I am not avoiding anything, if you are trying to convey a point than be more clear.
You do not know the answer because you have not done your homework. That is my point.
Everyone would have the standard response: the element of surprise kills more of the enemy. But it is more than that.
If you surprise the enemy and
IF you managed to kill more, what it means is the loss of resources for the enemy. The resources here is not just human bodies but also in equipment and time. In war, in order to win, you need at least a 3-1 ratio, even if the enemy is static like in fortification or on an island like in the case of Taiwan.
M. Kress, I. Talmor, A New Look at the 3:1 Rule of Combat through Markov Stochastic Lanchester Models, The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 50, No. 7 (Jul., 1999), pp. 733-744
www.jstor.org
The 3:1 rule of combat states that in order that for the attacker to win the battle, his forces should be at least three times the force of the defender.
If you managed to surprise the enemy, you can reduce that ratio down to 2:1, leaving you with a reserve to take advantage of weaknesses and even gaps in his defense. And if you are truly confident, you can reduce that ratio down to 1:1 or even 1:2, meaning you can be outnumbered but still win.
Let us take the standard 4-ship strike fighter formation. If all four strike fighters managed to hit the same target, that target will most likely be destroyed. But what happens if you lose one strike fighter? Now you have no margin of error. If you lose another fighter, the target will survive and depends on the target, it maybe able to response later. In this case, you failed.
You can apply this %25-30 percent loss prediction against China. All Taiwanese defense have to do is knock out %20-30 of fighters because whatever remaining will not be enough to provide air cover for the invasion fleet.
The same ratio can be applied against ballistic missiles. All Taiwanese defense have to do is either knockout or mislead %20-30 of attacking missiles in order to have enough forces to attack the invasion fleet.
The same ratio can be applied to the invasion fleet itself. All Taiwanese defense have to do is sink or damage %20-30 of the fleet in order to render the invasion insufficient to defeat Taiwanese troops on land.
Once Taiwan is fully informed of an impending invasion fleet launch, the surprise is off. This is where Taiwan and Iraq differs. We have not even touched on the fact that China and Taiwan are essentially technological peers, whereas, Iraq was not US technological peer, that mean you can raise that loss to %30-40 for China. So imagine that 4-ship strike fighter package lost 1.5 aircraft.
Regarding the ballistic missiles...Let us say you launch 10 missiles.
3 - Farm fields
3 - Abandoned shopping mall
2 - Hospitals
1 - Parking lot
1 - Army HQ
Taiwanese defense will defend the hospitals and the Army HQ because they are critical to the war effort. So now in your 10 missiles package, you just lost 3 and the other 7 landed on worthless targets. The reality is that Taiwanese defense will take out more than %30. The invasion fleet cannot launch unless the air threat is cleared over the Strait.
To american, violence and war are the only solution. Chinese civilization why can survive for 3000 years becos we are pragmatic and resourceful.
Sun Tzu
"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle."
Very good, then you can leave Taiwan alone for the next 3000 yrs.