Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Gloire_bb said:

Not yet. The required number of UAVs to maintain this level of control over such a large area, over an extended period of time, and despite a significant attrition rate, is plainly unrealistic. I frankly doubt the combined dronewaffe of the entire world is capable of such a feat.

I.e. kabooms of depots will happen, a lot, but to just shut down an entire island, with a significant entrenched military, several multi-million cities&lots of urban square mileage, lots of mountains, helluva vegetation, very uneven weather this way - no.

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That's why you take out ground transport infrastructure and electricity - to isolate these regions as much as possible to take piecemeal and prevent or slow supply redistribution.

Richard Santos said:

keep in mind the taiwanese are defending. it is possible for them to cache supplies of fuel, rations and munitions at locations where they plan to fight. So this would reduce their need to move large volume of supply once war starts.

The chinese are attacking. wherever they go they would need to bring supply forward from sea side depots, so chinese need for moving large amount of supply by land would be much greater.

This is further accentuated by the fact that as the attacker, they chinese needs substantial numerical superiority to ensure success, this would further increase the relative need for ground transportation capacity on the part ot the chinese relative to the taiwaneses.

I reiterate it is insane for chinese to try to destroy rather than try to prevent the destruction of taiwanese land transportation infrastructure.

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Stockpiles do no good unless they're able to be distributed and used.

If they stockpile everywhere then it won't be enough if PLA amphibious forces are concentrated enough to defeat a single point while ground transport infrastructure to move the supplies elsewhere is destroyed or suppressed. Trucks can't drive over rubble.

If they stockpile only at a few points then those points can be bypassed and prevented from redeployment by taking out ground transport infrastructure. Walking is too slow, tracked vehicles too inefficient and also relatively slow, wheeled vehicles can't get around rubble.

If they stockpile in reserves to deploy to whatever part of the front needs it... They can't deploy it without ground transport infrastructure.

Seems to me like the common theme is that prevention of maneuver by destroying ground transport infrastructure is the solution.

AndrewS said:

Unless fuel has already run out in Taiwan.

That would mean any vehicle movement is likely military in nature.

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Destroying infrastructure is much more cost effective than constant air patrols. You can either keep a drone circling for hours and shoot at every little suspected thing with what, 4 ATGMs? Or just bomb the bridge and you know no wheeled vehicles are going to cross.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Destroying infrastructure is much more cost effective than constant air patrols. You can either keep a drone circling for hours and shoot at every little suspected thing with what, 4 ATGMs? Or just bomb the bridge and you know no wheeled vehicles are going to cross.

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Yes, going after major bridges is what I wrote on the Taiwan scenario thread prior to the Ukraine war.

That effectively isolates reach region from external resupply as they use wheeled vehicles. But you still have to deal with vehicles within each region.

Each isolated region would typically have less than 20,000 active duty Army members plus reservists. It should be really straightforward for the Chinese Army to concentrate enough force to defeat each region in detail, before moving onto the next region.

AndrewS said:

Yes, going after major bridges is what I wrote on the Taiwan scenario thread prior to the Ukraine war.

That effectively isolates reach region from external resupply as they use wheeled vehicles. But you still have to deal with vehicles within each region.

Each isolated region would typically have less than 20,000 active duty Army members plus reservists. It should be really straightforward for the Chinese Army to concentrate enough force to defeat each region in detail, before moving onto the next region.

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Yep so why are we getting people saying it's a great idea to not destroy bridges and to allow the enemy to maneuver supplies and forces at will, out of the fear that PLA with both air and naval supremacy...won't be able to use them?

texx1 said:

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It's the same reason why Indians decided to shit-stir in Galwan in May 2020 in the middle of a pandemic while China was 'distracted' with lockdowns/pandemic response.

Similarly, the Russians decide pandemic was an good opportunity to invade Ukraine while West was distracted with supply chain crisis, sky-high inflation, and slow economic growth.

The Russians were correct West was not going to intervene militarily, but likely underestimated the strength of sanction response from West.

If Russia wanted to capitalize on the pandemic it would have done this last year, rather than this year.

Phead128 said:

The Russians were correct West was not going to intervene militarily, but likely underestimated the strength of sanction response from West.

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But Russia has not done as well as expected before the war militarily, yet has performed much better against West's economic and financial sanctions, particularly considering they probably underestimated West's reaction in those areas. So I don't follow your logic.

Richard Santos said:

If Russia wanted to capitalize on the pandemic it would have done this last year, rather than this year.

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News flash, the pandemic is not over, despite what West says. We still have supply chain, high inflation, and slow economic growth due to pandemic, it's not over.

weig2000 said:

But Russia has not done as well as expected before the war militarily, yet has performed much better against West's economic and financial sanctions, particularly considering they probably underestimated West's reaction in those areas. So I don't follow your logic.

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We will have to see how much Russia's economy will contract this year. You are correct, the ruble has rebounded because Russia played the Petro-ruble card by pegging oil/gas to gold via paper proxy (ruble) for 'unfriendly' countries to stabilize the currency, but with Europe aggressively seeking to invest in renewables and diversify energy imports, I am not sure if the Petro-ruble+coercion is a long-term solution. Energy is really all Russia has at this point, and it played it over frigging Ukraine, a third rate country. It's like China playing the rare earth card over Xinjiang or HK...what a waste of a trump card.

It may not be over, but the most advantageous point for russia to use it as cover will certainly be at the moment of the greatest social dislocation in the west, particularly United States. That was clearly last year, not this year. exactly how much do you imagine Covid is mitigating western response to Russian invasion right now?

Furthermore the fact that the culminating point of the Covid induced crisis in europe and the US would very likely be in early to mid 2021 was very clear for all to see all throughout the 2020. russia had ample time to prepare a invasion to capture that opportunity if that is what she aimed to do.

So if russia planned to use covid crisis in the west as cover, she is humiliatingly, unforgivably, late.