Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

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Bellum_Romanum

Brigadier
Registered Member
If war is unfortunately irreversible and the only method to resolve the Taiwan situation then China must attack Taiwanese military structures, and all strategic targets with an overwhelming, unrelenting force. Wage war without mercy, and not repeat or even close to copying what the Russians have mistakenly and in my opinion arrogantly assumed on their opponent. From there any tactical mumbo jumbo needs to be flexible, and adaptable to the changing conditions on the ground.

But we shouldn't be naive enough to believe in terms of sparing civilian lives since that nonsense will end up killing more civilians in the process and prolong their agony at the same time. It's like pretending that just because you say please, people will be more amenable after you just beat the crap out of them.

Sanitized warfare only exists on the stupid imaginations of the Americans who have been deluded into thinking that their way of war were free of untold chaos, destruction, and mayhem despite the body of evidence saying to the contrary.
 

Maikeru

Captain
Registered Member
Lesson is China will not be fighting US alone politically, economically and militarily, It will be fighting US, Japan and Western Europe. As Ukraine has shown, US allies will sacrifice their economies if need be. All Chinese assets govt or private outside China will be confiscated en masse. The playbook used against Russia will be enhanced, updated and more swift in implementation. All of this will be done without giving 2 shits to any sorts of international law.

Hence, my query is what are the counter-moves China can conceive?
Bite its tongue and bide its time to build up industrial, technological and military strength. In particular, get Type 095 into service in as large numbers as possible as fast as possible. Develop access to resources in Russia and central Asia to replace overseas resources if necessary. In the medium term at least trends all work in China's favour.
 

Mohsin77

Senior Member
Registered Member
Keyboard Warrior Syndrome 101: Talk tough on the internet, advocate war crimes, and blame operational and strategic failures on stuff like collateral damage considerations. I wanna see these people in a real fight and set a 20 second timer for the crying to start.

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As for "Lessons" from Ukraine, I had an email exchange with an American analyst recently, below is a copy/paste of my response to him which sums up Russia in Ukraine at a high level (it doesn't have every detail of the clusterfuck, which would require an entire book to be written):

>>>

This is a classical conventional conflict, in which Russia has failed to apply classical conventional power. Again, it wasn't the Javelins, it was Russia's complete lack of effective combined arms application.

Russia based everything around their light BTG organization, which necessarily required them to use heavy supporting arms. But there were no heavy supporting arms and no air superiority. The RuAF was basically MIA, their artillery was used tactically instead of operationally (and not nearly at the volume required), and their cruise missile inventory was being rationed from the start. Russia was striking operational targets on Day 30 which should've been hit on Day 0.

BTGs aren't designed to break through resistance on their own. They need 1 of 2 conditions met (preferably both):

A) Neutralize tactical threats with Artillery+CAS on contact
B) Destroy the operational capability of the enemy before contact (i.e. the enemy's Logistics/C4I/AFBs etc.)

If Russia had accomplished either A or B (ideally both), its offensive would have succeeded. But it accomplished neither. So when the BTGs met resistance, the advance stalled, and because the enemy was still operational, their lines of communication became exposed. This is why the offensive in the North failed and Russia had to pull back.

The real failures were operational and strategic, which makes the tactical domain irrelevant. Javelins don't even enter into it. Maybe if they had done Operations well, and were still unable to deal with the few remaining Javelins on contact, you can consider the effect of ATGMs etc. but we didn't even get there. Operationally everything was done incorrectly, and strategically they launched at the wrong time, without knowing their own weaknesses and the enemy's strengths. This far outweighs tactical problems like Javelins (which by the way, aren't magic weapons, even IR smokescreens neutralize them.)

Offense requires a lot of skill i.e. great commanders who can come up with a valid war plan, and a well trained rank and file that can execute on their own initiative. Everyone (including Western analysts) had assumed Russia knew the basics of conventional warfare and had the tools to impose its will on Ukraine in a couple of months. Literally no one expected them to be this clueless, not even the Ukrainians.

The only way to fix these problems for Russia is to rebuild its entire Officer Training pipeline. They need to produce much better commanders who can recognize problems and come up with effective and elegant solutions to them. This is something most militaries in the world need to do actually, because this is a problem that most (if not all) militaries have, which is why most offensives usually fail, or are completely inefficiently planned and executed.
 

Petrolicious88

Senior Member
Registered Member
If war is unfortunately irreversible and the only method to resolve the Taiwan situation then China must attack Taiwanese military structures, and all strategic targets with an overwhelming, unrelenting force. Wage war without mercy, and not repeat or even close to copying what the Russians have mistakenly and in my opinion arrogantly assumed on their opponent. From there any tactical mumbo jumbo needs to be flexible, and adaptable to the changing conditions on the ground.

