The Chinese amphibious lift capacity

During the Third HAAC a discussion developed over what is the amphibious lift capacity of the armed forces of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). This is, of course, directly related to the issue of whether China can successfully invade and conquer Taiwan. We then held follow-up discussions with some the HAAC attendees on the subject.  This is going to generate some new posts to the blog detailing out what we explored. But, let me summarize the tentative conclusions of the discussion here.

First, China has the ability to land over 20,000 soldiers on Taiwan on the first wave. This is not much considering the defending Taiwanese ground forces consist of over 100,000 active troops. China maybe be able to supplement that with 10,000 airmobile troops, but this is risky in a strong anti-air environment. They may be able to add other troops by use of commercial shipping and other means, but this is pretty uncertain.

Obviously on subsequent days, they can land another 20,000 or more troops, but we are looking at a week to build up an army capable to fully engaging the Taiwanese Army. In the meantime, Taiwan can mobilize hundreds of thousands of reserves. Added to that, Chinese reinforcements and resupply are subject to interdiction. While China has a lot of aircraft and missiles, so too does Taiwan if it is properly backed up by the United States. This invasion does not appear to be an “iffy” proposition, it appears to be one that will most likely fail.

Now, if China can directly seize a port and/or an airfield, then possibilities develop, but if Taiwan properly defends these locales, this is also a long shot. 

To successfully invade Taiwan China will need to be able to land a whole lot more troops on the first and subsequent waves. Nominally it has that capability with a large number of 50-year old landing craft. These are mostly not active and some are in civilian use as tugs and ferries. Furthermore these small landing craft have to traverse 100 miles of ocean at a speed of 8-12 miles per hour in a hostile environment. This is not promising. There are other options, like using merchant ships (and running them aground?), fishing fleets, etc. None of these are particularly promising for a modern mechanized army. 

Now China does have dozens of large roll-on, roll-off ferry ships that could be used to supplement their amphibious operations, but, they usually need a dock to unload at. This implies that any amphibious operation will have to start by seizing a port, which can be defended, and if taken, can be denied immediate use. These are really not first wave assets. Nominally they can provide additional over-the-beach lift capacity for an initial wave by loading them up with small landing craft and unloading the small craft offshore at sea, but there are still two limitations here: 1) they need small landing craft or amphibious vehicles, and 2) because they are in commercial use, activating them will give Taiwan weeks, if not months of notice. Taiwan’s reserves are 2.3 million people. See: China’s Secret Weapon in the Invasion of Taiwan: RoRo Ferries

It is clear that while China has maintained a modern Marine force with amphibious capability, they had not maintained the amphibious capability to invade Taiwan. Their Marine force is structured for use elsewhere, not Taiwan. It is clear, based upon their military capabilities, that they currently have no real plans to invade Taiwan.

This, of course, can change if the United States does not continue to support Taiwan or if Taiwan loses the desire to defend itself, but right now, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is not really practical given the limited Chinese first wave lift capacity.

We will be discussing the details of this on subsequent days: 

• Tues: The load on PLA Navy Amphibious Assault Ships
• Wed: Other Chinese landing craft
• Thu: The RoRo Ships
• Fri: The Chinese fishing fleet as an amphibious asset