Future War with (Red) China Hypotheticals/Theorycrafting

[Lord Sovereign]

I see that a lot of people here drink too much murika fucking yeah cool-aid.
That's fair, is their preference for drinking of sorts.
Now, confunding that with reality... Is like believing in Santa Claus.
Waste of time discussing with dreamers.

With all due respect, the Portuguese (you are from Portugal if memory serves) have little business lecturing anyone as to the waging of war. You haven’t done it successfully in centuries.

 

[sander093]

From a purely military standpoint.....

The USA (+ Allies) destroy any major CCP military asset within range of ocean based aircraft. Now it won't be without casualties but at the end the US ends up being in effective control of the skies over south-eastern China. Now there might be the odd camouflaged SAM site that takes pot shots until it gets removed, but nothing that would truly allow China to take back the skies. Things beyond the range of ocean based aircraft will probably hold out, but my understanding is that most things of worth are within range of carrier based aircraft.

While the US has seen a downturn, it still massively outstrips China from a purely military standpoint.


Where it gets tricky is when US politicians get involved.

Most 'D's and some of the 'R's are likely to try and sabotage the US military efforts in some way. China probably won't be able to locate CVN's on it's own, but if Potatus tells them....

The US political class is the wild card in a US-China hot war. Which side they ultimately side with will have the upper hand.

 

[JagerIV]

You are arguing against a self-created straw man of me. I did not try to claim that the Vietnam war was a victory, yet you're acting like I'm playing silly games with what victory and loss mean.

Bluntly put, I am getting incredibly sick of all the silly buggers you are playing with this argument. I thought you in particular could formulate a position and argue for it better than this.

Correct, you did not claim it was a victory. You did however claim they were militarily incompetent. I do not see evidence of this. Your main proof of this seems to be that they did not fight like Americans (a way of fighting that ultimately lost) and instead fought like, well, Communists/Asians, which won. If the North Vietnamese had anything like material equality with our forces, we would have lost even harder. Pulling the army out before its destroyed in the field does not generally mean you won the fight.

To answer the question anyways, if the end state when a peace treaty was signed was China taking Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea despite suffering disproportionate casualties, yes, I'd still that call a win for China, and a loss for the US and assorted allies.

Okay, good.

I have not made this argument, nor has anyone else.

What has been argued is that communists consistently fight with poor competence, with poor skill, and very poor morale, with examples of panicking soldiers being given as an example.

This is rephrasing the point I made mockingly in a serious way. This is you saying they're harmless babies in more specific technical jargon.

I don't see particular evidence of this.

Competence, morale, and discipline, are increasingly crucial as you try to conduct more and more sophisticated forms of warfare. Infantry fighting in trenches is about as unsophisticated as it gets. Adding in artillery is basically the next level up, and about as much as I've seen historical evidence of communists being able to reliably and consistently accomplish.

Coordinating with tanks and other vehicles is a couple steps up from that, and the Russians have been showing themselves to be currently incompetent at that. Full combined arms, with full and effective coordination between air, infantry, armor, and artillery, is something I'm not aware of communists ever being effective at, though I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of their more top-notch units have managed it here and there, and I'm just not familiar with the examples.

Conversely, the baseline expectation for US/NATO forces, is to be able to be an effective part of a well-coordinated combined arms operation. If you can't manage that, it's time for remedial training until you can. If the Chinese manage to perform at this level consistently, they'll have met what is considered the minimum acceptable standard for western militaries.

Is this something Nazi Germany could do in your estimation? In which case, the USSR found a way of fighting that worked well enough to grind the Germans down. Could the Americans in the Korean war do combined arms? Then the Chinese fought in a way that was good enough to first push the Americans back and resist American attempts to push them back. Vietnam barely had an airforce, so I'm not sure you would even count them as capable of combined arms, but seems to have used it well enough to blunt a lot of American firepower advantage, and when they had tanks they were used with a reasonable degree of competence.

Russia also wouldn't be useful for your argument right now anyways, because they're not communists. Communism was the magic ingredient in your argument that meant they couldn't fight well and were weak livered cowards. Rather than having an Army made up of Russians, which would be my explanation of the current war, with the current Russian fighting following basic Russian patterns since at least the Nepoleonic Wars: Russians are natural C students who by studying extra hard can achieve A and B student results, but generally have to first get an F to remind themselves that their not natural A students who don't actually have to study to pass a test.

