Op-plan 2010

Many people suggests that the war will break out in a Pearl Harbor sudden strike style, but IMO this is highly unlikely. It is very difficult for the mainland to conceal the troops movement in large scale these days. It may take the PLA up to a week to get all units into the positions.

I personally think it will be a fast developing situation. First Taiwan's independent movement grows, and the mainland begins to worry. PLA start to deploy its troops to the coastal regions. Then Taiwan makes next move by declaring that it will hold a referendum. Mainland issues few warnings and then begins to hold military exercises near the Taiwan Strait.

The above we have seen many times already, but the following event will be critical. With no side willing to back down, the tension between the two sides is growing. U.S., E.U. and maybe even Russia will all send special convey to ease the situation. The final moment comes when the referendum is held as scheduled and the result is pro-independent. Beijing will blame the referendum result is fraud, as some anti-independent supporters in Taiwan also claims.

Finally the war breaks out, with Beijing launches its missile and air strike. Because the Taiwanese air force is fully prepared of this situation, the loss is not as heavy as expected by many. Large scale air combat will last for days, maybe weeks before one side finally controls the sky.

The rest of the story will depends on who the winner of the air combat is. If it is mainland, a large scale amphibious landing operation, perhaps the largest since D-day landing, will follow. However, if the winner is Taiwan, a new independent contry will merge within few months.

Political leadership will probably want a show of force and such an open buildup in order to try to deter taiwan's action. So that goes into your theory. But it is my opinion that militarily wise it'd be more effective for china to go to war with more or less what is has prepared/in range right now and what it can prepare in relative secret without much warning. Sure, that'd exclude any massive troop gatherings, it'd half the navy's force, it'd mean no mainland taiwan amphibious invasion could be prepared.

But in return, china would gain enough of a surprise with the aircraft and missiles it already has on station and in range to make such an attack worthwile. Thing is, china couldn't mount a bigger air attack at one time than it can now, because of the number of airfields in range of taiwan and the logicstics/coordination of such an attack. And air war would be everything, like you said. So it doesn't matter if the amphibious assault would be a week late, the air attack would be much more devastating with a fair element of surprise.

Also, given the positioning of taiwans sams, stocks of their sam and aam missiles, numbers and quality of their AF, i don't see them winning the air war. If US can send their F15s to aid early enough, then yeah, that could tip the scale back on taiwan's side, but who knows if it'd take a day or seven days for US to send serious help. Also, i doubt the air war would last long. Certainly not a full week. I'm saying couple of days with end of first day being enough to tell who's gonna be the winner (providing there's no US help)

Still the biggest question that i dont know the answer to, and would be important in these opening hours of the war, would be the efficiency of chinese ballistic/cruise missile attack versus the efficiency of taiwanese defenses. Please, anyone have any idea about that?