PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

drowingfish said:

A larger standing army is unlikely to ever come back unless the US specifically instructs Taiwan to do so. politically it is a non-starter, and militarily it is expensive to maintain a larger army, therefore taking resources away from air force and navy.

Taiwan is going the way of having a large reserve army, though I question their effectiveness in battle, or whether they could be stood up at all. now another question is whether a reserve army can potentially lead to a operation valkyrie type outcome. after all, an officer assigned to lead reserve units is unlikely to be one in anyone's favour, and reserves forced to fight are more willing to see a swift end to the war.

Click to expand...

Operation Valkyrie is an interesting event.

But in all likelihood, I reckon we're more likely to see professional soldiers organise a Valkryie.

Look at how many retired Taiwanese generals are being called out for having too many contacts with China.
And this retired general in Taiwan made waves by openly calling for active-duty generals to do a Valkyrie against the DPP politicians.

AndrewS said:

A B-2 or B-21 should be able to stay at least 100km from any airborne radars that China is operating, and be able to slip through.
Remember China would have to create a single radar perimeter 3000km long from Hainan in the South to Liaoning in the North

Click to expand...

And just how do you plan on achieving that given that PLAAF air patrols and strike packages are going to deliberately randomise their routes and times to avoid generating any patterns that can be predicted and exploited so?

Also, B2 stealth is not omnidirectional and it will have vulnerable angles where it’s RSC is going to be significantly higher than the usually advertises best-case-scenario ones, so the ‘safe’ distance it needs to keep from airborne radars are going to be considerably bigger in a lot of vectors.

Given the B2’s slow speed and zero dash capability, something as simple as a PLAAF air patrol making an unexpected turn can easily be enough to doom it.

With modern AESA radars and LPI scan modes, there is also zero guarantee your B2, using purely passive radar receivers, will even be able to detect scans far enough out to have time to avoid conventional PLAAF patrols.

Throw in further wildcards like J20s zooming around and SAM radars randomly relocating and going hot to do searches; China using AI and data fusion of all its land, air and naval radars, maybe with a cheeky bit of satellite intel thrown in etc and you really need to think if you are willing to throw your billon-dollar bombers into that and hope for the best if you were the US. Bearing in mind that the 20 odd B2s left are also a core part of the US nuclear triad and not easily replaced if lost.

But this is really going OT, so this is the last I will say on this subject.

Matheus S said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

The notion that China/PLA will do a test run first before going through the full scope of Taiwan reunification via the capturing of small islets of Kunmin and Matsu does not make military sense. Why would the PLA essentially rehearsed and provide the American war planners the window into the PLA operational planning, operational shortfall that the Americans can then learn from plan accordingly for the big one. Not to mention the potential political fallout that can galvanize the public support in Taiwan by going half ass in terms of simply capturing those tiny insignificant islets?

I don't understand the logic of what the writer is assuming that Chinese leadership will likely take with respect to Taiwan.

The author has written the article not for the PLA to mull and absorb for strategic considerations but rather to be used as a toilet paper to wipe their assess with. I mean who's stupid enough to give the American public ergo the raison d'etre, casus belli to the military industrial complex and her allies the political capital to come and aid Taiwan from the impending invasion of China's PLA.

The Taiwan conflict can and will only be started if and when any local politicians in Taiwan declare independence or the U.S. willingly and openly base their military missiles, ships, planes, in the island that's it. Other than that, there's no avenue where China would willingly preempt an attack to Taiwan without these conditions happening. The Chinese government has expressed it in speeches and in writing. It's only the Americans and her vassal idiots that are choosing to play blind, deaf, and stupid over this issue.

Bellum_Romanum said:

The notion that China/PLA will do a test run first before going through the full scope of Taiwan reunification via the capturing of small islets of Kunmin and Matsu does not make military sense. Why would the PLA essentially rehearsed and provide the American war planners the window into the PLA operational planning, operational shortfall that the Americans can then learn from plan accordingly for the big one. Not to mention the potential political fallout that can galvanize the public support in Taiwan by going half ass in terms of simply capturing those tiny insignificant islets?

I don't understand the logic of what the writer is assuming that Chinese leadership will likely take with respect to Taiwan.

The author has written the article not for the PLA to mull and absorb for strategic considerations but rather to be used as a toilet paper to wipe their assess with. I mean who's stupid enough to give the American public ergo the raison d'etre, casus belli to the military industrial complex and her allies the political capital to come and aid Taiwan from the impending invasion of China's PLA.

The Taiwan conflict can and will only be started if and when any local politicians in Taiwan declare independence or the U.S. willingly and openly base their military missiles, ships, planes, in the island that's it. Other than that, there's no avenue where China would willingly preempt an attack to Taiwan without these conditions happening. The Chinese government has expressed it in speeches and in writing. It's only the Americans and her vassal idiots that are choosing to play blind, deaf, and stupid over this issue.

Click to expand...

Completely agree. Stopped reading after the first two sentences.

Bellum_Romanum said:

The notion that China/PLA will do a test run first before going through the full scope of Taiwan reunification via the capturing of small islets of Kunmin and Matsu does not make military sense. Why would the PLA essentially rehearsed and provide the American war planners the window into the PLA operational planning, operational shortfall that the Americans can then learn from plan accordingly for the big one. Not to mention the potential political fallout that can galvanize the public support in Taiwan by going half ass in terms of simply capturing those tiny insignificant islets?

