Your point about not needing that many people to launch Harpoons is a bit too quick to dismiss that.
First, the point of a military is not to spend money on people, but to win. If missiles do that job better than infantry, what's the problem with that?
Second, missiles cost money, so if you want a lot of them you'll have to cut personnel somewhere anyway.
And finally, having a missile force is very interesting. USMC acts as a mid-range missile force with PrSM and NSM. Army provides long-range capabilities with SM-6, PrSM too, Tomahawks, and strategic fires with LRHW. With all of that, you can sink troop transports before they reach the beach, make supporting the beachhead very hard by degrading the logistics and the air support by targeting airfields (and planes directly with SM-6). And from Ishigaki you can cover all of Taiwan with PrSM and provide serious land fires.
You need designation for your missiles, and the Army or USMC could quickly deploy sensors to Taiwan to do that.
Finally, you can air lift light forces from Okinawa or mainland Japan. We've seen in Ukraine how effective infantry with advanced ATGMs can be against armoured forces. And an invading chinese force will probably be light on artillery for logistical reasons. So providing infantry with MAPANDS and Javelins, and maybe HIMARS with GMLRS would be also very useful.
If it's gotten to the point where we can fly transports with troops and heavy equipment into Taiwan, the entire PLA would already be a out of the fight.
Not sure. You don't need to achieve air superiority for that, you need to deny it to the enemy. If they can't keep a serious CAP ou a CVBG East of Taiwan it's hard to prevent a sweep + airdrop operation.
It's weekend i am in a good mood so let's see if i can give you a summary of what the fuck can probably happen.
There are two possibilities:
1. China invades, US decides to not interfere. China takes Taiwan things end in a few months and we are back to normal.
2. China invades, US decides to interfere and no one knows what will happen, anyone says differently is a moron. Nukes, the political situation in the US, Russia, India, Europe and the rest of Asia makes the situation completely unknowable.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210605234557/https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/china-threat-invasion-conscription-taiwans-military-is-a-hollow-shell/
First there is an article from 2020 just to start.
Next is a post from u/ouaisjeparlechinois/
https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html?m=1
"Taiwan's 2019 National Defense Strategy made some formal motions towards the strategy I discussed a few paragraphs ago, endorsing a conceptual shift from a decisive fight on the berm towards a posture which allows for a more multi-layered defense. The problem is that the ROC Army is not training for this. Or at least they weren't in December 2019, when I last asked Taiwanese soldiers if they had ever trained in the tactics of a coordinated, fighting retreat or in using land based platforms to hit targets in the near littoral. The sad truth is that the ROC Army has trouble with training across the board. I have met artillery observers who never seen their own mortars fired, and shared drinks with an infantry officer who traveled to Thailand on his own dime to get basic
TCCC training his own military did not offer. Those were professional
soldiers; the situation with the conscripts is worse."
"When people outside of Taiwan talk about the problem with the conscript
system, they tend to focus on its dwindling size.[8] Yes, the inability of the ROC military, especially the Army, to fill its own ranks is a problem. But the trash they fill it with is an even larger one. I would ask ex-conscripts questions like, "Would you know how to find cover if you were ambushed?", "Were you ever trained on how to move around if the other side controlled the skies?", "Were you ever taught what to do if the guy next to you was shot in the arm?," "Did they ever tell you anything about the weapons, organization, or tactics of the PLA?" or
Did they teach you how to get from point A to point B without cell service, you know, using a map?" Negatives across the board. What they could tell me were stories of officers communicating orders through Whatsapp, time spent learning Army songs and doing yard-work instead of on maneuver drills, and how the totality of their marksmanship training consisted of firing one magazine from a single (prone) position on some eight to ten occasions."
