Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Fri 05/03/2024 View Thu 05/02/2024 View Wed 05/01/2024 View Tue 04/30/2024 View Mon 04/29/2024 View Sun 04/28/2024 View Sat 04/27/2024
2022-10-24 China-Japan-Koreas
No discussion on a Chinese invasion of Taiwan can take place without examining PLA's JFS.
[Twitter-long-thread]
This is a "long" opinion piece on Twitter so open it there and follow the threads

Posted by 3dc 2022-10-24 07:39|| || Front Page|| [11 views ]  Top
 File under: Commies 

#1 Sorry, no spikka da Twit.
Posted by Mercutio 2022-10-24 10:22||   2022-10-24 10:22|| Front Page Top

#2 ...SHORT VERSION: The PRC will have to pull off a clockwork strike with a couple dozen different facets to it. They have the tools to do it, but whether or not they can use those tools - we've never seen them try to practice anything this big and complex, and Communist dictatorships are not known for their ability to improvise when The Plan goes pear-shaped - is another matter entirely.

If - IF - everything goes perfectly, they might pull it off.

Mike
Posted by MikeKozlowski 2022-10-24 11:34||   2022-10-24 11:34|| Front Page Top

#3 Mike, remember the Suez Canal Crossing in 1973? The Egyptian General Staff wargamed that operation for years and the first day went like clockwork. The question is what the PLA will do *after* the initial pre-planned operation (Hint: the Egyptian Army in 1973 did not do so well when they were forced to "improvise"...).
Posted by magpie 2022-10-24 12:39||   2022-10-24 12:39|| Front Page Top

#4 One of the major questions about the PLA is not if they can do it, but if they can keep up the tempo needed. China can launch a few strikes, but we have seen them struggle with keeping it going. For example our carriers can keep a good tempo of strikes for weeks and practice at it. Western observers have noticed that every time China tries to do it, things go pear shaped after the first day or so and they can't keep up. Things break, accidents happen, etc.
Posted by DarthVader 2022-10-24 13:25||   2022-10-24 13:25|| Front Page Top

#5 
Sun Tzu said, 'Keep cool head!
The heavier you are,
the quicker you fall dead!
And if all your jets,
are cheap bootlegs,
don't go begging for Yankee lead.'



Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-24 13:35||   2022-10-24 13:35|| Front Page Top

#6 As an aside, the CCP Party Convention closing day removal by Xi of Hu Jintao as a video seen worldwide was also a classic Mandarin Imperial power display as the entire 500 person audience sat stone faced staring ahead. The significance to Taiwan was the Hu Jintao was still an influential senior leader and had been a strong opponent to resolving the Taiwan issue by force. I have to believe the symbolism was crystal clear to everyone, that that point of view ws not acceptable. Come January, whilst we are navel-gazing t the new power alignments in DC, I wonder what might happen?
Posted by NoMoreBS 2022-10-24 14:12||   2022-10-24 14:12|| Front Page Top

#7 a fully coordinated invasion of Taiwan would require weeks of logistical prep, massing of platforms, movement of troops

everybody would know and have counter measures prepared
Posted by lord garth 2022-10-24 15:38||   2022-10-24 15:38|| Front Page Top

#8 NoMoreBS: I think part of the misreporting going around about Hu is that they're neglecting to mention that he was also more or less carried into the Congress and is reportedly suffering from some sort of health problems, most likely Parkinsons.

The report I heard secondhand said he was brought into the Congress despite being sick as a symbol of continuity between his rule and Xi's.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-10-24 18:57||   2022-10-24 18:57|| Front Page Top

#9 Mike, remember the Suez Canal Crossing in 1973? The Egyptian General Staff wargamed that operation for years and the first day went like clockwork.

Then after that it fell apart. Incapable of 'what do we do next'. They couldn't stick their nose out of the AAA canopy without getting whacked. Once the Israelis got across the canal and were cleaning up that element, it was all over.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-10-24 19:23||   2022-10-24 19:23|| Front Page Top

#10 Procopius2k, I prefer the theory stated in Kenneth M. Pollack's Arabs At War: the Egyptian had analyzed the Israeli doctrine, Israeli dispositions and wargamed, wargamed and wargamed so more until they had "The Plan". An orchestrated series of 'hour by hour' instructions that looked like a 'new model Arab Army that could defeat the Jews'. The problems started when the "36 hour plan' was completed and the Syrians started screaming for the Egyptians to do ANYTHING and Do It Now! At that point things returned to the normal mediocrity...
Posted by magpie 2022-10-24 20:06||   2022-10-24 20:06|| Front Page Top

#11 Mr. Wife almost was arrested in Cairo in 1987 or so when he raised his camera in the direction of the sentries standing guard at the end of the street, with their footwear and weapons both picturesquely held together with duct tape. So he left the photo untaken, but described it in astonishment when he got home — convinced that if the guns actually held bullets, they could not possibly have been capable of actually firing... and if firing was a possibility, actually hitting the intended target was most certainly not. To be fair, Egypt was only his second very foreign country (when one grows up near Niagara Falls, Canada doesn’t count as truly foreign), back in the early years of his career, so he didn’t realize how unastonishing that was.
Posted by trailing wife 2022-10-24 22:17||   2022-10-24 22:17|| Front Page Top

#12 ^ the bullets were made of duct tape
Posted by Spanky the Bunyip7682 2022-10-24 22:38||   2022-10-24 22:38|| Front Page Top

#13 *snicker*
Posted by trailing wife 2022-10-24 23:24||   2022-10-24 23:24|| Front Page Top

22:12 Skidmark
22:04 Skidmark
22:03 Skidmark
21:51 DooDahMan
21:36 Silentbrick
20:43 Whiskey Mike
18:49 Frank G
18:43 3dc
18:07 swksvolFF
18:04 swksvolFF
17:35 Procopius2k
17:13 Elmerert Hupens2660
16:46 Crusader
16:43 Crusader
15:52 Silentbrick
15:49 Alistaire Platypus7674
15:43 swksvolFF
15:30 Grom the Reflective
15:28 Grom the Reflective
15:21 badanov
14:57 Elmerert Hupens2660
14:52 bman
14:52 trailing wife
14:39 Lord Garth









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com