Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Phead128 · Apr 25, 2022

Richard Santos said:
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. furthermore the fact that the peak of the crisis in europe and the US would very likely be in early 2021 was very clear all throughout the 2020.

According to US intelligence, the first signs of war mobilization and stockpiling equipment was detected in April 2021, which means Putin's decision to go to war was formulated months earlier during the height of pandemic in US.

The decision for war likely occured at the height of the pandemic (see US delta surge peak in Jan 2021), so it is not a coincidence that Putin made the decision to invade during the height of pandemic. The subsequent high inflation and supply chain issues in late 2021 is icing on the cake. However, it takes months to mobilize and stockpile to go to war and preparation, it's just doesn't happen overnight.

Richard Santos · Apr 25, 2022

so Putin waited until the peak of Covid crisis is already upon the US, and effective vaccine has become widely available, so the severity of the crisis most likely would only decline from then on, to set in motion a military venture that would still take almost another 11 month to prepare?

But 11 month before, when it was already clear the US and the west is heading into what is clearly a very bad crisis that would not culminate for quite some time, Putin did nothing?

ACuriousPLAFan · Apr 26, 2022

Phead128 said:
According to US intelligence, the first signs of war mobilization and stockpiling equipment was detected in April 2021, which means Putin's decision to go to war was formulated months earlier during the height of pandemic in US.

And yet, you have Western (and Taiwanese) news media going hysterical over increasingly possible "invasion" of Taiwan by China as the war in Ukraine is going on, claiming all sorts of BS like:
1. "China and Russia formed a solid military alliance to counter NATO"
2. "China and Russia have coordinated their plans long ago"
3. "China will "invade" Taiwan to split the US attention"
blah blah blah.

If the US intelligence is able to detect the first sign of war mobilization and stockpiling equipment by Russia along the border with Ukraine all the waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back to April 2021 (particularly using their reconnaissance satellites) - what makes it any different for them to detect the PLA massing troops, equipment and ships in Zhejiang, Fujian and eastern Guangdong, should China decides to reunify Taiwan using by brute force?

It is literally impossible for any assembly of such enormous amount of troops, equipment and ships at just several locations to go unnoticed, especially with reconnaissance satellites roaming freely high above at any given time.

Furthermore, unlike southwestern Russia which has vast sways of flatlands with few, largerly scattered population centers:

The coastlines of Zhejiang, Fujian and eastern Guangdong are practically dotted with Chinese cities and towns laid amongst the southeastern mountain ranges of China.
Note that many of the crossings of the freeways can also represent smaller cities and towns that got hidden when the map is zoomed out.

Normal folks everywhere with their smartphones, WIFI and VPN can make a short work on figuring out what the PLA is planning to do when they start massing troops and equipment around the coastal regions opposite Taiwan.

Speaking of acute lack of critical thinking and logical reasoning skills across the strait to the east, across the ocean to the far east, and across the continent to the far west.

gelgoog · Apr 26, 2022

Phead128 said:
According to US intelligence, the first signs of war mobilization and stockpiling equipment was detected in April 2021, which means Putin's decision to go to war was formulated months earlier during the height of pandemic in US.
The decision for war likely occured at the height of the pandemic (see US delta surge peak in Jan 2021), so it is not a coincidence that Putin made the decision to invade during the height of pandemic. The subsequent high inflation and supply chain issues in late 2021 is icing on the cake. However, it takes months to mobilize and stockpile to go to war and preparation, it's just doesn't happen overnight.

The decision had nothing to do with the pandemic.

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Ukraine put into law in March 2021 that taking back Crimea was a national imperative. It was basically a declaration of war on Russia. They already had put NATO and EU accession into the constitution, I think before Zelensky came to power. Put the two together and it was a recipe for war.

pmc · Apr 26, 2022

Richard Santos said:
so Putin waited until the peak of Covid crisis is already upon the US, and effective vaccine has become widely available, so the severity of the crisis most likely would only decline from then on, to set in motion a military venture that would still take almost another 11 month to prepare?

But 11 month before, when it was already clear the US and the west is heading into what is clearly a very bad crisis that would not culminate for quite some time, Putin did nothing?