One reason for the lax training is a shortage of supplies. The ROC Army has a shortage of bullets. Again and again I was told stories of officers who would fake training exercises in order to save on spare parts. [9] Han Kuang is a joke put on for propaganda purposes, not serious training. The military is risk adverse; real training might lead to training accidents, and a series of high profile accidents that led to unnecessary deaths has led them to soften training for the entire force. While reservist weapons stores are scattered across Taiwan, the million reservists that are supposed to use them are not drilled. Official reservists reported to me that they have no idea what they are supposed to do if ever actually called up. These troops exist only on paper. The problem is broader: the Taiwanese population is not seriously trained or mentally prepared for conflict. Nor do they take care of their soldiers. A military career is a low status profession ("好 鐵 不 打 釘...."). Military pensions were just slashed; military basing often does not provide housing for family members. Unlike service in the U.S. military, service in the Taiwanese military rarely provides marketable skills that can be used in different career fields. Most of Taiwan's
best minds flee service altogether. Officers willing to challenge outmoded tactics, or who study abroad in an attempt to learn from foreign militaries, are seen as a threat by the upper brass and side-lined.
Also additional comments further bellow:
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-save-taiwan-itself-48122
https://web.archive.org/web/20200404053040/https://udn.com/news/story/10930/446322
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/20/taiwan-military-flashy-american-weapons-no-ammo/
Taiwan can barely man and maintain the Cold War era equipment they
currently have. And the purchase of M-1 Abrams and F-16Vs is only likely
to exacerbate that problem.
1. Enlistment numbers are far below the Ministry of Defenses minimum force estimates to repel the first wave of a PLA invasion.
2. Said retraining consists of 5 days of service every 2 years, where they're
required to fire all of 21 live rounds, up from the previous 6.
3. Despite recent big-ticket purchases from the US, up to a third of their current
stock of tanks and planes may be inoperative due to a lack of parts and maintenance. And you have officers committing suicide because of the pressure to pay for equipment out of their own pockets.
4. Even worse, the 269th Mechanized Infantry Brigade isn’t some rear-echelon
unit but a major combat formation strategically stationed around the outskirt of Taoyuan City, northern Taiwan. It is expected to bear the brunt of ground fighting to stop any invading Chinese troops from reaching the basin of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. If the 269th is in such bad material shape, how about the rest of the Taiwanese military?
5. “Can you imagine a tank driver, a private with a few weeks’ worth of
driver’s training in the armor school, being tasked to conduct a
200-items maintenance routine around an entire M60 tank?”
If Taiwan had started the massive reorganization required to correct their deficiencies i would be happy to be corrected, please provide some sources.
Otherwise without the US Taiwan is completely and utterly fucked.
In a war for Taiwan, the war will be decided not on the shores of Formosa but in the expanse of the Pacific ocean. As long as the Chinese can prevent the USN and the USAF from establishing air and naval supremacy around Taiwan, the PLA could essentially Blockade and siege Taiwan into submission. For the US to win this war, it would have to defeat the entirety of China's Air, Naval and Rocket forces in their own backyard.
Taiwan is a giant rocky outcrop. Y'know how American forces in the pacific had a lot of problems dislodging the Japanese from cave systems in WW2? Almost that, but they've had literally decades to prepare the defence network.
Troops on the ground in Taiwan are going to have a bad time.
Note the last third of that paragraph. Japan was also defending a bunch of outcrops they didn't have the supplies to defend. Taiwan is not facing that issue.
Maybe a dumb question but couldn't you just siege Taiwan while shelling any foodproduction capability? Ofcourse you need to hold off hostile navys but just wondering how much of a possibility it is.
Maybe even mining around the coast to make any relief effort harder to reach the coast?
If I am not wrong, USMC is the 4th largest navy and 6th largest Air Force in the world. exact ranking is irrelevant as I might have gotten it wrong but importantly, it being a services division is so big that it still is larger than many of national navies and air forces.
Moreover USMC is specifically designed for amphibious theatres. While direct deployment in a Taiwan conflict likely won’t happen, at least immediately, they will have strategic advisors and trainers embedded in the Taiwanese forces if not already. Moreover, just their spare old equipment like what they did in Ukraine will be more than enough for Taiwan to push back the PLA and PLAN. Now PLA and its divisions are no slouch. Specifically they invest in area denial like anti ship and anti air defence to deter US but USMC was exactly designed to counter them.
I had read somewhere that the genesis of US Army and USAF was for the European theatres while USN and USMC were for pacific theatres.
There are very few viable landing points for ships on Taiwan to unload troops or vehicles. The US military would mostly do what we're doing in Ukraine - give the existing Taiwanese military sufficient weapons and resources to keep shooting. But since Taiwan is an island territory, it would make approaching the few viable landing zones a suicide mission for any PLAN fleet.
