PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Tyler

Captain
Registered Member
Two J20 brigades, and i assume the one in Anshan(together with bulk of other NTC units) will be tied down at home for contingency against S.Korea, that leaves just 1 brigade of J20 to the southeast front

let's say if US only forward deploy 2 F-22 squadrons and 2 F-35A squadrons from Alaska, plus the F-35B stationed in Iwakuni, and the 2 F-35a squadron in JSDF, those are more than 140 gen5 fighters, let's say in a very successful scenario where half of them are destroyed on the ground by PLARF, still US/Japan side would enjoy a 3:1 ratio in terms of gen5 fighters.
A couple of DF missiles on SK and Japan will set them back, if they dare to interfere with the Chinese reunification.
 

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
Two J20 brigades, and i assume the one in Anshan(together with bulk of other NTC units) will be tied down at home for contingency against S.Korea, that leaves just 1 brigade of J20 to the southeast front

let's say if US only forward deploy 2 F-22 squadrons and 2 F-35A squadrons from Alaska, plus the F-35B stationed in Iwakuni, and the 2 F-35a squadron in JSDF, those are more than 140 gen5 fighters, let's say in a very successful scenario where half of them are destroyed on the ground by PLARF, still US/Japan side would enjoy a 3:1 ratio in terms of gen5 fighters.
What contingency against S Korea? Is S Korea going to intervening the liberation process without considering NK as a factor?
 

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
I've already seen a claim that the Chinese are studying the Inchon campaign for amphibious landings. There is no doubt that Operation Desert Storm could be an option to consider in the air campaign against a contingency against Taiwan.

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According to this RAND study above, Taiwan is vulnerable due to ground-launched ballistic missiles, which can achieve numerous losses for the Taiwan Air Force as well as naval bases, the PLA must certainly take into account that it needs to destroy Naval bases to prevent Taiwan's naval campaign against the PLA, the already non-existent Taiwan Navy would be completely annihilated early on in the campaign, which would leave naval forces free in the Taiwan Straits, giving more leeway to possibly contain Japanese and Americans.

Taiwan's command centers would be attacked by DF-15B(C), this would make it impossible to coordinate Taiwan's troops at the beginning of the campaign, as well as air bases and try to kill the maximum number of Patriot launchers.
Taiwan simply bets on the USA. If they were really serious about waging an independence war against China, they would behave like Israel, Singapore, South Korea or cold war Turkey and Greece. What I mean:
-Military spending to GDP ratio of at least 4% up to 8%
-2-3 years conscription, men and women
-Huge reserve forces who get at least a week of training every year
-Promotion of gun ownership, maybe even Switzerland style arrangement of people keeping the gun they served with.
-Promotion of martial culture and nationalism
-A lot of underground military and civilian facilities
-Plans to destroy the infrastructure to slow the invasion forces
-Large stores of natural resources
-Fortifications throughout the island
-Big focus on developing an indigenous defense industry
-A military focused on capabilities that bring the most bang for the buck. These include anti-ship missiles, ATGM vehicles, mine warfare (both land and sea), SAMs, surface to surface missiles, special forces and drones for asymmetric warfare, fast attack craft and midget subs. Basically everything that would increase the monetary and human cost of the war for the invader with a small investment.

Taiwan does none of these. It behaves more like a country in the middle of the oceania rather than a small country fighting for its existence against a giant. It isn't even serious about its own defense beyond hoping the USA will come and defeat the foe. The same goes for the Baltics too but they at least have a concrete treaty with the entire Europe and the USA. Taiwan doesn't have that too.
 

Paulo R Siqueira

New Member
Registered Member
The US economy would not support a conflict in Taiwan, the Chinese response would be via North Korea and a new invasion of South Korea. (It would be what a strategist would do). A large-scale land conflict along the Chinese border. However, very far from the USA.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
The US economy would not support a conflict in Taiwan, the Chinese response would be via North Korea and a new invasion of South Korea. (It would be what a strategist would do). A large-scale land conflict along the Chinese border. However, very far from the USA.

Yes, Chinese involvement in a war on the Korean peninsula is very possible if the US intervenes in Taiwan.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
A couple of DF missiles on SK and Japan will set them back, if they dare to interfere with the Chinese reunification.

