RAND report, another take.

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Since the thread in the open section of the forum is degenerating very quickly, i thought perhaps here some more sensible discussions could be had. As a starting point, I will be so free to quote Tphuang's questions, from his blog, which very nicely sum up the issues.

1. Can China take Kadena out of the picture with missile strike and if so how long can they keep it out of commission? In order to answer this question, I would have to know the kind of air defense available at the beginning of the conflict (assuming that USN cannot get there in time to support with its Aegis umbrella). If it is taken out, how fast can it be repaired? If it's repaired, how fast can it be re-supplied? If does have USN protection after being repaired/re-supplied, will it be taken out again by further strikes of ballistic missile, KD-88s and PGMs? So basically, will USAF be able keep this air base open and maintain adequate sortie rate? Even if this can be accomplished, will USAF risk placing any advanced units there?

2. In any Taiwan/China scenario, with South Korea and/or Japan get involved? I think South Korea would unlikely be involved, but will Japan help out Taiwan by sending its navy? Or will it let USAF use its air bases? I certainly the latter case is likely, because Japan has been very vocal about its commitment to USA alliance and its problems with China. There will obviously be some logistical issues of USAF using Japanese bases, so the question would be how long it would take for these bases to be useful? And if Japan allows its bases to be used by USA, will China also be targeting those bases? And if China does target those bases, we are looking at a much larger conflict.

3. The Andersen air base is the only other air base that's within operational range of Taiwan strait. Will this air base remain unscathed in possible conflicts. One thing that has been brought up is that we will likely see B-2 going into Chinese territory to attack Chinese air bases and SAM sites. On the flip side, what about Chinese bombers carrying LACMs against Andersen air base? It is certainly within the range of a H-6K carrying 6 long range LACMs. The report states that 34 missiles would in effect cripple Kadena air base? How many tomahawk LACMs would put Andersen out of commission? And even if Andersen is not taken out, can they significantly reduce the number of sorties launched from there? Similar to point 1, would the risk of getting hit in the hangar prevent USAF from placing a valued asset like F-22 there?

4. What about air bases in China? It's certainly inconceivable that USAF would leave these air bases and SAMs alone in any kind of war scenario. I could imagine that B-2s would be sent in to hit bases that are close to Taiwan and also field elite units. And when USN carrier groups get in there, you can guarantee that many Tomahawk missiles will be sent to Chinese SAMs, GCI sites, long range radar stations and air bases to reduce PLAAF's readiness and sorties. Even if we believe in the invincibility of B-2 and conjecture it can come, drop off the bombs and leave unscathed, how many of its bombs/missiles and Tomahawks from USN ships will not be intercepted? If the air bases get damaged, oil depots get hit, how long will it take for these bases to be fixed and re-supplied? And if China's inland bases are hit, what kind of retaliation can be expected? One would imagine all US military bases in surrounding regions could possibly be targeted. The most vulnerable one would be in Afghanistan due to the number of troops there and relatively lack of air defense against terrain hugging cruise missiles. Consider that Chinese missiles can Afghanistan flying through Kashmir and Pakistan, I don't think it would get any serious objections to such an attack And if we consider Iraq, it is another possible hit location, although the Chinese missiles might not have the range to go that far.

5. What about the general logistics for PLA? We can assume that USAF and USN would not have any problem with all of its experiences recently. Can PLA keep all of its bases supplied? More importantly, can it ensure that its fighters will get jet fuel needed in an extended conflict? With USN guaranteed of choking China's supply lines (either by itself or through its allies), how long can China keep on going? It has 30 days of strategic supply right now. Even if we assume increased domestic production + increased supply from Russia and Iran in the event of a war, how long can it really last? It's no wonder that Chinese plans all involve quick victory over Taiwan.

The next question is what kind of forces will be available on both side. Seeing how there will be a maximum of 183 F-22s overall, it will hard to see USAF being able to commit more than 4 squadrons (96 aircrafts) in the theatre (Andersen and Kadena air bases). And let's use the number 72 + 90 = 162 F-35A from Kadena and Japan air bases (I think we can rule out F-35A from Andersen due to its range). So, I'm guessing we will see a maximum of 96 F-22s and 160 F-35s at the disposal of USAF. If we take Kadena totally out of the picture, we might be looking at 48 F-22s and 72 F-35As. Remember, these are just hypothetical number I'm throwing out, without actually knowing the full capacity of the two air bases and also the number of tankers supporting them. If we use the commonly accepted figure of 2 USN Carrier groups in action and the air wing as described by Galrahn here:
24 super hornets, 24 hornets, 4 EA-6B, 4 E-2C, 6 SH-60.
Replacing them with planes we are likely to see in 2020, we will likely see a total of:
48 JSF, 48 super hornets, 8 E-2D, 8-12 EA-18G? and 12 SH-60
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
And now i will be so free to offer my answers to those questions, but using today's timeframe as i believe it's just impossible to assess the situation full 12 years in the future. Far too many variables involved.

