Just in the last week, Fox’s military commentator, retired
Army general Jack Keane, said that a recent war game on this subject lead to a
decisive victory for China and a defeat for us.
I have to wonder about this.
The Taiwan Strait is 120 miles wide and blue
water, deep enough to float aircraft carriers (or any other kind of ship). China
has to get a sizable army across the strait, land the troops on the island
of Taiwan, and keep them supplied
during the fighting. Taiwan
has an army with a decent supply of up to date American equipment. China
will have to fight hard to gain control of the island.
Our best bet to
defend Taiwan
is to sink the Chinese invasion force as it crosses the strait. This will start off as an Air Force
battle. China
has a lot of airbases on their side of the straight. We have a dozen aircraft carriers, of which
maybe 9 are operationally ready. The
other three are likely in US
shipyards for one sort or another of heavy duty work and thus unavailable. Each carrier has maybe 90 aircraft on
board. The carriers could be stationed
on the far side of Taiwan
to make it harder for China
to strike them. The carrier aircraft can fly right across Taiwan
in a matter of minutes. The Air Force
could fly in a lot of planes to Taiwan
to fight from Taiwan’s
air fields. That ought to give us 800 Navy aircraft and 500-800 Air Force
aircraft.
China
has maybe 1700 combat aircraft. Maybe
half of them are as hot as USAF fighters and the other half is old, slow, and
easy meat for USAF F-22s and F35s. This
info comes from pontification at various Internet sites. These sites tend to denigrate the Chinese Air
Force and say nice things about USAF. I don’t know who would win, before a head
to head air battle between them.
The object of such
an air battle is for one side or the other to obtain air superiority, By which I mean to ability to fly low
performance (at least by fighter standards) bombers out into the Taiwan strait
to sink Chinese ships carrying troops to invade Taiwan. Other angles, before the air war settles
out, US submarines, lurking underwater in the strait
of Taiwan torpedoing any surface
vessel that needs it. Chinese aircraft
probably cannot sink subs that stay submerged.
No problem for nuclear subs, not impossible for conventional diesel
subs.
So, I can see
American air and sea power keeping the Chinese ships under control and off Taiwan
landing beaches. I think this will
defeat a Chinese attempt to take over Taiwan.
I don’t know how General Deane’s war
game worked and why it showed a Chinese victory.