Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
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Another blog post from Geoffrey Clark addressing details of amphibious possibilities for an invasion of Taiwan. These discussions are not coordinated, but it is a nice supplemental piece to my blog post: The RoRo Ships – The Dupuy Institute. The bolding in the text below is mine.
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Title: Chinese RoRo ferries and Amphibious Vehicles
Vehicles
The Chinese PLA has long considered the use of civilian vessels to augment their “PLAN-proper” amphibious ships and craft. In military exercises in 2020 and 2021, this became more apparent, as they demonstrated some of their concepts of operations.
The previous posts on this blog have shown some if the limitations to these concepts. There are three distinct methods to use these ships as amphibious lift:
The idea, it seems, might be to conduct these ferry operations in a defended environment… If through a combination of local sea control, local air superiority, and defended by many of the capable anti-air warfare (AAW) destroyers, frigates and/or corvettes that the PLAN is fielding in every increasing numbers … perhaps the Chinese feel there will be a right time in their war plan to risk this type of operation.
As the aptly named “Chinese Ferry Tales” report number 16 from the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) concludes:
Notwithstanding these developments, this report concludes that as of 2021, China’s merchant fleet is unable to provide the amphibious landing capabilities or the maritime logistics in austere or challenging environments necessary to have a significant impact in an amphibious landing operation on Taiwan.
Additional points of note from the same report:
From CimSec, estimates of the capacity of these ferries:
With … spatial limitations in mind, a conservative estimate of the total capacity of the ships identified in this article adds on capacity sufficient for half the PLA army’s primary amphibious combat forces (12 amphibious combined arms battalions). This places one battalion on each vessel, with room for additional supporting elements from their respective brigades. Depending on internal space constraints, vessels like the Pu Tuo Dao could probably deliver a single battalion, while some of the larger vessels could likely carry up to two battalions if the PLA accepts the risk.
The text below is part of an interview and Congressional testimony by Thomas H. Shugart, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security.
“Will China close its gap in sealift capacity? While some may take comfort that China may appear to lack sufficient amphibious lift to conduct a cross-Strait invasion, for example, this is not a factor upon which our allies’ and partners’ defense should rest, as China may be able to close this gap faster than may be commonly understood.”
The above is what Shugart said in testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 2021-03-17 …
China would well be able to utilize commercial shipping such as roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) ferries. The Bohai Ferry Group, the major ferry operator in the Bohai Gulf, for example, operates eleven Ro-Ro ferries. These actually form the Eighth Transport Dadui of the strategic projection support ship fleet. Each vessel displaces around 20,000 tons and can carry 200 vehicles plus 1,280 passengers. Bohai also operates larger 35,000-ton ferries able to carry 300 vehicles and 2,038 passengers. Of its commercial fleet, the group constructed seven large Ro-Ro specifically to national defense specifications, allowing them to be commandeered for military operations. These ferries have been used more than 40 times in military exercises to date. Indeed, the Bohai Ferry Group’s capacity to move vehicles has multiplied 100 times over the past 20 years. By way of example, it appeared a mobilization and amphibious exercise was held off the coast of Guangdong Province in mid-July, involving the 2nd Combined Arms Brigade of the 71st Group Army, as well as the 6th Brigade of the PLAN Marine Corps (PLANMC).They were using two large vessels plus other cargo vessels near Rizhao port, southwest of Hong Kong, where there are sandy beaches of an amphibious training area. Shugart claimed these Ro-Ro ferries (the 33,000-ton Bo Hai Ma Zhu and 16,000-ton Hu Lu Dao, would normally be plying waters 1,000 miles away in the Yellow Sea.
He concluded, “My guess: the PLA’s efforts to integrate China’s world-class merchant marine into its amphibious assault forces continue. If successful, this could potentially increase its cross-Strait Taiwan sealift capacity immensely, removing one of the major obstacles to invasion of Taiwan.”
The American also noted rather ominously: “…We would be wise to assume that China will bring all of its tools of maritime power to bear in ensuring success in a regional conflict, including the use of the China Coast Guard, the world’s largest such force; and its fishing fleet, specifically in the form of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). In something like the form of a reverse-Dunkirk, we should expect that instead of only dealing with dozens of gray-painted PLA Navy amphibious vessels and their escorts, we would likely see an effort supported by many hundreds of fishing boats, merchant ships and Coast Guard and Maritime Safety Administration vessels.”
As seen above, the use of effective amphibious vehicles greatly improves the flexibility of how these ferries can be used in a military sense; the reduced dependence on fixed structures like piers or floating causeways permits additional operational options. This is possible through the investment that the PLA has made in amphibious armored vehicles, Type 05 amphibious vehicles:
China publicly unveiled the world’s fastest amphibious armored vehicle, the Type-05, in late 2009, with reports of its water speed ranging between 27 and 45 kilometers per hour. This family of amphibious armored vehicles reportedly includes assault, infantry fighting, command, reconnaissance, medical, and obstacle-clearing variants, among others. Both the PLA Army (PLAA) and PLA Navy Marine Corps (PLANMC) use the Type-05, but the PLAA would very likely operate the majority of these amphibious armored vehicles during large-scale landing operations against Taiwan.
This chart, adapted from Wikipedia, shows all of the variants of the Type 05 vehicle family.
|
Family |
Code |
Alt |
Export |
Name (en) |
Name (zh) |
Description |
|
|
Type 05 |
ZTD-05 |
ZLT-05 |
VN16 |
|
Amphibious Assault Vehicle |
两栖突击车 |
The assault gun variant, armed with a ZPL98A 105mm low-recoil rifled gun, a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun, and QJC-88 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun. An improved variant, designated ZLT-05A, with upgraded computer system and digital terminals accessible for driver, gunner, and commander. |
|
Type 05 |
ZBD-05 |
|
VN18 |
|
Amphibious Infantry Fighting Vehicle |
两栖步兵战车 |
The infantry fighting vehicle variant, armed with a ZPT-99 30mm autocannon, a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun, and HJ-73C anti-tank missiles. |
|
Type 05 |
ZSD-05 |
|
|
|
Amphibious Armored personnel carrier |
两栖装甲人员输送车 |
The armored personnel carrier variant, armed with plate-protected 12.7mm heavy machine gun turret. |
|
Type 05 |
|
|
|
|
Amphibious Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle |
式两栖装甲侦察车 |
The Armoured reconnaissance variant, equipped with telescopic mast with electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) system, a laser-range finder, and an X-band radar. The variant has 12.7 mm heavy machine gun turret for defense. |
|
Type 05 |
|
|
|
|
Amphibious Armored Command Vehicle |
式两栖装甲指挥车 |
The mobile command and control variant, equipped with field communication and battle management system. |
|
Type 05 |
|
|
VS25 |
|
Amphibious Armored Recovery Vehicle |
式两栖装甲抢救车 |
The armoured recovery vehicle variant, equipped with a crane, hydraulic winch for emergency vehicle recovery. Additional handrail is installed on the top for ease of operation in the water. |
|
Type 05 |
GSL132 |
|
|
|
Assault Breach Vehicle |
式两栖装甲破障车 |
The mine clearance assaults vehicle variants. It is equipped with mine plow, mine detection device, Clear Lane Marking system, 8 tube obstacle clearing rockets, and rocket-projected mine clearing line charge (MICLIC). |
|
Type 05 |
|
|
|
|
Amphibious Armored Ambulance |
式两栖装甲救护车 |
Armored ambulance variant based on Type 05 command vehicle chassis, providing frontline medical support and evacuation.[23] The armored ambulance features emergency ventilator, air conditioning, monitoring, and shock-absorbing double bunk beds. |
According to Jane’s data from June 2023, the Type 05 Assault Gun type (ZTD-05) is operated by the PLAN at 350 vehicles and also operated by the PLA Army (PLAA) at 670 vehicles. The Type 05 Infantry Fighting Vehicle (ZBD-05) is operated by the PLAN at 152 vehicles and PLAA at 672 vehicles. It seems as though these quantities might not fill out their order of battle, deliveries are likely to continue, per the analysis below.
