Author of "Military Subplane": Military Mushroom
Source: Global Times
As everyone knows, in the past few years, the United States has played the Taiwan card in a big way, and in the past 20 years, the Taiwan Strait may never be as close to war as it is today.
Although the DPP authorities are vigorously hugging the thighs of the United States, after experiencing the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the DPP authorities have actually understood that once something happens in the Taiwan Strait, it is possible for the United States to provide support materials and directly send troops? Forget it.
Therefore, the DPP authorities can only pin their hopes on "seeking independence by force" and constantly engage in all kinds of war games in order to cheer themselves up.
No, according to the Privy Council No. 10, the official account of the Global Times, Taiwan recently engaged in a war game deduction for a future war in the Taiwan Strait, and then gave a conclusion: Attacking Taiwan is not as easy as imagined, and the reason is because of the wave-dissipating block on the coast of Taiwan.
▲ Source: Privy Council No. 10
It's strange that the wave-absorbing block has become the key to determining the victory or defeat of the Taiwan Strait? What kind of strange conclusion is this?
Let's first understand the background of this wargame.
This wargame is called "2023TTX Regional Security Push", which is different from the previous wargame that was led by the Taiwan military, and this time it turned out to be a non-governmental organization.
The sponsors of the Bingtui are the International Relations Research Center of National Chengchi University, the Asia-Pacific Policy Research Association, and the Taiwan Security Research Center, and sponsored by the National Defense Science and Technology Research Center of National Taiwan University, Junli Technology Company, Huanshang Think Tank, and Yunlin County Marine Corps Veterans Association.
Although it was a civilian military push, the host was a member of the military, Chen Yongkang, a former "vice minister of national defense", and there were also personnel of Taiwan's puppet "Navy Command" and a number of retired generals who also appeared at the scene of the military push. Obviously, although the military push is a non-governmental organization, the results of its exercise are still in the service of the Taiwan military.
On March 18, 2027, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) mobilized 600,000 troops to carry out a landing operation in northern Taiwan to exert maximum political pressure on Taiwan and force it to surrender.
In the military hypothesis, the PLA also has an alternative plan, that is, if the attack is unfavorable, it will turn to attack the Penghu Islands and seize a bridgehead to land in the Taiwan Strait in an attempt to fight again.
Why is there a disadvantage in the attack? The reason given by Bingtui was that the coast was all wave-absorbing blocks, and the PLA had nowhere to land.
This strange conclusion came from Chen Yongkang, the host of Bingtui, and the reason why he put forward this point of view was actually completely out of the need to refute the US conclusion and cheer himself up.
In April this year, the "China Affairs Committee" of the US House of Representatives spent the night holding a war rehearsal on the "Taiwan Strait conflict."
You must know that both the US military and various think tanks in the United States have staged countless battles in the Taiwan Strait, but this is the first time that the House of Representatives has taken the lead in organizing it.
The US military push shows that at the beginning of the war, after blockading the island, the PLA used missiles and rockets to carry out carpet bombing of key facilities on the island. Moreover, the scope of the bombing was not limited to Taiwan Island, but also the US military base in Japan and the US military base in Guam have also become the first targets of the PLA's bombing.
The bombing of the US military base gave the United States an excuse to intervene, and the US military destroyed at least 80 PLA warships with long-range anti-ship missiles, but it was still unable to stop the PLA's offensive to seize the island, and as the conflict continued, the US missile stockpile was exhausted, and as a result, nearly 80,000 PLA troops landed on the island.
There is no suspense about the subsequent result, who can defeat the PLA on land? In the end, the PLA relied on ground fighting and successfully controlled all areas of the island.
It is not surprising that the United States lost. But the strange thing is that the United States announced the results of this military push. Many people believe that this is a new means for the US Congress to "sell anxiety" to Taiwan, using the terrible scenario of "Taiwan's defeat" to scare Taiwan and force Taiwan to buy more weapons from the United States.
