PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

yungho

Junior Member
Registered Member
You probably heard of Lyle Goldstein or read one of his articles.

The ideas of taking the smaller islands, Kinmen and Penghu, or a blockade make no sense to me. Why would the Chinese want to delay the inevitable even further? The best case scenario for China is a successful invasion that forces the Taiwanese government to negotiate for peace. That way they don't drag out the conflict and achieve their goals of bring Taiwan back into the fold, even if they give Taiwan some concessions. I assume the Chinese would rather have that, then a long drawn out blockade that gives ample time for the US to respond. I'm glad the former admiral brought that up.

I think the US is doing everything right and there is few options that are realistic that they are missing. Missiles in the second island chain are a good idea, but why would Japan agree? Japanese involvement would frankly increase support for the war.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Interesting apparently PLAN is readying a module port for Taiwan invasion for full article click the link. So with this modular pier you can use Roro as amphibious transport
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CIVILIAN SHIPPING: FERRYING THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY ASHORE​

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By Michael Dahm and Conor M. Kennedy

The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has been increasing its ability to use civilian roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) ferries to move troops and equipment ashore in amphibious landing operations. In August 2020, the PLA conducted a cross-sea mobility evolution using RO-RO ferries. Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A (东部运投—2020A) was unique in that it discharged military vehicles from RO-RO ferries directly onto a beach using a modular floating pier. Commercial satellite imagery of a PLA amphibious exercise area in late-summer 2021 revealed that the PLA may have developed an improved floating pier system to support amphibious operations. These capabilities, components of what the U.S. Navy calls “joint logistics over-the-shore (JLOTS),” allows the PLA to use civilian vessels to move large amounts of military equipment into unimproved amphibious landing areas without port infrastructure. A Chinese mobile pier system like those observed in these exercises may have particular application for the PLA in an invasion of Taiwan.

The PLA has been using
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for many years, moving military forces and equipment up and down the Chinese coast. RO-RO ferries provide significant capacity to move armor and other rolling stock. Recent PLA innovations are enabling greater roles for civilian ferries to move forces ashore. For example, some Chinese civilian ferries
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with capabilities to deploy amphibious armored vehicles at-sea, essentially making them auxiliary amphibious landing ships. This is likely meant to compensate for the apparent
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in PLA amphibious lift required to conduct a cross-strait landing. The PLA appear to be learning from their American counterparts with solutions for moving forces and supplies ashore in the absence of port infrastructure. This article explores a novel floating pier system that may provide a solution to some of the PLA’s amphibious lift shortcomings.

What the Chinese call an “offshore mobile debarkation platform” (海上机动卸载平台) was spotted in commercial satellite imagery along the fishing wharves of the Lanshan District in Rizhao City, China in September 2020. A
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indicates sections include “square” or intermediate pontoon modules (方形模块), bow-stern modules (首尾模块), ramp modules (坡道模块), powered modules (推进模块), cargo ferries (货运渡船) and lighters (驳船) as well as warping tugs (绞滩拖船) to maneuver the different sections. The floating pier system was developed by engineers at the PLA Military Transportation University in Tianjin
.

01_GoogleEarth-Pier-Modules-and-Components.jpg
 

weig2000

Captain
Interesting apparently PLAN is readying a module port for Taiwan invasion for full article click the link. So with this modular pier you can use Roro as amphibious transport
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

CIVILIAN SHIPPING: FERRYING THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY ASHORE​

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By Michael Dahm and Conor M. Kennedy

The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has been increasing its ability to use civilian roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) ferries to move troops and equipment ashore in amphibious landing operations. In August 2020, the PLA conducted a cross-sea mobility evolution using RO-RO ferries. Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A (东部运投—2020A) was unique in that it discharged military vehicles from RO-RO ferries directly onto a beach using a modular floating pier. Commercial satellite imagery of a PLA amphibious exercise area in late-summer 2021 revealed that the PLA may have developed an improved floating pier system to support amphibious operations. These capabilities, components of what the U.S. Navy calls “joint logistics over-the-shore (JLOTS),” allows the PLA to use civilian vessels to move large amounts of military equipment into unimproved amphibious landing areas without port infrastructure. A Chinese mobile pier system like those observed in these exercises may have particular application for the PLA in an invasion of Taiwan.