Despite the Chinese defense industry’s efforts to develop world-class amphibious armored vehicles, external factors may diminish the PLA’s ability to effectively use these vehicles in an invasion of Taiwan, including the PLAN’s sealift capacity, the weather conditions and sea state in the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan’s geography, among others. For example, experts have assessed that the PLAN does not have enough landing ships to sufficiently support a cross-strait invasion. Estimates of the PLAN’s current fleet suggest that it is capable of generating enough sealift for around 670 ZTD-05 amphibious assault vehicles, which is nowhere near enough sealift for the number of amphibious armored vehicles operated by the PLAA’s six amphibious combined arms brigades under the 72nd, 73rd, and 74th group armies. As noted earlier in this report, the 48 amphibious assault gun companies and 48 amphibious mechanized infantry companies under these brigades are estimated to operate roughly 1,340 vehicles at full strength, not to mention the other amphibious armored vehicles present in these brigades and the PLANMC’s amphibious armored vehicles. PLAA coastal defense forces are expected to supplement the PLAN’s sealift with their landing craft, but these craft are reportedly “older, smaller, and slower” than PLAN vessels, and so experts have suggested that “watercraft units must modernize to provide more reliable cross-strait lift options to the PLA”. Moreover, PLAA coastal defense landing craft are likely optimized for delivering forces to the shore rather than deploying amphibious armored vehicles on the sea. China has also been experimenting with using its civilian merchant fleet to provide further sealift PLA forces, including Type-05 amphibious armored vehicles, but the use of civilian vessels would very likely create additional challenges for the PLA.
This imbalance between the supply of sealift and demand for sealift by these amphibious vehicles might describe why the Chinese are experimenting with civilian RO-RO vessels launching amphibious ships from some distance away from the shore.
Thanks for reading, and for your comments!
We are sold out of the book Attrition. Oddly enough, in the last two weeks I have received three orders for it. I kind of hate to not respond to a request. So, we are talking to the Dupuy family to find out what it would cost to print another 100-200 copies.
We sold 54 copies over the last nine or so years, and now suddenly have three new orders. I suspect because of the war in Ukraine, more people are looking at the losses in conventional combat. This is about the best summary of the subject out there. We did sell 16 copies in nine months recently. I guess I could write an Attrition II, which I think would have value. Not sure that will be my next book project.
Anyhow, you can kind find Attrition on Amazon for $177 to up to $3,417: Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War by Trevor N. Dupuy (1996-02-03): Trevor N. Dupuy: Amazon.com: Books. We were selling our copies for $19.95. I will sell my desk copy for $3K, if anyone is willing to pay.
Anyhow, I did try to warn everyone it was selling out:
We have sold out of Attrition – The Dupuy Institute
We our down to our last 16 copies of Attrition – The Dupuy Institute
We do have other books for sale: Books – The Dupuy Institute
Another blog post from William “Chip” Sayers. The opinions presented are his own, and he is not shy. My one editorial comment is in brackets.
The blog post and William F. Owen article he references is here: The Manoeuvre Warfare Fraud ? – The Dupuy Institute and The Manoeuvre Warfare Fraud | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University
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On (Maneuver) War
Recently, Chris brought up an article entitled, “The Maneuver Warfare Fraud” by William F. Owen. That took me back to a bright summer day in 1998 when I was walking through the Gray Research Center on my way to class at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College (C&SC) in Quantico, Virginia. Imagine my surprise as a Department of Defense civilian and former Air Force officer when I ran across a shrine to USAF Colonel and fighter pilot John Boyd! It had a mannequin wearing his flight suit, sporting his Fighter Weapons School patch and his squadron scarf the Navy loves to laugh at (they have no room to boast with their mock turtlenecks). I was unaware that morning of the Marines’ obsession with Maneuver Warfare, but I was about to be indoctrinated. I not only attended C&SC, but I stayed to attend the second-year course, the School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW) and, risking questions about my judgment, I went back after a decade to finish my trifecta at Marine Corps War College (MCWAR). I have given my academic resumé to impress upon the reader that I was essentially raised in the belly of the beast, as it were.
While I was vaguely aware of the concept, its attachment to Bill Lind and the “Military Reform” movement of the 1970s and 80s put me off, so I hadn’t — until my arrival at Command & Staff — studied the concept. It would be fair to say that I was skeptical that Lind and Co. had come up with something new in the way of warfare.
From its early days, the nascent Military Reform movement (or “Fighter Mafia” as they styled themselves, then) was mostly concerned with the disastrously wrong concepts of tactical aircraft procurement. In the wake of the Vietnam War — where sophisticated U.S. interceptors were perceived to have difficulty with basic MiGs — the Reformers believed implicitly that cheaper, simpler aircraft were better than more sophisticated and expensive aircraft. One of the Reformers went so far as to say that the Air Force could buy five 1950s-era F-5 day-fighters armed with basic weapons for the price of one F-15. He went on to project that the simple F-5 could fly twice as many sorties as the more complex aircraft, and therefore an F-5 force could be 10 times as effective as an F-15 based force — implying that buying a fleet of F-5s five times larger than the planned F-15 buy was a valid option.
There were several things wrong with such simplistic thinking. First, by the time that the Reformers were making this argument in the late 1970s, the issues they had with the USAF’s fighter force were being solved by the F-15: the new aircraft had an effective radar that was simple to use, it had great visibility and the agility to match it, and it had weapons that proved to be far more reliable and deadly by a shift to solid-state electronics. It was as if the Reformers were stuck in the previous war, having failed to learn the lessons the USAF was rapidly integrating.
