Taiwan, China & America

china is able to fire few hundred missile simultaneously at once. taiwan don't have enough anti-missile system to counter all of missiles, and its limited by numbers of anti-missiles.
think about How many patriot missile does taiwan has that can be fire at once vs how many china can fire at once? if ratio is 1-2, and probablity of hitting a missile is 40% more or less don't know(but let said 40%), and if china can fire 200 missiles at once, this mean at least taiwan need at least 400 patriot missile to hit 40% of those 200 missiles. that leave 120 missiles hit the target. the next barrage of missile coming from china will require addtional 400 patriot missiles. how many PAC3 battery does taiwan has? last time i check is around 6 or so.

i'm not saying its worthless effort, i'm just try to prove that pac3 can't effectively counter all chinese short range missiles.


i think i already put several LINK to prove this. Now if you can provide link that says taiwan Patriot missile is enough to counter all 1600 missiles, then please let me know. if you can show prove other than arguement i'm glad to hear it.

here is another link show several article on missile threat from china-taiwan. these was done in 2006, obviously china upgrade and increase the stockpile of its missile aim at taiwan since then
http://www.missilethreat.com/archives/id.49,page.2/subject_detail.asp

 

There is a simple answer, you do not.

The standard in ABM operations is to fire 2 missiles at each target. That is all, not 3, not 6, not 7. 2. And that is also why the "effectiveness" often reported is so flawed.

We fire 2 missiles at each target. And in just about every instance, the first missile struck and destroyed the target. So what is the maximum effectiveness of the system?

That's right, 50%.

In the 2003 Iraq War, every single incomming missile that was engaged was destroyed. In total, 9 incomming ballistic missiles were engaged in 2003, and all 9 were destroyed.

An effective rate of 100% effective. But because of the ripple-fire technique, the system is only 50% effective when looking at number of missiles fired against number of targets destroyed. Even though the missiles were fired only a second apart, both were in the air at the same time when the target was hit.

 

to increase the probability to hit the missile. like i said to hit something stationary and large on the surface vs hitting something fast and small in the air is different. all anti-missile system has some kind hit ratio 3-1 usually. its not 100% prove that an anti-missile can hit a missile 10/10, more likely 4,5,6,7 out of 10 depends on many factors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot

 

According to who?

Your own source says the number is between "90 and 240"...thats not necessarily a "few hundred". Do you have another source?

They dont need to counter all of them. Just most of them.

They have 13 batteries.

3 in 2001
3 (upgraded existing PAC2s from 2001) in 2007
4 Additional PAC3 batteries in 2007
3 Additional PAC3 batteries in 2010
(Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_Armed_Forces#Arms_purchases_and_weapons_development)

Each battery holds 16. 13 x 16 = 206. Your source says the attack could consist of as few as 90 missiles. So yes, they could potentially block 100% of the attack.

Why 40%? The tests posted so far indicate it is much higher than that. 40% sounds like an assumption you are making and attempting to project as fact.

It doesnt need to in order to be effective. Your own sources say that. If it is 40% effective, that will still function as a deterrent.

Your links so far have served more to prove my arguments than your own.


.

 

According to the data I have seen so far, a kill with one missile is probable. These are kinetic (not explosive) weapons. They do not work the same way that previous Patriot missiles did. They work not from exploding nearby, but actually physically hitting the target.

What are you basing that figure on?

LOL...your source is from 1992. Those are first generation Patriots, not the PAC3.

 

to prove what, its not enough to ecounter china missiles, not gonna make much difference. its like throwing a pebble into a large lake.

 

So you do not have another source. Got it.

Is that for the first generation Patriot or the PAC3?

Once again, your source is from 1991. You are attempting to use figures for the first generation Patriot as if they apply to the PAC. They do not. The PAC is a great deal more advanced than the first generation Patriot.

You have so far failed to prove that. All of your proof is based on the assumption that the PAC is only as good as the first generation Patriot systems from 1991...and that is clearly not true.

Your own source says that if it even blocks 40% of them, it will function as a deterrent to attack.

LOL, no it isnt. China's military advantage (in this context) is not that significant. China themselves believe this, as is evidenced by the fact that they have STILL not invaded. Even after decades of agitation.

 

yes and government didn't publish the sucess rate of pac3. and its not 100% for sure. if you can find the success rate, like me know. there is always a ratio, its matter of military doctrine. even you hit most missile in the first volley, taiwan don't have enough to counter the 2nd volley of short range missiles.

 

How do you know that?

I already linked to successful tests where the first missile hit the target.

A 95% kill ratio would be the same as 100% for all practical purposes.

