The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

[Eight Ball]

Short breakdown of the above video:

 

No politics. Other than being interesting in and of itself I just thought it might be useful for mission designers, video makers, etc.

[Mars Exulte]

I watched some stuff about this, being curious before about Taiwan's general readiness. I got the impression they don't REALLY expect a war and aren't as prepared as initially it seems (lots of understrength units, paper armies, and poorly trained militia with questionable organisation). On the flipside, even if that's all true, amphibious invasions, even if the opposition is of erratic quality, are extremely difficult and obvious preparations would begin well before it actually happened, giving Taiwan plenty of time to prepare and for allies to shuttle into the area.

Like, the only way it could feasibly happen is if it could be kicked off on the sly, which is not really possible, so the most likely ''war scenario'' is that it simply never happens. They would probably love to wrap up that loose end by force, but it's just not an option. Only way they get it back is by installing puppet governments and gradually eating away at their independent cultural identity.

 

Of course, that all assumes everyone making decisions hasn't drank their own propaganda to the point they expect three days to a parade in Taipei or some such.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Mars Exulte

[Dragon1-1]

It's hard to land on an island protected by heavy SAMs, aircraft and land-based ASM batteries. I don't think Chinese have effective SEAD equipment that can reliably deal with modern Western SAMs. That should be Taiwan's priority, it's small enough to cover with a relatively limited number of systems, and in such case, a naval blockade becomes the only viable option of sieging an island outfitted such. A blockade forced to stay out of ASM range can be ran by both aircraft and ships. The ground forces ideally would be only for mopping up anything that gets through and making infiltration by special forces difficult.