The US's experimental 'lighting carriers' are 'much more capable' than China's current carriers, top US admiral says

[etylo]

If the war in Ukraine showed anything is that speed and momentum are key. If China can establish and secure multiple footholds on Taiwan within 24-48 hours of the outbreak it has a chance to win. Prolonged conflict favors the defender, especially if the US can dare the Chinese to shoot down resupply flights to the Taiwanese.

China will need between 500k and a million man invasion force for just the first wave alone; probably requiring tens of thousands of helicopters and tens of thousands of landing crafts. Striking with that kind of wright is the only kind of numbers that will overwhelm the superiority of western weaponry. Also, it would also mean China wouldn’t have to direct attack any non-Taiwanese assets to pre-empt a counter attack or outside forces coming to Taiwan’s aid. It would be a fait accompli at that point.

At that point most of this weapons being procured will be pointless in a Taiwan scenario, except for potentially blocking Chinese SLOC, for which China will need to depend on BRI; and circumvent all the “island chains”, opposing carriers, etc. perhaps seeing this, after some time, Taiwan reintegration will be accepted as a defacto reality, similar to how the world recognizes North Korea or Vietnam, some years after the wars ended.

China doesnt need that many as 500k to 1 million men to occupy Taiwan. China just has to totally destroy any strategic assests and defensive weaponary and installations such as military airports and airplanes, missile launch sites and stockpile, navy ports and ships, command and communication centres, arms factories and supplies centres, political and broadcasting centres and power generating centres. In other words, China has to literally destroy or paralyze Taiwanese military's ability to fight effectively and also paralyze the society at large before attempting to land. All these objectives can be achieved with firing advanced Chinese ballistic missiles and rocket artilleries first, then bombing and attacking valuable assests with drones and stealth bombers and fighters. Then Chinese air force and navy can seize control of Taiwan air space and sea water. Then, send 200k to 300k army through air and sea to land and control of the island, this many PLA should be enough if US doesnt get involved.

 

[Abid123]

Yeah it only dared supplying them with a lot of weapons and only dared landing its top diplomats despite Chinese threats.

A lot of weapons lol. The US has many times refused to sell Taiwan weapons because of Chinese pressure.

Again why does the US not have the balls to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Why not?

 

[F-22Raptor]

A lot of weapons lol. The US has many times refused to sell Taiwan weapons because of Chinese pressure.

Again why does the US not have the balls to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Why not?

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress is expected to start voting as soon as Wednesday on a massive military policy bill including authorization of up to $10 billion in security assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan.

U.S. military bill features up to $10 billion to boost Taiwan

The U.S. Congress is expected to start voting as soon as Wednesday on a massive military policy bill including authorization of up to $10 billion in security assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan.

www.reuters.com

The US hasn’t refused anything

 

[Abid123]

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress is expected to start voting as soon as Wednesday on a massive military policy bill including authorization of up to $10 billion in security assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan.

U.S. military bill features up to $10 billion to boost Taiwan

The U.S. Congress is expected to start voting as soon as Wednesday on a massive military policy bill including authorization of up to $10 billion in security assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan.

www.reuters.com

The US hasn’t refused anything

Taiwan is buying US weapons, but Washington isn’t delivering them

Congress is moving to address multibillion-dollar arms sale backlogs to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

www.defensenews.com

Stop being pussies and deliver the the weapons Taiwan is paying for

 

[Beny Karachun]

A lot of weapons lol. The US has many times refused to sell Taiwan weapons because of Chinese pressure.

Again why does the US not have the balls to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Why not?

"US didn't **** China very hard because China asked it to be a little bit gentle"

Taiwan is buying US weapons, but Washington isn’t delivering them

Congress is moving to address multibillion-dollar arms sale backlogs to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

www.defensenews.com

Stop being pussies and deliver the the weapons Taiwan is paying for

It's only as if the US has Ukraine to support which is a part of an active war, which causes weapon delivery delays.

 

[Abid123]

AEGIS

Yes. The AEGIS will intercept everything succesfully and never run out of supply

What China is going to use is anti-ship ballistic missiles that can hit a moving ship. The DF-21 comes in at mach 10 with a equivalent explosive energy of 5,000 pounds of TNT. The DF-26 comes in at mach 18–20 with explosive equivalent of 20,000 pounds of TNT.

I don’t care what ship it is. Put 5,000 pounds of TNT and detonate it inside a ship and you will no longer have a ship. Never mind 20,000 pounds.