How long would it take them to reload? A volley from the PRC could be as few as 90 missiles according to your source.

Your predictions are all based on the assumption that an invasion would be too fast for the US to react. Apparently the patriot system is already slowing that invasion.

(btw...Taiwan has at least 444 PAC3 missiles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_Armed_Forces#Arms_purchases_and_weapons_development)

 

A lot of this deals with the type of missile fired.

PATRIOT has been shown to be highly effective against MRBM and LRBM. However, it is less effective against SRBM because of the shorter time allowed to track the incomming missile and the shallower approach angle. They are also less effective against cruise type missles, because of their low altitude (often 50-100 meters, lower then PATRIOT can effectively engage).

But missiles from China would be MRBM and LRBM, which it has no problems in hitting. And cruise missiles would be engaged by other systems, such as conventional aircraft.

When we detect incomming threats, they are classified as to the type of target it is (long range, medium range, or short range missile, or Air Breathing Threat, IE aircraft or cruise missile), the source (BMOA: Ballistic Missile Operating Area), and the probably target.

Now no ABM system is designed to prevent all missiles from getting through. Based on where it is predicted to strike and where the ABM system is, a determination is made as to if it will be engaged or not. For example in the 2003 Iraq War, not all missiles were engaged. 3 of them were allowed to impact, even though 2 of them were within range of a PATRIOT battery. This was done because it was determined that they would be striking empty desert (and that is in fact where they landed).

As with any defensive system, you have to exchange coverage and protection with effectiveness. If you have missiles incomming targeting your Divisional CP, your air base runway and a civilian housing complex and you can only engage those at 2 locations, which do you choose?

It sucks, but you have to defend the military assets first. Because without them, odds are the civilians will get plastered even more later on. This is why each battery has a "footprint", and it only engages targets that will land within that footprint.

Looking at the type of missiles China would be useing against Taiwan, I would say that the average would be 2 to 1, with an 80-98% kill average. And do not forget, PATRIOT would likely not be the only ABM system operating in the area.

Throw in a couple of US Guided Missile Cruisers, and the protection bubble grows even more.

Then there is the Republic of China Navy. They have quite a few Guided Missile ships themselves. First are the 4 Kee Lung (former Admiral Kidd) class Destroyers, each with 148 SM-2 missiles), 8 Cheng Kung class frigates (based on the US Oliver Perry class, each with 40 SM-2 missiles), 8 Chi Yang class frigates (former US Knox class, each with 10 SM-1 missiles, effective against Cruise Missiles), and finally the 6 Kang Ding Frigates (based on the French La Fayette class, which will soon get the RIM-116 missile, also effective against Cruise Missiles).

Of all of these, my favorite has to be the Kee Lung, or the former Admiral Kidd class destroyers. These ships were actually built by the US Government for export to the Iranian Navy, but the 1979 revolution ended that. The US decided to keep them and use the ships themselves, and named each of them (USS Kidd, USS Callaghan, USS Scott and USS Chandler) after admirals that were killed in action during WWII. They were commonly called the "Dead Admiral" or "Ayatollah" class ships.

And for most of their lifetime with the US Navy, they operated in the Persian Gulf. Because this is where they were designed to operate, they had very beefy air conditioning systems installed, and an increased power plant to operate them.

And these ships were almost exclusively designed to operate in an air defense role. Essentially these were Ticonderoga class cruisers, scaled town to fit in the hull of a Spruance class hull.

Many experts still consider these to be among the finest Guided Missile Destroyers ever built, even though they are over 30 years old.

So while so far the emphasis in this thread has been on land based missile defense, the capabilities and use of Naval missile defense should not be overlooked. In the past I have read war games reports, in which the ships with cruise missile defense capabilities were placed on the Western side of the island, and the ships with Ballistic Missile defense capability were placed outside of the harbors and on the Western side of the island. In this configuration they were effective in eliminating most missile threats before reaching the island istelf.

Combine this with the Air Force for taking out the remaining Cruise Missiles, and PATRIOT for eliminating any "leakers" on the local level, and I think that most of the incomming missiles would be easily destroyed.

 

Well, how about this?

In the last 5 years, I have been to 3 Live Fires of PAC-3 missiles. In 2 of them, 2 PAC-3 missiles were launched at the target, and in the third only 1 PAC-3 missile was launched at the target.

In all 3 cases, the target missile was destroyed.

And what do you know about how many missiles can be intercepted in the second volley? Do you know the amount of time needed to do a missile reload of a PATRIOT system? I can tell you, 30 minutes or less. I have seen it done in as short as 15 minutes in simulated combat conditions when useing a forklift and leaving the fired cans on the ground instead of removing the empty missile cans back to the storage area.

