PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

Gloire_bb said:

If possible, can you please draw it on the map?
How exactly US can forward-deploy assets(and which assets) to maintain 24/7 patrols over open swaths of western Pacific?

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I don't have the talent to annotate maps very well.

In terms of the geography of the outermost and middle layers, depicted as the red line, the bulk of US air and naval assets deployed would operate at about that region.
Naval forces at that location would consist of 2-3 CSGs and 3-4 SAGs, which will exert organic sea based CAP and AEW&C as well as surface combatant oriented air surveillance consisting primarily of high end SPY-6 equipped ships.
Ground based air forces would be operating from first island chain air bases in Japan and the Philippines, where land based CAP and AEW&C would operate. Those air bases, as well as other smaller islands in the first island chain would be home to mobile deployable ground based IADS sensors and SAM batteries.

In terms of the final layer, I envision a naval picket at about the orange line consisting of 1-2 CSGs and 2-3 SAGs acting as a reserve/relief force as well as a final mobile air-naval defensive force for Guam. Guam itself of course would be defended by its own extensive IADS on the island.


Assuming that H-20s can carry an air launched weapon with a range of 1500km range, then they would have to approximately approach the blue circle to deploy its payload -- and to fly back to China.





I think that against the sort of frontloaded force that the US will deploy in the first island chain, and the distances involved, that a sufficient force of H-20s would be able to successfully ingress past US air-naval-ground forces and deploy a sufficient number of weapons, and successfully fly back to China, without first fighting a very very substantial air-naval-missile campaign in the first island chain to begin with to blow significant holes in the US lines of defense.


The original suggestion was that 30 H-20 sorties per 12 or 24 hours could cripple Guam at the outset of a conflict. I am saying that I don't think that's likely, given the extent of forward deployed US forces that will exist between the Chinese mainland (around the first island chain) and Guam.
I think the PLA would have to blow significant holes in US defensive lines first before they are able to carry out a successful H-20 raid of sufficient scale against Guam.

... and this all arose from my original belief that going forwards the assets most likely to be able to successfully conduct a strike against Guam at the outset of conflict would be SSN/Gs with a large SLCM and sub launched HGV complement, that has a pre-existing long term peacetime presence in the pacific around Guam (especially on its southern and eastern sides), operating in conjunction with other long range land based strike methods that the PLA possesses (IRBMs and HGVs, and possibly H-20s).

How can usn keep that many carrier groups replenished? If you are doing high tempo patrol, the aviation fuel would run out after a couple of days. It would also be very stressful on the f18s to operate like that during peace time. That would require all the tankers in their service to forward deploy that many capital ships right at first island chain. That would also assume the tankers are not needed anywhere else and that they don't break down.

Even around guam, it doesn't sound like infrastructure exists to permanently support that large of a naval force. Based on what @Patchwork_Chimera said, the most sustainable way would be to have 1 in Japan, 1 in Guam and 2 carriers in pearl. And it would seem to me that Guam would need to be upgraded to support even 1 carrier group, let alone 1.5 and 2.5 sag.

And it's been established that Philippines would not allow it's air bases to be used as forward attack point by USAF under the current administration. That level of deployment would result in USAF getting vfa rescinded.

And this would also be seen as a huge unnecessary escalation in the region during peace time.

I mean right now, USAF does not even have 1 f35 squadron permanently stationed in Pacific region. Us government just committed to more permanent forward stationed squadrons, troops and ships to Europe.

I just don't see how this is realistic.

Blitzo said:

I think that against the sort of frontloaded force that the US will deploy in the first island chain, and the distances involved, that a sufficient force of H-20s would be able to successfully ingress past US air-naval-ground forces and deploy a sufficient number of weapons, and successfully fly back to China, without first fighting a very very substantial air-naval-missile campaign in the first island chain to begin with to blow significant holes in the US lines of defense.


The original suggestion was that 30 H-20 sorties per 12 or 24 hours could cripple Guam at the outset of a conflict. I am saying that I don't think that's likely, given the extent of forward deployed US forces that will exist between the Chinese mainland (around the first island chain) and Guam.
I think the PLA would have to blow significant holes in US defensive lines first before they are able to carry out a successful H-20 raid of sufficient scale against Guam.

