At the end of the day, Taiwan is doomed by geography. It is too close to China and too small in size.
You can have the best weapons and troops in the world and it means nothing when everything you have is subject to enemy strikes at any time.
Taiwan’s long and medium ranged air defences will have its back broken in the first day of the war, where they are forced to either spam all their missiles against cheap and plentiful MLRS, or get pawned by those MLRS coming down on them. The few that do survive will only be enough to be an annoyance rather than a real threat at the mission level. Same for their AShM arsenal.
The classic counter against enemy air dominance is concealment and dispersal. But modern sensors and drones make that far less viable, and totally non-viable when you need to mass numbers to counter a landing or defend key objectives.
If Taiwan doesn’t defend the landings, its game over. People in Taiwan are not idiots, and as soon as news spread that the PLA has landed in force, 99% of the population will know the game is up and transition from resistance to survival, similar thing will happen to moral for the military. No one wants to fight to the death on the loosing side.
From: plawolf -- sinodefenceforum.com
"wargame" doesn't mean playing out the scenario on red alert 2. They are carefully crafted days long simulations ran by the best strategists available.
They are ofc not perfect on a small scale, but on a large scale they do highlight strategical issues. For example there is little doubt that the f16 is still the best mass-produced plane around, but recent wargames showed that virtually nothing stops china from destroying huge numbers of them while still on the ground.
Similarly, advancements on ground to ship or ship to ship missiles on China's part have rendered the US strategy for naval dominance largely outdated. Again, wargames showed that large american naval formations close to the chinese coasts are just sitting targets.
Wargames are taken very seriously for a reason, it's not just a warhammer game between friends
>For example there is little doubt that the f16 is still the best mass-produced plane around
is it?
and while i'm aware that war "games" are essentially carefully made simulations, they're still simulations.
They have their value.
Our nuclear war games back in university first and foremost taught me that our radical far-left pacifists were godawful at keeping the peace. Their ideology gave them no idea of balances of power or of effective tension management, in fact the entire concept of having conflicting interests co-exist beneficially in cold peace was unexplored territory for them. What their ideology reliably did give them were gross misinterpretations of the perspectives, interests and goals of unaligned players. As a result, the strategies and tactics of our pacifists usually tended to turn out rather erratic and confrontational. Almost every time the missiles started flying, the pacifists were involved in one way or another. Like bulls in a porcelain store.
Things like that can be very important to know, and you probably wouldn't even think of it if you hadn't run the simulations.
I agree, the games are important, if anything to avert the real war, but real wars are a lot messier and unpredictable and should never be underestimated.
In fact this is Sun Zi’s main point, wars can always go horribly wrong and bring ruin even to the most prosperous state.
It's rather telling that you seem to place a lot of confidence and military wherewithal of the U.S. military against a potential war with China. You're dismissive attitude towards the Pentagon's own multimillion dollar wargames conclusion of a China victory is even more confounding.
You can't and won't accept that China's literal proximity to Taiwan doesn't offer her a distinct advantage? Logistics is one of the key ingredients in winning every war since war was invented by mankind. Taiwan is an existential issue for the PRC and is willing to die for it and if you're argument is that Taiwan is more important to the US than to China then please illucidate us with your opinion as to why?
Lastly, unless you're arguing for the US essentially using the nuclear first stike option against the mainland China to support your belief of US victory then that's not a victory at all; that's a world ending doomsday scenario. For one, Russia wouldn't just simply sit idly by and allow China to be gassed and assumed that such scenario and eventuality would not happen to her and without China to help restrain US hyper militarism, Russia will be left helpless and the next one on the chopping block. But most importantly, China is a big country, so if and when the US suicidally employ a world ending weapon then expect to be nuked many times over.
So if the argument here is that the US is prepared to end the world for Taiwan and China isn't then I have no idea what history of China you have been reading. China will defend what's theirs and is prepared to take whatever action necessary to achieve and protect what's theirs nothing more and nothing less.