The Reformers, overly proud of their USAF fighter community origins, seemingly failed to understand that the F-5 was a day fighter, unable to fight for air superiority in typical European weather. As long as the Soviets intended to invade only on sunny days, we would be fine. Finally, we most certainly would not replace the intended F-15 fleet on a 5 to 1 basis. In fact, the infrastructure required to support such a large fleet of aircraft in an era of irresponsibly low defense spending strained credulity to the breaking point. It is virtually a given that their biggest fan, Senator Gary Hart [Hartpence] (no relation to B. H. Liddell Hart), and others like him would have made sure the exchange would have been 1 for 1, leaving the Soviets with an overwhelming advantage in numbers and at least parity in aircraft quality. Fortunately, clearer minds prevailed and the F-15 program went forward unchecked.
Two other programs were influenced by this group: The F-16 and the A-10. When the F-15 program got away from them, the Fighter Mafia claim to have “forced” the Air Force to hold a Light-Weight Fighter competition. The truth is that, after the Fighter Mafia successfully imposed their “Not a pound for air-to-ground!” policy on the F-15 program to ensure that it was a single-mission air superiority aircraft, the USAF was going to need somebody to haul its bombs. The winner of the LWF competition was going to be a multi-role fighter from the outset. The Fighter Mafia was overjoyed that the prototype YF-16 had a nose that was “too pointy” to house a radar. However, General Dynamics and Hughes conspired to dash their hopes when the F-16A appeared on the ramp with a slightly larger nose that housed a miniaturized, but very capable multi-mode radar.
Shattered by two losses in a row, the Fighter Mafia made sure that the A-10 program included none of the modern conveniences — no avionics, no laser-guided bombs, no hydraulics, and no hope on the modern battlefield. While the F-15 and F-16 defied the Military Reformers’ doomsaying throughout the 1990s, the A-10A proved unable to withstand a 1970s-era air defense system manned by Iraqis and its perceived success was due entirely to the AGM-65 Maverick missile. In the early 2000s, the Air Force finally admitted defeat and upgraded the entire fleet to A-10C standard by putting in all of the avionics that the Fighter Mafia so assiduously avoided in the 1970s.
With Senator Gary Hart and other acolytes on Capitol Hill joining the fight, Bill Lind — then a legislative aide for Hart — joined forces with the Fighter Mafia and transformed the crusade into the Military Reform movement. The movement now had clout, media attention and, briefly, the influence to take on not just major programs, but the institutions themselves. Make no mistake, once politicized, the movement was more about slashing the Defense budget than it was about improving the fighting capabilities of the U.S. Armed Forces.
The Reformers next took on the U.S. Army’s the M-247 Sgt York DIVAD Self-Propelled Antiaircraft Gun (SPAAG) and the M-2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) was established by Congress — largely through the influence of Sen. Hart and the Reformers — to test weapon systems under “combat” conditions including “live” fire against vehicles. In the past forty years, DOT&E has proven to be useful, but its first several projects were sketchy, at best.
First, the Reformers set their sights on the Sgt York. The M-247 was the poster-child for off-the-shelf procurement: the hull and powertrain were repurposed from obsolete M-48 Patton tanks, the 40mm Bofors guns were 1950s-era upgrades of the famed WWII weapons, and the radar was from the F-16 fighter aircraft. Surely this was a weapon the Reformers would love. Not so. The stories of its test failures were the stuff of legends, almost too outlandish to be true — the gun locked on to latrine fans, slewed towards the grandstands, drones had to be equipped with radar reflectors to allow them to be tracked, etc., etc. As it happens, I had the opportunity to interview one of the test personnel and it turns out, the stories were too good to be true. None of the stories were true as related — most had the barest kernel of truth in them. Nevertheless, SECDEF Cap Weinberger was in trouble with Congress for “never having met a weapon he didn’t like,” so after all the bad press, he offered up the Sgt York as a sacrificial lamb.
The tests on the Bradley IFV were immortalized by the James G. Burton book and subsequent TV movie, The Pentagon Wars. Burton was a USAF Lieutenant Colonel at DOT&E and conducted the tests on the Bradley. While it may have been commendable that the test director was outside the Army’s chain of command in order to insure objectivity, Lt Col Burton displayed a distinct lack of understanding of the tactics associated with IFVs when he subjected the Bradley to live fire tests by Main Battle Tank (MBT) guns and Antitank Guided Missiles (ATGMs). The Bradley was not designed to stand up to rounds larger than 30mm, so when hit by rounds over three times that size, the results were predictable. Nevertheless, Burton recommended that the Bradley be better protected by rearranging ammunition and fuel stowage and adding armor. Of course, this led to an increase in weight which slowed the vehicle’s tactical mobility and led directly to its loss of amphibious capability and several infantrymen. In the desert against incompetent and demoralized Iraqi troops, this loss of capability went unnoticed. It can be imagined, however, that the inability to cross rivers or keep up with friendly tanks might have directly led to great deal more casualties in a war in Europe. Burton could have complained that the Army’s IFV should have had the same survivability as the M-1 tank and have had a legitimate point: Who came up with the idea that 10 Americans in an IFV deserved less protection than four Americans in a tank?
Operation DESERT STORM proved the Reform movement wrong about U.S. weapons on virtually every point. However, by this time, Bill Lind had put together his theory of Maneuver Warfare and captured the mind of the Marine Corps. One of the great issues I’ve always had with the Marines’ fascination was Lind’s promotion of the German concept of Auftragstaktik. This concept calls for the pushing decisions concerning the battle down to the lowest possible level and trusting the man at the leading edge to act not just autonomously, but even in defiance of orders based on his superior understanding of the battle. This requires a phenomenal amount of trust in one’s subordinates. The problem is that it is simply inconceivable that any U.S. military officer would actually give a subordinate that kind of freedom and responsibility. Yet, my classmates at Quantico greatly admired the German system, seemingly unaware of the irony.
Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, one time British Green Party shadow Defence Minister, wrote a masterful PhD thesis expounding the virtues of Maneuver Warfare and Auftragstaktik, published as Not Mentioned in Despatches… Fitz-Gibbon made an incredibly detailed study of the Battle of Goose Green in the 1982 Falklands War, showing conclusively that LtCol. “H.” Jones, the commander of the British 2Paras, was a maniacally anal-retentive micro-manager who was actually losing the battle until he was killed — leaving his subordinates the freedom to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat. I’m afraid most U.S. officers are more likely to resemble H. Jones than a Rommel or Guderian. A brutal realization, but admitting the illness is halfway to the cure.
Suffice it to say, nothing the Marines taught or said changed my mind. I remain a skeptic for the exact reasons William Owen describes in his article. Essentially, Owen argues that “Maneuver Warfare” is not only nothing new, it’s not actually in automatic opposition to the Reformers’ construct of “Attrition Warfare.” I always felt that no one in their right mind would choose a bloody frontal attack when a flanking or envelopment maneuver was available, i.e., no one chooses to be an attritionist. When my Marine buddies boasted that the USMC was a maneuver organization as opposed to the enemy — the U.S. Army — who were cast as slaves to attrition warfare. I retorted rather pointedly that in Vietnam, the Marines pummeled the Army for wanting to fix the enemy with infantry and destroy him with artillery and air strikes, as opposed to their doctrine of fixing bayonets and breaking out the grenades. Who was the maneuver force and who was the attritionist, then? In reply, I got a thoughtful “huh.”