But we shouldn't be naive enough to believe in terms of sparing civilian lives since that nonsense will end up killing more civilians in the process and prolong their agony at the same time. It's like pretending that just because you say please, people will be more amenable after you just beat the crap out of them.

Sanitized warfare only exists on the stupid imaginations of the Americans who have been deluded into thinking that their way of war were free of untold chaos, destruction, and mayhem despite the body of evidence saying to the contrary.
China has had the capability to mass bomb Taiwan for a long time. That is not that hard if the military wants to conduct that kind of operation. Russia can do that in Syria with the dumb bombs. You don't even need good intel for it. You see a bridge you bomb it.

BUT it's the geopolitical and socioeconomic factors that have deterred China. People on this forum speak of killing 100,000, 200,000, people as if it's kind mercy.

And Taiwan may not be bombed into submission just as England wasn't in WWII despite systematic carpet bombing by the Germans. And it will be live streamed globally. The risk of failure, of international condemnation (and china does care about its global image), and of economic embargo, sanctions, and socioeconomic damages to China's own development plan.
 
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FriedButter

Major
Registered Member
And Taiwan may not be bombed into submission just as England wasn't in WWII despite systematic carpet bombing by the Germans.

England and Taiwan is not even remotely comparable. China has the ability to completely destroy the ROC airforce. The Germans didn’t. They couldn’t achieve air or naval superiority over Britain. How much would history had changed if the Luftwaffe overwhelmed the RAF and destroyed them. Operation Sea Lion was planned for the invasion of England but was cancelled for Operation Barbarossa since the superiority couldn’t be achieved.
 

Petrolicious88

Senior Member
Registered Member
England and Taiwan is not even remotely comparable. China has the ability to completely destroy the ROC airforce. The Germans didn’t. They couldn’t achieve air or naval superiority over Britain. How much would history had changed if the Luftwaffe overwhelmed the RAF and destroyed them. Operation Sea Lion was planned for the invasion of England but was cancelled for Operation Barbarossa since the superiority couldn’t be achieved.
London was literally bombed to ashes, it did not surrender. Again, China can militarily defeat Taiwan with ease yesterday. Thats not the point. It has always been the geopolitical and socioeconomic factors that have deterred AR.
 

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
And Taiwan may not be bombed into submission just as England wasn't in WWII despite systematic carpet bombing by the Germans. And it will be live streamed globally. The risk of international condemnation (and china does care about its global image), and of economic embargo, sanctions and socioeconomic damages.
Ultimately there's a massive line of escalation before AR is even on the table, Taiwan would actually need to declare independence before the PRC would consider invasion, all the current chest bluffing is just to prevent that situation to occur, i.e escalate to de-escalate.

If china was actually serious about AR in a active way rather than passive/reactive, they would be increasing their military budget to at least double of what it is now so that they can procure a huge amount of long range missiles, rather than a few thousand of each try tens of thousands of cruise missiles, to successfully deter interference they simply need more anti-ship missiles than the US has air-defense missiles in theatre.

There would be no repeat of the current war where a paltry amount of early bombardments are used which are ultimately ineffectual. I would expect within the first 24 hours for all of Taiwanese primary power generation, air defense radar installations, primary communications, airport runways and shipping ports to be rendered inoperable for the duration of the war. Thousands of munitions of all types should be expended in this effort.

Ukranians never lost hope because they always had help right on the border, was never cut of from power, resupply and communications while still having a functional AA umbrella. A serious AR effort would see Taiwanese skies darken with hunter killer UAV swarms to root out any remaining air defenses and troop concentrations after a intial, overwhelming salvo, it would be in complete contrast to whatever is happening in Ukraine at the moment.
 

FriedButter

Major
Registered Member
London was literally bombed to ashes, it did not surrender. Again, China can militarily defeat Taiwan with ease yesterday. Thats not the point. It has always been the geopolitical and socioeconomic factors that have deterred AR.

The British military never had significant damaged inflicted on them and was similar in strength to the Germans. I will say it again. Taiwan and WW2 England is not remotely comparable. Just to expand it further. The Germans could not blockade England from receiving goods from sea lanes. It cannot be said the same for Taiwan, which heavily depends on imported food.
 

Petrolicious88

Senior Member
Registered Member
The British military never had significant damaged inflicted on them and was similar in strength to the Germans. I will say it again. Taiwan and WW2 England is not remotely comparable. Just to expand it further. The Germans could not blockade England from receiving goods from sea lanes. It cannot be said the same for Taiwan, which heavily depends on imported food.
You don’t need to say it again, cause that’s not the point.
 
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