... and this all arose from my original belief that going forwards the assets most likely to be able to successfully conduct a strike against Guam at the outset of conflict would be SSN/Gs with a large SLCM and sub launched HGV complement, that has a pre-existing long term peacetime presence in the pacific around Guam (especially on its southern and eastern sides), operating in conjunction with other long range land based strike methods that the PLA possesses (IRBMs and HGVs, and possibly H-20s).

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I don't rate the survivability of the airbase at Guam very highly.

The THAAD interception rate mentioned by patchwork chimera is only 15%.

So a single DF-26 with a payload of tungsten kinetic ball bearings could theoretically ensure every large aircraft (tanker, bomber, AWACs) at Andersen is hit at least once.

That means Guam will be out of commission almost immediately and could be kept out of commission with small follow-on missile strikes.
Therefore there is no immediate need for the Chinese Air Force to attack Guam and go through any screening US Naval Forces.

Those US naval forces (the notional 2-3 CSGs and 3-4 SAGs mentioned) are the next priority target.

AndrewS said:

I don't rate the survivability of the airbase at Guam very highly.

The THAAD interception rate mentioned by patchwork chimera is only 15%.

So a single DF-26 with a payload of tungsten kinetic ball bearings could theoretically ensure every large aircraft (tanker, bomber, AWACs) at Andersen is hit at least once.

That means Guam will be out of commission almost immediately and could be kept out of commission with small follow-on missile strikes.
Therefore there is no immediate need for the Chinese Air Force to attack Guam and go through any screening US Naval Forces.

Those US naval forces (the notional 2-3 CSGs and 3-4 SAGs mentioned) are the next priority target.

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For carrier groups, I'd be curious for these days, how hard it is to find and track carrier groups. Back in the days, the soviet had a really tough time finding US carrier groups and scrambling bombers needed to threaten them. Nowadays, the technology is much better all around. The EW/ELINT aircraft, MPAs, AWACS and drones are all assets that would be part of the ISR effort. I'd be curious once a carrier group leaves Pearl and heading to Guam or Wake or Japan, how hard it is to find them. There was that recent article where they said Chinese satellites was able to pick up and follow US carrier leaving port in East coast, I don't know how real that is.

If the carrier starts off a Guam, it would be a lot easier to track. Same with carrier based in Japan.

tphuang said:

For carrier groups, I'd be curious for these days, how hard it is to find and track carrier groups. Back in the days, the soviet had a really tough time finding US carrier groups and scrambling bombers needed to threaten them. Nowadays, the technology is much better all around. The EW/ELINT aircraft, MPAs, AWACS and drones are all assets that would be part of the ISR effort. I'd be curious once a carrier group leaves Pearl and heading to Guam or Wake or Japan, how hard it is to find them. There was that recent article where they said Chinese satellites was able to pick up and follow US carrier leaving port in East coast, I don't know how real that is.

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an anchored sonar array is good for this.

surface vessels produce huge amounts of noise that is poorly shielded, and they're always above the thermocline. this will give you rough directional data to point the rest of your assets towards.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

I'm a little confused about this. Maybe I'm missing something, or you're just talking of future years, but is this descriptive of your envisioned USN ORBAT as the fireworks start?

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Yes, it would be for a future 2035 scenario at minimum.

The original suggestion that this reply traced back to, was one in which the PLA would be have enough H-20s in service to launch long range strike packages consisting of 30 H-20s in 12 hourly or 24 hourly intervals.

The tentative conclusion of this whole 2035 discussion (for me at least) is that the game in WESTPAC comes down to Economics, geopolitical will, and Goals/Strategy, rather than Operations, at this point in history.

