapts. Urban war demands tactical flexibility and Covid lockdown rules implementation reveal how inflexible Chinese leadership is. Will they be able to overcome stubbornness to improve tactics and strategic thinking re urban war methods. US may have been as well but I suspect they are a bit less rigid with the textbook rules than Chinese military leadership would be.
Urban land war would surely be so different to the kinds of land war PLA is no doubt great at if for no other reason than pure size, strength, firepower, logistics, nifty artillery and drones and on and on and on.
PLA seems like it would not be able to use a great deal of its land war strengths in an urban setting without leveling the place. It would just be under-armoured vehicles that would depend a lot on infantry. It's main advantage over some others would be its electronic war, comms, recon, info sharing, and drone technologies but all those may or may not mean that much. No one is good at urban war against insurgents but one can be more experienced and hence understand more lessons from experience - US with Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. PLA's method for such a scenario may involve a lot of brute forcing and higher tolerance for losses until it learns and adapts IF it adapts. Urban war demands tactical flexibility and Covid lockdown rules implementation reveal how inflexible Chinese leadership is. Will they be able to overcome stubbornness to improve tactics and strategic thinking re urban war methods. US may have been as well but I suspect they are a bit less rigid with the textbook rules than Chinese military leadership would be.
I've heard the bigger turret/autoloader on the T-14 can accept a 1-piece sabot round finally, but I'm not sure.
Either way, future Russian and Chinese designs need to at least match penetration capability of NATO armor, as well as up-armor their own protection, whether that's in terms of adding weight, or a future APS that can shatter sabot rounds.
How do you square tactical rigidity or inflexibility based on China's so-called inflexibility with respect to their zero-COVID 19 policy despite the many studies both in China and one published in Nature magazine (a peer reviewed publication) that under the current circumstances what China is doing is what's the best possible strategy unless they (CPC) are more than willing to accept the death of up to 4.5 million of Chinese citizens.
I am sorry @ougoah but I fail to see the connection between a perceived national inflexibility with respect to Covid-19 strategy to PLA modern military strategy, and tactics.
Please elaborate more on that point so that I can fully comprehend the meaning of your post.
I am honestly not too sure what to make of China's attitude on Zero Covid Policy but I can say that it is abundantly clear that there are some instances of what can only be considered as foolishly inflexible approach - rounding up pets when there are alternative ways for unique situations, administrative errors resulting in people who don't have covid being forced into quarantine, close to zero effort to understand and make exceptions for exceptional cases be it people with conditions that require xyz... the list goes on.
Now this is undestandable in some ways because it is very difficult to pull this amount of organisation off and no other has been able to even try it. But the depth of planning is revealed to be unwavering textbook method. For a month of extreme lockdowns they had plenty of time to learn and adapt and find ways for alternative implementation methods re issues mentioned above. Accommodating exceptional situations rather than a one size fits all approach.
It is also understandable to have a zero covid policy. What's not is still doing certain things they know isn't effective just because a local leader may need to show they are doing xyz and following the book.
It is from these general observations that I suspect China's military methods could be similarly inflexible in certain ways. Urban fighting has been deadly for all formal militaries who attempt it.
It would be wise to avoid such a thing for any potential Taiwan scenario that involves this. For decency if nothing else. No military has done well in urban war against well armed insurgents taking up defensive positions. Not until armed robots can do the hard work. I get that China has next level recon, comms, and all the gadgets but it also has little to no experience in this. I fear that it would approach it with a similar refusal to constantly be learning, changing, adapting and prefer to carry on by the book. No accommodation for smarter ways to deal with a particular set of urban war problems even when solutions present themselves, all because the military commander needs to show he is doing it by the book or because adapting takes too much effort and throwing equipment and bodies onto a problem is easier for them.
Caveat, all my speculation by no means how it is and how it would be.
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