Category China

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:

1. Capture a working port, so vehicles can simply drive off on to a pier. This is how these vessels operate in peacetime, and this requires both the pier facility, as well as a very permissive environment, which we can assume would be challenged in wartime unless the Chinese can well establish sea and air control to a high degree, and at a distance of hundreds of kilometers to avoid the impact of long-range Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM) on a very large and easy target of a docked civilian ferry.
2. Use the floating causeway that they demonstrated in their exercises in 2021. The ferries would unload vehicles away from the shore, which would then drive on these causeways to the beach. This is rather like the famous Mulberry harbors used by the Allies in the Normandy invasion, during which Allied sea control was absolute, and air dominance achieved. Yet, Mother Nature still managed to put the mulberries out of commission more than once. Given the Chinese engineering capabilities demonstrated with artificial island building in the South China Sea (as well as their prowess in heavy manufacturing in general), it seems the capability is within reach for them. The question again is can they sufficiently protect these structures from determined Allied attack?
3. Use the reinforced rear ramps on these vessels to launch amphibious vehicles such as the ZTD-05, which would then “swim” to shore on their own. The idea is to do this at a significant range from shore, perhaps at least 25-30 nautical miles (nmi), and perhaps greater. The ZTD-05 is said to have a swimming speed of about 30 knots, so this might take about one hour to cross the distance. The ferry would be less exposed to Allied fire, trying to stay away from the radar horizon, however these vessels are large, they sit out of the water at a significant height, meaning the radar horizon, along with other variables, like radar ducting, over-the-horizon (OTH) capabilities, or any kind of aerial or space-based platform would see these vessels fairly easily. And, as previously stated on the blog, the movement away from their highly regular civilian operations would arouse suspicion about military purposes. Other surprise operations have been successful, such as the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal in 1973, so we can never say never … but the bar seems pretty high.

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:

• As of 2021, the PLA and its reserve civilian merchant fleet are probably unable to provide significant amphibious landing capabilities or the maritime logistics in austere or challenging environments necessary to support a large-scale, cross-strait invasion of Taiwan.
• The PLA’s use of civilian shipping in amphibious exercises appears to be limited to select ships demonstrating nascent capabilities, but not the capacities necessary to support a cross-strait invasion. However, capacities could increase rapidly after initial capabilities are formally adopted and exercise participation expands to a larger number of civilian ships.
• 2020-2021 exercise events appeared to be scripted and focused on establishing procedures and coordination among military units and civilian components.
• The 2020 JLSF exercise featured experimentation with a number of novel logistics capabilities that have been slow to develop and have likely not yet matured probably due to a lack of investment. In a possible change in that trend, 2021 activity saw the introduction of the first new amphibious landing technologies in over fifteen years.
• In most cases, civilian shipping support to amphibious exercises was provided during daylight hours; events were timed for when tides and weather conditions were favorable; many evolutions took place in the sheltered waters of an inner harbor.
• In the 2020 JLSF exercise, there was no evidence of simulated combat conditions during the exercise; no defensive actions (e.g. convoying, escorting, evasion or diversion) were observed. In the 2021 amphibious landing exercises, civilian ferries appeared to be deployed and positioned to mitigate potential threats to these vulnerable ships.
• These 2020-2021 exercises likely provide a baseline for the PLA’s use of civilian shipping to support large-scale amphibious logistics and provide a roadmap for the types of capabilities and capacities the PLA may need for future operations.

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.

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!

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:

1. There are 50 amphibious transports ships. We currently count 46 but are otherwise in agreement: The load on PLA Navy Amphibious Assault Ships – The Dupuy Institute
2. There are 200 to 350 landing craft. This was written in 2001. The PLA have let this force decay and degrade, which I think is telling. We currently count 99: Other Chinese landing craft – The Dupuy Institute
3. And then they get to 2 million by counting the entire Chinese merchant fleet as first wave amphibious assets (actually they don’t say that, it is only implied). We have discussed this: The RoRo Ships – The Dupuy Institute. Needless to say, there are some problems with this concept:
   1. They are not first wave assets.
   2. Gathering this fleet together would give Taiwan weeks if not months of notice.
      1. And of course, in the meantime it will kill their trade and therefore their economy while doing this.
   3. They would need a port or some kind of dock to unload at, which might be a challenge in a hostile combat environment.
      1. Especially if these ports are well defended and,
      2. if there is a plan in place to ensure these ports are not usable if captured.

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. 

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:

1. PLA Navy (PLAN) – many amphibious vessels, including a growing fleet of large Amphibious General Assault Ships (LHA), Amphibious Transport, Dock (LPD) among many other smaller ships and craft.
2. PLA Navy Marine Corps (PLANMC) – amphibious troops subordinate to the Navy.
3. PLA Army (PLAA) – the ground forces maintain their own troops trained and tasked with amphibious operations. They have their own separate fleet of landing ships.
4. China Coast Guard (CCG) – the world’s largest coast guard force.
5. Maritime Militia – the so-called “Third Sea Force”.
6. PLA Air Force (PLAAF) – Airborne Brigades and Transport aircraft to drop them.
7. Special Forces (SOF) – These troops are part of other organizations – PLAN, PLAAF, PLAA, and People’s Armed Police (PAP), are trained and capable for helicopter borne operations, as well as several non-traditional transport means.
8. PLA Joint Logistics Support Force (PLAJLSF) –

“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)

9. Civilian Ships intended to transport PLA/PLAN troops – significant news on the requirements to equip Roll-on / Roll-off (RO/RO) ferries with strengthened stern ramps (and other modifications) for compatibility with military amphibious equipment.

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 20^th 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:

• China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) – part of the U.S. Naval War College, publishing excellent works from 2006.
• Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion – an excellent, thorough analysis by Andrew S. Erickson,Conor M. Kennedy, and Ryan D. Martinson, and just published on November 7^th.
• Crossing the Strait: China Prepares for War with Taiwan – a thorough analysis published by the National Defense University in 2022.
• Modern Chinese Maritime Forces (MCMF) 2024-Oct-1 edition – excellent, thorough coverage of PLAN, PLAA landing forces, CCG, Maritime Militia.
• PLA Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide – by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
• The People’s Liberation Army’s Joint Logistics Support Force – blog post by Bok Lee “A Continual Learner”, 2022-01-23.
• China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy by China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) 2020-06-15.
• The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan – Edited by Matt Pottinger, published 2024-07-01, this considers steps Taiwan and the U.S. can do to better prepare for and deter any amphibious assault.

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.