Question:
China's Fishing Boat Navy ?
Are you kiddin' me? A takeover of Taiwan with fishing boats? This is not
only funny, it's ludicrous. This will be the biggest turkey shoot since the Battle
of the Leyte Gulf. On to the article reports plan to attack Taiwan Threat of nuclear war, seizing U.S. assets mentioned
Answer:
-I wouldn't dismiss China's fishing boat fleet invasion so fast.
Remember, the secret to a successful military operation is surprise.
Suppose China is able to destroy Taiwan's fighter jets in its
initial attack. The way China plans to do this is to launch
approximately 800 shortrange missiles with conventional warheads at
Taiwan, which China claims will destroy every Taiwanese military
facility and other pertinent targets on the island which are above
ground, and several U.S. intelligence estimates agree with China's
assessement, although the U.S. estimates say China will not have the
capability to launch 800 missiles at Taiwan for several more years.
But let's suppose for the sake of argument that China has managed to
hide enough of its missiles from U.S. intelligence, so that today it
has the capability to in fact destroy most of Taiwan's air defenses in
the first few minutes of the attack. Or alternatively, we can suppose
that China will make up for its current shortfall of conventional
warheads aimed at Taiwan by substituting neutron bomb warheads.
Under these circumstances, China would have control of the airspace
around Taiwan and China's 200,000 fishing boats with their 2,000,000
troops on board could sail across the strait and occupy Taiwan with
little trouble.
I'm imagining a fleet of 200,000 boats with ten soldiers on each,
and each boat equally spaced from the others. This flotilla would
cover an enormous area of the sea, and the Chinese could have their
soldiers lie on their backs on the boats and fire their personal
weapons (along with dedicated weapons) straight up into the air if any
Taiwanese F-16's managed to survive the initial missile attack. What
a formidable air defense this would be for an attacking fighter
aircraft, every square foot of air above the flotilla filled with
flying metal, looking for a target!
Destroying Taiwan's airforce would leave China with only having to
deal with U.S. military assets. I imagine U.S. submarines would find
it a daunting task to try to deal with 200,000 separate enemy vessels,
I guess they could surface and machine gun them! :)
China could deal with U.S. aircraft carriers by detonating a nuclear
weapon in their attack on Taiwan as a sign to the U.S. that they are
willing to use nuclear weapons, and China would tell the U.S. that the
carriers would be next to be hit with nuclear weapons and to back off;
or China could just throw their entire 3,000 craft airforce into
trying to sink the two U.S. carrier battle groups we would be sending.
They might lose half their airforce, but the U.S. would have a heck of
a time replacing two carrier battle groups, too.
If China were to coordinate its Taiwan attack with a North Korean
attack, the U.S. aircraft carriers may not even show up in the
Phillipine sea, since Japan and South Korea are higher priorities.
-I suspect that to defeat such an armada the United States would have to
try and sink as many as they could with A-10's and helicopters based
off of the VSTOL carriers. Then try and defeat the rest on land by
imposing a naval blockade and then invading the island themselves. If
the Unites States was smart it would also immediately go after Chinese
industry. Spend a week( well probably a couple) destroying their air
defense network, then sending in the B-52's, and B-1's to drop
munitions on military and industrial targets. Destroy every road and
railway in and out of the major cities.
If China does threaten nuclear weapons, remind them that while they
have 24 ICBM's we have almost that many on an Ohio class sub alone, and
let them know we'll have 6-8 off their coast. Unless they're really
stupid they won't launch any. If they do, then of course those Ohio's
could release a salvo onto Chinese military targets.
At that point the Chinese leadership would be in a no-win situation.
They're countries economy is wrecked, they'll have expended they're
only real threat to the US, and have only brought equal destruction on
it's own country. They won't be able to support those troops in Taiwan.
After all that I think they would sue for a quick peace. What's more I
think a coup would happen. With such turmoil in China I don't think
North Korea could do much of anything by itself. Thus the North Korean
threat would be nullified by defeating their only real ally, China.