All these vaccines and even covid recovered people have impact on greater society. Putin understand it that he brought it up United
Russia congress. if he is paying attention to covid recovered people so we cannot assume he is not paying attention to efficiency of German society. is not just defeat Ukraine but also gaslighting German political system.
Also the Russia appearing to engage them constructively in long drawn process of Ukraine. German elections and Merkel last visits to Russia played part in timing.

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Michaelsinodef · Apr 26, 2022

alfreddango said:
this whole ukraine thing really made me question a lot of my previous assumptions when it comes to modern warfare.
did the russians really leroy jenkins this, or did all these assumptions about drones, fancy data links, real time surveillance, etc, crumble when faced with the harsh reality of the battlefield?

in other words, how viable is all this fancy tech? sure the russians are probably too poor to afford fielding adequate numbers of these systems, but still, it makes me wonder if this is all armchair analysis

Russia is and was behind China when it comes to actually fielding and using these modern systems.

If you're sceptical about modern systems, you just have to look at NATO and with its AWACs, satelite etc. Helping Ukrainian forces.

Coalescence · Apr 26, 2022

pmc said:
All these vaccines and even covid recovered people have impact on greater society. Putin understand it that he brought it up United
Russia congress. if he is paying attention to covid recovered people so we cannot assume he is not paying attention to efficiency of German society. is not just defeat Ukraine but also gaslighting German political system.
Also the Russia appearing to engage them constructively in long drawn process of Ukraine. German elections and Merkel last visits to Russia played part in timing.

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OT, but this is interesting, the article was published all the way back in June 30 2021, where long covid hasn't gotten mainstream attention yet, so Russia is looking out for long covid patients earlier than everyone else? Also what's with the vaccine comment there being next to covid recovered people?

gelgoog · Apr 26, 2022

I think the Russian MIC was aware of the problem but the Russian Military did not fund these developments properly in due time.
And without the Russian Military as the anchor client they had little success with drones. The market for low end drones was already flooded and the high end drones required large investments. As the Russians got into conflicts, I think it started with the Georgian war, then the Russian Military started getting more serious with drones. Initially for artillery spotting. The Russian Military got fed up with the MIC fiddling and license produced Israeli drones.

With the Syrian conflict you saw Russian investments into UCAVs grow. But the whole Russian industry still lacks the infrastructure in terms of assembly facilities and components. I think the entry into existence of Krondstadt is a major turning point as this is a dedicated drone manufacturer. The existing aviation industry majors like Sukhoi I think they do not know how make a system cheap enough for mass use by the Army. Krondstadt now have a drone factory but I think the production is still highly manual and not optimized for mass production. China has the advantage in terms of fabrication mindset to get into the drone market I think. Kalashnikov did try to get into the drone market, and they are someone with experience in cheap mass manufacture, but I think it was a step too far for a company like them. Their non-firearms business lacks common design sense I think. They go into all sorts of wild tangents which so far never led anywhere. With regards to companies like Krondstadt the weakness is the lack of component base like I said. Russian industry is still in the process of import substitution of things like low power rotary and turboprop/turbofan engines. I think they will manage to do it eventually because now with this Ukraine conflict the upper echelons finally figured out they need to speed up drone manufacture in a serious fashion. I think the turboprop/turbofan engine issue will be easily soluble since the Russians just recently finished import substitution of small turbofan engines which used to be imported from Ukraine. You can already tell by the cruise missile strikes the Russians have a huge stockpile. So they seemingly did succeed in mass producing micro-turbine engines. And they have the Al-222 import substituted too.

Abominable · Apr 26, 2022

gelgoog said:
I think the Russian MIC was aware of the problem but the Russian Military did not fund these developments properly in due time.
And without the Russian Military as the anchor client they had little success with drones. The market for low end drones was already flooded and the high end drones required large investments. As the Russians got into conflicts, I think it started with the Georgian war, then the Russian Military started getting more serious with drones. Initially for artillery spotting. The Russian Military got fed up with the MIC fiddling and license produced Israeli drones.