In theory, the efficacy of a true 1st Strike solution can indeed be "devastating" for both sides. However, China has been rapidly implementing with clear focus, but the US has been hesitating, due to its strategic confusion over the past 20 years (mainly fighting kids with AKs in the deserts.) Kudos to China for bringing the game to this point. In WESTPAC, China has now forced the US in a position where it has to make a decision: Double-Down or Fold? And it looks like the latter is more likely.

p.s. kudos to @Patchwork_Chimera for validating and invalidating a bunch of concepts on both sides of this discussion.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

Well, don't forget that this is due to the salvo size vs defensive Bt (transient bandwidth - i.e. how many interceptors the defender can put out in a single action). Offensive fires bandwidth has a disproportionate impact on Pa figures as defending Bt figures get lower. Think of it like this, if you have 48 interceptors - you can rapidly annihilate (again, not my jargon, that's just the term for "kill it dead" when defending salvos for some reason lol) up to 48 munitions.

For Bs (salvo bandwidth) of, say, 20 munitions - the math works out great for the defender. If we put this theoretical interceptors @~.8Pkss (patriot and thaad launch parameter optimization systems are actually based around the fact that this figure is highly variable, so just keep in mind that this figure is meaningless on its own everywhere except our maths bubble we're in right now), we can either accept the risk of 4 (.2*20 lol) munitions leaking through or we can go Shoot-Shoot-Look for a theoretical 96% Pkss. Now, for 20 independent engagements, that's actually still only a ~.44 Psra (probability of salvo rapid annihilation), but only a little over a 1% chance of more than 1 munition getting through.

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If you go with Shoot-Shoot-Look against 20 incoming ballistic missiles, then you're expending 2x THAAD missiles (about $22 Million) against a single DF-26 missile which costs about the same amount of money. So that works out as break-even on defensive missile costs against a DF-26.

Patchwork_Chimera said:

For a Bs of 40 munitions though, especially with "smarter" MaRVs like aboard DF-26 - which we believe are likely capable of ABM-degrading evasive maneuvers in its early to mid terminal phases - things get a little dicey. Assigning a single interceptor to each incoming munition - with interceptor Pkss figures closer to ~~.6-.7 depending on a lot of factors - is an intuitive solution for the problem of "being alive." To split the difference, a .65 average Pkss gets you an average of 14 penetrating munitions. Arbitrarily assigning the remaining 8 gives us an average of 12 getting through.

If a Bs hits the defender's Bt, in this instance: 48 munitions, the most effective defense is to allocate a single interceptor to each munition. In this instance, a salvo of 48 munitions being intercepted @.65Pkss yields an average of 16 munitions getting through, 32 defended.

As a result of this, any salvo of any larger size need only write off the first 32 munitions at most. If the PLARF got together 5 DF-26 Bdes (rather a challenge, but not strictly impossible), they would generate salvos with a bandwidth of 90 munitions/salvo . This alone yields a VERY (laughably) pessimistic average salvo-wide Pa of ~.65. This, combined with the fact that THAAD batteries are not operated by omniscient, omni-lucky operators who happen to have the entire battery manned and at super-duper high alert, immediately correctly identify and begin executing the mathematically best possible response, have perfect equipment devoid of EW degradation, etc. etc, means that real world single shot probability of kill figures can go waaaay lower than the .65 figure thrown out earlier. In reality, it can go from a very rough ~.2-.3 for prosecuting threats at the limits of platform WEZ, all the way up to nearly .95 if everything lines up as best as it can during a known exercise/evaluation. Guam's battery would probably be seeing anywhere from ~4 up to maybe .5 average single shot Pk figures if THAAD DAD really loves us that day, but imperfect interceptor allocation (due to a myriad of reasons that can and do happen every single day multiple times), aberrantly ineffective engagements (basically just bad luck), and other factors would mean of any salvo size above 48 - only ~20 munitions from that salvo (only in the first salvo) can be reliable destroyed. Hence, you get increased salvo Pa as you increase bandwidth beyond that point.

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Even if you only have 4 DF-26 brigades launching 72 missiles, you'd be looking at half? getting through. So that DF-26 salvo costs about $1.5 billion in missile costs.

On the target side, a THAAD battery is $3 Billion. A Patriot Battalion $1 Billion. Each C-17 is like $0.3 Billion and you could easily have 20 at Guam. Then there's all the other aircraft and base infrastructure at Guam.