Iraq fought like an Arab army. Namely, a fractious band of clans with a leadership class terrified of its underlings, for good reason. This is a culture that repeatedly invented slave soldiers, because enslaved foreigners were seen as more trustworthy than the local nobility, and the idea of a citizen soldier doesn't seem to have really existed as the west has it.

China is likely to fight like the Chinese, for the good or ill of that. Plus like a country that didn't really have much of any air force of note until the last 20 ish years. Given all the other coordination the Chinese are capable of doing, I don't see a particular reason they couldn't do some combined arms. Likely not to look like America, but the Chinese are not Americans. It doesn't seem to go against the grain of their culture in the same way such large scale coordination seems to go against the Arab soul.

Adding in carrier operations, arguably brings you to the most complex form of war ever conducted. Running an air force is already incredibly complex, with fairly high minimum competence requirements across a broad range of skills. Doing it from an aircraft carrier adds an entire additional dimension of complexity.

These are all things that the US has been doing routinely for decades. The PLA has not done so in wartime conditions ever.

Eh, the Japanese could do it, though for lack of technical ability did it worse than the US, so I'm not sure there's good reason the Chinese couldn't, though its very new for them. I don't think the Chinese plan to fight a carrier war though. Mines seem to have been the core of the Chinese naval plan at least back in 2010, and the plan still seems to be generally to wage a naval gurilla war until the US's material advantage can be atritted away, as per communist/Maoist peoples war doctrine, updated for the modern age. They still seem to be generally aware of their material inferiority, and plan to counter the US firepower and precion advantage in the traditional way its been countered since the 1970s: hiding and mines.

We are not getting reports out of China about how they're conducting regular exercises against opposition forces trained in their expected enemies style of combat, with realistic field conditions, and kicking ass. We are not seeing regular reports of their naval vessels practicing missile interception drills against US-equivalent hardware and succeeding.

We're seeing reports of how their officers focus on political indoctrination. We're seeing reports of how nepotism is rife. We're seeing promotional videos of them using rifles that keyhole at short range. Their submarines having malfunctions that kill entire crews and leave the vessels adrift. Their carriers having planes damaged on landing, or just straight-up dropping into the ocean.

And, of course, we have no reports on how effective they are in real combat at all.

Well, what they were training for in the 2010s under as realistic a situation as they could manage was laying mines. That's what they were handing metals to their submarine captains for: laying mines effectively in exercises. So, at least since 2009 they've been trying to do reasonably realistic exercises, and they are still doing a fair number, including with many other nations.

The exercise, which began Monday, is taking place in China's southern Guangdong province on the northern shores of the hotly contested sea. It includes Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese forces. The exercise, named Aman Youyi-2023, or Peace and Friendship-2023, will end Wednesday, according to a press release from China's Ministry of National Defense.

Something called the US Naval Institute, which sounds and looks professional, but I don't know in particular detail, seems to believe Chinese naval training has dramatically improved, as of 2016 when they discussed it. Including a willingness to do live fire exercises, push initiative (a very Chinese characteristic) and generally try to learn and iterate.

Not all PLAN exercises include a live-fire phase. However, live-fire evolutions routinely receive extensive press coverage, including photos. The PLAN does not publish specific numbers of ammunition expended in training (and, in fairness, neither does the U.S. Navy), but reporting from the 2015 PLAN Party "Grassroots Meeting" cited "hundreds" of missiles fired in a three-year period.17 Generally when these launches appear in the press, they are characterized as training events rather than developmental testing, and it is doubtful that developmental events would be disclosed to the public in the same way. The impression across these sources is that the PLAN is putting a large number of weapons down-range. While the number of weapons fired is not an absolute indicator of proficiency (the Soviet Navy, for example, was noted for its large-scale live-fire exercises), it is an indicator both of the resources available for training and PLAN confidence in the fundamentals of weapon employment.

Another factor in training realism is willingness to accept risk during training. For example, a North Sea Fleet minesweeping unit was cited for exercising setting and sweeping live mines, accepting increased risk for added realism.18 In other cases, the lack of information provided to the participants in "back-to-back" exercises suggests that few firmly defined safety parameters are set. It is notable that where official PLAN media sources mention risk in training, it is always commending a commander who deliberately chose to increase the risk associated with a training event. In some cases, these commanders are praised for violating the parameters of an exercise to seize victory. The clear impression is that the PLAN is more willing to accept risk in its training evolutions than its U.S. counterparts. This mindset builds realism but will likely carry a cost in both equipment and personnel.

