Officer of Engineers

The problem is numbers. There simply not enough 500lb bombs (on both planes and missiles) to make life miserable for the Taiwanese

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Chimo

chankya

What I'm wondering is what happens when one nuclear power faces off with another. From what I have read and I may be out on a limb here, the usual idea is to restrict the conflict to as small a theatre as possible. Would that mean that the US would not strike at mainland china?

The Taiwan straits is about 180Km wide. Does that really need a heavy troop lift capability? If (and I emphasise the "If" to stave off a flame war ) the chinese could paradrop/airlift sufficient troops to hold a single port open, couldn't they just press in merchant vessels for transporting troops?

Further, I would suggest that the Chinese navy having evolved primarily into a sea-denial role would while running to significant losses still be able to able to keep the straits open. While that sounds like a lopsided argument my reasoning is this : The US is not capable of sustaining a high casualty war. (This is not usually a problem since they can bomb a country into the stoneage before the first US soldier actualy sets foot). An aircraft carrier has a compliment of roughly 3000 sailors. Woudl you really stick it in a rather small area with a lot of hostile submarines? Hence my "sea denial in the taiwan straits = limited sea control" proposition.

I'm not even sure where my question is in all this. It's just that I'm not sure it would be the cakewalk most of you describe it to be.

Also Zeng_xinren, I'm not actually advocating war. I'm just curious about the scenario. Personally I think that given the economic stakes for the US, China and practically everyone else in the world this is one war that's very unlikely to happen. Unless of course there is a rebel general ala "Crimson Tide"

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"Of all the manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most." - Thucydides

ExNavyAmerican

We proably would. If they are invading Taiwan, then why would we want to make it cheap for them? War isn't nice.

The American submarine fleet in the Pacific can easily knock out any merchant fleet being used for transportation. Than we have carriers (see below). And their airlift capability would be nonexistent because a single battle group contains several AEGIS ships that can engage hundreds of targets at a time at a long range.

Every nation uses its navy partly for sea denial, and that would be the mutual purpose for the USN, and PRN.

You got that right. But that's only because the left-wing nutjobs cry like babies everytime a bomb goes off.

A battle group is easily capable of protecting itself against enemy subs, because, once again, AEGIS ships. Their anti-submarine capability is awesome. Plus, we don't need carriers. Air bases on Taiwan, Okinawa, and Guam will easily provide the support we need. That plus the Marine Corps will be shifting 2 marine divisions to Okinawa (or was it Guam?) in 2008. That was on the news a few months ago in 2006. My point there being that 40,000 U.S. marines are capable on taking on any limited number of PLA soldiers that are massed, and they can be easily shifted without fear from the PRC.

The USN, the USAA, and the USAF added to that of Taiwan would make a war catastrophic for China.

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ExNavyAmerican

They said the same thing about the Berlin Wall.

Who said anything about wanting war? It's a discussion about the eminent possibility of a "Strait Showdown" as they called it in the navy. People should be always be prepared.

Apparently two.

HKDan

As far as I can recall there are plans to move 8,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam in 2008. As for the Marines being used in a potential Taiwan war, most scenarios that I have seen never involve US ground forces. Most of what I have read on this issue has the Navy and Airforce playing the key roles.

Officer of Engineers

All of China is a valid target but most likely restricted to those space directly threatening Taiwan.

I can come up with a whole lot of scenarios where the PLA can take a port or an airfield but not one in which I can see that they can hold one. Merchant ships need a dock but it's damned easy for the Taiwanese to sink a freighter at the mouth of the harbour.

Goes both ways. For every ship the PLAN lost is one less ship that cannot support the invasion. Sink even one merchant ship and you've just lost an entire battalion. Never mind the battalions sitting waiting at the mainland to be pick up by that merchant ship.

And just how many ships/subs do you think the PLAN will lose going after one carrier?

Currently, it's a cakewalk for the Taiwanese.

hello

Theres not much of an air or sea threat to Taiwan.

B-1s and B-2s flying off Guam with JSOWs, JASSMs and JDAMs, combined with submarines, are enough to completely destroy any sea columns that would supply the Chinese forces. An aircraft carrier or two, coupled with the F-15s of the FEAF(which can be backed by F-22s if the need be) would provide the air superiority needed to counter J-10s, J-11s and MKKs, should the Chinese bring them. The Taiwanese Ching-Kuos are sufficient to handle J-7s or J-8s. Without air superiority, theres no way your going to get airlift support.

Lunatock

I'll quote Horrido from PDF, in a thread about the russian navy blocking the USN from entering Taiwan's waters:

russia would deploy it's old rust buckets to blockade the Taiwanese straight. The USN fleet deployed would think twice, then three times, then start drooling in anticipation of duking it out with the rn.

gunnut

The problem is while the PLAN has a good number of ships, how many of them will be transfered to the Taiwan theater, should a shooting war happen and the losses are significant? Politically, it's a disaster if the losses exceed a certain amount. A nation has to think about the future. China needs to think about the next 50 years in replacing these assets if PLAN losses are too great.

That is very true. The only high casualty scenario that's even plausible is an invasion upon the continental US itself. And that's not gonna happen for a while. We use technology to substitude human lives. That's why our wars are expensive.

A carrier has 3000+ sailors, and 3000+ for the airwing.

No, we won't stick our carriers in a very small and confined area like the Taiwan strait. The battle group will probbaly station off east coast of Taiwan. There's a large open area for a couple of 100,000t carriers to hide in. Our subs will probably enter the strait to make lives miserable for troop transports.

China might be able to land enough troops and secure a beachhead/port. The problem is to keep them supplied. A brigade engaged in combat consumes quite a bit of fuel and ammo, not to mention food, water, medicine, and evacuating wounded. Without supplies no one fights. Those supplies will be hard to get through to the troops on Taiwan. Then you have to reinforce it and replace the casualties to maintain a unit. This scenario is virtually doomed without complete air and sea superiority and an extremely robust sea lift capability.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

BudW

Maybe China would use a neutron weapon to get Taiwan to capitulate, if the first one does not work they keep going until Taiwan caves in,then how does the USA&UK respond?

Maxor

Once china starts using atomic EMP or nuetron bombs on tiawan a couple of things happen. 1. Tiawan starts bombing raids with firebombs onto chinese cities they can get in and a few indicneary clusterbombs onto some of the chinese slums in the outskirts of their cities will be extremely nast and you also get to see how a B1B operates when it gets to empty the bays for real on chinese cities the only city in china that wouldn't be destroyed is Hong Kong. Other than that you can see about a 2 for one result.

maxwell

I just need one word: Democrats

Jimmy

That's probably part of the reason they havent made any real moves...they're not really geared for it. Yet. I doubt much of their current leadership really reads their little red books, either. Changing their doctrine seems to be a pretty rare event, based on my own (most likely MUCH less than you) reading.

Agreed. But I think the US would try to limit the scope of the attacks on mainland China to assets/areas that would directly play in the conflict...IADS in the region, maybe air or naval bases, possibly staging areas for the invasion of Taiwan. Lines of communication, that sort of thing.

gunnut

You do know what neutron bombs are, right? They are nuclear devices. What do you think will happen if China uses nuclear devices on Taiwan?

urmomma158

Answer: A full fledged nuclear response by NATO and the US. The US has some pretty nice nuclear gear. MM3 ICBM's now with an accuracy almost as good as the peacekeeper,14 Ohio subs armed with long range counterfource Trident II's,B-52's and B-2's and their load out such as the B611 and AGM 129.

China would not use a nuke or else ....................

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