However, Chen Yongkang, the former "vice minister of national defense" of Taiwan's puppet country, obviously did not take the result of this war game in mind, and he believed that the PLA would not be able to land so many people at all!
Therefore, in Taiwan's war games, Chen Yongkang particularly emphasized that over the past few decades, a large number of cement wave-absorbing blocks and other facilities have been laid along Taiwan's coast, and although they are often criticized for destroying natural landscapes or ecology, they have unexpectedly had a positive effect in military defense.
Due to changes in the hydrological environment, the serious retreat of the beach, and the large number of artificial facilities such as wave-dissipating blocks, expressways, aquaculture, and wind turbines on the shore, the "red beaches" in western Taiwan suitable for launching amphibious landings have been greatly reduced in terms of number and troop capacity, and it is even difficult for the Taiwan military to find a beach for the annual "Lianxing" landing exercise, so how can the PLA find a place to land? Therefore, the Americans said that the news of the landing of the 80,000 PLA is nonsense!
Chen Yongkang believes that it is not the beachhead that will affect the victory or defeat of the Taiwan Strait in the future, but the people's livelihood. Because according to the results of the exercise, the PLA can lock down and attack Taiwan's power supply system, airport oil depot and other important infrastructure, both the battlefield and the civilian population will face 72-96 hours of power outages, but "the private sector and enterprises are obviously not prepared."
According to Chen Yongkang's logic, the landing of the PLA is not terrible, because they cannot find a place to land, and they are afraid that Taiwan's people's livelihood facilities are not ready for war, and this is likely to become the key to the outcome of the war.
So, is Chen Yongkang's view right? There is some truth, but it is not objective.
Why is Chen's point of view reasonable? Because of Taiwan's topography, there are indeed not many suitable places for landing.
The overall topography of Taiwan, in fact, is a central mountain range that pokes out of the sea alone, because of the large slope, resulting in a rather narrow coastal plain area, and even some coastal sections have no plains, and directly encounter hilly areas after landing, especially the east coast, which is full of faulted coasts and rugged terrain such as one-sided mountains and sea erosion platforms, so that there is almost no plain on the east coast.
As a result, there are almost no shore sections on the east coast that are suitable for landing, and even on the west coast, it is not easy to find a few more ideal landing shore sections that are conducive to unloading and landing, frontal deployment, in-depth development, and seizing ports.
Not only that, but the population distribution and economic construction of Taiwan itself have also brought great difficulties to the landing operation.
In the greater Taipei area alone, there are as many as more than ten fishing ports, container terminals, yacht anchorages, etc.; Another example is from Linkou in the greater Taipei area to the Qianxi area of Hsinchutou, along the western coastal highway No. 61, almost all over the large and small settlements; Another example is from Hsinchu to Miaoli to Taichung, in addition to the more complex coastal terrain (there are a large number of coastal hills), there are also a large number of breeding ponds and coastal salt pans used for cultivating the sea.
In addition, due to the over-exploitation of groundwater in Taiwan for many years, there are widespread problems of seawater inflow, soil erosion, and stratum subsidence in Taiwan's coastal areas.
▲The seemingly inconspicuous breakwater exceeds the cushion limit of the hovercraft and the climbing limit of the amphibious vehicle
As a result of all these factors, the frontal narrowness and lack of depth in the landing area in the Taiwan Strait make it difficult for the landing force to deploy its forces in a timely manner after landing, and it is also difficult to form a dense offensive depth, and the terrain is too complicated and full of sea ponds and residential areas, which will greatly increase the difficulty of the landing force breaking down obstacles after landing.
So, don't look at Taiwan's coastline of 1,140 kilometers, but there are really not many beaches suitable for landing.
Even beaches suitable for landing are areas that the Taiwanese military focuses on. As early as several decades ago, the Taiwan military divided the beaches into red, yellow, and blue according to the conditions of different beaches and the difficulty of landing on the beaches, and the beaches that were the easiest and most likely for the PLA to land were designated as "red beaches."
