I quite agree with the depth argument for AEGIS, but why not supplement them with fishing trawler with MANPADS??? Cheap!

If the discussion is on a possible China on taiwan strike, then a mass PLAAF strike poses a lot of difficulties to Taiwanese defenders. Specifically, such a mass attack would not be carried out just by obselete types like the J-7 or J-8. They would be accompanied by Su-27/Su-30/J-11 flying top cover, as well as various cruise missiles in land attack mode and maybe intermediate range ballastic missiles with conventional warheads. So say 200-300 firstline fighters, 1000 secondline fighters and a few hundred cruise missiles and IRBMs, if correctly organised and deployed in one simultaneous attack, would give any air defense that Taiwan can deploy a lot of problems, although I'm sure that the Taiwanese general staff is aware of this.

Better than MANPADs http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/ram.htm I'd have these mounted on shore as well.

If you have good communications, put them on a truck, get 2 first rate spotters, a driver and muscle-man. they will do damage on the attacker. In general get as many different systems as you can manage, that alone will add up problems for the opposition.

with a well integrated airdefence system the problem is not insurmountable - far from. On the fighter side: 100 air defence fighters and a ground organisation optimised for rapid refuelling and reloading plus engineering support to clear off debris and mines. A mass attack will have problems spreading out before concentrating on a target, if the red chinese don't have a system to coordinate their forces in the air. - and we haven't even discussed the red chinese ability to hit the target.

with a well integrated airdefence system the problem is not insurmountable - far from. On the fighter side: 100 air defence fighters and a ground organisation optimised for rapid refuelling and reloading plus engineering support to clear off debris and mines. A mass attack will have problems spreading out before concentrating on a target, if the red chinese don't have a system to coordinate their forces in the air. - and we haven't even discussed the red chinese ability to hit the target.

the problem with 1000+ ac attack from PRC to ROC: where are they all going to come from? how many air bases within range? how many ac can each base feasibly hold (if only for staging)? how to mask/disguise or otherwise prevent detection of this massing? check out Scramble on the Web. all those ac have to come from someplace, they all have to fit on that someplace and that someplace has to be where those ac can reach the target, or all those ac have to be refueled, so there has to enough tankers to do that, all that has to be coordinated.

Good point: Just imagine the traffic jam on the runway, tarmac and roads to such an airfield. With the generally short range of Red Chinese fighters there cannot be to many relevant airfields. In the cold war days the reinforcements to Denmark was such, that there were parking problems (at that time fighters needed a roof over their head - a lot of roof) AND since WW2 Denmark has been plastered with runways.

Given the new UAVs and satellites watching what is going on in China, I suspect a similar traffic jam at ROC and US air bases getting ready to meet and greet them.

There are 42 airbases and airports within the Nanjing military district. An overview can be found here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/airfield-overview.htm From the looks of things, this overview is at least 5 years old, so China has improved its long range aircraft types (J11/Su-30) since then, but it does state that 1,300 aircraft are stationed within 500km of China, while 600 aircraft are in range of Taiwan proper. Also: http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/orbat/nanjing_af.asp Where China is obviously deficent in is airborne tankers, AWAC, ECM and C2, which would make a well coordinated attack difficult to acheive.