PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

One problem - Out of all three of the H-6's K, J and N variants, only the N variant has mid-air refueling capability. The K and J variants cannot refuel mid-air.

And there isn't a lot of H-6Ns in the PLAAF either - The estimate likely hovers around 10 units this year.

Therefore, until the H-20 (which I believe is certain to be equipped with mid-air refueling capability from the get-go) is introduced into PLAAF service in large enough numbers, or at least retrofit the H-6's K and J variants with mid-air refueling capability - China's long-range strike capabilities up against the 2IC is still rather limited by payload capacity.

Click to expand...

There won't just be H-6s shooting missiles but stuff like the J-20 if its refuelled as well. Would J-20s and less than a dozen H-6s generate less sorties than a couple dozen H-20s ? Sure. But it won't have that large of an effect imo.

JASSM-ER has a ranges of ~1000 kilometers, while the JASSM-XR has a range of ~1900 kilometers.

At those (standoff) ranges, even the non-stealthy B-52 and the less-stealthy B-1B can do the job.

Then there's also the LRHW with ranges of ~2700-3000 kilometers, which puts the coastal regions of China within range of Guam, or deep into China's interior if stationed on the Ryukyu Islands or Japan.

Last but not least, worth mentioning being the Tomahawks, with the later variants having ranges of ~1600-1800 kilometers.

Sure, apart from the LRHW, all other missiles are subsonic. But we do expect them to be utilized in missile swarms against PLA assets, which is still a considerable threat when launched in large enough numbers to attack from multiple domains with EW jamming support.

Click to expand...

Good ideas. B1s B2s have very low readiness rates so the B-21 is definitely ideal but yes that would broadly speaking still work.

With the swarm threats China has the HHQ-9Bs in the same way that the US has SM 6s. I seriously wonder all the time of how many fires China has vs the US.

The PLA also have plenty of other defensive options against long ranged fires such as EW jamming. Not to mention that those 3k km distance missiles will be heavily tracked by the PLA. By 2030 I expect the PLA to have a much larger ISR complex in west pac than the US and many more fires.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

JASSM-ER has a range of ~1000 kilometers, while the JASSM-XR has a range of ~1900 kilometers.

At these (standoff) ranges, even the non-stealthy B-52 and the less-stealthy B-1B can do the job. Heck, even the non-stealthy C-130s and C-17s can do the job with the Rapid Dragon (of which the USAF does have a lot of at their disposal). Same goes for the USN's Arleigh Burkes.

Click to expand...

USAF still have to get in range of 2000km of Chinese mainland to launch their attack. If bases and airports in Japan and South Korea are taken out, what will the sortie rate for the USAF bombers and transport aircrafts be like that can get in range of Chinese mainland to launch their loads?

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Then there's also the LRHW with ranges of ~2700-3000 kilometers, which puts the coastal regions of China within range of Guam, or deep into China's interior if stationed on the Ryukyu Islands or Japan.

Last but not least, worth mentioning being the Tomahawks, with the later variants having ranges of ~1600-1800 kilometers.

Sure, apart from the LRHW, all other missiles are subsonic. But we do expect them to be utilized in the forms of missile swarms against the PLA, which is still a considerable threat when launched in large enough numbers to attack from multiple directions, alongside with allied EW jamming support.

Click to expand...

PLA can attack forces on the First Island Chain and mine all the islands that can be used by Marine Littoral Regiments

aqh said:

There won't just be H-6s shooting missiles but stuff like the J-20 if its refueled as well. Would J-20s and less than a dozen H-6s generate less sorties than a couple dozen H-20s ? Sure. But it won't have that large of an effect imo.

Click to expand...

The J-20 is a fighter, first-and-foremost.

If there is any use for the J-20s far beyond the 1IC, the J-20s would be task with either of the two:
1. Escorting H-6s (and H-20s in the coming years) on their long-range strike missions and return; or
2. Intercept enemy warplanes in the vicinity of the zone of operations, and/or enemy warplanes that are attempting to conduct strikes against PLA forces around Taiwan, in the East & South China Seas and within mainland China itself.

Besides, if the strike mission requires preserving the stealthy profile of the J-20s, then the number of model of LACMs and/or AShMs will be strictly limited to the size of the J-20's weapons bay.

Of course, the J-20 can also carry bombs to strike at faraway targets at Guam (which are always smaller than missiles), but what's the point? By the time when the J-20s can get this close to Guam to drop guided or unguided bombs, then any other fighters in the PLAAF inventory could do the same - With considerably lower operating costs at that.

In fact, even the GJ-11 can do the job, which is much cheaper to buy and operate than every fighter jet in the PLAAF. They can also be procured in larger numbers (I do envision at least in the mid-high hundreds, if not in the lower thousands), which makes GJ-11 even more worthwhile for conducting repetitive enemy-suppression bombing missions over long distances. Plus, it is claimed that the GJ-11 can be refueled mid-air, so the YY-20 or the Chinese MQ-25-counterpart would fit the GJ-11's missions in the Pacific very well.

aqh said:

Good ideas. B1s B2s have very low readiness rates so the B-21 is definitely ideal but yes that would broadly speaking still work.

With the swarm threats China has the HHQ-9Bs in the same way that the US has SM 6s. I seriously wonder all the time of how many fires China has vs the US.