This is much shorter then the reload time needed for the Chinese missile systems. The DF-21 is estimated to require from 45-90 minutes to reload a single missile onto a launcher. And each launcher can only fire one missile.

The reload of PATRIOT is a fraction of that. And they load from 4 to 16 times the number of missiles.

And if you are wondering where I get the times from for missile reloads, the DF-21 is heavily based on the old Soviet SS-20/SS-25 class mobile missile systems. And the reload times for those missiles is widely known.

SS-25



DF-21

 

for starter, the capability of chinese anti-ship, diesel sub, anti-access weapon etc increase dramatically over the years, thus keep US ship out of taiwan strait, leave taiwan defend those missile by themself before US arrive.

as for PAC3, its still has tech issues, finance issues etc.
here is a good read

http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/83lee.pdf

china has several type of missiles MRBM, SRBM etc etc. the share number will overwhelm the taiwan missile defense. I haven't found any source indicate otherwise.

there are alot different type of missiles in chinese inventory that can be lunch at taiwan. its not just df21, taiwan is only 100mile of china.

some general overview of theater missiles.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/china/theater.htm

i don't get it why you keep insisting that PAC3 will solve taiwan anti-missile issues. when obvious taiwan doesn't has enough battery to counter all chinese missiles.

also its not only the ballistic missile taiwan has to worry about but also addional cruise missiles that PAC3 has to detect/destroy.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-PLA-Cruise-Missiles.html

 

i'm not familiar with PAC3, but can PAC3 detect, track and destroyed low/med altitude maneuverable target fly at supersonic speed ??

 

Read my 2 posts as listed above. I pretty clearly list the reload times for both systems.

And of all land based Missile Defense Systems, the PATRIOT is among the festest to reload. This is because of what the system was originally designed to do.

Unlike all other ABM systems, the PATRIOT was actually designed not to engage missiles, but aircraft. And since it was designed to be used in Europe in the event of a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict, speedy reload was a major consideration.

There are 2 main ways to reload a PATRIOT launcher. One is with the Guided Missile Transport (GMT), a HEMTT with a crane at the back.



In training exercises, the 4 empty canisters are removed from the launcher one at a time, placed on the ground, the new missiles are placed on the launcher one at a time, then the empties are placed on the carrier. The requirement is that this be done in less then an hour, with most drills comming in at around 40-50 minutes.

In combat conditions, this is shortened remarkably. Then, the empty cans are removed 2 at a time, put on the ground, the new missiles placed on the launcher one at a time, and the empties simply left where they are. I have seen this drill done in as little as 25 minutes.

Reloads with a heavy forklift instead of a crane are done even faster. Reload times of 15 minutes are not unheard of with forklifts.

Now if you want to know what this can actually look like in combat, check this out.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K04JaCHIURM"]PATRIOT MISSILE - YouTube[/ame]

Yes, I know that it is not filmed very well, but this launcher has a rather interesting history. Assigned to 2-43 in 2003, it was the first PAC-3 launcher to engage and destroy an incomming enemy missile. It was returned to the US the next year, and moved from battalion to battalion until it was given to Alpha Battery, 1-43 in May 2010. Between June and October of 2011, it was given an extensive upgrade and passed on to Alpha Battery 3-43.

I was among the team responsible for the upgrade and turnover of this launcher, and this plaque is found inside one of the electronics modules of this launcher.



And if you look, there were 2 PAC-3 missiles fired during this engagement. This is obvious by the 2 empty tubes in the canister.

And if you are curious as to why there is only 1 canister on the launcher, this is because Iraq was not supposed to have many ballistic missiles. Most of the launchers in the theatre were configured to engage aircraft, not missiles.

 

in the end its matter of quantitative advantage that china hold. china can fire most their missile in a half day, taiwan probably run out of anti-missile after first volley. china can certainly fire more than 90 missiles each volley, if you count the mobile platform, land base platform and their cruise missile lunchers. above link shows the approx number of their lunchers, since then china has add more missiles, and lunchers to its inventory.

 

This is really a trick question.

First, the answer if "No". This is because the missile does not detect or track anything. This is done by the AN/MPQ-65 Radar Set. And the ability to detect and track incomming cruise missiles (as well as conventional aircraft) largely depends on terrain.

Considering that China would have to attack from seaward, detection would be rather easy. The sea is largely a flat surface, and easy to see long distances, up till the horizon. Where PATRIOT is largely limited is that it is placed well inland, and terrain like mountains, foliage and buildings reduce it's capabilities.

