PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

RoastGooseHKer said:

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Just a follow-up with regard to the 370mm and 300mm MRLS. I don’t recall the PLA having a large enough number of these long-range artillery pieces, yet. I could be wrong. Do you think it would be realistic to use these long-range MRLS to provide covering and suppressing fire to prevent airfields and bases from being repaired, destroy time sensitive targets in conjunction with loiter drones, etc.? The Russians could fire 30,000 rounds per day (152mm, 122mm) to suppress Ukrainian lines. I wonder if it would be realistic for the PLA to do that using PHL-191s regarding Taiwan to keep the ROC forces suppressed (think Kinmen 8.13.1958, but this time across the entire Taiwan Strait), whilst covering amphibious forces.

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The use of long range MLRS would not be for suppression in the traditional sense -- at the sort of ranges that these weapons will be operating at (500+km for the 750mm ballistic missile, 300+km for the 370mm rockets), they would be precision guided.

Depending on the phase of a Taiwan conflict, they would be used for targeting high value targets and concentrations of units, logistics, fixed sites, etc.

As part of an overall fires campaign in a Taiwan conflict (including initial waves, and subsequent re-attack of degraded targets like preventing air fields and bases from being repaired), these PHL-191 systems obviously won't be operating alone, but instead with the full envelope of supporting, appropriate ranged PLA multi-domain strike systems. Ongoing strike and degradation fires will also be multi-domain rather than the sole purview of PHL-191.

By the time that an amphibious invasion occurs, the ROC military should be sufficiently degraded and the PLA should have sufficient air control over the area of operations such that the PHL-191s (likely using 370mm rockets) as well as other airborne supporting fires (fixed wing CAS/interdiction, rotary wing, as well as EW and ISR) and organic seaborne fires (ship based shorter range MLRS, naval gunfire) will have the joint task of supporting the amphibious assault itself without having to simultaneously re-attack ongoing ROC military bases/air fields/radars etc because those should have been permanently taken out by this stage.


As for the number of PHL-191 systems, they are introducing it to more units over time; what is true one year may not be true the next year. And importantly, as a very road mobile system, they can quite easily transfer a few PHL-191 units from other theater commands to eastern theater command as needed to augment their fires bandwidth.

Blitzo said:

The use of long range MLRS would not be for suppression in the traditional sense -- at the sort of ranges that these weapons will be operating at (500+km for the 750mm ballistic missile, 300+km for the 370mm rockets), they would be precision guided.

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To be fair(and you absolutely added "traditional sense"), PRMs are absolutely usable for suppression effects, and in fact are way better at them compared to dumbies - including fixing assets for permanent destruction (say, aircraft in reinforced shelters). Provided you have enough.

In a way, it's hard to truly permanently destroy some of the objects you listed below, but effective suppresion (which may later take demonstrations/updates) is good at doing it de facto(via showing bluefor futility of repairs).
The problem here of course is having enough missiles going through, accurately enough, at a sufficient pace, and chosing appropriate instruments for missions (as we saw in Ukraine, in a suitable role, HIMARS suppression could force strategic effects, when it forced abandoment of Kherson bridgehead and the city itself, i.e. single largest political victory of the war; in unsuitable role, trying to use HIMARS as a GP heavy artillery/airforce replacement whittled down entire superpower ammo reserve, for a great result of moving the frontline just a few kilometers for a few months - i.e. effects, for all their precision, were utterly insufficient in numbers and timing).

Gloire_bb said:

To be fair(and you absolutely added "traditional sense"), PRMs are absolutely usable for suppression effects, and in fact are way better at them compared to dumbies - including fixing assets for permanent destruction (say, aircraft in reinforced shelters). Provided you have enough.