Significant training events include efforts to collect data and lessons learned. In one recent major North Sea Fleet exercise, a 28-person assessment team provided adjudication of engagements, supported by more than 100 people gathering observations.19 At least some flotilla-level units are developing their own lessons-learned database. One destroyer flotilla notably collected more than 300,000 elements of information based on 11 distant-sea training operations that had been applied to specific combat tasks.20 The PLAN's counter-piracy operations are similarly exploited as a source of real-world experience and training topics.21

 

[JagerIV]

Sure...China could invade the ME...if it wants to eat that turd it can. Go through India? Nah, that ain't gonna work well. Those moves are really just equivalents to 'death by cop'.

Australia and the rest of the Pacific Islands...How in the hell is China going to transport the troops to get to Australia. Almost ALL of their amphibious lift capacity is civilian, slow, ungainly, and not suited to the sort of voyages needed for Australia. All that tonnage is gonna get sunk pretty dang easily, and their Navy wouldn't be able to really protect them.

As for Korea...at this point, we can let the RoK deal with the Norks by themselves, with the assistance of whatever assets are already on the peninsula.

What you're discussing here is really just a form of suicide by the Chinese that will make sure they are isolated from the rest of the world.

Well, Russia and Iran are the obvious ones. Pakistan is also a potentially useful staging area, though likely to just move troops into Iran, or naval operations into the Indian Ocean. India I guess could have some say in the matter if they invaded and tried to conquer Pakistan, but there are some obvious reasons India wouldn't like to do that.

A lot of the middle eastern countries don't particularly love us anyways, and especially won't love us when were effectively blockading them. UAE already is making a lot of independent moves. Russia currently is the one with basing, though in such a big move/showdown as this, I'm pretty sure Russia would gladly allow Chinese use of their bases, and joint exercises are already done with Iran.

Other options are perfectly available in a scenario where China isn't suprised by the war: China apparently has roughly 60 million veterans, due to the short conscript time, so swelling the army by several million is quite doable in 6 or so months. If committed to war they could recognize the Yemen government and secure basing rights there, pre-positioning a 100k+ or so troops there. They already have a base in Africa, and could also simply chose a side in one of Africa's many civil wars and secure basing for several thousand more troops. There are also apparently several million Chinese nationals in Africa, and China does have private secuirty forces there (as well as Russia's various operations still kicking around) so in lead up to war those could likely be substantially reinforced, how substantially and how quietly dependent on local conditions.

So, I'm pretty sure securing basing in Iran, Russia, and Syria are more or less givens. Other basing could be found in Africa easily enough, depending on the window basing was needed and the political peculiarities of the situation. Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya a likely options for basing, due to local political conditions being fractured, too weak to say no if the Chinese just start setting up shop and building bases, and in strategically valuable locations. Moving into those locations probably triggers a ticking clock though, so can't really be done except as building up to war.

Getting half a million Chinese troops into the middle East isn't that big of an ask compared to existing Chinese logistical capacity and options in the area: a one lane road can move about 1,000 people an hour fairly easily, so even if you had to move 500,000 by a single road, that only takes roughly 500 hours, or 20 days. Moving the army in peacetime there's way more transport capacity, and even in an embargo situation, there are way more than a single road to move men and material down.

So, African campaign could be some 500,000 Chinese, probably not super heavily equipped, but a good amount can be pre-positioned, and over time more material can be moved in, roughly 100,000 Syrian army, who at the very least can help deplete enemies guided munition stocks, Iran has about 1 million troops, who generally seem to above general Arab quality, given performance in the Iran-Iraq War.

In War, Syria and Iran can be used to push and overun Kurdish positions and the Americans in support, the only group I'd have any confidence will fight for America without massive American support. Some elements of Iraq might fight for America, especially to stop Iranian invasion, but a lot also won't, and might even fight in support of an Iranian invasion.

All the nations along the Persian gulf probably won't fight for the US unless there is a large American presence to force them to do so, and are probably just as likely to red wedding the current small American forces there. I think there's roughly 50,000 US troops in the middle East right now, spread out mostly in logistical bases.

One properly equipped group army (Chinese corp sized formation, 30-50k could probably roll out of Iran into Kuwait and sweep the Americans out the gulf sea in not much more time than it takes to drive there at a leisurely pace, 1-2 weeks. or or specifically, for the formation to drive down, order the Americans to surrender, and if they don't place a land blockade and have the Iranians mine the US harbors so they can be sieged out relatively safely.