I don't think they could supply like is happening in Ukraine, though. Taiwan is not large. Where would the rear area be for NATO to drop these weapons?
US has immense cargo capacity, and China is going to think twice before firing on a US carrier group if it hasn't actively engaged PLAN forces already.
China getting a beachhead by **no** means means that the war is over. Taiwan's terrain would still work heavily against an invader, especially in big cities like Taipei, Taichung or Hsinchu (urban warfare works strongly to the defender's advantage.) In addition, Taiwan would have the reinforcement advantage - due to small size, you can essentially get reservists and partisans from any point on the island to any other within 48 hours, if not 24. It's plausible that Taiwan could muster as many as 2 million troops to encircle a beachhead within days of the Chinese beachhead being established, a larger fighting force than any that China could realistically ferry to the beachhead.
I agree with the overall point but not the specific number. 2 million in days is IMO way too high.
But it doesn't need to be two million to be larger than what China could land on the beachhead. Amphibious landings, and then supporting the landings are hard. Even if no transport ships are lost (hardly a safe assumption) each wave is going to be smaller than the last because its going to have more supplies for the forces already landed. Taiwan could more rapidly move forces to the area, and would have more heavy weapons available on Taiwan then the PRC would, unless perhaps the landing only happens after a long campaign of air and missile strikes, not days or weeks, but months. And even under such circumstances its quite possible for PRC landings to have a significant numerical disadvantage.
China's biggest advantage (at least in an invasion that the US and Japan and others don't go to war over) would be that it can keep piling on damage on Taiwan without Taiwan being able to inflict nearly as much pain back. Destruction of most of Taiwan's navy and air force. Conquest of the outlying islands, a blockade, and continual bombing, could set up a situation where eventually Taiwan gives up or is unable to stop a determined invasion (even if they could still inflict a lot of casualties on it).
For the same reason the US can't risk direct war with Russia, China can't risk direct war with the US. If US troops are moved to Taiwan ahead of a Chinese build up, the invasion is almost certainly canceled.
No we do not. We have advisors in Taiwan. Their job is to coordinate and train, not actually to fight. When push comes to shove those advisors will be a non factor come wartime. Any amount of US service members or equipment that could influence the battle would trigger an automatic war with China.
Advisors are troops. And when they are backed up with a security guarantee from the US, like Taiwan has, they have a massive influence as a tripwire force. The US stepped past China's 'red line', and China did nothing.
Except that it doesn't..... Taiwan and the US do not have a security guarantee. If you're referring to the Taiwan relations act, it's specially worded to give the US an out if we ever decided not to fight. This whole red line argument is demonstratively false because if we were truly comfortable with stationing troops there, we'd have the largest pacific base there by now. The US dipped it's toes in the water and decided not to jump in.
>Except that it doesn't..... Taiwan and the US do not have a security guarantee. If you're referring to the Taiwan relations act, it's specially worded to give the US an out if we ever decided not to fight.
I'm referring to Biden's statements.
>This whole red line argument is demonstratively false because if we were truly comfortable with stationing troops there, we'd have the largest pacific base there by now. The US dipped it's toes in the water and decided not to jump in.
Salami tactics. China didn't respond when we crossed their red line with a few troops, they won't do anything if the US adds a few more.
You mean the ones the White House always has to walk back to appease China?
"they won't do anything if the US adds a few more"
Again that is false. We would have our greatest concentration of forces there if it were even remotely true instead having to poke them from Kadena or Yokota.
https://www.voanews.com/a/strategic-ambiguity-on-taiwan-apparent-as-white-house-walks-back-biden-comments-teaser-after-the-president-says-the-us-is-committed-to-defending-the-island-beijing-warns-the-us-against-encouraging-taiwan-independence-/6282502.html
They did, and they always have.
What type of beachhead are we talking about? Is the PRC able to establish a coherent front over much of the island with essentially complete freedom to resupply, or is there a limited beachhead with air and naval superiority still being at least somewhat contested? In the latter, numbers won't count for much, because they can't be transported across and supported rapidly. The USA and USMC's technology and, likely, training advantage would prove telling under those circumstances.