I don't understand the logic of what the writer is assuming that Chinese leadership will likely take with respect to Taiwan.

The author has written the article not for the PLA to mull and absorb for strategic considerations but rather to be used as a toilet paper to wipe their assess with. I mean who's stupid enough to give the American public ergo the raison d'etre, casus belli to the military industrial complex and her allies the political capital to come and aid Taiwan from the impending invasion of China's PLA.

The Taiwan conflict can and will only be started if and when any local politicians in Taiwan declare independence or the U.S. willingly and openly base their military missiles, ships, planes, in the island that's it. Other than that, there's no avenue where China would willingly preempt an attack to Taiwan without these conditions happening. The Chinese government has expressed it in speeches and in writing. It's only the Americans and her vassal idiots that are choosing to play blind, deaf, and stupid over this issue.

Click to expand...

Yes, it makes absolutely zero sense that China would salami slice like that when it makes no sense tactically, strategically or historically.

Those islands are basically there for China to take any time it wants, and they would be taken easily in the opening phases of any overall reunification campaign without causing any delays or requiring much in the way or resources to make it worthwhile to take them first.

From a strategic POV, taking them would generate almost as much costs and troubles as a full on armed reunification there is zero need stop there if China was willing to take the cost.

From a historical POV, modern China has consistently replied to salami slicing by others with overwhelming shock and awe shows of raw strength when pushed far enough. It’s mantra can basically be summed up as go big or don’t bother when it comes to the use of military force in kinetic operations. There is zero need or reason for it to so fundamentally change track now.

Indeed, this strategy only really makes sense from the wishful thinking POV of Washington chicken hawks. Who wants to think they can keep salami slicing China without triggering full armed reunification by inventing this additional needless ‘step’. And who also want this gradual escalation to allow them to salami slice some more to sleepwalk America into war with China as incrementally as possible since they know full well most Americans don’t have the will to want it if given the choice. So they want to just inch the American people across China’s red line with tiny tiny steps so at no point is it clear to your average American that this step is the final step to war from which there is no coming back.

Taiwan air force searches for missing F-16 fighter after crash​

39 mins ago

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwanese F-16 fighter jet vanished on Tuesday while on a training mission over the sea and efforts are underway to find the pilot, the government said, in the latest accident to befall the island's air force.
The defence ministry said the F-16V, the most advanced type in Taiwan's fleet, went missing from radar screens after taking off from the Chiayi air base in southern Taiwan.

President Tsai Ing-wen issued instructions to spare no efforts in the search and rescue mission and "to further clarify the cause of the accident", her spokesman said.

The government's Rescue Command Centre said witnesses had seen the aircraft crash into the sea and helicopters and ships were searching for the pilot.

In late 2020, an F-16 vanished shortly after taking off from the Hualien air base on Taiwan's east coast on a routine training mission.

Last year, two F-5E fighters, which first entered service in Taiwan in the 1970s, crashed into the sea off the southeast coast after they apparently collided in mid-air during a training mission.

While Taiwan's air force is well trained, it has strained from repeatedly scrambling to see off Chinese military aircraft in the past two years, though the accidents have not been linked in any way to these intercept activities.
China, which claims the democratic island as its own, has been routinely sending aircraft into Taiwan's air defence zone, mostly in an area around the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands but sometimes also into the airspace between Taiwan and the Philippines.

(Reporting by Roger Tung; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

lcloo said:

Taiwan air force searches for missing F-16 fighter after crash​

39 mins ago

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwanese F-16 fighter jet vanished on Tuesday while on a training mission over the sea and efforts are underway to find the pilot, the government said, in the latest accident to befall the island's air force.
The defence ministry said the F-16V, the most advanced type in Taiwan's fleet, went missing from radar screens after taking off from the Chiayi air base in southern Taiwan.

President Tsai Ing-wen issued instructions to spare no efforts in the search and rescue mission and "to further clarify the cause of the accident", her spokesman said.

The government's Rescue Command Centre said witnesses had seen the aircraft crash into the sea and helicopters and ships were searching for the pilot.

In late 2020, an F-16 vanished shortly after taking off from the Hualien air base on Taiwan's east coast on a routine training mission.

Last year, two F-5E fighters, which first entered service in Taiwan in the 1970s, crashed into the sea off the southeast coast after they apparently collided in mid-air during a training mission.

While Taiwan's air force is well trained, it has strained from repeatedly scrambling to see off Chinese military aircraft in the past two years, though the accidents have not been linked in any way to these intercept activities.
China, which claims the democratic island as its own, has been routinely sending aircraft into Taiwan's air defence zone, mostly in an area around the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands but sometimes also into the airspace between Taiwan and the Philippines.

(Reporting by Roger Tung; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Click to expand...

wow this seems to be happening too often, third F-16V incident so far.

Wonder how long it will be before English Veg starts blaming CCP Agents sabotaging them.

plawolf said:

Wonder how long it will be before English Veg starts blaming CCP Agents sabotaging them.

Click to expand...

I don't see how the CCP agents could do worse than what she did, slashing military pension and forcing active troops to kneel before the graves of dead doggy (literally).