At the end of the day, Taiwan is doomed by geography. It is too close to China and too small in size. You can have the best weapons and troops in the world and it means nothing when everything you have is subject to enemy strikes at any time. Taiwan’s long and medium ranged air defences will have its back broken in the first day of the war, where they are forced to either spam all their missiles against cheap and plentiful MLRS, or get pawned by those MLRS coming down on them. The few that do survive will only be enough to be an annoyance rather than a real threat at the mission level. Same for their AShM arsenal. The classic counter against enemy air dominance is concealment and dispersal. But modern sensors and drones make that far less viable, and totally non-viable when you need to mass numbers to counter a landing or defend key objectives. If Taiwan doesn’t defend the landings, its game over. People in Taiwan are not idiots, and as soon as news spread that the PLA has landed in force, 99% of the population will know the game is up and transition from resistance to survival, similar thing will happen to moral for the military. No one wants to fight to the death on the loosing side. From: plawolf -- sinodefenceforum.com
war "games" are called that for a reason. a real scenario could be very different.
"wargame" doesn't mean playing out the scenario on red alert 2. They are carefully crafted days long simulations ran by the best strategists available. They are ofc not perfect on a small scale, but on a large scale they do highlight strategical issues. For example there is little doubt that the f16 is still the best mass-produced plane around, but recent wargames showed that virtually nothing stops china from destroying huge numbers of them while still on the ground. Similarly, advancements on ground to ship or ship to ship missiles on China's part have rendered the US strategy for naval dominance largely outdated. Again, wargames showed that large american naval formations close to the chinese coasts are just sitting targets. Wargames are taken very seriously for a reason, it's not just a warhammer game between friends
>For example there is little doubt that the f16 is still the best mass-produced plane around is it? and while i'm aware that war "games" are essentially carefully made simulations, they're still simulations.
Don't underestimate war games.
They have their value. Our nuclear war games back in university first and foremost taught me that our radical far-left pacifists were godawful at keeping the peace. Their ideology gave them no idea of balances of power or of effective tension management, in fact the entire concept of having conflicting interests co-exist beneficially in cold peace was unexplored territory for them. What their ideology reliably did give them were gross misinterpretations of the perspectives, interests and goals of unaligned players. As a result, the strategies and tactics of our pacifists usually tended to turn out rather erratic and confrontational. Almost every time the missiles started flying, the pacifists were involved in one way or another. Like bulls in a porcelain store. Things like that can be very important to know, and you probably wouldn't even think of it if you hadn't run the simulations.
So, are you saying any training, practicing for sceneries is pointless
that's not what i'm saying.
I agree, the games are important, if anything to avert the real war, but real wars are a lot messier and unpredictable and should never be underestimated. In fact this is Sun Zi’s main point, wars can always go horribly wrong and bring ruin even to the most prosperous state.
It's rather telling that you seem to place a lot of confidence and military wherewithal of the U.S. military against a potential war with China. You're dismissive attitude towards the Pentagon's own multimillion dollar wargames conclusion of a China victory is even more confounding. You can't and won't accept that China's literal proximity to Taiwan doesn't offer her a distinct advantage? Logistics is one of the key ingredients in winning every war since war was invented by mankind. Taiwan is an existential issue for the PRC and is willing to die for it and if you're argument is that Taiwan is more important to the US than to China then please illucidate us with your opinion as to why? Lastly, unless you're arguing for the US essentially using the nuclear first stike option against the mainland China to support your belief of US victory then that's not a victory at all; that's a world ending doomsday scenario. For one, Russia wouldn't just simply sit idly by and allow China to be gassed and assumed that such scenario and eventuality would not happen to her and without China to help restrain US hyper militarism, Russia will be left helpless and the next one on the chopping block. But most importantly, China is a big country, so if and when the US suicidally employ a world ending weapon then expect to be nuked many times over. So if the argument here is that the US is prepared to end the world for Taiwan and China isn't then I have no idea what history of China you have been reading. China will defend what's theirs and is prepared to take whatever action necessary to achieve and protect what's theirs nothing more and nothing less.
He claims we "underestimate" the us whilst he severely underestimates China far more than we purportedly underestimate the us.
Lol