China has done something that the US thought was impossible. Figure out a way to see through the burning plasma sheath at high mach.

And then there is the supersonic anti-ship missile that China has thousands of. So even without the hypersonic missiles, China can defeat the US Navy. But the US Navy has the best anti-missile missiles like the SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6. Yes but how many? A US ship has between 92 and 120 VLS launch cells. About half are anti-missiles.

What happens to your gun when you run out of ammo? It becomes a stick. What happens to a ship when it runs out of ammo? A big fat target. So you are comparing 50 anti-missiles vs a hundred anti-ship missiles per SALVO.

This is what it is going to look like

 

[lcloo]

Pentagon, Chinese analysts agree US can’t win in Taiwan Strait - US mulls ‘scorched earth’ strategy for Taiwan instead of defense

Pentagon, Chinese analysts agree US can’t win in Taiwan Strait US mulls ‘scorched earth’ strategy for Taiwan instead of defense By DAVID P. GOLDMAN DECEMBER 6, 2022 China has greatly expanded its satellite surveillance of the Western Pacific in recent years. Image: Anadolu Agency China’s...

defence.pk

The Defense Department’s November 29 report “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” reflects a grimly realistic rethinking of China’s military capacity in its home theater.

China hawk Elbridge Colby, a prominent advocate of a Western Pacific military buildup to deny China access to its adjacent seas, tweeted on November 6, “Senior flag officers are saying we’re on a trajectory to get crushed in a war with China, which would likely be the most important war since WWII, God forbid.”

The strategic takeaway is that the United States cannot win a firefight close to China’s coast, and can’t defend Taiwan whether it wants to or not. That view in the Joe Biden administration’s Department of Defense (DOD) persuaded the president to discuss “guardrails” against military confrontation in his November summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Republican hawks appear to have come to the same conclusion. The United States will enact a scorched-earth policy in Taiwan, destroying its semiconductor industry, if the PRC seizes the island, former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien told a conference at the Richard Nixon Foundation on November 10, reports army-technology.com.

“If China takes Taiwan and takes those factories intact – which I don’t think we would ever allow – they have a monopoly over chips the way OPEC has a monopoly, or even more than the way OPEC has a monopoly over oil,” O’Brien said.

A much-read paper by two Army War College professors published this year proposes that “the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain.”

“This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.”

O’Brien evidently agrees with the Pentagon’s assessment that the US can’t win a war in the Taiwan Strait, proposing – apropos of the Vietnam War’s most celebrated sound bite – to destroy the island in order to save it.

 

[Beny Karachun]

Yes. The AEGIS will intercept everything succesfully and never run out of supply

What China is going to use is anti-ship ballistic missiles that can hit a moving ship. The DF-21 comes in at mach 10 with a equivalent explosive energy of 5,000 pounds of TNT. The DF-26 comes in at mach 18–20 with explosive equivalent of 20,000 pounds of TNT.

I don’t care what ship it is. Put 5,000 pounds of TNT and detonate it inside a ship and you will no longer have a ship. Never mind 20,000 pounds.

China has done something that the US thought was impossible. Figure out a way to see through the burning plasma sheath at high mach.

And then there is the supersonic anti-ship missile that China has thousands of. So even without the hypersonic missiles, China can defeat the US Navy. But the US Navy has the best anti-missile missiles like the SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6. Yes but how many? A US ship has between 92 and 120 VLS launch cells. About half are anti-missiles.

What happens to your gun when you run out of ammo? It becomes a stick. What happens to a ship when it runs out of ammo? A big fat target. So you are comparing 50 anti-missiles vs a hundred anti-ship missiles per SALVO.

This is what it is going to look like

View attachment 904424

You lack basic understanding of physics.

Iskander is also Mach 10 but easily shot down by the Barak 8 missile system in Azerbaijan, a relatively small missile. Mach-10 and Mach-20+ figures are just high altitude and exo-atmospheric velocities and that too doesn't make them invincible. As soon as their altitude lowers they are much slower, below hypersonic figures, since low altitude air pressure and resistance is much higher and doesn't allow hypersonic flight. In fact at low altitudes it becomes Mach 2 or 3 at best.

Also, a US carrier strike group has more than one ship, and China has yet to prove it's capable of hitting a ship moving at full speed, and yet to prove it's capable of providing accurate, constantly updating coordinates of a US carrier group far away from its shores.

 

[Abid123]

Also, a US carrier strike group has more than one ship, and China has yet to prove it's capable of hitting a ship moving at full speed, and yet to prove it's capable of providing accurate, constantly updating coordinates of a US carrier group far away from its shores.

