U.S. Diverting Missiles From Foreign Customers To Ukraine Could Have Repercussions Beyond Air Defense

The Warzone via Yahoo ^ | June 20th, 2024 | Howard Altman

[buwaya]

Ballistic missile attack against maneuvering ships is not easy. Further, there is no evidence that the Chinese have even tested that, for all the talk there has been on this subject.

No US task force is going to approach land based cruise missile range. Thats why the USN has been all about standoff weapons, and this has been going on for decades.

[Gaffer]

No US task force is going to approach land based cruise missile range. Thats why the USN has been all about standoff weapons, and this has been going on for decades.

Then that pretty much leaves out Taiwan with its roughly 100 mile distance in the Taiwan Strait. There are sites to which you can go to see existing and pre-prepared SAM sites all up and down along the strait China has ready and waiting.

You and others may pooh-pooh an 1800 mile range DF-21D but I don't, and neither does US intel. They even have shipped based shipping container versions of these things that could be ANYWHERE on a cargo ship - ANYWHERE in the ocean.

The US has a good record of kicking ass on limited 2nd world army countries like Iraq and over backward nations like Afghanistan, or even Viet Nam at the time. The problem is we eventually got our ass kicked every time because of stupid politics like giving away our weapons stores slated for other countries to lost causes like Ukraine.

It's not going to take much to break the will - one, two or three US CBGs would do it. An expense in men and material and money we couldn't afford nor replace in any meaningful time period.

[buwaya]

We are going to have to disagree on the balance of power issues here. The relevant information is not available to us.
I am going by my take on the track record of measure-countermeasure.

The critical question in re Taiwan is not the 100 mile channel between them and the mainland, but whether the US and Taiwan can break a blockade of the port of Kaohsiung. That is the point of recent US-Philippine military exercises in the north of that country, being as it is the southern end of the Luzon strait/Bashi channel, with Kaohsiung on the northern end.

I doubt very much that an amphibious invasion from the mainland is viable. Even if an invasion force survives a barrage of antiship missiles. Whatever gets to the Taiwan side has an even worse problem. There are few viable landing beaches in Taiwan, Taiwan has a lot of artillery, and lots of mountainous/forested and built-up terrain in which to hide it. A landing force will be smashed immediately by massive artillery concentrations. And China has no way to suppress it.

That war will be all about a naval blockade plus a bombardment of Taiwan.

[Svartalfiar]

It must be completely wiped out and turned over to Russia, you know, the country that the U.S.A. cooperated WITH during WW2. Let Russia send the Nazis down to Spain with the others.

China was our buddy in WWII also. What about them?

[Svartalfiar]

The critical question in re Taiwan is not the 100 mile channel between them and the mainland, but whether the US and Taiwan can break a blockade of the port of Kaohsiung.

Eh the critical question for Taiwan is can they hold out until the blockade is broken. For these US, the blockade isn't that important. If war's not declared, you ignore the blockade. If war is declared, it'll be on any front, not just Taiwan. These US would likely have higher priority targets on the mainland, the blockade will easily then be pulled back to help defend that, or be ended when the Commies surrender. But even without that, I doubt China could hold a full blockade against the US Navy. Just not very likely.

[Svartalfiar]

Also, Patriot will not be the primary US weapon system at the beginning of a China war. Those would be Navy shipboard systems.

Well no, the primary weapon is likely to be offensive missile systems, not defensive. But, Patriot is coming to the Navy, it offers additional capabilities to the current standard-missile series. It's been integrated with the Aegis radar system and already conducting test firing.

https://news.usni.org/2024/05/21/lockheed-test-fires-army-patriot-missile-using-aegis-combat-system

[buwaya]

Taiwan can hold out, as long as it has food, fuel, etc. I don’t see a Chinese assault succeeding. They can be starved out, which is the point.

It will be a “Malta convoy” situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_convoys

Operation “Pedestal”, one of these convoys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pedestal

[buwaya]

Not yet in service. The whole idea is to quickly retrofit a SAM system on ships that don’t have one.