In agreement with Owen, I believe the “Maneuver vs. Attritional Warfare” paradigm is a construct that commits the false dichotomy fallacy. The commander in the field does not necessarily need to decide between maneuver and firepower. In fact, the best outcomes happen when he uses both. It’s Tactics 101: one fireteam lays down a base of fire to suppress the enemy and keep their heads down. while the second uses that cover to maneuver to the enemy’s flank or rear and finish the job at close range. Of course, there’s more to Maneuver Warfare than this — I spent my year in SAW contemplating 2,000 years of dirty tricks to use in combat and trying to invent new ones to add to the catalog. While I’m not sure our Army School of Advanced Military Studies counterparts couldn’t keep up with us, this fits into the general maneuverist outlook.
The students in my C&SC class received, along with a small mountain of other volumes, the famous “box of books” which bundled together the slim Marine Corps Doctrinal Publications. I generally agree with Owen’s critique of Marine Corps doctrinal publications. While on the surface, they appear to be well written and clear overall, Owen points out points of weak logic in their doctrine and internal contradictions.
My Command and Staff thesis took the Marine Corps to task for the disconnects in the planning process — particularly when it came to wargaming Courses Of Action (COAs) in the face of doctrine that incessantly claimed that warfare was completely unpredictable. To this I replied that if warfare is so thoroughly chaotic, “who could say if a single elephant might not rout an entire phalanx, or a determined Cub Scout Pack might not be an appropriate weapon to stop an armored division?” Nevertheless, wargaming was an important step in the planning process. Most of my classmates got to that point, simply assumed success and drove on, thus obviating the reason for wargaming COAs in the first place. Apparently, no one ever assumed failure and its consequences. I had a sense of irony that we were attending a planning school that ultimately didn’t believe in planning.
In my two years of working with Marines solving planning problems, I learned that, despite their love affair with Maneuver Warfare, they tended to solve their problems in conventional ways, including some that simply required frontal attacks. As an outsider (civilian with an Air Force background), I threw out numerous solutions that would have caused the Marines to either make unconventional use of their own resources (making the Aviation Combat Element the main effort and using the Ground Combat Element to act in a support role), or to allow outside agencies (allowing Dept. of State and CIA psychological operations to take the lead and reinforcing their actions with maneuver driven by their narratives). The part of Maneuver Warfare that they did generally respect was a whole-of-government approach and at least a toleration of out-of-the-box thinking.
Owen’s reading of Sun-Tsu is interesting. To say that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting” is really referring to diplomacy is, to put it charitably, a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, after over 2,000 years, I find Sun Tzu more interesting as poetry than strategy. It may have been a revelation in his day (though I’ll bet it was not), but it’s already “baked in” to our current military culture.
Owen believes that some of the inspiration for Maneuver Warfare has been either misinterpreted or greatly overblown. Marshal Ferdinand Foch of WWI Western Front infamy serves as a whipping boy for the Maneuverists, but according to Owen, wrote military theory that clearly inspired — if not plagiarized by — Maneuverist hero B. H. Liddell Hart (no relation to U.S. Senator Gary Hart). Owen’s revelation about the Foch/Liddell Hart connection confirmed my belief that the latter’s work was derivative and self-aggrandizing. Given the number of times I’ve suffered through Strategy, it was nice to uncover this little gem. Our modern notions of how much we need someone to save us by pronouncing a new strategy largely comes from Liddell Hart and others like him who looked back to WWI’s Western front, when they might better have paid attention to the Eastern and Southern fronts that were far more mobile.
I was forced to endure Liddell Hart at least twice during my Marine Corps schooling and I will never forgive them for that. Like Lind, Liddell Hart passes off weak and obvious ideas as revolutionary principles. His “man in the dark” theory (Clausewitz beat him by 100 years with “the fog of war”) is about as sophisticated as a middle-school football game, while his “expanding torrent” is just embarrassing.
Owen is skeptical of John Boyd and his OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and this is where Owen and I part ways. I’m no fan of Boyd — he was a self-important blowhard — but he did have two excellent ideas, both relating to his background as a fighter pilot. He developed the theory of Energy Maneuverability, measuring the difference between two aircraft’s relative advantages in “dogfighting.” Contrary to claims by Maneuver Warfare advocates, Boyd didn’t invent EM — fighter pilots have always thought in those terms — rather, the engineer in him devised a way to define the differences more precisely and display them graphically in a reasonably easy to digest manner. To be perfectly honest, the EM diagrams his formulae generates are still too complex to be useful in the cockpit but rather must be studied as homework before the battle. And mostly, it comes down to a pilot planning to fight a given opponent above or below a certain airspeed.
One can imagine a time when EM diagrams are loaded into an aircraft’s fire-control computer and compared to data from its Non-Cooperative Target Recognition data to advise the pilot how to duel his opponent. In fact, this is probably the best way to have unmanned, AI-driven aircraft take on other aircraft in combat.
Undoubtedly, Boyd’s biggest contribution was his concept of the OODA loop. During his time as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, Boyd observed that he could out-maneuver enemy MiGs despite the fact that, on paper, the MiG-15 should have been superior to his F-86. He found that while the F-86 had hydraulically-boosted controls, the MiG did not. This allowed the F-86 pilot to roll more rapidly than the MiG, so while the MiG-15 should have been able to turn tighter, it could not keep up with the American fighter in rapid changes of direction. The F-86 could roll one way, and the MiG would be delayed in following due to the MiG pilot’s reaction time and not being able to roll as quickly. Then the USAF pilot would roll the opposite direction, putting the MiG pilot further behind in his reaction. After a few direction changes, the MiG would be so inappropriately positioned that he would pop out in front of the American fighter. This was described as a “scissors” maneuver.
Boyd correctly deduced that, even without the advantage in hydraulically-boosted controls, the pilot who takes decisive action quickly can force his opponent into a reactive mode where his actions become increasingly inappropriate to the actual situation. The true genius was that Boyd recognized that this could be applied to other forms of warfare, and that the U.S. Marine Corps has applied it to its land warfare doctrine. The concept of momentum has always existed in military science — Clausewitz called it “surprise attack,” but in context, it clearly carried the idea of momentum. His famous dictum that “defense is the stronger form of warfare” was due in no small part to the defender’s diligent use of counterattacks.[1] His concept of the culmination of an attack is pinned to two things: inadequate logistics and counterattacks.[2] Put these two discussions together and you get the concept of momentum and its variability.
