PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Btw, this is going way off topic. I would suggest all of you to stop.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

If you are actually aware of the what types of natural/mineral/energy resources are required to sustain a prolonged wartime economy, and the geographic distribution of the production and reserves for these goods, you would see that it is the US/EU

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US would have no problem as they have most of resources needed for military, it would be the EU having more problems. US is as plentiful with resources as Russia. China actually has lower amount of resources than those two. We are of course talking about military materials like manganese, molybdenum, zinc, copper, titanium, aluminum, berillium, all the rare earth metals, chromium etc.

JonnyJalapeno said:

US would have no problem as they have most of resources needed for military, it would be the EU having more problems. US is as plentiful with resources as Russia. China actually has lower amount of resources than those two. We are of course talking about military materials like manganese, molybdenum, zinc, copper, titanium, aluminum, berillium, all the rare earth metals, chromium etc.

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Lets take a look at the data.

1) Manganese: China has 6th largest reserves and is the second largest producer. US not a major source for manganese reserves nor production. Due to geographic distribution of reserves/production, both countries should have no problems sourcing manganese. Manganese is fairly common and found across an extensive variety of different ores.

2) Molybdenum: China has the largest reserves and is the largest producer. The US has the second largest reserves and is the third largest producer. Both countries are self sufficient.

4) Zinc: China has 2nd largest reserves and is the largest producer. While US is in top 10 in both reserves and production, US reserves are about 1/4th of China's and production less than 1/6th. Zinc is an generally common metal.

5) Copper: China has 6th largest reserves, 3rd largest production. US has 5th largest reserves, 4th largest production. Copper is a common metal with generally even geographic distribution.

6) Titanium: China has the largest reserves and is the largest producer. US has neither major reserves nor is a major producer, having to import titanium since the Cold War from the USSR under guise of making pizza ovens. Titanium itself is actually extremely abundant, the bottleneck being more technological and industrial in nature, titanium being one of the most difficult ores to process and refine. While Australia is a major source of Titanium ore, the US would need to rely on Japanese refining/processing until it can build up domestic capacity. Japan has no significant titanium reserves, so relying on Japanese production would require both Titanium ore to reach Japan and for finished Titanium to be able to depart from Japan.

7) Aluminum: China is 7th in Bauxite/Alumina reserves and produces over half of the world's aluminum. US has negligible discovered reserves, and despite being the 6th largest producer, produces not even 1/20th of the amount of China. Until production is scaled up, US will need to rely on Canadian and Norwegian aluminum production, and will need to limit aluminum consumption. Aluminum is extremely abundant, main limits to extractions and production are purely economical.

8) Chromium: Neither US nor China have a significant share of Chromium reserves nor are major Chromium producers. China used to maintain a fairly substantial amount of Chromium extraction and production, but due to environmental reasons switched to sourcing from foreign sources. Chromium itself is rather abundant, but economically viable deposits are not evenly distributed geographically. Chromium mining and production is associated with high levels of environmental degradation (even compared to the extraction/production of other metals). China can rely solely on friendly countries with which it shares a land border, as Russia and Kazakhstan are both major producers. Sources available to the US would be South Africa, Turkey, and India.

9) Rare earths: China has largest reserves and is the largest producer. US has 7th largest reserves, about 1/20th of China's, and is the 2nd largest producer (1/5th of China's). US might be able to source enough rare earths for military production, but it's economy as a whole will definitely lack sufficient rare earths, as China has the largest global reserves and controls over 60% of global rare earths production.

Another not listed, Tungsten is the metal that will be the biggest headache for US (and basically any nation other than China) to source. Tungsten is actually a rare metal, and is less common than all of the materials you have listed. Furthermore, the geographic distribution of viable tungsten reserves is extremely skewed. China controls both 90% of the world's reserves and production. Unlike many of the metals you have listed, Tungsten is absolutely critical in many military applications, where there are no existing substitutes. For example, until alternative composite/non-metal materials are developed, it is not possible to produce hypersonic weapons/aircraft without tungsten.

With the exception of titanium (which the US would experience difficulty in sourcing, at least initially), both countries are fairly sufficient (from purely military use perspective) in the resources you listed. For most the resources, China has an advantage in both proven reserves and production, and would enjoy an advantage in the cost and ease of sourcing. China would not need to rely on sea routes for any of these materials. The US will would need to rely on sea routes for at least a significant portion of several of these materials. Moving beyond military applications, the US would need to ramp up production in several of these materials, either domestically or in friendly countries with which the US has relatively secure shipping routes, in order to sustain civilian consumption. China has access to enough reserves and production capacity either domestically (all of the materials with exception of Chromium) or in friendly neighboring countries to sustain even civilian consumption for all of these materials indefinitely.

(The availability of reserves and current production only paint a high level overview. Actual extraction and production capability is heavily shaped by economic, technological, and environmental considerations. The difficulty, cost, and time required to scale up extraction and production also vary significant between types of ores. Even for a particular metal, the cost/difficulty of extraction should not be viewed as a set of discrete points, but rather across a continuum in terms of cost and economic viability which changes over time. A key and very critical exception to this rule is Tungsten, which forms in under extremely specific geological conditions.)