With the Syrian conflict you saw Russian investments into UCAVs grow. But the whole Russian industry still lacks the infrastructure in terms of assembly facilities and components. I think the entry into existence of Krondstadt is a major turning point as this is a dedicated drone manufacturer. The existing aviation industry majors like Sukhoi I think they do not know how make a system cheap enough for mass use by the Army. Krondstadt now have a drone factory but I think the production is still highly manual and not optimized for mass production. China has the advantage in terms of fabrication mindset to get into the drone market I think. Kalashnikov did try to get into the drone market, and they are someone with experience in cheap mass manufacture, but I think it was a step too far for a company like them. Their non-firearms business lacks common design sense I think. They go into all sorts of wild tangents which so far never led anywhere. With regards to companies like Krondstadt the weakness is the lack of component base like I said. Russian industry is still in the process of import substitution of things like low power rotary and turboprop/turbofan engines. I think they will manage to do it eventually because now with this Ukraine conflict the upper echelons finally figured out they need to speed up drone manufacture in a serious fashion. I think the turboprop/turbofan engine issue will be easily soluble since the Russians just recently finished import substitution of small turbofan engines which used to be imported from Ukraine. You can already tell by the cruise missile strikes the Russians have a huge stockpile. So they seemingly did succeed in mass producing micro-turbine engines. And they have the Al-222 import substituted too.

Finally, a Russian is admitting what I've been saying along.

A small company like Krondstadt is never going to be able to produce drones on a scale needed for an invasion like Ukraine. They can produce enough for prototypes or a few to be used against insurgents like in Syria. Otherwise they will need bigger production facilities, more staff, etc. That sort of thing can only happen with heavy investment, or direct state control. If Russia used the money they wasted on crappy Israeli drones and put it into drone production things could have been very different.

Never mind China, even Iran has better drone production than Russia.

FairAndUnbiased · Apr 26, 2022

ACuriousPLAFan said:
And yet, you have Western (and Taiwanese) news media going hysterical over increasingly possible "invasion" of Taiwan by China as the war in Ukraine is going on, claiming all sorts of BS like:
1. "China and Russia formed a solid military alliance to counter NATO"
2. "China and Russia have coordinated their plans long ago"
3. "China will "invade" Taiwan to split the US attention"
blah blah blah.

If the US intelligence is able to detect the first sign of war mobilization and stockpiling equipment by Russia along the border with Ukraine all the waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back to April 2021 (particularly using their reconnaissance satellites) - what makes it any different for them to detect the PLA massing troops, equipment and ships in Zhejiang, Fujian and eastern Guangdong, should China decides to reunify Taiwan using by brute force?

It is literally impossible for any assembly of such enormous amount of troops, equipment and ships at just several locations to go unnoticed, especially with reconnaissance satellites roaming freely high above at any given time.

Furthermore, unlike southwestern Russia which has vast sways of flatlands with few, largerly scattered population centers:
View attachment 87811

The coastlines of Zhejiang, Fujian and eastern Guangdong are practically dotted with Chinese cities and towns laid amongst the southeastern mountain ranges of China.
Note that many of the crossings of the freeways can also represent smaller cities and towns that got hidden when the map is zoomed out.
View attachment 87812
Normal folks everywhere with their smartphones, WIFI and VPN can make a short work on figuring out what the PLA is planning to do when they start massing troops and equipment around the coastal regions opposite Taiwan.

Speaking of acute lack of critical thinking and logical reasoning skills across the strait to the east, across the ocean to the far east, and across the continent to the far west.

Chinese troops don't need to mass outside existing bases first like Russia did. Key difference: existing operating bases, industrial infrastructure in the area and heavier PLA use of wheeled vehicles. Most of the vehicle need will be internal, Taiwan is built up, tracked vehicles are less necessary.

Why are wheeled armored vehicles important for this situation? Because they can drive themselves efficiently at highway speeds (100 kph) and fuel at gas stations, while tracked vehicles need rail transporters for strategic movement making them much less flexible.

What armored vehicles can be put on wheels? Artillery, SAMs, TEL, IFV. Exactly what is needed.

So you actually only need prepositioning of ammo, food and vehicles that absolutely must be tracked like amphibious tanks. Everything else like troops, artillery, SAMs, TELs, etc can drive themselves from dispersed bases to staging areas and then to operational areas within hours from up to 500 km away and within a day from up to 1000 km away.

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Phead128

Captain

Richard Santos

Captain

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier

gelgoog

Lieutenant General

pmc

Major

Michaelsinodef

Senior Member

Coalescence

Senior Member

gelgoog

Lieutenant General

Abominable

Major

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier