Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

AndrewS · Aug 18, 2022

antiterror13 said:
agreed, including aircraft engine. But I think Russia still have big edge in SSN, SSBN and SAM (i.e S-400 or 500)

My impression is that the HQ-9B or HQ-9C would be equivalent to the S-400.

As for the S-500, the equivalent would be THAAD or the HQ-19. And the S-500 was last to start testing an exoatmospheric kill vehicle.

So I don't see Russia having a big edge in SAM or ABM systems.

@Patchwork_Chimera

Any comments you could add?

pmc · Aug 18, 2022

AndrewS said:
Couple of points.

As per New York Times, the cost of electronics can make up 40% of these cost of a car. There can be up to 3000 individual chips.

An Advanced airliner with all the flying internet entertainment and automation for night time/ rough weather landing can have even more electronics with millions of lines of code behind it. there is new diagnostic and software update system developed for Civil airliner just like wireless software updates of Tesla. so dont expect older semiconductor dealing with all those requirements.
how exactly is electronics 40% cost of electric car?. Just the HVAC, windows, headlights, tires and battery of Tesla Model 3 can cost over $25K. you need much more noise insulation and stronger structure to deal with bigger tires noise and heavier weight of battery.
i am not even going into interior and the body.

AndrewS said:
Yes, Russia can try to move to semiconductor independence as well as in software, but look at how long it is taking China which is also throwing far more resources into this objective.

Soviet Union was independent greatly in semi equipment, chemicals and laser technology despite Soviets sending there scientist to CERN (Swiss-French) with over century of cooperation with Zeiss.. They are going much beyond than what Korean could achieve with there limited skill population that need external help.

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AndrewS said:
Also, Russia won't get experienced people from the West to help, because Russia is under war sanctions. Plus those experienced people are generally Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese. And China is already offering sky-high wages to them.

there are number of Scientist and Engineers from Soviet times. with climate change and Arab wealth.
Russia has great opportunity of attract the best. . They wont be investing in this kind of technologies if they dont have the people.

AndrewS said:
Harbin city in Northern China is operating electric buses and has a climate which is significantly worse than Moscow or most other Russian cities. So we can deduce that Chinese electric buses can operate in most of Russia.

Chinese electric buses are also taking over the global market, so we can deduce they are cheaper and/or more efficient.

Russia electric buses tested in all conditions but it does not something they are going encourage for export. The concept of global market as proof of efficiency (think over all cost which is reflection of reliability and climate impact ) is not some thing that is proven. infact not every society can measure efficiency. German wanted Tesla they got Tesla factory. they will live with its consequence.
Russia is much more sophisticated society. for example this is the only used car video that gathered 1.5m views in a month almost equal to the subscribers on this channel. even the used are expensive enough that only upper middle class can afford. this reflection of understanding of society about well engineered product even without warranty due to unofficial import.

tphuang · Aug 18, 2022

Patchwork_Chimera said:
I concur. Patriot is a fantastic system, and the Standard Missile lineup is world class. There’s no real area in which the VKS beats out the US or PLA.

The recent Taiwan exercise just showed the gap between plaaf and vks.

with etc alone, plaaf was able to consistently put triple digit in modern fighter jet + h6k bombers + special missions aircraft in that small operational area several days in a row. Realistically, they can sustain that for long period of time because they just have so many modern aircraft just with etc.

How many modern aircraft (su27sm2, su30, su34 and su35) does vks have in total? Maybe 300? And even with that number, have they had days where they generated 30 sorties of modern winged aircraft?

The conventional military power between the two countries in terms of equipment, training and operations is pretty large and growing.

pmc · Aug 18, 2022

tphuang said:
with etc alone, plaaf was able to consistently put triple digit in modern fighter jet + h6k bombers + special missions aircraft in that small operational area several days in a row. Realistically, they can sustain that for long period of time because they just have so many modern aircraft just with etc

Ukraine is more like civil war not particularly suitable for demonstration of airpower.
Certain things are not overly advertised and certain things not especially when other countries are involved.

This Iranian airbase with bombers. the other is in Armenia. all these were complex logistical chain that enable round the clock bombing in Syria. some of the flights from 5k to 12k distance travelled. certain cruise missiles were really long range.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1383372787964735494

Abominable · Aug 18, 2022

Overbom said:
Its not only about comparison of wealth/power but also about "Its simply a natural extension of geopolitics, geoeconomics "

My argument is that Russia is already a junior partner. Now if China is treating Russia as US treats its "allies" is another discussion altogether.

China quite obviously has the necessary power to dramatically influence Russia; that it doesn't do so (as much) is because of wider considerations towards the international strategic environment that China is facing.

At the moment, I would say that Russia is junior partner but China doesn't exploit this (yet). I would bet that if/when China changes the unipolar world order, you would start seeing more things

Historically most alliances were equal, and agreements made were reciprocal regardless of the size of each party.

The concept of a junior partner came about through NATO, where America was the daddy and all other countries were junior partners. It's written into the NATO constitution with clauses like any country that wants to leave needs to give America 12 months notice.

Any agreement between Russia and China will likely be an equal partnership, regardless of the economic or military disparity between the two.

tphuang · Aug 18, 2022

I think other things they are learning from what has happened in Ukraine conflict.

They cannot come close to running out of missiles/bombs. You will see them ramp up purchases of PGMs, stand off missiles and probably BM/CMs to another level to make sure they do not come close to running low on missiles. That's one major lesson they've learnt from the Ukraine conflict.

Another lesson I think they will realize is that they need a lot of everything if they get into a war of attritions. So, I expect them to just keep building a lot of 052Ds, J-16s, H-6K/Js and UCAVs to make sure they have plenty of platforms that can launch missiles. I listed these platforms, because they are all great platforms that are not cutting edge for PLA. You need a lot of these platforms to win in battlefield. The strength of China's MIC is in its ability to mass produce things. They will make sure they have enough platforms to sustain a long conflict.

Another thing is that I think they have talked about making sure that they put their military in a position of having an advantage in every scenario. That would involve having more realistic training, more joint training, developing large numerical advantage and being prepared for every scenario.

Also, I think PLA wants to produce enough military hardware and develop enough operational advantage to make it really hard for US military to get involved. I know that @Patchwork_Chimera says that PLA expects US military to get involved and will carry out first strike against US military. My impression is that they really don't want decoupling. They want to be able to tell the world that this is an internal matter, the conclusion of civil war rather than an invasion. As such, they will want to make the buildup look as unsuspecting as possible. They were able to do this recent exercise with just ETC involvement on a couple of days of notice. Just think what they could put out there with more planning/preparation and a lot more quantities of everything. That will allow them to position their PCH191 battalions without any suspicion. I personally think they will do everything under the guise of a major ETC exercise of many days that will first tire out Taiwanese air force and ships. Once that happens, they will turn it into a blockade with the help of STC and cutters. Keep in mind, Taiwan only has 7 days natural gas stored. It won't take very long for China to really squeeze Taiwan's economy and force Taiwan to try to break blockade through shooting war. Again, this could suddenly turn from an exercise to a shooting war in a couple of days. They don't want a Russian scenario where it was obvious for months that Russia was getting ready to attack. Then, it would be a really tough decision for any US president on what to do. I think this will be PLA's move to avoid an all out war.

FairAndUnbiased · Aug 18, 2022

tphuang said:
I think other things they are learning from what has happened in Ukraine conflict.

They cannot come close to running out of missiles/bombs. You will see them ramp up purchases of PGMs, stand off missiles and probably BM/CMs to another level to make sure they do not come close to running low on missiles. That's one major lesson they've learnt from the Ukraine conflict.

Another lesson I think they will realize is that they need a lot of everything if they get into a war of attritions. So, I expect them to just keep building a lot of 052Ds, J-16s, H-6K/Js and UCAVs to make sure they have plenty of platforms that can launch missiles. I listed these platforms, because they are all great platforms that are not cutting edge for PLA. You need a lot of these platforms to win in battlefield. The strength of China's MIC is in its ability to mass produce things. They will make sure they have enough platforms to sustain a long conflict.

Another thing is that I think they have talked about making sure that they put their military in a position of having an advantage in every scenario. That would involve having more realistic training, more joint training, developing large numerical advantage and being prepared for every scenario.

Also, I think PLA wants to produce enough military hardware and develop enough operational advantage to make it really hard for US military to get involved. I know that @Patchwork_Chimera says that PLA expects US military to get involved and will carry out first strike against US military. My impression is that they really don't want decoupling. They want to be able to tell the world that this is an internal matter, the conclusion of civil war rather than an invasion. As such, they will want to make the buildup look as unsuspecting as possible. They were able to do this recent exercise with just ETC involvement on a couple of days of notice. Just think what they could put out there with more planning/preparation and a lot more quantities of everything. That will allow them to position their PCH191 battalions without any suspicion. I personally think they will do everything under the guise of a major ETC exercise of many days that will first tire out Taiwanese air force and ships. Once that happens, they will turn it into a blockade with the help of STC and cutters. Keep in mind, Taiwan only has 7 days natural gas stored. It won't take very long for China to really squeeze Taiwan's economy and force Taiwan to try to break blockade through shooting war. Again, this could suddenly turn from an exercise to a shooting war in a couple of days. They don't want a Russian scenario where it was obvious for months that Russia was getting ready to attack. Then, it would be a really tough decision for any US president on what to do. I think this will be PLA's move to avoid an all out war.