Final comment on mineral resources. To get an general idea of where minerals are located, just take a look at a topological map. Size of land area is a good proxy for amount of common metals. Then look at the mountain ranges. The taller the mountains, the greater the amount of rare metals will be accessible. If you were to drill down to earth's mantle, generally every metal will be in abundance. Given that currently it would be feasible to drill down that deep, the next best thing would be mountain ranges. While US has Rockies and Appalachian mountain ranges, no mountain range on Earth can compare to the Himalayas when it comes to rarer metals.

Whole lot of activity from the PLAAF and PLAN today around Taiwan.

There was an interesting thread on r/LCD regarding China's ability to surge manpower and materiel to the AO prior to an armed reunification contingency.

Do we know the stats regarding Golden Week travel in ETC provinces? Some stats like average and peak daily passenger/cargo trains would give a reasonable estimate in terms of surge capability.

Looking at IISS military balance Taiwan has around 600 MBTs and 2000 arty pieces. Without arty and armour Taiwan would be forced to rely purely on infantry which would make it a guerrilla campaign (they don't have the ATGM stocks for it but regardless). At best they would hold onto some rural areas and mountains with defensible terrain whilst the PRC holds on the all the cities , population centres. industries etcetera and for all intents and purposes the AR would be successful.

China will certainly have complete ISR dominance over Taiwan. With cheap piston based suicide drones, PHL 16 GMLR equivs and wing kit PGMs similar to JDAMs after they have ISR dominance what is to say that the PLA can't just hit all this arty and armour and make the ROC ground forces be reduced to infantry? Like is there something I'm missing here? What is to say after a few weeks that China can't have attritted 90%+ of non infantry equipment for Taiwan? They could do this whilst blockading Taiwan and getting rid the US in the 1IC after which they can send an amphib force to clean up the remaining infantry and Taiwan will fall. Am I missing something here?

aqh said:

Looking at IISS military balance Taiwan has around 600 MBTs and 2000 arty pieces. Without arty and armour Taiwan would be forced to rely purely on infantry which would make it a guerrilla campaign (they don't have the ATGM stocks for it but regardless). At best they would hold onto some rural areas and mountains with defensible terrain whilst the PRC holds on the all the cities , population centres. industries etcetera and for all intents and purposes the AR would be successful.

China will certainly have complete ISR dominance over Taiwan. With cheap piston based suicide drones, PHL 16 GMLR equivs and wing kit PGMs similar to JDAMs after they have ISR dominance what is to say that the PLA can't just hit all this arty and armour and make the ROC ground forces be reduced to infantry? Like is there something I'm missing here? What is to say after a few weeks that China can't have attritted 90%+ of non infantry equipment for Taiwan? They could do this whilst blockading Taiwan and getting rid the US in the 1IC after which they can send an amphib force to clean up the remaining infantry and Taiwan will fall. Am I missing something here?

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I think you're repeatedly worrying and second guessing a lot, which is fine because no one wants to see an attack on China, but the politicians and experts have well devised plans on how to confront and deter American aggression.

US didn't make it to Taiwan back in the early 00s when China had less powerful defenses. With the breadth of resources and brains available to China in 2023, the situation swings even more against America.

Bottom line is, it's certainly good to be aware, stay up to date on the situation, but don't lose sleep over it. If China's defenses weren't formidable, US would have made a move, and China wouldn't still be at low spending.

Taiwan will never fall. US may believe it, but if they commit, it will be a mortal strategic error coerced on them by China to begin with.

aqh said:

Looking at IISS military balance Taiwan has around 600 MBTs and 2000 arty pieces. Without arty and armour Taiwan would be forced to rely purely on infantry which would make it a guerrilla campaign (they don't have the ATGM stocks for it but regardless). At best they would hold onto some rural areas and mountains with defensible terrain whilst the PRC holds on the all the cities , population centres. industries etcetera and for all intents and purposes the AR would be successful.

China will certainly have complete ISR dominance over Taiwan. With cheap piston based suicide drones, PHL 16 GMLR equivs and wing kit PGMs similar to JDAMs after they have ISR dominance what is to say that the PLA can't just hit all this arty and armour and make the ROC ground forces be reduced to infantry? Like is there something I'm missing here? What is to say after a few weeks that China can't have attritted 90%+ of non infantry equipment for Taiwan? They could do this whilst blockading Taiwan and getting rid the US in the 1IC after which they can send an amphib force to clean up the remaining infantry and Taiwan will fall. Am I missing something here?

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You aren't missing anything...

No one expects those "MBT"s to do anything.
They are absolutely ancient M60, with no modern protection, some upgrades, but nothing approaching Sabra. Plus even older M48.
There will be M1 delivered (at some point...) ~100, but the sheer size and weight means their operational area should be well known
I don't think any calculation expects survival of Taiwan's armored assets.

Non-fixed artillery has a higher survival, but good ISR means their time is limited.

So that means Taiwan might optimistically for the US have a few weeks at most? The US would have to then rush through the grinder that the fires and sensor complex with the 1IC.