The PLA has been using
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for many years, moving military forces and equipment up and down the Chinese coast. RO-RO ferries provide significant capacity to move armor and other rolling stock. Recent PLA innovations are enabling greater roles for civilian ferries to move forces ashore. For example, some Chinese civilian ferries
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
with capabilities to deploy amphibious armored vehicles at-sea, essentially making them auxiliary amphibious landing ships. This is likely meant to compensate for the apparent
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
in PLA amphibious lift required to conduct a cross-strait landing. The PLA appear to be learning from their American counterparts with solutions for moving forces and supplies ashore in the absence of port infrastructure. This article explores a novel floating pier system that may provide a solution to some of the PLA’s amphibious lift shortcomings.

What the Chinese call an “offshore mobile debarkation platform” (海上机动卸载平台) was spotted in commercial satellite imagery along the fishing wharves of the Lanshan District in Rizhao City, China in September 2020. A
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
indicates sections include “square” or intermediate pontoon modules (方形模块), bow-stern modules (首尾模块), ramp modules (坡道模块), powered modules (推进模块), cargo ferries (货运渡船) and lighters (驳船) as well as warping tugs (绞滩拖船) to maneuver the different sections. The floating pier system was developed by engineers at the PLA Military Transportation University in Tianjin
.

01_GoogleEarth-Pier-Modules-and-Components.jpg

Excellent report.

It should be noted that very large dual-use ships are subsidized by the military and built to military standard. All these modular pier systems, sub-submersible barges, the RO-RO ferries and cargo vessels have been developed over decades and in service at least a decade ago. If China can build an island in the middle of ocean in several months, there can be no doubt that it can construct an offshore mobile debarkation system in a few hours. They will enable the landing of large-scale, second-wave troops, after the marines and amphibious armored troops have successfully landed and secured some beach heads carried by LHDs, LPDs, LSTs and LCACs. They will be supported by attack aircraft, UCAVs/UAVs, helicopters and MLRS. In addition, airborne troops will land in the rear and around strategic posts such as command centers and airports. It will be quite a different game compared to Normandy or Okinawa.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Rare view of Chinese Sealift at minute 8:43 This video show a lot of PLA logistic and transport brigade which improve a lot in the last decade. those civilian ferry are huge and can carry thousand of armor
The whole process of the long-distance delivery of a synthetic brigade of the People's Liberation Army is rarely public. |
1634254886868.png
1634254944952.png
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Expansion of front line air bases in preparation of Taiwan contingency
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Upgrades for Chinese military airbases facing Taiwan hint at war plans​

  • Satellite images show work began last year to expand and reinforce three PLA air force bases in Fujian province
  • The improvements will give air combat support but also strengthen defences against potential strike from Taiwanese forces

Air defence sites, runways, aprons and bunkers have been expanded and upgraded at the Chinese military’s Longtian airbase in Fujian province. Source: Planet Labs


Air defence sites, runways, aprons and bunkers have been expanded and upgraded at the Chinese military’s Longtian airbase in Fujian province. Source: Planet Labs

Satellite images have revealed China is upgrading and reinforcing its airbases closest to
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along its southeastern coast, indicating Beijing may be stepping up its plans to take the island by force.
The upgraded infrastructure at three airbases in Fujian province will give long-term logistical air combat support to the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which mounted a record 149 sorties into Taiwan’s
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over four consecutive days from October 1.

The images, captured by Planet Labs and first published by American tech and military site The Drive, showed work on aircraft shelters and reinforced munitions storage started early last year and continued uninterrupted during the
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pandemic.
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Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
The same video with english explanation. Fuxing is the first of this roro ferry ship but 15 more will be built Huge sea lift ! It will be built for dual use of civilian and military purposes.

PLA uses The China (Zhong Hua) Fuxing cruise-type ro-ro passenger ship for military transportation.​

 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
In recent conservative gathering they discuss Taiwan war scenario and this war monger Pillsburry spew his nonsense an s both Goldman and Anton rebut his nonsense
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Pillsbury: Well, we could turn to you and say, I surrender.

Anton: What would you do if you were either the secretary of defense, the president, the head of a Pacific Command and sitting there in Pearl Harbor?

Pillsbury: I’ve been working on this for 30 years. More recently, the US has gotten a much more detailed picture of what it could do. Exactly which targets inside China could be struck. What would happen the first morning?

More and more work is being done on both sides about how a war would happen and both the Chinese and American military have come to a conclusion. It would be a long war. Okay, maybe two or three years – I haven’t read.