A key part of making the buildup as innocuous as possible: Wheeled armored vehicles and artillery. They can drive on public roads at roadway speeds, so they only need 2 days to deploy: 1 day for loading, close roads, drive for 1 day. What can be wheeled? Pretty much everything: APCs, gun artillery, rocket artillery, TELs, ground radars, SAMs, logistics trucks... Everything.

Why not tracked? Low fuel efficiency, speed and damage on roads.

tphuang · Aug 18, 2022

FairAndUnbiased said:
A key part of making the buildup as innocuous as possible: Wheeled armored vehicles and artillery. They can drive on public roads at roadway speeds, so they only need 2 days to deploy: 1 day for loading, close roads, drive for 1 day. What can be wheeled? Pretty much everything: APCs, gun artillery, rocket artillery, TELs, ground radars, SAMs, logistics trucks... Everything.

Why not tracked? Low fuel efficiency, speed and damage on roads.

I would need to hear more knowledgeable people on this, but my impression is that the wheeled vehicles that they can quickly move in (over 2 days) are sufficient to at least take over Penghu. And, they can shut down social media around this to prevent so many pictures from getting leaked out on social media. I think PLA will learnt enough to how to discreetly move in armor/artillery in the middle of an exercise without attracting a lot of attention. If China expects Taiwan to push independence more strongly in small steps in the future, it will also take its own measure with each exercise to normalize more aggressive actions. So, I would expect cyber attacks, electronic attacks and sabotage efforts in Taiwan to be at higher scale each time. These are the kind of things they can probably get away without getting noticed by people outside. That I think is what they specialize in. Pushing things forward in small steps that furthers their advantage.

So things that Russians didn't do right:
1) underestimated opponent
2) didn't build up enough missile/ammo outside of artillery
3) didn't build up enough advanced military aircraft that could blanket opponent
4) did not develop enough cyber/electronic attack and sabotage capabilities to degrade Ukraine's basic infrastructure.
5) did not do things in small steps, but a couple of large easily identifiable steps
6) weren't fully trained for every contingency
7) didn't prepare for all possible sanction possibilities.
8) most importantly, took way too long to build up and caused everyone to notice what was happening. And rank and file soldiers did not know they were about to attack.

For every of these exercises, PLA would want to prepare its soldiers for the possibility that any possible missions could replace training rounds with real missiles.

Nutrient · Aug 19, 2022

Overbom said:
My argument is that Russia is already a junior partner. Now if China is treating Russia as US treats its "allies" is another discussion altogether.

No, they are the same discussion, as there are too many correlations. In my view, during Soviet times China was the weaker country. Russia was far richer and more powerful, in spite of having less population. This can happen again, and China knows it. So the Russia/China relationship is one of equals.

AndrewS · Aug 19, 2022

tphuang said:
Keep in mind, Taiwan only has 7 days natural gas stored. It won't take very long for China to really squeeze Taiwan's economy and force Taiwan to try to break blockade through shooting war. Again, this could suddenly turn from an exercise to a shooting war in a couple of days. They don't want a Russian scenario where it was obvious for months that Russia was getting ready to attack. Then, it would be a really tough decision for any US president on what to do. I think this will be PLA's move to avoid an all out war.

I think China deciding to go to war and then starting with a blockade is a bad idea. It cedes the initiative to Taiwan and the US.

A blockade is already acknowledged as an act of war.

Suppose the US and Taiwan spend 5 days to prepare, and then launch a first strike against China instead? It's awfully tempting because the Taiwan military is still intact.

In comparison, suppose China was to announce 12 hours of military operations solely against Taiwan and then a blockade? That would result in at least half of Taiwan's air/sea power being destroyed, and reduce the risk of a US decision to intervene. US forces are not in place.

But even then, I think too much of the Taiwanese military would still be intact, and would tempt US intervention. But if China were to conduct military operations for 3 days, I reckon 90%+ of Taiwan's air/sea power would have been destroyed.

And if China continued significant attacks for 1 week, we would start seeing Taiwan's military ground units being attacked. Plus at that point, more US forces would be available, but US intervention will not stop the collapse of Taiwan's civilian economy. The PLA will still retain enough power to enforce an effective blockade for at least 4 more weeks, and Taiwan will have run out of food, fuel and electricity by then. The US would be forced to operate large resupply missions right next to the Chinese coastline.

I just don't see China going with a blockade as the desired military option.

@Patchwork_Chimera

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Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

AndrewS

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pmc

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tphuang

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pmc

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Abominable

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tphuang

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FairAndUnbiased

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tphuang

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Nutrient

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AndrewS

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Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

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Rostec develops electronic components for super-powerful colliders