But the first line of defense against ABT (air breathing threat) missiles is conventional aircraft, not missile defense systems. Because no matter how fast or low they fly, these are still basically jet aircraft. And conventional aircraft have been used in combat to intercept cruise missiles since 1944.

 

Yeah, thats why anti-(ballistic)missile systems are such a big deal. Cruise missiles are far slower than ballistic missiles, and much easier to hit. You dont need any special equipment to destroy them.

 

You certainly do not. And during WWII, the Allies found many ways of eliminating the German V-1. This is considered to be the first "Cruise Missile".

Shooting them dowin with Spitfire fighters.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKZpUvz4MZo"]Spitfire Shooting down V1 - YouTube[/ame]

3.7" ground based cannons.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-GhqhUKRVU&feature=related"]British 3.7 inch flak versus the V1 rocket - YouTube[/ame]

And another technique was effective, even if unrecommended. In one of the most daring ways to defest these, pilots would fly right next to them, and
tip them by placing their win tip against that of the missile, causing them to roll on their side. This caused the gyro navigation systems to loose their track and immediatly go into a steep dive.



Basically, a cruise missile is just another airplane. But without flares and chaff and other defensive systems of fighters, and without the ability to manouver like a manned aircraft. This makes them basically sitting ducks to cannon and air to air missiles.

 

I think your missing a general point here, as I've discussed earlier and agreed with Mushroom, in the "surprise assumption" the PLA would have to try to follow up those missile / air attack with a very small landing party consisting of mostly just para-troopers, small commando units, and maybe a very limited landing party VIA sea, there is of course the outside chance that enough chaos and confusion was created that they succeed in toppling Taiwan's government completely, but that's rather unlikely no matter how you slice and dice it, at best you can say is that it's not impossible.

The Sea landing party would be even more troubled, since there some islands inbetween China and Taiwan, which the ROC have at least some military persence on, they would have to risk being attacked by missile boats and other defensive equipments in this sort of assumption, given the surprise nature of this sort of operation it is very very unlikely that PLA can knock out all (or even most) of them before their sea party moves out.

What if it's a large landing force you ask? like D-Day style 10s of thousands of men landing? that's the problem, if they attempt that it would have been known very very early in advance, at least several months, and probably half a year or so. Taiwan have plenty of spies in China as well, not to meantion the US, and eyes in the sky etc... so your assumption of China's deterence to the USA fleet would have played ou months before the first missile was fired.

We agree that China's ability to deter the US fleet have advanced dramatically, but to assume that it can keep out the 7th Fleet (not to meantion backups) from within range of protecting Taiwan's airspace for MONTHs is a rather optimistic assumption to say the least. espeically when additional reinforcements comein.

And if China's intention were known in advance, the US could and very likely would just ship additional PAC-3 and all sorts of other weapons into Taiwan before the conflict actually starts or during the conflict (as was the case in the 823 Kinmen artillery battle in the early 50s) anyway.

So when judging Taiwan's defensive capacity, the real question is that would they be able to survive an event where China surprise everyone, you have to put everythign into perspective here, even if they manage to bomb our brains in they'd still need to actually land to actually claim victory.

And the political risk for China against Taiwan is very very high, if they don't succeed (no matter what route they take), they're very likely going to face dramatic internal problems, the PRC have managed to keep down a lot of their internal problems by playing the nationalism card over the last decades, but that is a double edged sword.

 

No one's placing enough emphasis on logistics. Getting your forces to shore is one thing, keeping them supplied is a completely different thing. It would probably take several weeks for China to completely invade Taiwan (if it could even get the troops there). That entire time the USN and USAF would turn the straits of Taiwan into a graveyard for ships. Then theres the entire "occupation" consideration. The U.S. could blockade Taiwan after it fell. The USN outclasses the PRC Navy by many orders of magnitude. The only advantage China would have would be in the opening days of the battle before the U.S. could move all its forces into theatre.

 

I have mentioned it before and in other threads, but the amateurs do not seem to understand it at all.

And in the event of an invasion, I can tell you exactly what ships the US would target first. And it is rather obvious. They will ignore the carriers, the subs, even the tank carriers. They will go after the few amphibious warfare and troop transport ships China has.

China has a huge Army, but not much of a Navy to carry it in. Sink the transports, and the invasion stalls. And it will take probably be 2 days between waves, since it takes a long time to drop off it's current load, go back to port, and load up a fresh wave of soldiers. In the mean time, the battalaions on the beach will be on their own.

There is a lot of history to look at to see how amphibious operations work. To invade Iwo Jima, the US needed 450 ships, and over 3,000 aircraft. To invade the larger island of Okinawa, the US needed over 1,400 ships. China has nowhere near that many ships available.