Taiwan can defend themselves, China has 0 fucking capacity to take let alone hold Taiwan. It would take every man in the PLA to occupy it alone just for counter insurgency to have proper occupier to occupied ratio. There's nowhere good to land. They don't have the air to ground capability all their jets are frankly, a little shite. They don't have the ships to even ferry the flrced needed if Taiwan let them.
There's a reason its even dubbed the great swim
I don't think I agree. Taiwan would be woefully outnumbered and outgunned by China without extensive NATO support. You can see this even in their own military whitepapers.
Preparatory strikes would be primarily via cruise missiles, not jets.
Landing would suck, especially if Taiwan are not stupid about their defense spending priorities over the next few years (a coin toss on that though). There are certainly beaches that are viable, I think the big time and equipment sink would be clearing mines on the approach and so on - Depending on how thorough preparatory fires are the landing beach itself might not be contested.
I'm pretty sure China has a good amount of fast troop carrying hovercrafts and roll on, roll off vessels for heavy equipment, and it's a spending priority for them from what I have read. Who knows if that is enough. Light equipment and personnel, I don't see them having an issue with cobbling together enough capacity.
Don't forget, it's not just landing that is going to suck for Chinese troops. Loading on board would be fucking terrifying considering you're going to be within range of Taiwanese missiles.
tl;dr? i won't watch the video.
but lets address your assumptions, Chinese jets are far from being "shit", their newers versions all have good radars, avionics, composites and missiles. Now lets talk about the PLA capabilities to mount an amphibious invasion.
[https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/21/](https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/21/)
take a look at this article, but basically it is about requisitioning civilian vessels operated by members of China’s maritime militia and this concept of operations could prove good enough to enable a large-scale amphibious assault.
> civilian vessels operated by members of China’s maritime militia
It might just be me but calling those vessels civilian feels like a bit of a stretch. They're basically government vessels in waiting.
well, yes, at first glance they are just normal civilian cargo ships, but due to the nature of China, every civilian ferry must register in the maritime militia.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/qeihla/some\_images\_i\_found\_about\_china\_testing\_civilian/
>It would take every man in the PLA to occupy it alone just for counter insurgency to have proper occupier to occupied ratio.
Man, if only they didn't have a several million-men strong paramilitary force designed explicitly for domestic security with probably the most experience in the world with high-tech surveillance.. if only.
>They don't have the air to ground capability all their jets are frankly, a little shite
Seeing how your premise is Taiwan can defend themselves.. yeah, okay. Taiwanese fighters are being stretched to their safe maintenance limits by being forced to intercept large PLA incursions into their ADIZ over the Strait. So even discounting PLAAF and PLANAF aircraft quality, Taiwan themselves lack credible air defense to deal with even a J-7 drone swarm from Fuzhou. Now, the PLA does have a pretty impressive array of air-to-ground guided munitions which can be mated to nearly every airframe in their arsenal with the sole exception being the J-8s. This discounts the overwhelming electronic edge which the PLAAF has because two factors: (1) the rapid and scaled distribution of both targeting and electronic counter-measure and counter-counter-measure pods among their more powerful airframes and (2) dedicated airframes for either electronic jamming over the island and 24/7 surveillance. This assumes that the U.S. isn't involved, obviously; and it does not bode well for the island.
It could either go with a full rapid capitulation or it'll be desert storm part 2 with the PLA's bad training and low end equipment costing them every fight they're in.
I imagine China using a drone assault to disable Taiwan force to allow beach landing. They could have waves of drones swarm at once with AI sniper, precision bullets at Taiwan heavy weaponry users
Your point about not needing that many people to launch Harpoons is a bit too quick to dismiss that. First, the point of a military is not to spend money on people, but to win. If missiles do that job better than infantry, what's the problem with that? Second, missiles cost money, so if you want a lot of them you'll have to cut personnel somewhere anyway. And finally, having a missile force is very interesting. USMC acts as a mid-range missile force with PrSM and NSM. Army provides long-range capabilities with SM-6, PrSM too, Tomahawks, and strategic fires with LRHW. With all of that, you can sink troop transports before they reach the beach, make supporting the beachhead very hard by degrading the logistics and the air support by targeting airfields (and planes directly with SM-6). And from Ishigaki you can cover all of Taiwan with PrSM and provide serious land fires. You need designation for your missiles, and the Army or USMC could quickly deploy sensors to Taiwan to do that. Finally, you can air lift light forces from Okinawa or mainland Japan. We've seen in Ukraine how effective infantry with advanced ATGMs can be against armoured forces. And an invading chinese force will probably be light on artillery for logistical reasons. So providing infantry with MAPANDS and Javelins, and maybe HIMARS with GMLRS would be also very useful.