Assuming the US didn't react at all. Which is not a reasonable assumption. If a Chinese Army is in Iran, plus whatever extra naval and air weapons they want to bring in for "exercises", and another army group is put in Syria for peacekeeping, and another in Sudan or Somalia for peacekeeping, the US is going to have to do to something, especially if they're planning to do something as dramatic as a general blockade.

Still, for relatively cheap it dramatically increases American escalatory risk, and if combat does break out likely produces if nothing else a black hole to attrition away Blue men and material. And a Chinese army in the area is going to upend various players in the regions calculations too. Probably in unpredictable ways.

Turkey's probably the big swing question here. If they stick with NATO, its a large army, and while fighting it is still probably a net plus as a sink of Blue material, it would be better to be killing Americans manning American weapondry, rather than Turks with American weapondry. It also would draw focus North, which might be to Iran, Syria, and Russia's benifit, and might be especially benifitical to Armenia, but would not be in China's interest, who care more about the Persian gulf and Red sea. If Aserbiazian needed to be crushed to secure Russian-Iran supply lines, or Turkey needed to be gutted by forming a Kurdishtan, that's much more a second year of the war priority than a first year one.

If Turkey joins in stomping the Kurds but is otherwise neutral, that secures the flank of the operation, dramatically limits available NATO forces in the area, and generally makes any NATO operation into the middle east less secure, because NATO might fully flip sides. Forcing a lot of virtual attrition as Blue has to keep forces in reserves in case Turkey does something.

And if Turkey flips and decides to Join China and Russia's campaign of seizing clay that's rightfully yours, and sees how much fight there is left in the Greeks, NATO would be in a very bad position.

 

[Zachowon]

And how would China be able to move 30 to 50k troops into Iram without anyone noticing....

 

[paulobrito]

With all due respect, the Portuguese (you are from Portugal if memory serves) have little business lecturing anyone as to the waging of war. You haven’t done it successfully in centuries.

Hmmm, let me see...
WW1 - in the allied side - win.
WW2 - neutral.
Colonial Wars - COIN against forces supported by the US, USSR, and China, only withdraw (not defeated) because of revolution on the European territory.

Not too bad for a small, poor country.

 

[Zachowon]

Hmmm, let me see...
WW1 - in the allied side - win.
WW2 - neutral.
Colonial Wars - COIN against forces supported by the US, USSR, and China, only withdraw (not defeated) because of revolution on the European territory.

Not too bad for a small, poor country.

Withdraw counts as defeat

 

[paulobrito]

Not exactly - the new gov (very left side) decided to abandon the colonies, giving them independence. The troops withdraw after that.
Read a bit of that piece of history before passing judgment.

 

[Zachowon]

Not exactly - the new gov (very left side) decided to abandon the colonies, giving them independence. The troops withdraw after that.
Read a bit of that piece of history before passing judgment.

So you count that as a withdraw but when the US does it, it's a lose?

 

[paulobrito]

So you count that as a withdraw but when the US does it, it's a lose?

Well, in our case the left revolutionary gov decided to 'gift' the ex-colonies to pro-Soviet movements. In your case, you are tired of war.
And we have the excuse of being a poor country fighting against forces supported by the three biggest nations. What is yours?

For context, at the time the situation was so bad that Kissinger decided to let Portugal go full communist to be a warning (his word is vaccine) to the rest of Western Europe. Is Frank Carllucy - the at the time US ambassador in Lisbon - that convinced your gov to support the moderates.

So, in our case, I put the guilt first is the pro-soviet Portuguese communist party and second in our 'ally' the US that fucked us time and again. As in supporting independence forces in our territory, blockading the buying of advanced weapons, etc.

 

[Zachowon]

So...they lost because they withdrew.
Just like how the US gave both A-stan and South Vietnam back to the local governments and they lost.

 

[TheRejectionist]

With all due respect, the Portuguese (you are from Portugal if memory serves) have little business lecturing anyone as to the waging of war. You haven’t done it successfully in centuries.

That was easy when Washington was financing and helping its enemies until 1968. You guys didn't win any wars since the first Gulf War and Panama, one of which was a Pro-US puppet until he saw it wasn't convenient for them to be America's friends . Iraq is a pro-Iranian proxy in all but name except for the US bases and Afghanistan is back under theocratic rule of the Taliban.

So maybe you are also the last guys lecturing on war.