Boyd believed that when a side built up sufficient momentum, the opponent would become so deeply reactive that it could do nothing to stave off defeat. The Marines believe this and depend on seizure of the initiative and rapid maneuver to win victories over opponents that aren’t mentally prepared to keep up. This is a good construct, particularly well suited to American visions of “hyperwar,” as waged in the 1990s. Now that the forever wars are over, the U.S. military is trying to remember how to do peer, or near-peer force-on-force combat. They would do well to concentrate on this legacy and recreate what we once had. This will not be an easy lift, however, as only a small percentage of active-duty military members were serving prior to the great switchover to a single-minded focus on counterinsurgency.
[1] Clausewitz, On War, Howard, Paret & Brodie, Book Six, Chapters 2 & 3, 360, 363 and 365-366.
[2] Ibid, Book Seven, Chapters 4 & 5, 527-528.
In our internal discussions, even though several of us could only find the means for China to lift 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Taiwan in the first wave, there was always people quoting from a range of sources that were saying something far different (see: The Chinese amphibious lift capacity – The Dupuy Institute). Who were those sources, what were they saying and why were they saying that? We are looking to 20-30K in a first wave, these guys are claiming hundreds of thousands or more. So what is the difference?
First: There was a 2,000,000 invasion force projected by writers for USNWC back in 2001. Big difference between 2 million and 20K.
To quote (my bolding):
“China has a large merchant fleet, with an enormous capacity for personnel and cargo. Its fifty naval amphibious ships and between two hundred and 350 landing craft, however, would be utterly unable to carry the entire combined-arms force. …
Extract of text is here:
The critical argument is here:
Meanwhile, the Chinese merchant fleet could be transporting upward to two million troops, in regular passenger ships and on cargo vessels temporarily adapted for troops…
They do footnote this last claim:
So basically they state that:
I really don’t take this claim seriously. Counting the entire Chinese commercial fleet as an amphibious asset is a reach, to say the least.
Another blog post from William “Chip” Sayers:
—————-
Week before last, Russia launched what was probably a small number of RS-26 Rubezh Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) at the city of Dnipro in Ukraine.[1] There are a number of interesting points to this incident, as well as a number of misconceptions. Let’s try to make sense of this strike.
First, a lot of cages have been rattled over the fact that this is the first time an IRBM has been fired in anger. The reason why this is a cage-rattling event is that IRBMs in general are a nuclear weapons delivery system, and the launch of an IRBM could, in theory, trigger a nuclear response by an interested party on the other side. This goes to the Cold War doctrine of “launch on warning” — in other words, to launch one’s own nuclear missiles when the enemy’s incoming missiles are detected on radar (“warning”), but before they have struck their targets.
Under this scenario, Russia might launch a small number of IRBMs at Ukraine, and when US sensors detected this, the American President would mistakenly interpret this as a nuclear attack on the United States and launch the US nuclear arsenal at Russia. At this point, the Russians would then launch their nuclear missiles and we all go to hell in a little rowboat. I’m not certain as to why this might happen, particularly — as in this case — if the IRBMs are armed with something other than nuclear warheads.
Frankly, Putin was apparently fairly confident that such a limited strike would not trigger global thermonuclear war and, in this case, we crossed that threshold with no discernable harm. Unfortunately, it was a real threshold and Putin now has the leeway to use this new class of weapon with impunity. So, let’s unpack some facts about the weapon Putin used to fire this particular shot across the West’s bow.
The first thing to understand is that the SS-26 Rubezh — or “Oreshnik,” as Putin called it — is not an operational missile. Development of the system began in 2008, based on a two-stage version of the RS-24 Yars ICBM, with the first test launch in 2011.[2] The missile’s first successful test flew 5,800km, which technically qualified it to be called an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), i.e., a missile designed to strike the United States. However, all subsequent test flights have been to much shorter range, betraying its true purpose as an IRBM designed to attack European cities and therefore making it a violation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. It is not surprising that the missile that triggered the effort that culminated in the INF treaty — the SS-20 — was, itself, a cut-down version of a 1970s-era ICBM. [3] Interestingly, all four missiles are from the same design bureau, so everything old really is new again.
It was the SS-26, along with other blatant violations, that caused President Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the INF treaty in 2019.[4] Ironically, Russia suspended the SS-26 program, apparently due to the lack of adequate funding.[5] We can’t be entirely sure that Russian Rocket Forces general who announced the suspension was telling the truth, as opposed to misleading the West with disinformation. Nevertheless, it seems plausible that the RS-26 program was suspended, and that a small number of the test missiles have been in storage awaiting more funding to complete testing.
It is further plausible that, in anticipation of the US and NATO allies removing restrictions on Ukrainian use of Western weapons, Putin wanted an escalatory response to chill NATO and prevent further attacks on Russian soil. The unprecedented RS-26 shot fills that roll exactly. It remains to be seen as to how successful that signal will turn out to be.
So, what exactly did we see last week? Video images appear to show six distinct events with 4-6 ground impacts with each event. Of note, the reentry vehicles (RVs) or submunitions, as they’ve been described, did not appear to be explosive. We will discuss that in more detail, in a moment. The RS-26 has been commonly described as having four Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs.[6] Some analysts believed Putin’s statement that this was a single missile traveling at Mach 10 with six MIRVs, each with four to six submunitions. One went so far as to make a rough estimate that one of these submunitions, weighing 100kg, would deliver the equivalent energy of a Mk 84 2,000lb bomb through kinetic energy, alone.[7] Is this possible? Yes. Is it likely, No.
As we learn more about this attack, we may find that it was, indeed, a single missile. However, my immediate reaction was that this was six missiles with four Multiple Reentry Vehicles (MRVs), each. As the name somewhat obliquely implies, MRVs and not independently targetable, but rather are fired as a barrage at a single area target. Certainly, if they were MIRVs, their independent targeting capability was wasted. More to the point, ballistic missiles are all about throw-weight, and a MIRV Post-Boost Vehicle (PBV), or “bus” — the final maneuvering stage that drops off MIRVs on trajectories toward different targets — is a heavy and complicated piece of machinery.[8] Having a MIRV bus on a missile that was loaded with MRVs is a huge waste of throw-weight: it would be better to download the bus and use the extra weight allowance for more, or larger MRVs. According to CSIS, the RS-26 has a total warhead lift capability of 800kg.[9] If CSIS’s estimate is accurate, the missile could never lift 3,600kg of MIRVs — unlikely even with the bus offloaded.
Particularly unlikely seems to be the idea that these were MIRVs with submunitions. What would be the point? This would only add complexity and unnecessary weight to the missile. No missile has ever been tested with multiple reentry vehicles that split open to release submunitions. A reentry vehicle designed to split open seems like a summons to disaster — a seam between parts of the aeroshell sounds like an invitation for hot plasma to enter the RV during reentry. More to the point, what purpose could submunitions possibly serve? Why not make each submunition an RV of its own and forego the extra complexity of packaging them into a larger MRV?
