Submarines aren't meant for a death match in a enclosed pond against their opponents. They aren't SSNs, numbers have different implications here.
Relevance here is, this number of submarines is sufficient to accept some losses. 8 submarines on a single theater isn't a low number.
In that case I think we have a slightly different vision for what the ROCN's submarine doctrine and strategy is meant to be, or should be.
Well, here I see a difference. You see this distance as proximity for ships. I see it as a significant hindrance. For example, it's borderline for most hovercraft; helicopters won't find it convenient either.
Yes, it's possible to have effective invasion from given distance; it's, however, at the outer edge of what's feasible for invasion with tactical means. China will have to perform a large-scale land warfare, at significant, highly vulnerable logistical leg, w/o permanent harbour, and with highly limited cross-strait fires.
Invading "hypothetical Taiwan" 1000km away is simply beyond the means of any nation other than the US.
The whole point of establishing beachheads by amphibious forces is to enable creation of artificial harbours to enable rollon rolloff transport ships to transport heavier units to also capture ports and those artificial harbourts and ports together will enable entire combined arms brigades across the strait with their requisite organic artillery and logistics systems as well, probably with reinforcement from additional elements of heavier tube artillery and organic AD as well.
Furthermore, the idea that the ROCA would have any logistics left to conduct sustained combat operations of their mechanized forces (what formations remain), nevermind to be able to effectively coordinate them with destruction of their C4I system and still remaining under heavy EW pressure with PLA hunter killer UAVs overhead... is optimistic.
Finally I don't know why you believe the logistical chain would be vulnerable (against whom? Does the ROCAF and ROCN still exist by this point in the contingency), nor why you think the PLA would have "limited" cross strait fires given everything I listed before, and I don't see how Taiwan would be at the "outer edge" of what's achievable with "tactical means". Do you appreciate the sheer number of LSTs and LPDs and even LCTs that the PLAN and PLA have respectively? The distance between the ETC eastern staging areas and Taiwan's west coast is also well within range of medium and heavy transport helicopters, assuming for some reason they didn't use their LPDs as helicopter deployment platforms (not to mention their upcoming 075s).
You're attributing PLA abilities far beyond that of the US armed forces.
With all visible progress in Chinese capability, that's still a stretch in far too many regards.
And treating Taiwanese armed forces worse than '2003 Iraqi army, which actually managed to perform a full counterattack at divisional strength(sure, it was butchered, but that's another question), without any of inherent geographical advantages Taiwan has.
That's an overstretch.
I don't think I'm overselling PLA abilities beyond that of the US military.
If the US had an equivalent of Taiwan 150 km off its coast near one of its most heavily militarized areas of CONTUS that the US had basically politically and military been organized to fight for the last few decades and is the primary strategic and foreign policy goal for the US over that time, and had decades to continuously surveil, infiltrate and reconnoitre as well, I expect the US to do quite a bit better in many respects than the PLA can do in the current situation.
The US would benefit from having a fleet of LSTs and LCTs in that scenario, but otherwise I expect the US would roll over this "quasi-Taiwan" as easily if not easier than the PLA would.
(Just FYI, I wrote Gulf War 1 -- not 2003, but rather 1990.)
Do you think the ROCA will be able to organize anything larger than a battalion sized counter attack against a landed force, when the PLA has air superiority and 24 hr on station wide area ground surveillance as well as closer in EO airborne ISR from UAVs?
The issue I suppose is that we disagree on the geographical advantages and disadvantages Taiwan has.
IMO, Taiwan has virtually no strategic depth against PLA strikes and fires systems. In a conflict, simply put, nowhere is safe, and anything fixed or semi mobile of high value will be targeted by either an SRBM, ALCM, air launched SOM, or long range MLRS (all guided of course), or even a IRBM if it's particularly valuable. This of course is all under heavy EW pressure and ELINT/SIGINT coordination with CAP and tactical EW jamming support.
Air bases, army bases, logistics centers, C2, artillery positions, naval bases and docked ships, air defense radars, BMD radars, will all be struck. How do you fight a coordinated ground war after the crippling or outright loss of your logistics sensors, your command and control, and air defenses and associated "depths" and "reserves"? Well, it's possible, but you have to operate at smaller scale, be more autonomous/distributed and have a smaller logistical footprint.
Furthermore, Taiwan's western coast and the connections between its beaches are not in its favour either. The major arteries of transport along Taiwan's western coast is all connected by highly exposed highways. Moving any moderately sized formation of military vehicles to move in position for a counter attack is going to be picked up by airborne Tu-154Ms with SAR/GMTI and/or orbiting MALE UAVs rather quickly and interdicted in due fashion.
The lack of strategic depth and the exposed nature of the western coast transit routes wouldn't be an issue for the ROC military if the PLA didn't have such overwhelming air, naval, missile/strike and EW/ISR superiority.
But such as it is...
Within the context of this discussion, i really don't feel this to be the case. You're assuming victory as granted for a far worse force ratio than was typical for strategic landfalls, in far less favourable circumstances, and against an enemy at comparable technical level.
With a military which will be doing first such operation, reading this as step-by-step, "just read the instructions" operation goes contrary to all historical experience I can remember.
I don't think I'm being that wild here.
My argument is that I think the ROCA as it currently is would have a difficult time preventing a PLA amphibious assault from succeeding and establishing a beachhead, but that they could make it a very difficult grind through the island after that by using more irregular tactics and urban warfare to try to bleed the PLA as much as possible.
I think that the disparity in air power, naval power, missile and strike power and fires, as well as EW, SIGINT/ELINT and ISR are heavily in the PLA's favour which are of course all important prerequisites for the degree of success of your initial amphibious assault and follow up ground war.
I'm going to underline the next part for emphasis:
I'm going into this amphibious assault and ground force invasion basically assuming that the ROCAF and ROCN have been destroyed, that ROCAF IADS have been crippled, that the ROCA's logistics and command centers are either destroyed or crippled alongside ROCA aviation units, that any identified ROCA mechanized formations and artillery units have been either destroyed or are actively being hunted by MALE UAVs, and the PLA has sea control over the strait and the waters immediately north and south of the island and air superiority in that same area and actively conducting SEAD/DEAD over Taiwan proper as well, with 24/hr orbiting PLA AEW&C, EW, ISR, MPA aircraft operating on the PRC side of the strait able to basically surveil the entirety of the strait and the western half of the island as well, and UAVs orbiting over Taiwan proper, and multiple flights of CAP and strike aircraft with LGBs and stand off munitions on station and on-call MLRS and SRBM on the ground.
In that kind of scenario, I don't think my scenario is too crazy -- unless you want to debate over how hard or easy it is for the PLA to achieve air and sea control in the first place, or if you want to debate whether they can in the first place (yikes).
=====
The military forces might on paper be at a comparable technical level for a few select systems if one compares the peak qualitative advancement and capability of some systems, but the scale of their systems that can be employed and scale of those few qualitatively "equal" systems are also very different.
Moreover, I think the geographical distance between China and Taiwan and Taiwan's limited/nonexistant strategic depth is one which is favourable to the PLA in context of the PLA's amphibious assault capable fleet, the capability of the PLAN today and into the future, and the PLA's array of air and missile and strike units in the region, as well as the ease of resupply.
The ROCA can still potentially drag out the conflict on the ground and especially in the cities and cause significant losses in the follow up phase of the invasion, but as far as preventing an initial PLA landing and establishment of a beachhead goes, as they're currently configured I don't give them that credit.