US navy only have 11 carriers, it’s being tracked 24/7 by Chinese recon satellites, and when the Chinese Rocket Force needs a more accurate targeting data. they’ll just send the supersonic drone WZ-8 to the area to provide targeting information for their Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles.

Get out of your fantasy world kid. Any US general knows US will gets its *** kicked in the South China Sea. Any US president that starts a war in the SCS will end up having to explain how he or she made such a massive mistake, lost a bunch of ships, got a bunch of US soldiers killed, and lost the image of invincibility of the US. That will be the end of that person’s political career, if they aren’t brought up on charges by both Republicans and Democrats.

 

[FuturePAF]

As they said, beachhead is easy, how you can supply that beachhead is the real issue, because once that had been established, you will need constant supply in order to make road inland. Any interruption in that supply line would jeopardise the entire operation. And you are suggesting the Chinese to mount a 500,000 to 1 million force. Landing that amount of force is easy, but supplying them constantly? Not so much....The balance of force suggested any invasion would be a long and lengthy affair because there are just too many cities and population center to take and too many strong points to overcome, and China can't really afford to supply a large enough force to go over it and hopefully take it in one go. Which mean the only way to do it is a step-by-step approach, setting different phaseline and different goal according to time.

The thing is, as I said before, it's all depending on how Taiwan would fight back, that is unknown, because if Taiwan do fight back and they would be able to make the Chinese invasion a living hell even without the present of US direct involvement. If they are going to just let it go like in Afghanistan, then it doesn't really matter even if US directly gets involved.

That is why a large part of their economy will have to be oriented towards enabling and supporting such a logistical capability. Probably a mission set of the strategic support force and the recently re-articulated civil military fusion as referred in recent U.S. reports on China.

The telltale signs will be world class maritime logistical capabilities that of a size to enable support a million man army on an expeditionary mission in contested space; armed supply ships and supporting elements.

As for the Taiwanese response, it will have to be after a massive Chinese shock and awe strategy. First weeks of diplomacy are possible to coerce the Taiwanese, but afterwards, should hostilities break out, China can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of Russia in Ukraine, it will probably look similar to the two gulf wars, which were also phase based, but especially the second one, there was a goal of regime change and a capture of the entire country.

Taiwan could go either way, Afghanistan or Ukraine, but it will probably come down to the coercion of the Taiwanese business community to pressure the Taiwanese government to allow some kind of “One Country, Two Systems” model.

Taiwan doesn’t look like it wants to lose everything it has build up over decades.

Heavy troops concentrations will prove out to be the worst case scenario for a Taiwanese invasion. Step one would be to achieve air dominance. Taiwan is small, the Chinese would have to disable it's AD systems and the ability to operate jets off runways. Without air dominance, the Chinese could take huge losses. In my understanding, taking Taiwan won't be a big deal for the Chinese military by 2025 onwards. The major issue is dealing with the US post Taiwan take-over or during that.

What goes against China is lack of a hedge. The US has bases all over the world. The Chinese have some reefs and artificial islands and those are also tiny and can be neutralized easily. The way to offset it to some degree is by having a VTOL fighter / attack jet (be it stealth like the F-35 or a 4th gen++) and smaller landing ships like light carriers to operate off of. If China had a half dozen strategic military bases around the globe supported by a dozen or so of these light carriers, the scenario could become very complicated.

The Chinese can’t afford to underestimate the Taiwanese and their allies. Should they fail and suffer many casualties, the survival of the CCP itself maybe at stake, similar to how Putin’s regime is at stake with the war in Ukraine.

The PLA probably doesn’t have enough logistical to support the operation at the moment, and it may take them 5-10 years to build up the capabilities. Logistics are the key, more so then the exact systems. Better weapons systems potentially decrease PLA casualties but logistics enable to make troops combat effective.

They also need to build a post hostilities logistical supply and distribution network to their major customers, as well as build up the customers that won’t abandon them at the behest of the US. That is why BRI’s success of crucial for the Chinese to be able to pull off a Taiwan operation.