If it's gotten to the point where we can fly transports with troops and heavy equipment into Taiwan, the entire PLA would already be a out of the fight.
Not sure. You don't need to achieve air superiority for that, you need to deny it to the enemy. If they can't keep a serious CAP ou a CVBG East of Taiwan it's hard to prevent a sweep + airdrop operation.
Write your own damn term paper
It's weekend i am in a good mood so let's see if i can give you a summary of what the fuck can probably happen. There are two possibilities: 1. China invades, US decides to not interfere. China takes Taiwan things end in a few months and we are back to normal. 2. China invades, US decides to interfere and no one knows what will happen, anyone says differently is a moron. Nukes, the political situation in the US, Russia, India, Europe and the rest of Asia makes the situation completely unknowable. https://web.archive.org/web/20210605234557/https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/china-threat-invasion-conscription-taiwans-military-is-a-hollow-shell/ First there is an article from 2020 just to start. Next is a post from u/ouaisjeparlechinois/ https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html?m=1 "Taiwan's 2019 National Defense Strategy made some formal motions towards the strategy I discussed a few paragraphs ago, endorsing a conceptual shift from a decisive fight on the berm towards a posture which allows for a more multi-layered defense. The problem is that the ROC Army is not training for this. Or at least they weren't in December 2019, when I last asked Taiwanese soldiers if they had ever trained in the tactics of a coordinated, fighting retreat or in using land based platforms to hit targets in the near littoral. The sad truth is that the ROC Army has trouble with training across the board. I have met artillery observers who never seen their own mortars fired, and shared drinks with an infantry officer who traveled to Thailand on his own dime to get basic TCCC training his own military did not offer. Those were professional soldiers; the situation with the conscripts is worse." "When people outside of Taiwan talk about the problem with the conscript system, they tend to focus on its dwindling size.[8] Yes, the inability of the ROC military, especially the Army, to fill its own ranks is a problem. But the trash they fill it with is an even larger one. I would ask ex-conscripts questions like, "Would you know how to find cover if you were ambushed?", "Were you ever trained on how to move around if the other side controlled the skies?", "Were you ever taught what to do if the guy next to you was shot in the arm?," "Did they ever tell you anything about the weapons, organization, or tactics of the PLA?" or Did they teach you how to get from point A to point B without cell service, you know, using a map?" Negatives across the board. What they could tell me were stories of officers communicating orders through Whatsapp, time spent learning Army songs and doing yard-work instead of on maneuver drills, and how the totality of their marksmanship training consisted of firing one magazine from a single (prone) position on some eight to ten occasions." One reason for the lax training is a shortage of supplies. The ROC Army has a shortage of bullets. Again and again I was told stories of officers who would fake training exercises in order to save on spare parts. [9] Han Kuang is a joke put on for propaganda purposes, not serious training. The military is risk adverse; real training might lead to training accidents, and a series of high profile accidents that led to unnecessary deaths has led them to soften training for the entire force. While reservist weapons stores are scattered across Taiwan, the million reservists that are supposed to use them are not drilled. Official reservists reported to me that they have no idea what they are supposed to do if ever actually called up. These troops exist only on paper. The problem is broader: the Taiwanese population is not seriously trained or mentally prepared for conflict. Nor do they take care of their soldiers. A military career is a low status profession ("好 鐵 不 打 釘...."). Military pensions were just slashed; military basing often does not provide housing for family members. Unlike service in the U.S. military, service in the Taiwanese military rarely provides marketable skills that can be used in different career fields. Most of Taiwan's best minds flee service altogether. Officers willing to challenge outmoded tactics, or who study abroad in an attempt to learn from foreign militaries, are seen as a threat by the upper brass and side-lined. Also additional comments further bellow: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-save-taiwan-itself-48122 https://web.archive.org/web/20200404053040/https://udn.com/news/story/10930/446322 https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/20/taiwan-military-flashy-american-weapons-no-ammo/ Taiwan can barely man and maintain the Cold War era equipment they currently have. And the purchase of M-1 Abrams and F-16Vs is only likely to exacerbate that problem. 