Putin claimed that there is no way to defend against the RS-26. He referenced the missile’s Mach 10 hypersonic speed and implied that it had Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles (MaRV) to evade defenses. Generally speaking, the longer-ranging the ballistic missile, the higher the speed of the RVs. Yes, travelling on the end of an IRBM, the RVs will come downhill at Mach 10, or better. No, what we saw in the video did not reflect MaRVs — and it is highly unlikely that all of the elements that have been claimed for the missile (MaRVs with submunitions, etc.) could be combined.
Hypersonic speeds are nothing new, nor particularly remarkable. The Soviet’s SS-1c SCUD SRBM dating back to the late 1950s reached hypersonic speeds, but even Patriot SAMs were able to shoot them down. Hypersonic missiles with MaRVs can be a problem for missile defenses, though maneuvering decreases accuracy and bleeds off speed, so there are limits to what they can do. Mach 10 non-maneuvering warheads are certainly not easy targets, but most experts acknowledge that the US Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles are technically capable, the Navy’s SM-3 are capable, and the Army’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense missile are certainly capable of shooting down the RS-26. So, Putin’s boast that there is no defense against the RS-26 rings hollow.
In sum, the use of the RS-26 in Ukraine marks a provocative, though not revolutionary event. Putin risked much in using an IRBM in combat for the first time, but the weapon did not visibly achieve much on the ground, and probably cannot easily be reproduced, given its likely status as a developmental program that has been suspended. This was almost a move of desperation to signal Putin’s unpredictability and willingness to use measures that test the limits of rationality. We shouldn’t be impressed.
[1] What is RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM, range and can Russians really launch it?, Indiatvnews.com, 21Nov24, https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/world/what-is-rs-26-rubezh-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-or-icbm-range-and-can-russians-really-launch-it-dnipro-2024-11-21-962729. Accessed 23Nov24.
[2] Stefan Forss, “Russia’s New Intermediate Range Missiles – Back to the 1970s,” Atlantic Council, April 6, 2017
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/russia-s-new-intermediate-range-missiles-back-to-the-1970s. Accessed 24Nov24.
[3] https://russianforces.org/blog/2013/12/more_news_about_rs-26_missile.shtml. Accessed 24Nov24.
[4] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/25/russia-violating-1987-nuclear-missile-treaty/ Accessed 25Nov24;
[5] https://russianforces.org/blog/2018/04/by_cancelling_rs-26_russia_kee.shtml Accessed 24Nov24; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/20/trump-us-nuclear-arms-treaty-russia Accessed 25Nov24.
[6] RS-26 Rubezh, Wikipedia, Accessed 26Nov24.
[7] “Now I’m Really Scared: The New Oreshnik Missile Attack on Dnipro,” Millenium7* History Tech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL7Hb0fcpbU. Accessed 25Nov24.
[8] Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee, Ballistic And Cruise Missile Threat 2017, 9.
[9] Missiles of the world — Russia — “RS-26 Rubezh,” Missile Threat – CSIS Missile Defense Project, https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/ss-x-31-rs-26-rubezh/ Accessed. 27Nov24.
The following article is from Alexandru Filip of the Canadian Center for Strategic Studies:
——
During our discussion sessions on 13 and 37 November on the topic of Taiwan, a further exchanged developed regarding the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force’s significant missile stocks and the effects it may have in a war.
While there is a vast amount of research and data on this topic, transposing these predictions to Taiwan would perhaps require a greater simulation which can account for the complexities of the relationship between A2/AD systems, the aerial systems in use (whether it is an aircraft or missile), and the targets on the ground.
Before a deeper dive (which will follow in further blog posts), we should propose a basis of general principles derived from previous incidents. While these can serve to create guiding assumptions of how this phase of operations may unfold, when simulated, it is indeed possible that we find differences between the Taiwanese situation and historical precedent.
These principles:
-Despite a marked superiority in both quality and quantity of air assets, gaining air superiority will not be a simple task; it will require planning, and a significant number of assets for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. As evidenced by Russia’s war in Ukraine, in which the Russian Air Force has struggled to holds air superiority over more than just certain portions of Ukraine.
-PLAAF air superiority efforts can be blunted by Ground-Based-Air-Defense led interdiction. As we have seen in Vietnam, where many of U.S. combat losses were caused by AAA fire, and SAMs.
-Taiwan should endeavor to replicate the relative success of Serbian Air Defense Forces against NATO, in Kosovo. The mountainous terrain, and the densely forested areas provide ample opportunity for dispersing, and camouflaging air-to-ground assets so as to hamper PLAAF attempts at conducting Suppression of Enemy Air Defense missions. The outcome in Kosovo was that: “NATO reportedly fired 743 HARMs during the course of the 78-day campaign, but could confirm the destruction of only three of the original 25 SA-6 batteries. At the same time, over 800 SAMs were fired by Yugoslav forces at NATO aircraft, including 477 SA-6s and 124 confirmed MANPADS, for the downing of only two aircraft and several more damaged.”
-Air power and missile strikes will similarly not be capable of degrading Taiwanese ground assets or air assets to the point of ineffectiveness. Robert Pape’s “Bombing to Win” demonstrates that, in the Gulf War, despite overwhelming air superiority and an extended air campaign a combined air effort did not coerce Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. While it did attrit Iraqi armour, it did not render Iraqi forces entirely ineffective, and a ground invasion was still necessary.
-Dispersal of air assets into hardened shelters, which obscure the aircraft from satellite imagery, the use of decoys, underground hangars, and a raising of the air force to prevent destruction on the ground during a missile salvo would all raise the cost for the PLA Rocket Forces. This will also have the effect of forcing the PLA to dedicate further strike capability to targets on the ground. The ROCAF will still suffer damage. Yet, just as in Ukraine losses on the ground can be prevented even against an enemy which yields a significant strike capability.
-The destruction of runways, while easily repaired under relatively peaceful conditions (as was the case in Israel after the Iranian strike), will be more difficult under constant PLA strikes. Thus, the ROCAF will likely shift to road-based runways (as they have trained to do), and aircraft armed with air-superiority loadouts (lighter) will require shorter segments of runway.
-The PLA Rocket Force is likely to focus strike assets on population centers, with the aim of attracting Taiwanese air defense assets towards the protection of civilians. Just as we have seen in Ukraine, this in itself is a costly and complex endeavor which threatens to rapidly deplete missile stocks. Yet, just as in Ukraine, it may not be enough to break Taiwanese will, especially as a majority have claimed they are prepared to defend Taiwan.
A DF-11 (source: DF-11 | Weaponsystems.net).
More to come.
First of a series of blog posts from Geoffry Clark on modern missiles:
—————
Modern missiles – Russian, Chinese and American, Part 1
Mentioned in the previous post on the Zhuhai Air Show (see The Japanese Gifu and Chinese Zhuhai Airshows, 2024 – The Dupuy Institute), the Chinese PLA have revealed two new systems in 2024, the HQ-19 and DF-100. These systems are different types of missiles, generally known as Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) and Surface-to-Surface Missiles (SSM), respectively.