 

[FuturePAF]

China doesnt need that many as 500k to 1 million men to occupy Taiwan. China just has to totally destroy any strategic assests and defensive weaponary and installations such as military airports and airplanes, missile launch sites and stockpile, navy ports and ships, command and communication centres, arms factories and supplies centres, political and broadcasting centres and power generating centres. In other words, China has to literally destroy or paralyze Taiwanese military's ability to fight effectively and also paralyze the society at large before attempting to land. All these objectives can be achieved with firing advanced Chinese ballistic missiles and rocket artilleries first, then bombing and attacking valuable assests with drones and stealth bombers and fighters. Then Chinese air force and navy can seize control of Taiwan air space and sea water. Then, send 200k to 300k army through air and sea to land and control of the island, this many PLA should be enough if US doesnt get involved.

Enter to over prepare then under. 1:20 ratio will allow the PLA to better prevent an insurgency forming that would allow the Taiwanese to resupply from large arms depots hidden in the mountains. Look at what a lower then necessary troops numbers did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine.

This is not about a punitive attack, but seizing and controlling Taiwan such that the reminants of the Taiwanese military and outside power can force Chinese troops off the island.

If the Chinese land with overwhelming force, it’s possible the Taiwanese maybe more willing capitulate, rather then fight. A lot for troops may also enable the PLA to do many small operations, and move faster then the best units of the Taiwanese, preventing them from maintaining their overall cohesion.

Defeating each unit in detail, rather then confronting a force that has time to gather itself and counter attack and defeat in detail the PLA at the beachheads.

IMHO, There will be a huge increase in the size of the PLA airborne troops; paratroopers and heliborne troops, possibly in the hundreds of thousands. So if we see the PLA produce hundreds of helicopters a year, it will be an indicators that they are building up this capability. It’s a capability they will need after a war, to reinforce their border should their neighbors all act in unison to actively counter China.

To hold the Island, resupply will have to be mostly by sea, and so a large force will be needed for that.

I’m sure the Chinese are study the US marines operations in the pacific in WW2, and the D-day invasion as well as the plans to invade the Japanese home islands (Operation Downfall) in WW2, if they hadn’t capitulated. The size and scope of those plans mean any love will be large and noticeable

 

[jhungary]

That is why a large part of their economy will have to be oriented towards enabling and supporting such a logistical capability. Probably a mission set of the strategic support force and the recently re-articulated civil military fusion as referred in recent U.S. reports on China.

The telltale signs will be world class maritime logistical capabilities that of a size to enable support a million man army on an expeditionary mission in contested space; armed supply ships and supporting elements.

As for the Taiwanese response, it will have to be after a massive Chinese shock and awe strategy. First weeks of diplomacy are possible to coerce the Taiwanese, but afterwards, should hostilities break out, China can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of Russia in Ukraine, it will probably look similar to the two gulf wars, which were also phase based, but especially the second one, there was a goal of regime change and a capture of the entire country.

Taiwan could go either way, Afghanistan or Ukraine, but it will probably come down to the coercion of the Taiwanese business community to pressure the Taiwanese government to allow some kind of “One Country, Two Systems” model.

Taiwan doesn’t look like it wants to lose everything it has build up over decades.

The Chinese can’t afford to underestimate the Taiwanese and their allies. Should they fail and suffer many casualties, the survival of the CCP itself maybe at stake, similar to how Putin’s regime is at stake with the war in Ukraine.

The PLA probably doesn’t have enough logistical to support the operation at the moment, and it may take them 5-10 years to build up the capabilities. Logistics are the key, more so then the exact systems. Better weapons systems potentially decrease PLA casualties but logistics enable to make troops combat effective.

They also need to build a post hostilities logistical supply and distribution network to their major customers, as well as build up the customers that won’t abandon them at the behest of the US. That is why BRI’s success of crucial for the Chinese to be able to pull off a Taiwan operation.

ugh.......let me get this straight, you want to raise a logistic army that can support a million strong fighting force on an operation aboard. Is this what you are saying??

Considering the teeth to tail ratio is usually between 11 to 1 to 13 to 1. You want to create a logistic army of 11 to 13 million men with whatever necessarily equipment and infrastructure they need to support a million strong invasion force? Let's look at it this way, US currently logistic capability is confidential, no one know how many troops we can support in oversea theater. But considering US never have more than 350,000 troop fighting both in Iraq and Afghanistan. And when we were there, we only have limited resource to put into operation, I would say that amount is probably closer to limit, if not already reached it. Granted, both Iraq and Afghan are thousand miles away from the logistic point, while China only needed about 500km. You are still talking about considerable effort. It is not going to be happening in just a few years, or even decade, I mean, currently US strategic sealift capability have a fleet of 130 ship, and Chinese don't even have a Sealift Fleet and have the ship class designated into normal Naval Unit (ie US Sealift served under USNS not USN, while Chinese strategic lift capability served under PLAN)