In a way, it's hard to truly permanently destroy some of the objects you listed below, but effective suppresion (which may later take demonstrations/updates) is good at doing it de facto(via showing bluefor futility of repairs).
The problem here of course is having enough missiles going through, accurately enough, at a sufficient pace, and chosing appropriate instruments for missions (as we saw in Ukraine, in a suitable role, HIMARS suppression could force strategic effects, when it forced abandoment of Kherson bridgehead and the city itself, i.e. single largest political victory of the war; in unsuitable role, trying to use HIMARS as a GP heavy artillery/airforce replacement whittled down entire superpower ammo reserve, for a great result of moving the frontline just a few kilometers for a few months - i.e. effects, for all their precision, were utterly insufficient in numbers and timing).

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Well, there's "suppression" and then there's suppression.

The description of suppression he used in the Ukraine conflict is somewhat more traditional tube field artillery firing generally unguided shells against infantry or AFVs in a semi-static form of ground warfare. With support from more modern ISR and cuing sure.


For a Taiwan conflict, 370mm and 750mm calibre weapons in early phases of the conflict would be used against higher value targets like air bases, air defenses, C4I, naval ports, logistics nodes etc, ideally with the aim of permanently destroying them, or degrading them to an extent such that re-attack (either by the same PHL-191 platforms or friendly other fires) can permanently take them out. They are targets that would be considered deeper behind the "front" (if one could even conceive of it in that way) and relatively point high value targets.

In the phase of conflict when the PLA is carrying out an amphibious invasion, the aforementioned phase of strike missions would be largely wrapped up and the PHL-191s might be used in a manner to "suppress" the beachhead of enemy forces while they conduct their landing.


The way that RoastGooseHKer described the use of tube artillery in the Ukraine conflict ("30,000 shells a day to suppress Ukrainian lines") is why I think just avoiding that sort of direct comparison is probably more useful in context of this discussion.

manqiangrexue said:

Listen, caveman. With the advent of ICBMs and now hypersonic ICBMs, you don't need to be 40 miles from someone to threaten them with missiles. The Soviets did it and the Soviet Union is dead; too much balls apparently took away blood supply to the brain and they weren't thinking straight on how to fight.

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lol you talk like china gonna have balls to go nuclear with ICBM first if US attack china east coast with regular missile
that is way bigger balls than putting regular missile on cuba/venezuela .

i hope your big talk real good luck

vincent said:

Have you considered the possibility Cuba doesn’t want to antagonize the US by hosting Chinese/Russian missiles? Other countries have a vote too,

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that should be china's MSS job right ?

that how thing work there day minion exist to be use by the master

see how CIA kick out the china-friendly president of philipines ? replace him with 1000% pro-US one ? see how they now remove all china friendly offical from philipines gov ?
do you think US and the west gonna do nothing if south korea and japan change heart at last minute before ww3 starts ?

did you see how fked russia and putin in ukraine right now ? when they failed to "convince" belarus join ?

i remember even ancient china have this quote : 2 fists can't fight 4 hands , and US/west have way more than 4 hands when fighting china

votran said:

lol you talk like china gonna have balls to go nuclear with ICBM first if US attack china east coast with regular missile
that is way bigger balls than putting regular missile on cuba/venezuela .

i hope your big talk real good luck

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Won’t have to. China has more air defense capacity than the US has offensive missiles in the theater. US launch positions also won’t survive for very long. You should try to remember that China is firing back and the US’s position is much thinner than China’s. It’s a whole continent’s worth of rocket and air forces plus a navy vs US carrier groups and a few islands. Please make an attempt to understand this topic in terms of math, not asspull vibes.

votran said:

that should be china's MSS job right ?

that how thing work there day minion exist to be use by the master

see how CIA kick out the china-friendly president of philipines ? replace him with 1000% pro-US one ? see how they now remove all china friendly offical from philipines gov ?
do you think US and the west gonna do nothing if south korea and japan change heart at last minute before ww3 starts ?

did you see how fked russia and putin in ukraine right now ? when they failed to "convince" belarus join ?

i remember even ancient china have this quote : 2 fists can't fight 4 hands , and US/west have way more than 4 hands when fighting china