The PLA also have plenty of other defensive options against long ranged fires such as EW jamming. Not to mention that those 3k km distance missiles will be heavily tracked by the PLA. By 2030 I expect the PLA to have a much larger ISR complex in west pac than the US and many more fires.

Click to expand...

Of course. It is an endless cat-and-mouse chasing game. I do expect more, newer and better ways to come up WRT missile interception from China as we go into the late-2020s and beyond.

vincent said:

PLA can attack forces on the First Island Chain and mine all the islands that can be used by Marine Littoral Regiments

Click to expand...

Sure. But that method is only viable for small islands.

Both Japan and the Philippines can be considered large-size countries, spanning 1500-2000 kilometers across, each having several but massive islands with multiple layers of forested mountain ranges and many large, densely-packed urban areas.

How is the PLA going to mine every corner of those islands?

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Sure. But that method is only viable for small islands.

Both Japan and the Philippines can be considered large-size countries, spanning 1500-2000 kilometers across, each having several but massive islands with multiple layers of forested mountain ranges and many large, densely-packed urban areas.

How is the PLA going to mine every corner of those islands?

Click to expand...

If Japan and Philippines allows attacks launched from their territorries, PLA can strike all their infrastructures, including ports and airports, so US forces will have difficulties at sending troops and equipment, and keeping them supplied to those two countries. That's why having hundreds of thousands of cheap long-range missiles are important.

If the PLA has procured enough YJ-21s then the H-6 can sit within China's coast and make the 1IC inoperable for the US et al.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

How is the PLA going to mine every corner of those islands?

Click to expand...

Exactly, the US marines is also slowly re-pivoting to a island hopping campaign, focusing on distributed firepower.

See the long ranged fires launcher as an example. It is a tomahawk carried on a jeep and launches remotely. They will just leave it in a jungle somewhere and launch when needed, despite looking like a bootleg technical, will force the PLA to expend ISR resources on finding the launchers.

While it looks kinda unwieldy, I believe such vehicles will be very effective in a area denial role simply due to low cost and small size.

Talking about mining and in-theater persistent effectors in general.
I recall a DARPA concept for a dispersed, self-sustaining containerized magazine named Hydra Redux or something. Essentially a container would be slided from a ship's stern into the sea, and then it just float there for months or so. Anytime there's a target nearby to be prosecuted, the Hydra container would receive the signal and launch, and rinse and repeat until it runs out of missile.

A conflict with the US could see these systems Rapid Dragon-ed from Y-20s into the island chains especially if the PLA is not allowed to release munitions preemptively. They would just stay there for months, denying USN/USMC local airspace, near-surface underwater, and coastlines. If Norinco could make a small NLOS missile that can run out to 200km that's pretty lethal. These would complement the various UAVs, UUVs and any possible arsenal ships in the making.

It depends how many of those systems the US procures. Probably not enough to generate a salvo size that will make it too difficult for the PLA.

BoraTas said:

@Patchwork_Chimera

What is your opinion on the Shahed-136? Is it really a good use of resources? I have my own suspicions as the only good thing about the Shahed is its price. And they still require extensive facilities and personnel to maintain and use.
Even in this forum, I started to see arguments like "China will just launch 3000 Shaheds every day and Japan will return to stone age". If it was this simple why China, or any other country for that matter, are still pursuing expensive missiles full of dedicated military hardware? Something doesn't add up.

Click to expand...

Stroke piston drones don't replace normal weapons for a good reason. You can't do SEAD or high value strikes with them.

But they're gonna be very easy to make, and they'll supplement the bomber fleet when it comes to delivering low cost bombing on infrastructure.

Even though the Ukraine war kind of proves that "lightning victories" are very difficult in today's environment, a common US cope is that China having industrial dominance doesn't matter because modern platforms can't be churned out the same way as WW2 platforms could.

Well, the stroke piston drone has a range of at least 2000km and is arguably less complicated than WW2 planes. WW2 America could build over 300 aircraft of various types in 1 day, and modern China has orders of magnitudes higher manufacturing capacity.

The way China would fight wouldn't rely on suicide drones. What they would do is hit air defenses and key targets with stealthy and/or hypersonic weapons to disrupt the invaders' abilities to maintain their rearward supply lines, while the navy, airforce and rocket force uses combined platforms to defend the 1st island chain.

Once a gap in air defense opens up from rocket force/air force SEAD missions, for example relatively early on, it would likely be in Kyushu (and SK, if SK invokes the NK-China MDT by attacking China), they can send volleys of 10 000s daily stroke piston drones, using them to take out roads, ports, electricity, water and rally points.

The good thing with dealing with island-based countries is that it is relatively easy to devastate their war potential. By crippling and blockading their ports while at the same time striking at their factories, fuel depots, granaries, power generation plants, water infrastructure, its relatively trivial to collapse a country back to stone age and greatly reduce their war potential

Thus I don't consider Taiwan or Japan as such big threats. Taiwan, for if things go south, China can simply blockade it, wait until it collapses internally and then move in unopposed. Japan, for due to how big external dependencies it has, even if China cannot blockade it, for sure it can strike at almost all the critical infrastructure

IMO the most important thing that the PLA needs is not fancy new bombers and ships to deal with these countries (excl. US), but instead massive amounts of cheap missiles/suicide drones

Ultimately its logistics that win wars, not a bomber or a fighter or a fighter or whatever else that is slighter better than your opponent's.