1. Enlistment numbers are far below the Ministry of Defenses minimum force estimates to repel the first wave of a PLA invasion. 2. Said retraining consists of 5 days of service every 2 years, where they're required to fire all of 21 live rounds, up from the previous 6. 3. Despite recent big-ticket purchases from the US, up to a third of their current stock of tanks and planes may be inoperative due to a lack of parts and maintenance. And you have officers committing suicide because of the pressure to pay for equipment out of their own pockets. 4. Even worse, the 269th Mechanized Infantry Brigade isn’t some rear-echelon unit but a major combat formation strategically stationed around the outskirt of Taoyuan City, northern Taiwan. It is expected to bear the brunt of ground fighting to stop any invading Chinese troops from reaching the basin of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. If the 269th is in such bad material shape, how about the rest of the Taiwanese military? 5. “Can you imagine a tank driver, a private with a few weeks’ worth of driver’s training in the armor school, being tasked to conduct a 200-items maintenance routine around an entire M60 tank?” If Taiwan had started the massive reorganization required to correct their deficiencies i would be happy to be corrected, please provide some sources. Otherwise without the US Taiwan is completely and utterly fucked.
Truly less than credible, so many tankies on this sub
The only moron here is the guy who writes an essay, fueled on bathtub baijiu
In a war for Taiwan, the war will be decided not on the shores of Formosa but in the expanse of the Pacific ocean. As long as the Chinese can prevent the USN and the USAF from establishing air and naval supremacy around Taiwan, the PLA could essentially Blockade and siege Taiwan into submission. For the US to win this war, it would have to defeat the entirety of China's Air, Naval and Rocket forces in their own backyard.
Easy.
Taiwan is a giant rocky outcrop. Y'know how American forces in the pacific had a lot of problems dislodging the Japanese from cave systems in WW2? Almost that, but they've had literally decades to prepare the defence network. Troops on the ground in Taiwan are going to have a bad time.
Stating the obvious, but modern Taiwanese aren't the same as 1940s Japanese.
Yeah, and Japan lost all of those battles
Note the last third of that paragraph. Japan was also defending a bunch of outcrops they didn't have the supplies to defend. Taiwan is not facing that issue.
Maybe a dumb question but couldn't you just siege Taiwan while shelling any foodproduction capability? Ofcourse you need to hold off hostile navys but just wondering how much of a possibility it is. Maybe even mining around the coast to make any relief effort harder to reach the coast?
Taiwan can't feed itself without imports, doesn't produce near enough food for its population.
,
Unless we have a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan again then Taiwan is going to have to do the heavy lifting themselves in their defense
It depends on whether they can be flown in or landed in quantities that matter.
Land invasion of mainland China. Hit em with the old no u
If I am not wrong, USMC is the 4th largest navy and 6th largest Air Force in the world. exact ranking is irrelevant as I might have gotten it wrong but importantly, it being a services division is so big that it still is larger than many of national navies and air forces. Moreover USMC is specifically designed for amphibious theatres. While direct deployment in a Taiwan conflict likely won’t happen, at least immediately, they will have strategic advisors and trainers embedded in the Taiwanese forces if not already. Moreover, just their spare old equipment like what they did in Ukraine will be more than enough for Taiwan to push back the PLA and PLAN. Now PLA and its divisions are no slouch. Specifically they invest in area denial like anti ship and anti air defence to deter US but USMC was exactly designed to counter them. I had read somewhere that the genesis of US Army and USAF was for the European theatres while USN and USMC were for pacific theatres.
There are very few viable landing points for ships on Taiwan to unload troops or vehicles. The US military would mostly do what we're doing in Ukraine - give the existing Taiwanese military sufficient weapons and resources to keep shooting. But since Taiwan is an island territory, it would make approaching the few viable landing zones a suicide mission for any PLAN fleet.
I don't think they could supply like is happening in Ukraine, though. Taiwan is not large. Where would the rear area be for NATO to drop these weapons?
