Is China's plan to invade Taiwan fatally flawed? The growing scale of the attack and advances in precision weapons are putting a monkey in the wrench for China's plans to capture their most core of core interests.
I've long assumed civilian ships would be important for a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan. I've specifically addressed the reserve civilian ships.
For the moment China depends on militarized, but more vulnerable, RoRo ships to deliver most of the troops and vehicles during an amphibious operation and that plan is in trouble because the enemy has the means to damage or sink the RoRos as well as destroy the Taiwanese docks needed to unload the RoRo. There are not enough ports available to load all the RoRos and Taiwan has been practicing airstrikes on some of these ports, using new air-to-surface missiles. Taiwan is following Chinese efforts in this area with great interest and responding with their own disruptive ideas.
China has been examining their plans:
In the last year Chinese military planners also ran some simulations from the defender’s point-of-view and included the many anti-ship weapons Taiwan and its allies would have available, even after an enemy port had been seized and reinforcements were needed to hold on to it. This is where the ferries and RoRos were essential and the staff exercises found that the civilian vessels were very vulnerable to attack and unexpected bad weather.
And perhaps even more of a problem:
Chinese planners became aware that the Taiwanese knew some intact docks in the right places were essential for the RoRos to succeed and those ports are now more difficult to take quickly and Taiwan has plans to cripple key ports before the RoRos can get to them.
Interesting. I have long been skeptical that Taiwan could wreck their ports before China could seize them. Apparently it can.
How much could Chinese airborne forces and troops carried on coast guard or older warships do the job with the amphibious portion reduced until the missile threat is reduced?
Bolstered by China's expanded special forces and commandos, of course. How much chaos could they sow to buy time for China's conventional forces to get ashore?
I've long discounted the Chinese marines and amphibious warships for Taiwan scenarios. Although I came to see roles aimed at Taipei and for the Pescadores Islands. But could the expanding marine force be needed even more in the first wave to enable the civilian ships to move in?
Could China suppress that missile threat and rate of sailing problem with even more precision firepower and covert actions against Taiwan's missiles and army?
Remember, part of the Allied preparation for D-Day involved isolating the Normandy invasion site by bombing rail lines and exploiting aerial supremacy to slow the German army's panzer reserves when they tried to counterattack.
China doesn't have the time to do that. Every day of delay allows Taiwan to mobilize, prepare, and strike Chinese mainland ports; and for allies to intervene. But does it have to do that now?
The more problems China has getting a major force ashore, the easier it will be for Taiwan to throw the invaders into the sea. Or for a smaller American Army heavy force to be sufficient to do the job in the worst case.
But remember, Chinese problems have to be balanced against our problems. I think the biggest problem is that "non-defense spending in the defense budget continues to grow as definitions are expanded and resources and management attention are diverted to non-defense priorities." Indeed.
The apparently increasing scale of China's invasion force has caused a problem in the plan. As have advances in precision missiles that up until now China thought were its key to isolating the Taiwan battlefield from American, Japanese, and--now--Australian intervention.
I've long thought that the claim that China's invasion fleet will of course be sunk on the journey is way too optimistic. Has time made my view obsolete? Or will China find a solution to mitigate the newly identified problems?
