World Affairs Board - View Single Post - China vis-à-vis Taiwan

Maggot · 10-23-2007, 17:36 PM

China’s biggest problem remains moving the horde from point A to point B. On the continent they can march, but China lacks the naval power to transport their forces in the needed strength to invade Taiwan. China has spent a lot on missiles, modernizing their airforce, and building their navy. Yes China would suffer huge casualties in an all out invasion of Taiwan, but when was the last time you saw China particularly concerned with casualties. They’re not exactly suffering from a manpower shortage. They could literally march one citizen into the sea every ten seconds and build a human land bridge to Taiwan and not have their population be adversely affected.

They have the largest military hovercrafts in the world, which while they are too large to be offloaded from other ships, have just enough range to go from China’s coast to Taiwan. They’ve got a whole lot of amphibious attack ships and lots of landing craft, but not nearly enough to get the numbers they want ashore. That and there are doubts that the exact numbers claimed are accurate in some cases, like the Type 271 Landing Craft the Chinese suddenly claimed to have hundreds of. Their only aircraft carrier is for helicopters only.

China has a lot of jets, a whole lot more than Taiwan, but they have very old bombers and Russia isn’t interested in them getting their hands on new bombers anytime soon. China has been buying a lot of Su-27’s and 30’s from Russia, but the Chinese aren’t doing a good job on their maintenance or training of pilots with their new jets. Some of these jets also have components from the new Su-37.

Taiwan has a bunch of F-16’s, home built backwards engineered F-16’s (IDF), and some Mirage 2000’s. Their edge in fighters is dropping all the time, increasing China’s chances. The Taiwan army is primarily tasked, trained, and designed for counter-landing. Not a big surprise. Their constant state of readiness has impacted their ability to train and retain soldiers though and in 1998 the head of the Army actually ordered a general stand down from their state of constant operational readiness to deal with this. Without the US navy, Taiwan is probably toast.

10-23-2007, 17:36 PM	#15 (permalink)
Maggot Regular Join Date: 10-20-07 Location: British Columbia Posts: 109 Country:	China’s biggest problem remains moving the horde from point A to point B. On the continent they can march, but China lacks the naval power to transport their forces in the needed strength to invade Taiwan. China has spent a lot on missiles, modernizing their airforce, and building their navy. Yes China would suffer huge casualties in an all out invasion of Taiwan, but when was the last time you saw China particularly concerned with casualties. They’re not exactly suffering from a manpower shortage. They could literally march one citizen into the sea every ten seconds and build a human land bridge to Taiwan and not have their population be adversely affected. They have the largest military hovercrafts in the world, which while they are too large to be offloaded from other ships, have just enough range to go from China’s coast to Taiwan. They’ve got a whole lot of amphibious attack ships and lots of landing craft, but not nearly enough to get the numbers they want ashore. That and there are doubts that the exact numbers claimed are accurate in some cases, like the Type 271 Landing Craft the Chinese suddenly claimed to have hundreds of. Their only aircraft carrier is for helicopters only. China has a lot of jets, a whole lot more than Taiwan, but they have very old bombers and Russia isn’t interested in them getting their hands on new bombers anytime soon. China has been buying a lot of Su-27’s and 30’s from Russia, but the Chinese aren’t doing a good job on their maintenance or training of pilots with their new jets. Some of these jets also have components from the new Su-37. Taiwan has a bunch of F-16’s, home built backwards engineered F-16’s (IDF), and some Mirage 2000’s. Their edge in fighters is dropping all the time, increasing China’s chances. The Taiwan army is primarily tasked, trained, and designed for counter-landing. Not a big surprise. Their constant state of readiness has impacted their ability to train and retain soldiers though and in 1998 the head of the Army actually ordered a general stand down from their state of constant operational readiness to deal with this. Without the US navy, Taiwan is probably toast. __________________ Work is the curse of the drinking class.