 

[Zachowon]

That was easy when Washington was financing and helping its enemies until 1968. You guys didn't win any wars since the first Gulf War and Panama, one of which was a Pro-US puppet until he saw it wasn't convenient for them to be America's friends . Iraq is a pro-Iranian proxy in all but name except for the US bases and Afghanistan is back under theocratic rule of the Taliban.

So maybe you are also the last guys lecturing on war.

Sovereign is British,
And at least both his country and mine have actually been successful in military matters compared to both the countries you come from.
Italy hasn't had a good military since Rome, and Brazil...well....yeah.

The US kicked ass in 03, defeated Hussains forces easily
Desert Storm was us not only kicking the forces in Kuwait, but in Iraq and in 43 days, we made the 3th largest army, and the most heavily defended AD nation look like one without one.

And yet the Iranian proxy groups can't even do any meaningful damage to the US, even after we killed one of Iran's biggest leaders....

 

[paulobrito]

So...they lost because they withdrew.
Just like how the US gave both A-stan and South Vietnam back to the local governments and they lost.

Well, the next time you suffer a left-wing revolution, call me.

 

[Zachowon]

Well, the next time you suffer a left-wing revolution, call me.

Hey, not my fault yall withdrew from colonial possessions still count as losses, like we did in 2 nations.

 

[TheRejectionist]

Sovereign is British,
And at least both his country and mine have actually been successful in military matters compared to both the countries you come from.
Italy hasn't had a good military since Rome, and Brazil...well....yeah.

So, you take pride in making a mess of the whole world in the last 30 years? That's a level of cope I haven't seen in a while.

The US kicked ass in 03, defeated Hussains forces easily

That's easy when your country had bled it dry with sanctions and you had a multinational force backing you up, who you built for creating a legitimacy that wasn't there. Would you have won if it wasn't there ? Probably, but easily wouldn't have been on the table.

Desert Storm was us not only kicking the forces in Kuwait, but in Iraq and in 43 days, we made the 3th largest army, and the most heavily defended AD nation look like one without one.

The same forces you helped against Iran ? The same forces that had spent fighting a US sponsored war for a decade? Congrats tiger, you defeated a bleeding kitten. Do you want a consolation trophy ?

And yet the Iranian proxy groups can't even do any meaningful damage to the US, even after we killed one of Iran's biggest leaders....

Recent events tell otherwise.

 

[LordsFire]

This is rephrasing the point I made mockingly in a serious way. This is you saying they're harmless babies in more specific technical jargon.

I don't see particular evidence of this.

So yeah.

You aren't even engaging in good faith; you're here to mock, deride, and strawman, not have a reasoned discussion. You're wasting my time and energy.

I am incredibly disappointed; I thought you were one of the people on this forum who was above this kind of petty crap.

It's ironic that you admit this when you finally include something that might change my perspective some. I'll be looking further at your more recent links, but I won't be engaging with you over their contents.

 

[Zachowon]

So yeah.

You aren't even engaging in good faith; you're here to mock, deride, and strawman, not have a reasoned discussion. You're wasting my time and energy.

I am incredibly disappointed; I thought you were one of the people on this forum who was above this kind of petty crap.

It's ironic that you admit this when you finally include something that might change my perspective some. I'll be looking further at your more recent links, but I won't be engaging with you over their contents.

I would love to see the contents you post

 

[ATP]

Not exactly - the new gov (very left side) decided to abandon the colonies, giving them independence. The troops withdraw after that.
Read a bit of that piece of history before passing judgment.

I read memories some white soldier from Rhodesia,and according to him,portugal troops fared far worst then rhodesian.
Forget source,as usually.

But you are right about commies in Portugal,you should kill them all between 1939 and 1941.Since they were Hitler allies,nobody would protest.

Or,even better use Poland as pretext after 1945 - commies occupied Poland? then we kill all our commies.If you welcome polish nationalists,there would be no problems later.

 

[paulobrito]

I read memories some white soldier from Rhodesia,and according to him,portugal troops fared far worst then rhodesian.
Forget source,as usually.

But you are right about commies in Portugal,you should kill them all between 1939 and 1941.Since they were Hitler allies,nobody would protest.

Or,even better use Poland as pretext after 1945 - commies occupied Poland? then we kill all our commies.If you welcome polish nationalists,there would be no problems later.

LOL, I have been there. Trust me, they are not better. And if you read memories of Portuguese soldiers who fought there, they tell you that the Rhodesians are convinced idiots. Each side said that about the other side. Is normal.