There’s a brand new book by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon under Trump [Elbridge Colby’s
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, featured in a June 2021
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]. There’s a whole chapter on how to recapture Taiwan after it’s been partially taken by the Chinese military.

This is the state of the art thinking. There’s a new piece of legislation, the Taiwan Defense Act … They say, please, Pentagon, give us a plan for how to avoid a fait accompli taking place on Taiwan. The Pentagon is drafting their response.

We’re moving closer to a war. It doesn’t help for you to tell conservatives, oh, if we lose an aircraft carrier, what are we going to do then? What would Winston Churchill say?

Goldman: What, Winston Churchill? Just before the fall of Singapore in 1942, according to Andrew Roberts, Winston Churchill said in the event of war “the Japanese would fold up like the Italians because there were the wops of the Far East.”

Winston Churchill, when it came to Asia, was an absolute idiot, and we bailed him out. He was as stupid as Nicholas II who lost the Russian fleet at Tsushima [in 1905]. Bridge Colby has been a dear friend for 20 years who is now hallucinating about what the United States might do to take Taiwan back. This is crazy.

Anton: Following the logic of what you said – because I haven’t read whatever STRATCOM put out – I have read certain analyses: not even analysis. There’s speculations that the Chinese are increasing the size of the nuclear arsenal in this underground network of tunnels that we can’t follow and so on.

The official estimate that we have some confidence in is that the Chinese nuclear arsenal is at least 300 warheads, right? None of which have to be air-dropped anymore. That means all [delivered by] ICBM. And if you read their doctrine, unlike ours, they formally take a doctrine of minimal deterrence.

That is to say, they have no kind of nuclear warfighting doctrine at all. They just have city killers. And if they feel that the territorial integrity of China or the survival of the state is at stake, they’re willing to use those 300 missiles or some portion of them on American cities.

In fact, once as I’m sure you remember in the far-off year of 1996 on one of the more tense moments in the Taiwan Strait, a Chinese general was quoted as saying, “I don’t think the Americans will do anything at the end of the day. They won’t want to trade Los Angeles for Taipei.”

Their nuclear arsenal is now triple what it was. And they’re going on a more offensive posture with nuclear weapons and this thing ends up going to nuclear war. How that fits into the seeming recommendation you just gave, I have to admit, being somewhat dim, I don’t see because it would seem to make the danger greater.

And I also would ask: What do you think the American people’s response to losing a fleet carrier would be? My own estimate is it would be the greatest psychological shock we’ve had in a generation, arguably greater than 9/11.

Unquestionably, getting one single city nuked would be the greatest psychological shock the American nation has ever had in its history. So how do we deal with something like that, given that Taiwan is orders of magnitude more important to China, and they’re willing to do that over this, as they have said, than it is to us?

Well, I’m going to be the dove here and say that it’s possible to avoid a nuclear war, whether it be over Taiwan or any other place. I’d kind of prefer to do that. If that makes me an outlier, I’m at least I’m in good company with that other famous nuclear dove named Ronald Reagan.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
They should do it along time ago but better late than never Chinese legislation give Xi more power to foot the country on war footing
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Xi given more power to wage war on Taiwan​

Legal changes give China's Communist Party and its chief greater authority to put civilian entities and assets on a war footing
By
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NOVEMBER 3, 2021

China’s legislature has paved the way to mobilize civilian assets for war, with the Communist Party of China (CPC) – and by association its General Secretary Xi Jinping – given greater control than previously over military planning and mobilization.

The affected laws include the National Defense Mobilization Law, the Civil Air Defense Law, the National Defense Transportation Law and the National Defense Education Law. The amendments were
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on October 23 by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) after a four-day meeting.

The legal changes mean economic, science and technology, transportation, air defense and political entities can all be readily converted for military use in a war situation, significantly at a time with tensions over Taiwan have reached a new fever pitch.


The CPC’s Central Committee, led by President Xi, will now reportedly have a bigger say in the National Defense Mobilization Commission, which previously was co-managed by the State Council and the Party’s Central Military Commission, military experts said.

The changes come amid a flurry of public statements on “reunifying” Taiwan with the mainland by party officials as well as mounting Chinese think tank discussions of the topic.

Qin An, director at the Institute of the China Cyberspace Strategy, wrote in an
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on October 25 that the legal amendments would help mainland China mobilize its civil and military resources more effectively in order to realize China’s “reunification.”
 
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