On the other hand, you can't hide a gathering of that many troop and logistic capability (again, you are talking about a million fighting men) It will be picked up by satellite and intelligence report like a hot rock, and then it will take time to move them and assemble them, Russia took about 3 months to move that initial 200,000 invasion force in place. You are talking about years if not more to start to concentrate that troop, it will give Taiwan whatever equivalent time to prepare. If they had not been already. The problem is, you are talking about a small, confined area with a lot of defence to overcome, shock and awe would not work, simply because you will need to overcome too many strong points and those strong point, unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, which both did nothing but let you pound them, will contest you (Again if Taiwan decided to fight) and fight back, you would need to do a wholesale destruction of all Taiwanese Coastal city to be able to eliminate those SP. Which will take months. if not years.

And finally, while whether or not Taiwan will fight is entirely up to them, so I can't say one way or another because I am not Taiwanese. But as a Hong Konger (Yep, I still have my HKSAR Passport), I can tell you not a single person in Hong Kong thinks the "1 country, 2 systems" still exist, it's one country one system now, and it didn't even last half of what the Chinese had promised. It lasted just 22 years. It would be delusional for the Taiwanese to think 1 country 2 system works....

 

[Ahmadbhutta01]

How many missiles can take down an aircraft carrier ?

 

[S10]

How many missiles can take down an aircraft carrier ?

To disable? Just 1 in the right spot will take it out of action for months.

Sinking it is a bit more difficult since they can take quite a beating.

 

[FuturePAF]

ugh.......let me get this straight, you want to raise a logistic army that can support a million strong fighting force on an operation aboard. Is this what you are saying??

Considering the teeth to tail ratio is usually between 11 to 1 to 13 to 1. You want to create a logistic army of 11 to 13 million men with whatever necessarily equipment and infrastructure they need to support a million strong invasion force? Let's look at it this way, US currently logistic capability is confidential, no one know how many troops we can support in oversea theater. But considering US never have more than 350,000 troop fighting both in Iraq and Afghanistan. And when we were there, we only have limited resource to put into operation, I would say that amount is probably closer to limit, if not already reached it. Granted, both Iraq and Afghan are thousand miles away from the logistic point, while China only needed about 500km. You are still talking about considerable effort. It is not going to be happening in just a few years, or even decade, I mean, currently US strategic sealift capability have a fleet of 130 ship, and Chinese don't even have a Sealift Fleet and have the ship class designated into normal Naval Unit (ie US Sealift served under USNS not USN, while Chinese strategic lift capability served under PLAN)

On the other hand, you can't hide a gathering of that many troop and logistic capability (again, you are talking about a million fighting men) It will be picked up by satellite and intelligence report like a hot rock, and then it will take time to move them and assemble them, Russia took about 3 months to move that initial 200,000 invasion force in place. You are talking about years if not more to start to concentrate that troop, it will give Taiwan whatever equivalent time to prepare. If they had not been already. The problem is, you are talking about a small, confined area with a lot of defence to overcome, shock and awe would not work, simply because you will need to overcome too many strong points and those strong point, unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, which both did nothing but let you pound them, will contest you (Again if Taiwan decided to fight) and fight back, you would need to do a wholesale destruction of all Taiwanese Coastal city to be able to eliminate those SP. Which will take months. if not years.

And finally, while whether or not Taiwan will fight is entirely up to them, so I can't say one way or another because I am not Taiwanese. But as a Hong Konger (Yep, I still have my HKSAR Passport), I can tell you not a single person in Hong Kong thinks the "1 country, 2 systems" still exist, it's one country one system now, and it didn't even last half of what the Chinese had promised. It lasted just 22 years. It would be delusional for the Taiwanese to think 1 country 2 system works....

Civil-military fusion is now the policy of China. They won’t be building a logistical network just for the army but everything will be dual purpose even more then it already is.

Look at how China uses its fishing fleet; as an auxiliary of the navy. In a similar manner all the small the boats that have a half way decent seagoing capability will probably be used to land and resupply troops on Taiwan.

A lot of ferries and freighters that ply the rivers of China could be modified to cross the straits as well as more purpose build boats could be built at a number of yards all up and down the rivers, used for civilians operations, and once the order is given, sail down the rivers with their holds full of men and material.

I don’t think most Taiwanese would believe the one country two systems option, but like you said, those of us on the outside don’t know if they will fight or capitulate, and how much sway their business community has over the politicians if the business class are coerced by the CCP.