How long can Taiwan stand an attack from China

[USNavySEAL3310]

No. I think USPACOM is strong enough to fortify Taiwan ahead of time. I think they have two marine expeditionary forces, three or four air forces, and the 3rd and 7th Fleets - not to mention any assets the Army has there.

Though I don't know the size of PLAN.

 

[knightz33]

So basically, Taiwan will be a weakling unless American decides to intervene?

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

This discussion has been thouroughly debated 3 times now. The most comprehensive can be found here:

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3328

I cant be botherd making the same argument over and over so i'll just cut and paste some of my previous posts.

"Lets have a look at this senario in general terms. You've got a island to take, 200km of ocean to sea lift from friendly ground. About 5-600 000 enemy troops in the theater and probably 100 000 at the invasion area. Only a few suitable beaches, each one heavily defended with massive amounts of pre targeted artillary, hundreds of rockets and tubes. Limited sea lift capacity for 1 heavy brigade at a time with 12hr turn around in theoretical terms (meaning perfect sercumstances ie not war) so 2 a day so two thirds/1 division. So in a perfect scenario, 50 brigades, but when you add traffic problems and atrittion you could probably say 10 div on the first day. The probability of air superiority, maybe air supremacy but only in the face of stiff resistance. Naval threats are probably extensive minefields, Land launched AShM's, and possibly USN SSN's or even a CVN battlegroup or two. An unfriendly population at the landing area, and the objective generaly. An enemy that has the advantages of a small island to defend which although deprives them of depth, gives them mass and shortens their lines. It also means that ammo dumps will be close to the front lines easing the logistical situation for the defenders. The attackers have all the problems of supplieing their forces over beaches, due to the lack of a usable port, with around 50 medium vessles that can not be effectively used without a working port, not to mention a larger merchant marine which also can't be used without port facilities. So the 10 division deployed on the first day need to be supplied over ivasion beaches under heavy artillary bombardment.

Compare this to operation overlord, the single largest amphibious operation ever. The possible landing areas were over 1000km of suitable beaches that have to be defended. 5 infantry divisions and one armourd division in the vecinity of the beaches so 70/80 000 combat personell, with 59 in the theater, spread across france. The allies have compleat air superiority and have effectivly isolated the beachead area and made travel by day impossible for large formations. Total naval supremacy with e boats, u boats and mines as the primary naval threats, but massive ASW and minehunting assets to secure the sea lanes. Sealift capability for 5 divisions at a time, 5 in the initial assault and around 11 on the first day, less after that. Also had to supply over the beaches. But 2 mullburry artificial harbours to allow merchant marine to be directly utilized with two ports, le harve and brest within the invasion area.

Spot the difference? More advantages for the defender, the main ones being logistic and the build up fase (smaller distances to move units to reinforce the beachead area and no french resistance to contend with). Less potential landing areas to defend and more heavily defended landing areas (not beach defences but artillary). Manny more problems for the attacker, totally inadequate sea lift capability. 10 div on the first day. All need to be supplied over the beaches which are all within range om masses of pre targeted arty. Air superiority could be acheived by the PROC if the USAF/USN didnt intervien, but they dont have the assets or time to secure the sea lanes properly and would be under AShM attack from the sure, thats if the USAF/USN does not intervien. The most importand problem is the build up. The PROC doesn't have time to effectivly isolate the beachead with airpower, they can at best lift 10 divisions on the first day although they can only supply over the beach using amphibs, and therefore the more units deployed the more amphibs needed to cart supplies over the beaches. The Taiwanese have less space to move units to re enforce the beachead and would soon outnumber the PROC forces on the beachead. They would have enough forward logisical baces to keep all deployed units well supplied even during high intencity operations. Supply for PLAN would have been a total nighmare. Normandy had massive traffic jams on the beach and it wasn't constantly raining MLRS's. Basically it is so unrealistic to think that PROC can achieve anything but a total f*#king bloodbath. They dont have the naval assets, the sea lift assets, the air assets, the logistical assets, the terrain is bad, the defences are formidable, the enemy is strong determined and well equiped, they dont have time, the enemy has many allies with a more effective navy and airforce in deployable baces close to the theater. mission impossible or what???? let me know if theres anything i've missed."

post 582 in the thread linked above

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

Heres annother one.

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4880&page=10&highlight=moderated+taiwan

Post #139

"Everyone seems to get exited talking about fancy tactics and sneaky tricks, but none of that is possible without adequate logistics. PLAN and PLA do need a 5 : 1 advantage at least in order for the ivasion to be sucsessfull. And with defencding forces as large as the ones we are talking about, 1500 tanks, 1500 Arty pieces (a good number of MLRS in there too), and several divisions of mech infantry, 5 : 1 starts to look pretty daunting. There have been arguments made that this can be avoided by achieving suprise. However no one has realisticly stated how exactly this is possible with the ISR capability of the US pointing at china. So thats out of the question.