As IB stated, it is all about logistics. And China does not have them.

And for bringing in equipment, it would happen surprisingly fast. The PATRIOT and THAAD systems can both be airlifted in military aircraft, and you would probably see entirely new batteries in place within 48 hours.

And the US fleet would not have to sit in the Strait of Taiwan. In fact, that would probably be the most stupid place to put the US fleet. Most of them would actually be on the other side of Taiwan, in the Philippine Sea.

This way they are not blocked in a narrow water way with no place to run. The US will not be sending out surface combatants to sink the Chinese navy like some World War I shooting gallery. They will sit on the other side of the island, and send out their air power to sink them from a distance.

At most you might see a few missile ships in the Strait to give air defense support, and some subs. But I seriously doubt there would be any more then that.

 

The Taiwan strait is very shallow, seems like a pretty bad place in general for subs to operate.

If they can't totally destroy our defense capacities, then Taiwan's apache helicoptors are enough to deal with almost any tanks that the PRC can send, and given that Taiwan is very small and well connected with roads, almost any landing party would very quickly have to face a very massive infantry presence against them, the acceptable landing area for the PRC seems very limited, the east coast is completely unacceptable (almost all rocky cliffs, even the US marines would find it very problematic.) while most of the west are reasonable landing beaches they're all very exposed and a lot of them have all sorts of weird lagoon / sand bars that would make landing tough.

 

Don't you mean armor presence? That's what the Taiwanese military would probably use them for. Armor is always the achilles heel of amphib operations. During D-Day it was the number 1 concern of the allies...fortunately Hitler pulled all his tanks back in reserve. Tanks are big and heavy and have a huge logistic footprint. It takes a while to get them all up and running. Even the U.S. Marine Corps, who practically wrote the book on modern amphib assaults and have more resources than any other Marine Corps in the world, can only include a few on their MEU (Marine Expeditionary Units). Invasion forces must rely on ATGMs or overwhelming air support....the later of which the Chinese would not have. A well-run armored/mech regiment could easily push an invasion force ten times its size back into the sea.

 

Unfortunately, Taiwan's armour presence is pretty terrible, and my father's a retired tank commander colonel in the army here. of all the army jokes you here around here one of the most common is the poor condition of the tanks.

First, it's very outdated, second, it's very poorly kepted (or rather that it's so far past it's expire date that it's a minor miracle some of them still work at all), 3rd, Taiwan's roads and terrains are generally ill suited for tank manuvers, most of the time when tanks move around they do so by trucks / trains, in all my life I've yet to see a tank driving on our roads when the exception of military parades on national day.

In the case of an abosalute surprise attack, I have severe doubts that our tanks would play much of an active factor, most of them are kepted more inland too (because the salt water around the coastal area makes it a bad idea to keep heavy equipment there fo prolonged periods). I would also assume that the PLA would try to at least partially sabatoge the roads / transportation system to whereever they want to land, which would make the tanks even more unlikely to get there

I think that's at least part of the reason why our army have been pretty high on attack helios in recent years, they can get there fast and at least eliminate the most threatening stuff, while infantries can deal with the rest. in the rapid response assumption they're certainly far more realistic options than hoping we can get our tanks there in time and working properly.

 

This is very true. People (even those in the military) are often shocked at how small the Marines are. 3 Active Duty Infantry Divisions, each Division only has a single Tank Battalion. So while the Army throws around Tank Divisions, the Marines can barely form a single Tank Regiment.

In Amphibious Operations, tanks are almost worthless. Because in order to support a tank, you need a lot of resources, in both fuel and ammunition. Once dropped on the ground, a modern tank can only operate for a few hours until it runs out of fuel. You also need to have a secure port to land them in any significant number.

However, Marine units generally make high useage of Anti-Tank weapons. Even back in the 1980's, we were trained in the use of the LAW, SMAW, Dragon, TOW, and Copperhead.

They also make high useage of laser designators, both the AN/PAQ3 MULE of my era, and the modern AN/PED-1 LLDR. This allows battalion sized units to call in very sophisticated and accurate remote fire weapons directly onto a target, from aircraft and ship based gunfire, to ground based artillery and even drones. And the munitions that can track these systems go from the Copperhead all the way up to Hellfire missiles and the Paveway LGB. Not to mention that the AC-130 Spectre can use this to lay a giant amount of kick-arse right on the area "painted" by such a designator.

Plus it is the only US service that still uses the Cobra gunship. This is all designed to knock out enemy tank units as fast as possible.