So even with losing a lot of incoming DF-26s to missile defences, the cost of the DF-26s should be dwarfed by the value of assets destroyed. And Guam is the lynchpin of the 2nd Island Chain. There are only a handful of other islands on the 2nd Island Chain and these are just too geographically small. That means a small area to target and that it is difficult to regenerate base infrastructure which has been destroyed.

Mohsin77 said:

The tentative conclusion of this whole 2035 discussion (for me at least) is that the game in WESTPAC comes down to Economics, geopolitical will, and Goals/Strategy, rather than Operations, at this point in history.

In theory, the efficacy of a true 1st Strike solution can indeed be "devastating" for both sides. However, China has been rapidly implementing with clear focus, but the US has been hesitating, due to its strategic confusion over the past 20 years (mainly fighting kids with AKs in the deserts.) Kudos to China for bringing the game to this point. In WESTPAC, China has now forced the US in a position where it has to make a decision: Double-Down or Fold? And it looks like the latter is more likely.

p.s. kudos to @Patchwork_Chimera for validating and invalidating a bunch of concepts on both sides of this discussion.

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I would disagree with this. America is definitely not hesitating or folding. It just never made sense for America to adopt China's missile strategy. America is ahead of China in so many areas militarily. I don't see why it ever made sense for them to try to beat China in hypersonic missiles (or missiles trikes in general) when geography clearly favors China in this area.

I think if the Pacific commanders have the choice, they'd like more PAC/THAAD launchers. More runways that can be used. That's what they mean by more resilient. Although in practice, I don't know how survivable the secondary air strips/military bases are.

If you see any hesitancy, that would be due to the typical political process that has to play out in budgeting and such. Just because a couple of think tanks came up with new novel ways that America can beat China with certain new weapons platform, doesn't mean it makes sense for them to do so. Most of the time, these think tanks probably got a lot of money to lobby for certain company.

@Patchwork_Chimera if you don't mind me asking the same questions again.
1) About finding carriers within the second island chain. It is one thing to hold onto cue-quality tracking for ships already within 2nd island chain, but what about ships coming in from Pearl/west coast? Is this something that USN believes it can hide from Chinese ISR until they get closer to first chain or it would be pretty hard to hide from Chinese ISR in general? My understanding is that during Cold War, Russia always had trouble finding US carriers and then would take even longer to scramble bombers to actually chase them. By then, US carriers already moved a couple of hundred km. It would seem to me that long endurance drones and long range ASBMs are the game changers here. Where as soon as Chinese manned/unmanned ISRs find US carriers or ELINT planes captures carrier emissions within 1500 to 2000 km of mainland, they could give launch coordinates to PLARF to launch ASBM or even 055s operating around 1st island chain to launch AShM in 30 minutes or something. Defenders would need to be a lot more on alert at all time.

2) Would something like SURTASS, SOSUS network and other underwater sensors set up to find advanced subs also be very good at finding CSGs? I would imagine the noise from that would be so much more audible than even 093s. How much of a role do sonar play in finding enemy fleet from long range vs conventional aerial ISR?

AndrewS said:

If you go with Shoot-Shoot-Look against 20 incoming ballistic missiles, then you're expending 2x THAAD missiles (about $22 Million) against a single DF-26 missile which costs about the same amount of money. So that works out as break-even on defensive missile costs against a DF-26.




Even if you only have 4 DF-26 brigades launching 72 missiles, you'd be looking at half? getting through. So that DF-26 salvo costs about $1.5 billion in missile costs.

On the target side, a THAAD battery is $3 Billion. A Patriot Battalion $1 Billion. Each C-17 is like $0.3 Billion and you could easily have 20 at Guam. Then there's all the other aircraft and base infrastructure at Guam.

So even with losing a lot of incoming DF-26s to missile defences, the cost of the DF-26s should be dwarfed by the value of assets destroyed. And Guam is the lynchpin of the 2nd Island Chain. There are only a handful of other islands on the 2nd Island Chain and these are just too geographically small. That means a small area to target and that it is difficult to regenerate base infrastructure which has been destroyed.

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1 DF-26 costs $22m USD? Source?