What will happen if China invades Taiwan?

[GePap]

Of course, China could just nuke Taiwan's mountain airbase. Not much Taiwan can do about that.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Mordoch

Of course having sufficient airborne troops to make a difference is going to require one heck of alot of air transports. Besides the strong difficulties gaining total air superiority, the other big problem is a large number of anti-aircraft missile systems on a small island.

Transport planes are large planes with huge radar signatures that also move rather slowly, with the Chinese ILYUSHIN IL-76 CANDID having a speed of 560 miles per hour. The slow speed and lack of manuverability of these transports make them highly vulnerable to SAMs. Such a slow speed gives anti-aircraft missiles quite a bit of time to hit their targets. Air transports don't just need to worry about shorter ranged air defense systems such as the Avenger, but also longer ranged systems such as the I-Hawk. Each I-Hawk battery has 18 tripple launchers with a total of 54 missiles per battery.

http://www.periscope.ucg.com/mdb-smpl/nations/asia/taiwan/army/index.shtml

The I-Hawk has a range of over 20 nautical miles, an over 300 pound warhead, and the ability for a bettery to fire a missile every 3 seconds. Taiwan currently has 20 I-Hawk batteries. http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/hawk.htm

The PAC-2 200 missiles that are loaded onto the 6 launchers based near Tapei have a max range of 160 km when used in an anti-aircraft role. Taiwan currently has 3 batteries and is planning in the future to purchase an additional 3 PAC-3 Patriot Missile batteries while upgrading the existing ones to the PAC 3 standard. These missiles are capable of being used in an anti-aircraft role as well as their primary designation as an anti-missile defense system.

China also has to worry about air defense systems such as the Chaparral air defense system, and the Tien Kung I anti-aircraft missile with a range of 100 km. Taiwan also has the Sparrow enhanced Skyguard air defense system with a range of 11 miles. The Antelope Air defense system with a range of 18 kilometers is also likely to play a role. This is a recently deployed domesticly produced anti-air aircraft system armed with Tien Chien-I missiles. When you factor in the Tien Kung II missile with a max range range of 200 km, and the anti-aircraft guns Taiwan has, the question becomes whether any of the Chinese transports will even sucessfully reach their targets in Taiwan.

The basic problem is that Taiwan is a small island that doesn't give you that much room to drop troops. Given the trend is towards air defense missiles with longer and longer ranges, and I expect Taiwan to aquire plenty of additional anti-aircraft missile systems in the future, the odds of it becoming practical to move in troops by air don't look good. While China may be able to destroy some of these systems, destroying them all would certainly not be a simple task.

If China only had the military the U.S. had. They could use intelligence (which I would hope is better than the U.S.'s ) to locate these SAM and anti-air sites, and then use cruise missiles to destroy them. This is where China's lack of technology hurts them the most.

[:) Smiley]

Places don't get much easier to defend. You've got an island that is a third mountain, a third urban, and the remaining third rice paddies and jungle.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by GePap
Of course, China could just nuke Taiwan's mountain airbase. Not much Taiwan can do about that.

Kind of kills the main reason for wanting Taiwan in the first place though.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Kind of kills the main reason for wanting Taiwan in the first place though.

A single nuke of good power (lets say 300 kilotons), would hardly "destroy" Taiwan. Fine, lots of collateral damage would occur, but if that base if away from heavily populated areas, why, it is always a politically sensitive but viable option.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
China would not need to invade-the Chinese Strategy would be a blockade of the island to kill it economically. They could then take potshots with missiles and by air in the next few years.

They could always just nuke it back to the ceramic stage but then that sort of defeats the purpose.

spot on Gepap - no need for a million man swim - Taiwans economy is VERY vulnerable to a blockade.

[:) Smiley]

well, let's hope it don't happen in the next month or so while I'm there.

[Geronimo]

Mordoch's info makes a Taiwan invasion sound exactly as stupid as invading switzerland would be if it was scooped out of europe and dropped into the ocean as an island, except that Tiawan has a navy! Why is the threat of a chinese invasion taken so seriously when it sounds even less practical than do things like a U.S. invasion of Cuba which would seem to be a far simpler affair but which nobody really entertains as a plausible eventuality?

[:) Smiley]

Back in the 1950s there was an attempted Chinese attack on some islands in the strait held by Taiwan. It went about as well as the Bay of Pigs.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


spot on Gepap - no need for a million man swim - Taiwans economy is VERY vulnerable to a blockade.

Again it's too hard.

Taiwan has way too many anti-ship missles that they could pick off any ship that gets close enough to enforce a blockade.

Attrition is the only way, and that's assuming the US and/or Japan doesn't resupply. If Taiwan gets a resupplier of antiship missles China can never beat them.

It is the equivalent of Constantinople and Switzerland.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by GePap
A single nuke of good power (lets say 300 kilotons), would hardly "destroy" Taiwan. Fine, lots of collateral damage would occur, but if that base if away from heavily populated areas, why, it is always a politically sensitive but viable option.

If you read the article about that airbase under a mountain again, you'll note that the steel reinforced doors covering the entrance tunnel are supposed to withstand even a nuclear blast. Even if it can't withstand a direct blast, if the weapon is off even slightly, all its probably going to do is collapse that entrance. Taiwan has multiple entrances into each airbase. They actually have a total of two airbases build under mountains, which can't even be taken out easily through the use of nuclear weapons.

[Ted Striker]

The US doesn't even have weapons that can penetrate something like that yet.

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Again it's too hard.

Taiwan has way too many anti-ship missles that they could pick off any ship that gets close enough to enforce a blockade.

Attrition is the only way, and that's assuming the US and/or Japan doesn't resupply. If Taiwan gets a resupplier of antiship missles China can never beat them.

It is the equivalent of Constantinople and Switzerland.

Actually Taiwan has a ****load of anti-shipping missiles. The current total is well over 2,000, and some of the major ones are domesticly produced, so Taiwan can almost certainly build more if need even with a blockade ongoing. Taiwan also recognizes the fact that with China as a threat, you can never have too many anti-shipping missiles to deal with an ampibious invasion. China is likely to run out of warships before Taiwan runs out of anti-shipping missiles. China can use their submarines, but Taiwan retains some ASW capabilities, which are being bolstered by the future aquisition of 4 Kidd Class Destroyers and some P3 Orion patrol planes. The other obvious problem with a blockade is it gives the US plenty of time to react, and if the US commits its sub and surface forces to ASW work, the mostly rather obsolete Chinese subfleet is going to be submerged permantly.

[Ted Striker]

[Lefty Scaevola]

"What will happen if China invades Taiwan? "

A surpluss of nutrients in the Formosa Strait.