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You seem to be missing the point. Japan and South Korea don’t really add any meaningful capacity to offset the US’s very big and growing force deficit against China in the WestPac theater. The number of fists in your bandit is not the number of countries holding hands but the number of missiles each side can lob. Please learn how military affairs actually work. This might be hard for someone whose brain is still stuck in chimp brained adolescence to register but military forecasting doesn’t work like Captain Planet and friends playing with p imaginary self esteem contests.

latenlazy said:

This brag would sound more impressive if the US could actually churn out more than 1 destroyer a year on budget and schedule with those shipyards. Right now the US can’t even restock missiles without Chinese imports. I’m also not sure why you think the Philippines or Japan or South Korea would be able to defend their firing positions from Chinese missile strikes if the USN can’t with an entire fleet of Aegis destroyers. US Submarines btw don’t really have the salvo volumes or geographic presence to stop sea traffic, and if they funnel themselves around geographic chokepoints like Malacca to do high frequency attacks they’re basically surrendering their stealth advantage and making themselves easy to kill. You should learn to do some math and guzzle less Reddit slop.

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do you know typhoon , naval strike missile , tomahawk launcher US set up on philipines are all mobile right ?

do you know how big philipines are ?

you really think PLA missile can guarranted counter missile destroy all of them 100% time ? no leak?

and easy kill US/allied gang submarine lurking around Malacca strait by what ?

dont you see a bunch indian own island right in front gate of Malacca strait ?

you think they gonna happy helping china spotting US/allied sub ?

anyway the best weapon to hunt submarine is fixed wing ASW plane because they fast , cover huge area

but how many of them in PLA right now ? where can they be deploy and re-fuel from ?

how safe for them to cricle around Malacca strait while china have zero airbase or even a single pro-china nation willing to help them refuel + protect them with their own SAM nearby ?

and ASW plane are juicy shitting duck for enemy sam/fighter jet during wartime

look at the map and tell me how many nations around Malacca strait truely pro-china 100% , no risk they tip off information (PLA aircraft/surfare ship/sub activity) toward US/allied gang under backdoor economic pressure ?

votran said:

do you know typhoon , naval strike missile , tomahawk launcher US set up on philipines are all mobile right ?

do you know how big philipines are ?

you really think PLA missile can guarranted counter missile destroy all of them 100% time ? no leak?

and easy kill US/allied gang submarine lurking around Malacca strait by what ?

dont you see a bunch indian own island right in front gate of Malacca strait ?

you think they gonna happy helping china spotting US/allied sub ?

anyway the best weapon to hunt submarine is fixed wing ASW plane because they fast , cover huge area

but how many of them in PLA right now ? where can they be deploy and re-fuel from ?

how safe for them to cricle around Malacca strait while china have zero airbase or even a single pro-china nation willing to help them refuel + protect them with their own SAM nearby ?

and ASW plane are juicy shitting duck for enemy sam/fighter jet during wartime

look at the map and tell me how many nations around Malacca strait truely pro-china 100% , no risk they tip off information (PLA aircraft/surfare ship/sub activity) toward US/allied gang under backdoor economic pressure ?

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You know that US missiles aren't immune to interceptors and US missile launchers aren't immune to counterattack right? And that China has far more offensive and defensive missile salvo capacity than the US+all potential allies combined in the Western Pacific theater? Do you not know how to count? Your popularity contest Reddit slop word barfing doesn't matter if you don't have physical numbers to back up the blind chest beating. If you don't know what math is you should probably take your ignorant vibe posting down a few notches before you embarrass yourself further.

I don’t think China can afford to wait for very long between starting MLRS strikes and launching amphibious operations at all incase the US decides to get heavily involved.

I think they would do a huge and continuous strike, everywhere, and start the amphibious ops straight away.

What are you thinking? The Philippines would never turn its own territory into the main battlefield for a war with China—unless you believe Filipinos value American interests more than their own land and people.