We state is our post yesterday that “China has the ability land over 20,000 soldiers on Taiwan on the first wave.” Now three different people in our conference on 13 November independently did counts. They all ended up in the 20,000 to 25,000 range. Here is my count:
- 4 landing ship dock
- 28 helicopters each
- 800 troops each
- 12 amphibious transport docks
- 8 Yuzhao class (25,000 tons)
- 800 troops each
- 8 Yuzhao class (25,000 tons)
- 32 landing ships tanks
- 15 Yuting III class (4,800 tons)
- 250 troops or 10 armored vehicles
- 10 or 11 Yuting II class (4,800 tons)
- 250 troops or 10 armored vehicles
- 3 Yukan class (4,170 tons)
- 250 troops or 10 armored vehicles
- 33 landing ship medium
- 10 Yunshu class (2,000 tons)
- 500 troops or 5 to 10 tanks
- 1 Yudeng class (1,850 tons)
- One platoon and 4 tanks
- 11 Yubei class (700 tons)
- 250 troops
- 12 Yuhai class (700 tons)
- 350 troops or 2 tanks
- 1 Yulu class (800 tons)
- 200 troops
- 10 Yunshu class (2,000 tons)
- 15 Yuting III class (4,800 tons)
Some math:
- People: 21,750
- 4 x 800 = 3,200
- 8 x 800 = 6,400
- 10 x 500 = 5,000
- 11 x 250 = 2,750
- 12 x 350 = 4,200
- 1 x 200 = 200
- Vehicles: 284
- 15 x 10 = 150
- 10 x 10 = 100
- 3 x 10 = 30
- 1 x 4 = 4
Now, carrying vehicles versus personnel is an either-or proposition. You could choose to carry more people and less vehicles. It is a tradeoff. I made some assumptions, as modern armies don’t like to go to war without vehicles.
Now, all these calculations are too high. You will also want to land supplies and support material in the initial wave. This is not an insignificant portion of the load. In some operations, it has made up to half the load of the initial wave. So, the figure of 20,000 is an upper limit. If they actually did it, the real figures will probably be lower.
This also assumes that the initial landing wave is not intercepted, attrited, or otherwise seriously attacked. This is hard to do in the current intelligence environment, especially with U.S. support. It is hard to believe that a hostile incoming amphibious wave would not be hit by volleys of missiles and drones.
Further posts will address the rest of the PLA’s amphibious assets.
It also suggests that an operation of that size would be very hard to conceal.
81 medium to large scale troop transports plus the escorting force would be quite conspicuous. All of which leads me to suspect that China is not going to launch an invasion anytime soon unless the Taiwanese and US defending forces have been severely attrited first.
Yes, there are multiple scenarios that could be gamed out:
1) China achieves absolute surprise
2) China achieves strategic surprise but not tactical surprise (meaning they are facing incoming missiles, aircraft, etc.).
3) China does not achieve surprise (meaning that the Taiwanese reserves are mobilizing).
But, our first question is what their actual lift capacity?
Interesting figures.
It suggests the PRC would still have ample troops to overwhelm Penghu (the “island fortress” off the south west coast of Taiwan) as a preliminary move without invading Taiwan itself.. What do you think?
I have some questions:
1. Does the term “landing ship dock” used for the first types mean they are floating docks and can be used by a following wave of ships for unloading further ships carrying troops?
2. Do the ships need to unload troops into landing barges before they get to the beach or can they go straight onto the beach?
Well, I gather you guys are going to game out some Penghu scenarios. The problem is that taking Penghu does not get China Taiwan, so I never considered that as a viable strategy.
The two sets of ships called “Landing ship dock” are four small carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_075_landing_helicopter_dock and eight Yuzhao class ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_071_amphibious_transport_dock
The carriers has a “floodable well deck from which to disembark hovercraft and armored amphibious assault vehicles.” The Yuzhao class ships carry four hovercraft, can unload ZBD-05 IFVs and ZTD-05 light tanks, and carry a number of good old fashioned landing craft.
These are both modern amphibious warfare craft.
Clinton,
An LSD is a “dock” ship because it has the ability to ballast-down to flood its dock area and float out landing craft (usually LCMs or medium-size hovercraft like our LCAC).
Generally speaking, anything larger than an LST is not capable of beaching, so LPDs, LHDs, Ro/Ros, etc. must launch landing craft of one sort or another to get cargo over the beach.
Taiwan has potentially more than 2 million reservists, and have extended the mandatory conscript period from 4 months to 1 year. So the latest conscripts, soon to be reservists, will be much more useful than some in the past.
Unless you completely rule out an invasion of the mainland as part of your tactics, it is hard to see a gradualist approach, which gives Taiwan time to call up its reserves, a good idea. The importance of that reserve call up period dictated/limited the German operational strategy in the runup to WW1. It is hard to see the Chinese ignoring this.
“The importance of that reserve call up period dictated/limited the German operational strategy in the runup to WW1.”
Please, this argument does not make sense. The German army was the last which mobilized. There was no “surprise” attack planned, see the Schlieffen plan discussion 1999-2014 in war in history.