Unless those missiles have nukes, SK and Japan will take a lot more than a few DF missiles.

They are further away and a lot bigger than Taiwan is.
 

caohailiang

Junior Member
Registered Member
Please read what I wrote, and look at a map for goodness sake.

Hamamatsu is 2000km from Taiwan, Komatsu and Nagoya are a hair closer at around 1,900km.

Trying to launch a strike package from them targeting the Taiwan strait is unrealistic unless you plan on it being a one way trip from the get go.

Those are also nice big juicy static targets perfect for Chinese ballistic missile retaliation. And no, American BMD interceptors have not demonstrated anything like a credible defensive capability against even big standard pure ballistic DF21 class weapons. They might shoot a few down, but it stretches credulity to suggest they can shoot them all down. And those air bases are not designed to take hits like Chinese Air Force bases. Even a few hits will cause massive damage and probably knock those bases out of operation for sometime, especially if they hit sensitive areas like fuel silos, major hangers and the like.


Easier to shoot down that target drones.
i played out that scenario more than just a few times, and i am aware of the range you mentioned.

F-15/F22/F35a, with standard air superiority loadout and an AAR ring supporting 250km east of Okinawa, are perfectly capable of reaching air space northeast of Taiwan and attacking patroling PLA fighters.

again, they dont need to attain continuous air superiority but rather open air corridor temporarly for ashm salvo to go through.

wrt J20 attacking tankers, yes, 250km east of okinawa is within J20 range but that does not mean those tankers will be shot down, actually i think they are only in moderate threat.

for the strikers, you are right, no one expect a tactical aircraft to strike 2000km away, that is why bomber sorties from Alaska/Hawaii/CONUS/Australia will play a role.

however, the current lack of proper long range ashm from US side is a serious weakness for them, for which, on one hand i do see new missiles being put into production, on the other hand, using SLAMER is not really that unthinkable, especially if/when PLAAF suffers substaintial loss and cannot maintain effective CAP mission northeast of Taiwan.

i think 3~4 additional J20 brigades(and enough Y20u) to ETC ORBAT will solve above problem for PLA, in 2021
 

Andy1974

Senior Member
Registered Member
Here is my take:

The most likely scenario, for me, is that sometime before 2049 the people of Taiwan, in a referendum, vote for Reunification. No one gets killed, and no one can really complain. All China has to do is keep developing and this should happen naturally.

If there is to be an invasion, I doubt that some scenarios here are realistic.

Why would China destroy infrastructure, fabs or any other valuable civilian assets? They want reunification, not destruction. They want to integrate Taiwan, not have to rebuild it. I think they would focus on the Taiwanese military and leadership

EW, Cyber, Sabotage, Spy’s and (Taiwanese) Traitors could disable a lot of the Taiwan military effectiveness at the right moments. China must have a lot of human assets in Taiwan. Perhaps they could stage a coup? Also a bloodless way to end the situation.

Otherwise, as many noted, China will need to get “boots” on the ground as quickly as possible, but perhaps not in the traditional sense. The trajectory of UGV, UUV, and UAV surely means they will be doing the most dangerous work, in the most dangerous places, like beaches or minefields. Perhaps the PLA soldiers will be doing the initial landing from the comfort of some shipping container somewhere.

I think we will see some pretty unconventional tactics due to advances in technologies. I would like to see innovations in underwater or even underground delivery of forces as well as direct deployment from the mainland as an alternative to the 071 and 075 fleet which is at considerable risk from AShM missiles launched by bombers far out at sea as well as subs, mines, torpedos etc.

Only in the event of resistance, some bottleneck or hold up, should China really pound the localized resistance. The war would only be won once Taiwan is on board and in a better situation than before the war. As someone said, this reunification is era defining.

China will want to show how they preserved as many lives as they could, while at the same time going for a rapid finish, which makes me think they will focus on the political leadership by going for decapitation strikes at zero hour followed by Sabotage, Cyber, EW, Information/Propaganda and immediate boots on ground delivered by surprise tactics.

This gives a shot at immediate victory, at very low cost in lives. Money isn’t important, these weapons have been bought and paid for with the intention of using them in this scenario, China likes using their weapons and uses them up in training happily.
 
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