Also showing just how many vehicles and personnel are required to support the operational deployment of just 6x IRBM TELs.
China IRBM/SRBM (and non-ICBM/SLBM) thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
20 full size, dedicated runways,
plus another 23 full length taxiways that could be used for fighter jet ops.
Plus another five or more highway stretches for fighter ops. (five were so far publicized in the media, but there might be more)
Plus 10 reduced length runways (and another 1 taxiway) of varying length. Some are just 1 km long, which is not really adequate for safe ops. F-16 for example needs some 850 m of ground run to land, but with added length for safety that might be pushing it very close. Though some are over 1 km so fighter jet ops should be fine there.
Plus there are 3 more runways on islands close to China mainland, but those aren't gonna be relevant, since they're in tube artillery range.
One has to keep in mind that constructing a new runway isn't a very long job. It's likely doable within days to a week, using metal mats such as AM2. Uneven terrain will certainly make it harder, but if flat fields are to be repurposed, if short runways are to be lengthened, or if motor roads are to be repurposed, that can be done fairly quickly. Bigger obstacle there would be having enough ground crews and equipment to serve so many different locations.
So the question of how many runways does Taiwan have yields a stretchy answer. Both in quality of the "runway" and in the timeframe a new one can be made operational.
What's the point of mentioning all of this? You just need to knock out the ones where the fighters are located. How do you think fighter jet are going to reach the other runway if they can't take off?
Does this 850m account for employment of mobile arrestor system? I know F-16s have the ability to use a mobile arrestor system similar to carrier aircraft to shorten their landing distance to allow more flexible deployments.
A person asked a question. I tried to answer.
Afaik, it does not. Figure should be for normal ops, from touchdown to full stop.
Most fighter aircraft have these systems. They are meant for emergencies and not routine use. I don't know this for a fact, but I would assume that inspections and or repairs would be required after a landing like this.
Giving a good answer also means clarification and correction.
In context of the question, he was obviously asking about the number of military-relevant runways in a Taiwan contingency scenario, and qualifying them as different from simply counting runways should be common sense here as part of an answer.
There is a reason why agile employment of air fleets to expeditionary (i.e.: non-regular military air bases), or doing "highway operations" is difficult, and that's because you need the logistics/support facilities, and the armament and personnel to go with your aircraft.
Regular military air bases that a unit operates from has all that, and if one has dedicated expeditionary air bases with the facilities and logistics built up and invested to support operations then they will have it so as well.
But regular runways at civilian airports, or even heck some military air bases for different types of units, does not mean one can automatically operate a variety of different aircraft types under realistic combat conditions.
In fact, one of the PLAAF's less well known advancements as part of the recent reforms and reshuffling is the standardization and building up of many air bases around the country to be able to actually support multiple types of aircraft to enable more flexible deployments while retaining better capability.
Or, by including it in your answer to begin with, you can save some additional posts and questions by other people wondering why you answered a question in a way without context.
But that is fine, Tphuang and my posts have provided it now, but it could have saved us some effort