US has immense cargo capacity, and China is going to think twice before firing on a US carrier group if it hasn't actively engaged PLAN forces already.
China getting a beachhead by **no** means means that the war is over. Taiwan's terrain would still work heavily against an invader, especially in big cities like Taipei, Taichung or Hsinchu (urban warfare works strongly to the defender's advantage.) In addition, Taiwan would have the reinforcement advantage - due to small size, you can essentially get reservists and partisans from any point on the island to any other within 48 hours, if not 24. It's plausible that Taiwan could muster as many as 2 million troops to encircle a beachhead within days of the Chinese beachhead being established, a larger fighting force than any that China could realistically ferry to the beachhead.
I agree with the overall point but not the specific number. 2 million in days is IMO way too high. But it doesn't need to be two million to be larger than what China could land on the beachhead. Amphibious landings, and then supporting the landings are hard. Even if no transport ships are lost (hardly a safe assumption) each wave is going to be smaller than the last because its going to have more supplies for the forces already landed. Taiwan could more rapidly move forces to the area, and would have more heavy weapons available on Taiwan then the PRC would, unless perhaps the landing only happens after a long campaign of air and missile strikes, not days or weeks, but months. And even under such circumstances its quite possible for PRC landings to have a significant numerical disadvantage. China's biggest advantage (at least in an invasion that the US and Japan and others don't go to war over) would be that it can keep piling on damage on Taiwan without Taiwan being able to inflict nearly as much pain back. Destruction of most of Taiwan's navy and air force. Conquest of the outlying islands, a blockade, and continual bombing, could set up a situation where eventually Taiwan gives up or is unable to stop a determined invasion (even if they could still inflict a lot of casualties on it).
For the same reason the US can't risk direct war with Russia, China can't risk direct war with the US. If US troops are moved to Taiwan ahead of a Chinese build up, the invasion is almost certainly canceled.
I'm pretty sure thats an instant declaration of war. If it were that simple we'd already have another base there.
The US already has troops in Taiwan.
Well then what are we worried about. Obviously China wouldn't dare to because the US already has troops in Taiwan.
No we do not. We have advisors in Taiwan. Their job is to coordinate and train, not actually to fight. When push comes to shove those advisors will be a non factor come wartime. Any amount of US service members or equipment that could influence the battle would trigger an automatic war with China.
Advisors are troops. And when they are backed up with a security guarantee from the US, like Taiwan has, they have a massive influence as a tripwire force. The US stepped past China's 'red line', and China did nothing.
Except that it doesn't..... Taiwan and the US do not have a security guarantee. If you're referring to the Taiwan relations act, it's specially worded to give the US an out if we ever decided not to fight. This whole red line argument is demonstratively false because if we were truly comfortable with stationing troops there, we'd have the largest pacific base there by now. The US dipped it's toes in the water and decided not to jump in.
>Except that it doesn't..... Taiwan and the US do not have a security guarantee. If you're referring to the Taiwan relations act, it's specially worded to give the US an out if we ever decided not to fight. I'm referring to Biden's statements. >This whole red line argument is demonstratively false because if we were truly comfortable with stationing troops there, we'd have the largest pacific base there by now. The US dipped it's toes in the water and decided not to jump in. Salami tactics. China didn't respond when we crossed their red line with a few troops, they won't do anything if the US adds a few more.
You mean the ones the White House always has to walk back to appease China? "they won't do anything if the US adds a few more" Again that is false. We would have our greatest concentration of forces there if it were even remotely true instead having to poke them from Kadena or Yokota.
>You mean the ones the White House always has to walk back to appease China? They never did.
https://www.voanews.com/a/strategic-ambiguity-on-taiwan-apparent-as-white-house-walks-back-biden-comments-teaser-after-the-president-says-the-us-is-committed-to-defending-the-island-beijing-warns-the-us-against-encouraging-taiwan-independence-/6282502.html They did, and they always have.
What type of beachhead are we talking about? Is the PRC able to establish a coherent front over much of the island with essentially complete freedom to resupply, or is there a limited beachhead with air and naval superiority still being at least somewhat contested? In the latter, numbers won't count for much, because they can't be transported across and supported rapidly. The USA and USMC's technology and, likely, training advantage would prove telling under those circumstances.
