Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

kwaigonegin said:

Yes, I used words like think because

Yes, unlike you and most here I use words like think because it's both arrogant and hubris to think that a topic as complicated as war and geopolitics can elicit such definitive and absolute answers. Especially one that pits the forces of 2 powerful armed forces against each other.
Sadly over the course of the last few years, SDF has negatively evolved into an echo chamber where any opposing discussions and viewpoints are quickly muted and anything short of proclaiming china is the absolute best of everything and absolutely can't lose in any potential fight is quickly dismissed as hearsay and silly talk.
Any posts that even hints of the potential of significant challenges PLA may faced is quickly rebuked and rebuffed as if the PLA has Star Trek weaponry fighting the US which is equipped with sticks and stones.
It is because of this arrogance and overconfidence type if talk that stymie meaningful discussions.
As I've said in the post there are 2 immutable facts that won't change anytime soon..
1. Geography does not favor China in a potential all out far
2. China is surrounded by less than friendly neighbors.

Can PLA forces overcome these constraints?
Yes it can with both qualitative and quatitative advantages however it is not there yet. It has to be in an order of magnitude more.

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those aren't facts though.

what about length of supply lines, ease of repairing facilities, sortie generation capability, number of targets vs. number of munitions, cover and concealment?

1. Geography does not favor China in a potential all out far

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your opinion is that geography doesn't favor China. Yet here are some actual facts:

1. Short supply lines are better than long ones.

What is the smaller distance, 100 miles or 5000 miles?

2. Higher throughput supply lines are better than lower throughput supply lines.

What is higher throughput in terms of mass/time, an air bridge across 5000 miles or freight railroad+highway+inland river barge across 100 miles?

3. Facilities close to industrial centers are easier to repair than facilities far from industrial centers.

What is closer to an allied industrial facility, Guam or Putian AFB in Fujian?

4. More facilities in theater means higher sortie generation.

What number is greater, 160 or ?

5. The more targets that need to be hit to disable your warmaking capability the better.

What number is greater, 160 or 9?

6. Cover and concealment is likely to favor the defender and the more the better.

What is more cover, 9.6 million km2 of mountain/jungle/urban region or 1000 km2 of flat island in the middle of flat ocean?

2. China is surrounded by less than friendly neighbors.

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Factually false. China doesn't have to worry about the entire north and west precisely because China has friendly neighbors in Russia, Kazakhstan and Pakistan. Other than India, China does not border any unfriendly countries, and India can't attack over the Himalayas.

On the other hand, many US allies in East Asia has to worry about their own safety because they're the ones with hostile neighbors. Example: South Korea borders North Korea and there's nowhere to run except jumping into the ocean.

kwaigonegin said:

I agree it does not have equal parity within 1st IC.. We are talking maybe 20% of US naval power and maybe 10% airpower vs 90+% of both PLAN PLAAF etc..
However the original question posited a total conventional war between the two nations which means everything is at play sans nukes.
Of course I agree that within the scope of a limited conflict such as within the 1st IC or even the Taiwan issue, the US forces would face enormous challenges fighting PLAN on thier own backyard!

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So please provide some numbers to back up your thinking of how the Americans will manage to knock out China's airbases, command nodes, production facilities in a total (conventional) war scenario.

For example, at the start of the hostilities, if the US fires the first shot, how many fighters, fighter-bombers, electronic attack crafts and tankers can US Air Force launched from First Island Chain bases and which ones, potentially how many PLAAF planes can be launched (and where) and how many PLAN ships can be forward deployed to intercept them. How many SLCMs can the vaunted Virginia SSN and Ohio SSGN launched. How many and which targets can the American attack successfully considering PLAGF has numerous air defense systems (untested I know) and PLAAF/PLANAF have a sizable AWAC fleet? Can those targets be repaired and how long will that take?

What will the PLA response looks like? How many DF-15/17/21/26/100... can PLARF launch against targets on the First Island Chain (which can be launched at the moment of detecting the American air fleet), how many of them can be intercepted by the American missile defense systems and what kind of damage can the PLARF missiles do? How long can the American and its vassals' bases last (forever is a valid assumption if you can provide reasonable explanations)? Once the major military bases on the Ryukyu Islands, South Korea, Kyushu Island, and Shikoku Island are knocked out, how do you prevent PLAAF from continuously attack the bases, major fuel depots and production facilities in the First Island Chain with guided glide bombs?

Let's game out the first week scenario before moving to later on...

kwaigonegin said:

1. Geography does not favor China in a potential all out far

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Geography do favor China in this case and the size of the target is small enough and really close enough that allows them to concentrate huge amount of power in a very small territory.

kwaigonegin said:

2. China is surrounded by less than friendly neighbors.

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Let see, India and Vietnam probably wont care, South Koreans will be scare death waiting for anything that could happen with North Korea, the Philippine is a mess of a country, Australia is just too far away to be an effective force and that leave Japan that when they find out they are in war of attribution with nothing to win and with the economy on a cliff they will pack their stuff, go home and call it a day.
They could call the Europeans but at that open the doors for the Russians to take more territory in Eastern Europe.

kwaigonegin said:

Any posts that even hints of the potential of significant challenges PLA may faced is quickly rebuked and rebuffed as if the PLA has Star Trek weaponry fighting the US which is equipped with sticks and stones.

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They have weapons to inflict serious damage and looks like they are building their military to fight for prolonged time to grind opposing forces. Personally I think their military are getting more for their money than the US military. IMHO.

Also I don't think that the US think that island is worth a nuclear war like probably the Chinese do,si the US will have to fight in a way that send a clear message to China that the are not looking for a nuclear escalation because that would be a problem, once missiles are in the air, good luck telling the Russians about those incoming missiles.

Let hope cooler head prevails because peace benefit everybody but if the US goes thinking that will be a walk in the park or a 3 months war they have another thing coming.

Everything US needs will come from parallel universe
Or you just need to believe that US had frozen technicians and qualified workers during the Cold War and they could be thaw in just 1 hour

tokenanalyst said:

Geography do favor China in this case and the size of the target is small enough and really close enough that allows them to concentrate huge amount of power in a very small territory.


Let see, India and Vietnam probably wont care, South Koreans will be scare death waiting for anything that could happen with North Korea, the Philippine is a mess of a country, Australia is just too far away to be an effective force and that leave Japan that when they find out they are in war of attribution with nothing to win and with the economy on a cliff they will pack their stuff, go home and call it a day.
They could call the Europeans but at that open the doors for the Russians to take more territory in Eastern Europe.

They have weapons to inflict serious damage and looks like they are building their military to fight for prolonged time to grind opposing forces. Personally I think their military are getting more for their money than the US military. IMHO.

Also I don't think that the US think that island is worth a nuclear war like probably the Chinese do,si the US will have to fight in a way that send a clear message to China that the are not looking for a nuclear escalation because that would be a problem, once missiles are in the air, good luck telling the Russians about those incoming missiles.

Let hope cooler head prevails because peace benefit everybody but if the US goes thinking that will be a walk in the park or a 3 months war they have another thing coming.

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People read incorrectly into what I was saying. I wasn't necessarily refering to the invasion of Taiwan or even fighting inside the 1st IC.
In which case OF COURSE PRC has a clear advantage! Anyone who thinks otherwise would obviously be clueless. Maybe Gordon C. may disagree but that's a seperate topic altogether.
It's like asking if the US will have an advantage if PRC decides to invade Cuba.
I was refering to an actual total war scenario between PRC and USA.
Anyway we've beaten this dead horse enough. I regret even posting about this topic in a place like this.

kwaigonegin said:

People read incorrectly into what I was saying. I wasn't necessarily refering to the invasion of Taiwan or even fighting inside the 1st IC.
In which case OF COURSE PRC has a clear advantage! Anyone who thinks otherwise would obviously be clueless.
It's like asking if the US will have an advantage if PRC decides to invade Cuba.
I was refering to an actual total war scenario between PRC and USA.
Anyway we've beaten this dead horse enough. I regret even posting about this topic in a place like this.

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The thread is kinda named based on what lessons China can draw from Ukraine should another country invade China in the same way Ukraine was invaded. So it's not that weird that people would "misunderstand" you.

I think it's rather pointless to talk about China pursuing aggressive war on American homeland. They will never do it because not only does it not benefit China, but there will never be enough political will in China to pull it off.

kwaigonegin said:

People read incorrectly into what I was saying. I wasn't necessarily refering to the invasion of Taiwan or even fighting inside the 1st IC.
In which case OF COURSE PRC has a clear advantage! Anyone who thinks otherwise would obviously be clueless.
It's like asking if the US will have an advantage if PRC decides to invade Cuba.
I was refering to an actual total war scenario between PRC and USA.
Anyway we've beaten this dead horse enough. I regret even posting about this topic in a place like this.

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?

But the various answers you got would still hold true in case of a total war (minus nukes), cuz the US would have to be the aggressor and come fight China though.

Like why would China go invade the US? And if they did, it would have to be after defeating and destroying the USN and even then actual invasion of the US mainland would result in nukes, so it's basically out of the window.

Biscuits said:

The thread is kinda named based on what lessons China can draw from Ukraine should another country invade China in the same way Ukraine was invaded. So it's not that weird that people would "misunderstand" you.

I think it's rather pointless to talk about China pursuing aggressive war on American homeland. They will never do it because not only does it not benefit China, but there will never be enough political will in China to pull it off.

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I agree.. any planner with half an IQ would realized occupying a country yields very lil benefit and would be pretty much impossible to do on countries as large as PRC or USA both in land mass and pop size.
The only way to be even semi successful in such a venture is fighting an adversary that is totally undergunned and undermatched and with a civilian population that may be 'won' over.
Even that is no guarantee!
At any rate, in the initial scenario of fighting a close peer, the best one could hope is neutralizing the adversary or thier will to fight and capitulated or forced a formal surrender.

Biscuits said:

And as Tokyo experienced, despite them being impervious to America at the start, once the war moved on through island hopping, that was no longer the case.

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Japan never was impervious, they had US bases and territories nearby, from Guam to Wake to Phillipines. US industry and resources were mostly impervious to Japanese attack.

abc123 said:

Japan never was impervious, they had US bases and territories nearby, from Guam to Wake to Phillipines. US industry and resources were mostly impervious to Japanese attack.

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You never know, maybe China can replicate Japan in WW2 and start sending balloons!