Herald,

I must admit to being somewhat confused as to the direction of this thread.  The title indicates that it is another attempt to demonstrate the need for more F-22s.  The study and even your posts have had little to do with that issue.  Instead, it deals with the basing and logistical issues that the Air Force would have to deal with in a confrontation with China over Taiwan. 

To the army truck driver. 

-you don't know geography.

-you don't know air power.

-you don't know logistics.

 

In fact you don't know squat. This was an elaborate Herald Trap to get you to commit yourself to an ultimate exercise in nonsense to demonstrate how ignorant you really are.

 

To WP: 

 

Sorry about this, but you see I do know the study's weaknesses and STRENGTHS.  The PRCs only have 1000 or so TBMs. The Red Horse battalions shouold be able to repair the RoCAF damage airfield damage once we fly them in. To hold the air space though, we need F-22 topcover for that week whule we repair and fly in. At least 40-80 aircraft from the EASTERN RoCAF air bases+ the defenders we need at Guam and Kadena. That is 120.aircraft.  Add the war reserve for surprise losses and you get 243 MINIMUM.

 

I thought about this problem a LONG time.

 

   You also need to think about the fact that this isn't going to be a mission flown exclusively by F-22's. 243 is not a minimum. Its the your preference. I've seen and read studies that show a successful defense of Taiwanese airspace by augmenting the RoCAF with under ~200 legacy AMRAAM capable USAF and USN fighters and the lowest numbers were well under 100 at 72!

IMHO it is not representative to make any judgement on minimum numbers of F-22's without first considering what the PRC is capable of doing and then taking a look at what the RoC and any allies it may have will do. Clearly though this isn't going to require 243 F-22's and even if we had that number or more getting them into the fight would only make marginal differences at best.

-DA 

By the way I want to thank you for the opportunity to SHOW why the numbers of F-22s shuttled forward into battle are not restricted by capacity at Kadena and Andersen. Those are just waypoints to the forward bases.

I was going to elaborate on my opinion earlier, but I didn't have the time.  As far as I'm concerned, we should not get involved in defending Taiwan unless we are going to keep fighting a major air and sea campaign for at least a couple weeks, and are going to completely disregard any efforts by the PRCs to end it quickly via diplomatic intervention if they are able to gain an early success on Taiwan before we can arrive in force.  As a corrolary, I think we also should not bother to defend Taiwan unless we are going to take advantage of the PRC's stupidity in actually giving us an excuse to open up on them, and go ahead with the whole can of whomp-ass on every aircraft and ship that dares to leave China's 12-mile limit at a minimum, plus as much of the higher-value aircraft and ships that stay anywhere within the whole Eastern War Zone (which essentially means the Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Jinan MRs) as see fit to destroy.  In other words, we take this opportunity to reduce their military projection capabilities to 1980s levels.

 

Given that, even I am leery of this idea of basing on Taiwan proper.  I realize your timing is the second week (plus) of the war, with the projection that China has essentially expended its airbase attack capabilities.  I remain dubious of the idea they will deplete themselves that far such that we could then open up their two major eastern airbases for our use... and keep them open.  I decried their ability to shut down Kadena for long, and for good reason in my opinion--while their ability to affect Andersen is definitely much less than even Kadena.  However, their ability to interfere with air operations on TAF airfields is at least a thousand times greater.  Not only do they have at least 1000 SRBMs that can reach all of Taiwan (rather than only a few dozen MRBMs that can reach Kadena), as you noted, but they also have land attack cruise missiles, and probably more importantly long range rocket launchers, for which they very possibly have/will have guided munitions as well.  Their biggest MRLs certainly can reach from any territory they manage to occupy on Taiwan or the Pescadores, and the largest can even make it from China itself.  And then there's the very real presence of the PLAAF, with a much greater capability to bomb Taiwan bases than they ever could hope for regarding bombing Kadena.  Finally there's the possibility of the PLA having something to say about us flying out of some or all of those Taiwanese airfields at all.

-DA 

Just a question :

are the USA building the 180 something F-22s to protect the homeland and do some missions abroad or to stop China to invade Taiwan ?

 

Cheers .

The issue of taking taiwan revolves around what political construct is in play.

eg, if china wants to keep infrastructure, minimise scorched earth responses, and have a relatively benign population to contend with - then the military option will not take such a kinetic response.

if china wants to send a statement about absolute power, they're more than able to barrage the western part of taiwan with land based ballistic conventionals.  they could demolish the west side, and within days the taiwanese economy would be imploding and the politicians would be under pressure to negotiate - that would however leave china with a latently hostile civlian population, a buggered economy (and they want Taiwanese industrial and research capability), and world oprobrium

Herald,

I must admit to being somewhat confused as to the direction of this thread.  The title indicates that it is another attempt to demonstrate the need for more F-22s.  The study and even your posts have had little to do with that issue.  Instead, it deals with the basing and logistical issues that the Air Force would have to deal with in a confrontation with China over Taiwan. 

By the way I want to thank you for the opportunity to SHOW why the numbers of F-22s shuttled forward into battle are not restricted by capacity at Kadena and Andersen. Those are just waypoints to the forward bases.
                                                                                                                                                                                  &

 

 

Yes.

 

And many other missions as well.

 

That's the beauty of airpower:  Flexibility.