1. Right now Kadana is protected by a whole Patriot batallion. (one batallion is used for protection of all the US forces in S. Korea. So one can imagine the importance of Kadena when another batallion protects a single air force base) We're talking over 240 ready to be launched pac-2 missiles (though surely real number would be less, as part of those would actually be pac-3 missiles) and four separate surveillance and tracking radar sets. I guess more brigades or perhaps even a whole new batallion could be added, if deemed needed. Though realistically, with USN support, no more would be added.

Can china take out Kadena without additional US air defense assets in the area? Most probably. however, it'd take quite a bit of missiles to do so and get past the existing defenses. Rand report mentions 34 missiles with submunitions to cover all of Kadena but there are other places nearby to store supplies and planes, as well as the possibility of storing some near/between runways, which havent been taken in consideration in the rand report drawing. Even though 34 missiles would certainly do some major damage, to fully cover everything near Kadena a larger number would be needed. At least 60 or so, and that's not covering the old airstrips and hangars to the west of present airbase. So one would have to launch many more than that to actually get through. We can't know the real numbers here, of course. But anything upward of 100 ballistic missiles seems likely.

How long would that take Kadena out of business? If there's no second attack, probably not very long. Even in the worst case scenario for US, where most of qualified personel and accompanying equipment for running the base is killed or destroyed, new personnel could be deployed probably within a week. By that time a potent USN air defense perimeter could be established, probably several fold more efficient than the patriot batallion was. Granted, to assemble a strong enough USN force it may take more than a week, depending on readyness level to begin with. In any case, damage from submunitions would not actually be that grave and could be repaired within days with proper equipment and enough manpower. One has to keep in mind it could be in china's interest to keep attacking even the already completely inoperative base with its air force, to maximize damage. Just unloading masses of dumb bombs to turn the landscape into a moon's surface. So, depending on the damange done, randing form just damaged done by the initial attack with submuntions to excessive carpet bombing missions following the initial attack, I don't think its unrealistic to expect that, once USN gets in place, Kadena would start generating air sorties within two weeks, and getting back to full sortie generation rate within three or so weeks on one end of the spectrum and starting to generate some sorties (with selected planes) within 3 or so weeks but needing over a month or two get back to full sortie generation if the base needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

A big issue is, of course, how can china strike before additional air defense assets are protecting Kadena, be they USN fleets or additonal patriot batallions. One can be sure that the very, very first order of business for USN and US forces in general will be dramatically beefing up Kadena defenses. Since a large part of the whole political game is who shoots first, I seriously doubt US would shoot first before Kadena is secured. That leaves China shooting first, which is something that china may not be willing doing. Politcally wise, it is one thing to attack Taiwan first, but a whole another thing to do a preemptive strike at US assets.

So once USN protection is there, stakes gets much higher. Repeat of the first attack with 100 or so ballistic missiles may not be enough. And certainly an air attack would be suicide, going *over* potentially dozen or more aegis class ships to reach Kadena. In order to even try pulling that off, china would need to concentrate a massive part of its both air force and navy, taking away a huge chunk of its forces from the Taiwan invasion.

I simply believe it would not be worth it and china would not do it. It'd be much more cost efficient to just deal with planes operating from Kadena while maintaining a potential threat to the base itself, so USN has to tie a large part of its forces there for protection.

Granted, there are many variants to this scenario. If US, because of political pressure or whatever, does get involved in the war before Kadena's defenses are beefed up, a missile strike followed by air strikes could very well be a worthy option.

Or if missile defenses prove to be so efficient, then no further strikes would be done. Ever. On the other hand, if the pac3/sm3 combo proves to be less efficient than expected, with majority of missiles going through, then some sort of regular harassing of Kadena airbase would be benefitial to china.

There is, of course, the issue of how many missiles china could afford to spend on Kadena... with taiwan invasion ongoing, there'd hardly be a missile to spare.

Anyway, until Kadena is secured, US may very well choose not to risk its precious F22s and base them there. Stationing them in other bases in Japan or even at Guam (with heavy tanker support and low sortie rates) would be prefered. As the war goes on and abilities of both sides would get better known, likelyhood of F22s operating from Kadena would grow.

Anyway, thats my answer to question one. More may follow. :D
 
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