Image Credit: truexanewsua/Telegram
There was also a very notable development regarding SSMs in Ukraine recently; on November 22, 2024, the Russian Federation tested a new missile named “Oreshnik” (meaning “hazel”, referring to the shape of the luminescence of the re-entry vehicles). As reported by Voice of America:
Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported that the Oreshnik missile was launched from Russia’s Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in the Astrakhan region. The missile traveled for approximately 15 minutes before striking the city of Dnipro. The missile was equipped with six non-nuclear warheads, each containing six submunitions, and it achieved a speed of Mach 11 during its flight.
There is some confusion and debate about the classification of this missile, whether it was an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), or an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). This is just a matter of range category, which is just anachronistic jargon from the Soviet Cold War and arms control negotiations and treaties. Since that time, the U.S. has withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in October 2018, many claim since China is unbound by any arms control, and the U.S. saw a need to develop such mid-range ballistic missiles.
Then, in a video address by Russian President Vladimir Putin said:
There are “no means of countering such weapons today. Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second. Air defense systems currently available in the world and missile defense systems being created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. It is impossible.”
This high mach number is really what sets this type of missile apart. By comparison, the Chinese DF-100 missile (also known as CJ-100, and also by NATO as CH-SSC-13 Splinter) has a similar range to the Oreshnik (also known as the RS-26 Rubezh – The War Zone has a good explanation for the lineage), but these two missiles have very different speeds; the DF-100 is supersonic at about mach 4. The speed of these missiles – subsonic, supersonic, hypersonic – is directly proportional to the difficulty of interception.
So, there is debate about whether many advanced systems such as the American THAAD and certain missiles (especially the Standard Missile 3) from the Aegis system may be able to intercept such missiles. One new contender for this category is the Chinese HQ-19 SAM, which was apparently derived from the HQ-9, which was itself derived from the S-300 SAM of Russian design and build, and also widely used in the Ukraine War by both sides.
Image credit: VLS_Appreciator via twitter: https://twitter.com/VLS_Appreciator/status/1844408468452802602
HQ-19 at Zhuhai airshow 2024. (Image Credit: Twitter/David Wang)
I’ll briefly mention a few more important recent events which shed light on the state-of-the-art of missile defense.
A USAF awards ceremony on November 12 provided a number of details about how USAF squadron of F-15Es that was forward deployed to Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan, in order to defend Israel. Ward Carroll reports:
During the Iranian attack on Israel on April 13, 2024, the 494th Fighter Squadron launched 14 Strike Eagle sorties, including six aircraft scrambled at a moment’s notice, while base defenses simultaneously neutralized enemy threats overhead. Ultimately those F-15Es (along with those previously mentioned base defenses) successfully engaged and destroyed more than 80 kamikaze UAVs, out of more than 300 drone and missiles intended to strike Israel.
Apparently, this air defense effort included U.S., U.K., Israel and Jordan. What was public knowledge was the success of the Iron Dome, but there were apparently many other assets operating together to attrit the drones and missiles in their trajectories from Iran to targets in Israel.
And, finally, the statistics published by the Ukrainian Defense Forces about the Russian missiles used, and the rate at which they were intercepted.
Screen capture of video address by General Oleksandr Syrskyi via Odessa Journal.
Through the translation provided by the Odessa Journal, and through the identification of these missiles and the Harpoon V Admiralty Trilogy Annexes, I’ve attempted to describe these missiles in more detail.
|
Missile Name |
Missile Code |
NATO Code |
GRAU Code |
Type |
Flight path |
Range nmi |
Speed kts |
Weight kgm |
Signature |
Missiles |
Intercepted |
Rate % |
|
Kinzhal |
Kh-47M2 |
|
39K5 |
ASM |
Ballistic |
1080 |
4016 |
3800 |
Vsmall |
111 |
28 |
25% |
|
Kalibr |
|
SS-N-27 |
3M14 |
SSM |
Cruise |
865 |
600 |
|
Vsmall |
894 |
443 |
50% |
|
X-555/101 |
Kh-555 |
AS-15 |
|
ASM |
Cruise |
1620 |
400 |
1700 |
Vsmall |
1,846 |
1,441 |
78% |
|
X-555/101 |
Kh-101 |
AS-23A |
|
ASM |
Cruise |
2160 |
400 |
2500 |
Stealthy |
|||
|
Oniks |
P-800 |
SS-N-26 |
3M55 |
SSM |
Cruise |
165 |
1650 |
|
Vsmall |
211 |
12 |
6% |
|
Zircon |
|
SS-N-33 |
3M22 |
SSM |
Cruise |
187 |
3150 |
|
Stealthy |
6 |
2 |
33% |
|
Iskander-K |
|
|
9K720 |
SSM |
Ballistic |
500 |
5053 |
4615 |
Small? |
202 |
76 |
38% |
|
Iskander-M |
KN-23 |
|
9K720 |
SSM |
Ballistic |
500 |
5053 |
4615 |
Small? |
1,300 |
56 |
4% |
|
X-22/32 |
Kh-22 |
Burya |
|
ASM |
Cruise |
~200 |
2003 |
5900 |
Small |
362 |
2 |
1% |
|
Kh-32 |
|
|
ASM |
Cruise |
485 |
2160 |
5800 |
Vsmall |
||||
|
X-35 |
Uran |
SS-N-25 |
3M24 |
SSM |
Cruise |
65 |
580 |
|
Vsmall |
15 |
1 |
7% |
|
Tochka-U |
|
SS-21 |
9K79 |
SSM |
Ballistic |
~120 |
3500 |
2000 |
Small? |
68 |
6 |
9% |
|
X-25/29/31/35/58/59/60 |
Kh-25 |
AS-10 |
|
ASM |
Direct |
5 |
1360 |
295 |
Vsmall |
1,547 |
343 |
22% |
|
Kh-29 |
AS-14B |
|
ASM |
Direct |
8 |
792 |
690 |
Vsmall |
||||
|
Kh-31 |
AS-17 |
|
ASM |
Cruise ? |
86 |
1690 |
~700 |
Vsmall |
||||
|
Kh-35 |
AS-20 |
|
ASM |
Cruise |
71.5 |
560 |
520 |
Vsmall |
||||
|
Kh-58 |
AS-11 |
|
ASM |
Direct |
66 |
2065 |
650 |
Vsmall |
||||
|
Kh-59 |
AS-18 |
|
ASM |
Cruise |
~150 |
~550 |
930 |
Vsmall |
||||
|
Kh-60 |
AS-? |
|
ASM |
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
S-300/400 |
SA-N-6a/b |
|
|
SAM |
Ballistic ? |
~50 |
3885 |
|
Vsmall |
3,008 |
19 |
1% |
|
Other |
? |
|
? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
57 |
– |
0% |
There are reports that Russian Armed Forces are amassing large stockpiles of these missiles for future strikes.
In Part 2 of this analysis, I plan to give a few examples of these types of intercepts and illustrate the odds using the Harpoon V game system.