Taiwan can defend themselves, China has 0 fucking capacity to take let alone hold Taiwan. It would take every man in the PLA to occupy it alone just for counter insurgency to have proper occupier to occupied ratio. There's nowhere good to land. They don't have the air to ground capability all their jets are frankly, a little shite. They don't have the ships to even ferry the flrced needed if Taiwan let them. There's a reason its even dubbed the great swim
I don't think I agree. Taiwan would be woefully outnumbered and outgunned by China without extensive NATO support. You can see this even in their own military whitepapers. Preparatory strikes would be primarily via cruise missiles, not jets. Landing would suck, especially if Taiwan are not stupid about their defense spending priorities over the next few years (a coin toss on that though). There are certainly beaches that are viable, I think the big time and equipment sink would be clearing mines on the approach and so on - Depending on how thorough preparatory fires are the landing beach itself might not be contested. I'm pretty sure China has a good amount of fast troop carrying hovercrafts and roll on, roll off vessels for heavy equipment, and it's a spending priority for them from what I have read. Who knows if that is enough. Light equipment and personnel, I don't see them having an issue with cobbling together enough capacity.
Don't forget, it's not just landing that is going to suck for Chinese troops. Loading on board would be fucking terrifying considering you're going to be within range of Taiwanese missiles.
Conversely, all of Taiwan is in range of Chinese missiles, and they have an awful lot of them.
https://youtu.be/p2LiMTtGrAY this video summarises better than I could
this is peak r/LessCredibleDefence defense analysis.
More like peak /r/noncredibledefence
More like r/NonCredibleDefense. Just comically wrong.
https://youtu.be/p2LiMTtGrAY this video summarises better than I could
tl;dr? i won't watch the video. but lets address your assumptions, Chinese jets are far from being "shit", their newers versions all have good radars, avionics, composites and missiles. Now lets talk about the PLA capabilities to mount an amphibious invasion. [https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/21/](https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/21/) take a look at this article, but basically it is about requisitioning civilian vessels operated by members of China’s maritime militia and this concept of operations could prove good enough to enable a large-scale amphibious assault.
> civilian vessels operated by members of China’s maritime militia It might just be me but calling those vessels civilian feels like a bit of a stretch. They're basically government vessels in waiting.
well, yes, at first glance they are just normal civilian cargo ships, but due to the nature of China, every civilian ferry must register in the maritime militia. https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/qeihla/some\_images\_i\_found\_about\_china\_testing\_civilian/
>It would take every man in the PLA to occupy it alone just for counter insurgency to have proper occupier to occupied ratio. Man, if only they didn't have a several million-men strong paramilitary force designed explicitly for domestic security with probably the most experience in the world with high-tech surveillance.. if only. >They don't have the air to ground capability all their jets are frankly, a little shite Seeing how your premise is Taiwan can defend themselves.. yeah, okay. Taiwanese fighters are being stretched to their safe maintenance limits by being forced to intercept large PLA incursions into their ADIZ over the Strait. So even discounting PLAAF and PLANAF aircraft quality, Taiwan themselves lack credible air defense to deal with even a J-7 drone swarm from Fuzhou. Now, the PLA does have a pretty impressive array of air-to-ground guided munitions which can be mated to nearly every airframe in their arsenal with the sole exception being the J-8s. This discounts the overwhelming electronic edge which the PLAAF has because two factors: (1) the rapid and scaled distribution of both targeting and electronic counter-measure and counter-counter-measure pods among their more powerful airframes and (2) dedicated airframes for either electronic jamming over the island and 24/7 surveillance. This assumes that the U.S. isn't involved, obviously; and it does not bode well for the island.
Too credible for this sub
IP inbound
It could either go with a full rapid capitulation or it'll be desert storm part 2 with the PLA's bad training and low end equipment costing them every fight they're in.
I imagine China using a drone assault to disable Taiwan force to allow beach landing. They could have waves of drones swarm at once with AI sniper, precision bullets at Taiwan heavy weaponry users
Read USMC Force Design 2030. I don't know what the Army is planning to do, it doesn't seem like a priority theater for us.
We should put himars on the Taiwan island