Also how are you going to use the merchant marine without a port??? Beach it and cut holes in the side at low tide and drive the tanks out? The chances of PLA capturing an intact port are low, the chances that said port would operational for longer than a few houres are in the millions considering the firepower on the defencive side. An example is Antwerp or Brest, the allies captured brest but it was over a month before it was ofloading any meaningfull tonnage due to the dammage the germans had done, and only after it was out of artillary range. Antwerp was not as badly dammaged but still took several weeks to become usefull because of german foces within artillary range of the shipping lanes and minefields. Taiwan is much smaller geographicly, has much fewer ports to defend/destroy, and there artillary capability is much better than the germans. So capturng a port and getting it in working order is, if not impossible, only achievable in a timeframe that would render it irrelevent in terms of the conflict we are talking about. So taking into about the merchant marine is irrelevent if you cant unload them. Unless PROC has built a mullbury in total secrecy and intends to use one. So realisticly your just talking about amphibs. And remember one key fact, every aphib that unloads a tank then needs to be used to supply it over the beaches. So as the deployed force gets larger, the more of your amphib asstets are needed to cart supplies over the same landing beaches, under heavy artillary bombardment, and thats not taking atrittion into account which is bound to be heavy, considering the stand off weapons the defender posess. There is a maximum force that can be deployed AND SUPPLIED with a sertain amount of logistical assets, and i think it is nowhere near the 5:1 ratio needed. We might not knoe the exact logistical capability of PLAN, but unless the estimates ar miles off and it is much stronger than stated, even by chinese sorces, then the equasion deosent change all that much. This is so rediculosly hard it seems nye impossible with the assets at hand. However people just dont seem to be thinking about this in a logical and realistic manner, considering the massive problems involved, and just want to think of it as an entertaining novell or video game."

 

[swerve]

Heres annother one.
... Taiwan is much smaller geographicly, has much fewer ports to defend/destroy, and there artillary capability is much better than the germans. So capturng a port and getting it in working order is, if not impossible, only achievable in a timeframe that would render it irrelevent in terms of the conflict we are talking about. ...

And IIRC most of their ports are on the east coast, i.e. the wrong one as far as an invasion from China is concerned.

 

[jaffo4011]

Taiwan is an island. It is always easy to defeat an island, especially when you have over 2 million troops at your disposal.

Taiwan doesn't have the resources or even the manpower to call up during a war compared to China.

its always easy to defeat an island?????

hitler didnt seem to think so in 1940 when he took on great britain...

now and as then,an island just has to hold out to win.:lul

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

It is always easy to defeat an island, especially when you have over 2 million troops at your disposal.

Erm, it is not always easy to defeat an island - quite the reverse, unless you have a massive navy capable of maintaining a total blockade. That also assumes no one would try to break it.

Also China would not have 2 million soldiers available for an attack because that would be most of its regular contingent. You can only ever spare part of your armed forces for expeditionary warfare.

Though I don't know the size of PLAN.

It's debatable that it could enforce a total blockade of Taiwan. It's also about quality, not mere size.

 

[Rich]

The countries infrastructure (airports, transport system etc) is designed to be very quickly transformed to support the military. All possible landing points are covered and contingencies in-place to mine all approaches. They have a system in-place to facilitate a very rapid call to arms, which will have more active units in defence in depth positions quicker than the mainland Chinese can bring troops to the beaches due to lack of adequate lift.

I would agree. There is an awful lot of redundancy built into Taiwan's infrastructure. Most of all air force assets where they can play shell games with their fighters, fighter bombers, and other assets. You can see it when you go over the island in Google Earth, most of all the tactics of dispersion they would use during an even of hostilities.

The terrain would be no friend to an invader. In the central parts of the Island there is a lot of mountainous terrain where deeply rooted artillery can really take a toll on an enemy. Much of the Island is cris-crossed by rivers and rice paddies and would be difficult land to sustain an offensive on.

And there would also be the threat of Yank involvement. Even if we didn't commit ground troops, "tho I think we would", the USN could make PLAN operations very uncomfortable. There are some very deep canyons to the south of the island that Yank SSNs could operate effectively in. I dont think the PLAN has the capability of a successful blockade if the USN were involved. Also Kadena AFB is only about 380 miles from Taipei, which means F-22s could become involved.

 

[KGB]

I read somewhere that Taiwan holds a couple of small islands close to the mainland; near enough to have exchanges artillery duels before. Those would have to be neutralized first, I surmise, else assets from there hit the landing force from behind as well.

 

[tphuang]

okay, this is what I can't stand. Clearly, there is no point having a thread like this. yet, people seem to state that and then continue to restate their old points. Since there is already several open threads on this, I have no choice but to shut down this thread unless otherwise requested.