Thanks for reading, and for your comments!
A blog post on a potential Taiwan invasion from Geoffrey Clark:
The HAAC 2024 in October was great; lots of good analysts and analysis, presentations, and ideas for future work and collaboration. I’ll post the links to the two presentations that I gave here:
Data for Air Combat Modeling in Network Centric Warfare
A Naval Power Index: The United States vs Three Competitors
On November 13 and 27 2024, the HAAC community had meetings on the topic of Taiwan, regarding the sealift and airlift capabilities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). At these meetings, there were some differences of opinion about who much force the Chinese can place ashore, and also support. I’ll review some information that I’ve been assembling on this topic in this blog post.
Rather than using “PRC”, it might seem more natural to use People’s Liberation Army (PLA), by which they really mean “military”, since the Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force etc. all fall under this banner. This is insufficient, however, since there are several other organizations, and categories of equipment that need to be considered to cover all categories of lift capability that are available to the Chinese nation. We hear the U.S. government use terms like “whole of government”, but in reality, it also includes elements of the private sector as well. This is analogous to the U.S. structures, like the Merchant Marine, and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF).
The Swiss Institute on Global Affairs has a good structure chart of the Chinese Military, even if it is a bit dated from 2021. The China Power Project from CSIS also has a good chart from 2022. The most recent change detected is the new “Information Support Force”, which seems like an Information Technology (IT) unit than anything else.
The Chinese Military’s New Information Support Force
CNA, Annette Lee and James Bellacqua | Friday, August 2, 2024
This image above is taken from Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion. From this analysis, the following forces and elements should be considered at a minimum:
“With modernization reforms in 2016 by Xi [Jinping], the CMC [Central Military Commission] established Logistics Support department, and a new branch known as Joint Logistic Support Force, responsible for integrating C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) system, providing the foundation for a joint logistics support network.” – blog post by Bok Lee (see sources below)
Indeed, the pace at which Chinese shipyards are producing new civilian RO/RO vessels has increased significantly. From a China Power Project Report “China Accelerates Construction of ‘Ro-Ro’ Vessels, with Potential Military Implications” from 2023 October,
CSC Jinling Shipyard (招商局金陵船舶（南京）有限公司) far outpaces other ro-ro builders. Nestled along the Yangtze River near Nanjing, Jinling Shipyard specializes in producing ro-ros. It built at least 27 of them between 2015 and 2022, and it is currently poised to deliver as many as 56 from 2023 to 2026.
This cooperation between civilian ferry operators, shipyards and the PLA is not new, and not isolated. This is part of the Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which is well described below.
“Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), this term seems like a counterpart to the American term civil-military integration (CMI), but in reality it is far deeper and more complex. Whereas, according to the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, America’s CMI is “cooperation between government and commercial facilities in research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and/or maintenance operations”, China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy is a state-led, state-directed program and plan to leverage all levers of state and commercial power to strengthen and support the armed wing of the Communist Party of China, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).” – from CASI’s China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy (see sources below).
What was perhaps the most enlightening aspect of this survey of research was a paper written by Lyle Goldstein, former professor at the U.S. Naval War College, and also a contributor to CMSI (see sources below). In his paper “The hard school of amphibious warfare: examining the lessons of the 20th century’s major amphibious campaigns for contemporary Chinese strategy”, Goldstein details the research done by the PLA Academy of Military Science, which is tasked with the study of military history and developing military doctrine. From Gallipoli to Normandy, Crete, Norway, the Japanese in the Pacific War to the Inchon landings, as well as the aborted “Operation Sea Lion”, this paper lists the many amphibious and airborne campaigns they have studied, and the points that they have noted as significant.
“WW2, and Normandy in particular, provide Chinese strategists with ample inspiration, ranging from the Mulberries to airborne operations. Yet, the fact that Chinese military researchers have gone well beyond Normandy to explore the contours of Dieppe, the Norway campaign, Crete, as well as Guadalcanal and Tarawa, illustrates 12 L. GOLDSTEIN the comprehensive scope of the Chinese endeavor to learn from foreign military experience. The impressively objective account of the Inchon landing demonstrates that Chinese strategists are quite able to put ideology aside in the interest of grasping the fundamentals of well executed amphibious warfare.”
The abstract of this paper is below.
Increasing tensions across the Taiwan Strait have prompted many strategists to debate the nature of China’s amphibious warfare capabilities. While it is often noted that Beijing’s armed forces lack major, recent experience in that domain, this research reveals that Chinese strategists have undertaken intensive and systematic investigation of foreign experiences, including with respect to the most classic cases, such as the Normandy invasion. This study represents a first attempt to survey such Chinese strategic writings, in an effort to better understand the lessons that Chinese strategists take from these foreign campaigns. Themes that emerge from this Chinese literature include an emphasis on undersea warfare capabilities as a critical enabler for amphibious invasion, but an even greater prominence for air supremacy. The most persistent theme in this Chinese literature surrounds intelligence preparation, deception and, above all, surprise. Such findings have important policy implications for Asian security.
This paper also lists some actual experience by the PLA in amphibious operations, specifically the Jinmen and Yijiangshan battles. “The former turned out to be a disastrous bloodbath for the PLA, but the later amphibious landing proved remarkably successful, featuring massive firepower, excellent mutual support among the air, land and sea elements, timely coordination, and even meteorological innovation.”
One case from the 20th century that was not mentioned as having been studied is Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk in May and June of 1940. While this was a hastily organized evacuation with an ad-hoc and patriotic appeal to the British ship-owning population, a similar planning effort under the banner of “Military-Civilian Fusion”, as noted above, could find that the actual sealift capabilities employed to be more of an uncomfortable surprise.
These are some of the excellent scholarly works available that I would consider authoritative on this topic:
Thanks for reading and for your comments!
As a result of discussions at the Third HAAC and two follow-up meetings with participants, I ended up making five posts last week on Chinese amphibious lift capacity and their ability to invade Taiwan, They are:
The Chinese amphibious lift capacity – The Dupuy Institute
The load on PLA Navy Amphibious Assault Ships – The Dupuy Institute
Other Chinese landing craft – The Dupuy Institute
The RoRo Ships – The Dupuy Institute
The Chinese fishing fleet as an amphibious asset – The Dupuy Institute
The final paragraph from the last post:
Anyhow, as we stated in our original post on this subject, “China has the ability to land over 20,000 soldiers on Tawain on the first wave.” They can supplement that capability by 1) Seizing a working port, 2) running a hundred old landing craft across 100 miles of sea, 3) enlisting China’s commercial fleet of RoRo ships, 4) enlisting their fishing fleet. We have addressed each of these issues in our posts and will probably continue to discuss some of these in the following weeks. Our original post concluded with the statement “It is clear, based upon their military capabilities, they currently have no real plans to invade Taiwan.”
We will be making further posts this week and subsequent weeks on China and Taiwan, many prepared by other members of our “HAAC community meetings” on the subject.