As for the so-called "red beaches," the Taiwan military has not disclosed all of them, but we can still guess one or two from a series of exercises and reports conducted by the Taiwan military in recent years.
In January this year, Chang Yuan-hun, "chief of staff of the Taiwan Army Command," declared at a news conference that he would lay mines on the "four red beaches" during wartime. The "four red beaches" are Bao Dou Cuo Beach and Hai Hu Beach in northern Taiwan, Xishu Beach in southern Taiwan or Jia Nan Beach in central Taiwan.
In November this year, the Taiwan military's exercise and training activities again exposed that Da'an Beach and Kaohsiung's Xiziwan are also so-called "red beaches."
In addition, Jinshan (north), Jinshan (south), Linkou, Emerald Bay, Fulong, Toucheng, Zhuangwei, Luodong, Yilan, Budai, Tainan, Linyuan, Jialutang and other places may also be landing sites.
On these red beaches, Taiwan has been building anti-landing fortifications and setting up obstacles almost since the time of Chiang Kai-shek, and at present these red beaches have formed a fairly complete defense system, which is basically composed of flooding, water-bound, beachhead obstacles and fortified areas.
The first layer is the flooding landing area, where there are large mines and mines that can kill and injure landing vehicles in large quantities, some of which weigh hundreds of kilograms, and can easily sink landing ships;
The second layer is the triangular piles and rail barricades (of course, Chen Yongkang's proud "cement wave-absorbing blocks") set up at the waterfront beachhead in the name of "offshore embankment" and "breakwater", as well as anti-infantry and anti-tank mines, blocking trenches, snake-bellied barbed wire, etc., these obstacles will bring huge obstacles to the flooding of the mechanized troops, and they can only rely on sappers to slowly break through the obstacles.
The third layer is the anti-tank trenches, barrier walls, minefields, barbed wire, thistles and other obstacles set up at the front and depth of the beachhead.
The fourth layer is the permanent fortification of the landing shore section, which is divided into different designs such as the fortress, the triangular fort, the tunnel mouth bunker, the anti-aircraft fort, the sub-mother fort, etc., which are all poured with high-grade reinforced concrete, which is enough to defend the 155 mm howitzer from using anti-explosive shells to shoot at direct fire.
The fifth layer is the depth area of the shore section, and a large number of shore guns and shore guided fortifications are preset, which can bombard the beachhead and ships at sea at any time with firepower.
This complete set of defense systems is the greatest confidence of the DPP authorities to resist reunification by force.
Although Chen Yongkang is very optimistic, Taiwan's beach defense is not weak, but the problem is:
My lord, times have changed!
We still remember that in the 90s, when the news mentioned the operation of crossing Haideng Island, there was often a saying that "thousands of troops and horses crossed the strait, and the road was opened by thousands of stormy waves." The main thing we talked about was the "Normandy" landing operation mode.
To put it simply, after the landing fleet arrives at the designated sea area, the ship regiment will anchor outside the range of the defenders' shore-based artillery, that is, in an area 20~30 kilometers away from the coast, carry out the operation of "transfer and flooding", and then carry out wave formation in the order of breaking obstacles, assaulting landing, and attacking in depth.
At the same time, the air force and long-range artillery and naval guns will bombard the beachhead, and the obstacle breaking team will go out to destroy the waterfront obstacles, and then the assault boats will rush to the beach, further clear the beachhead obstacles, and seize the beachhead. Subsequently, it was amphibious tanks and amphibious armored vehicles that made a breakthrough from the 7-kilometer line while suppressing the firepower of the beachhead defenders.
If the PLA is still in this landing mode today, the arrangement of the Taiwan army can indeed create huge problems for the PLA.
For example, the offshore embankment, which is more than 2 meters above the sea surface, exceeds the draft of most landing ships, which can effectively prevent beach grabbing, and if it is less than 2 meters, even the 726 air-cushion landing craft transporting tank armored vehicles cannot cross.
For example, breakwaters and wave dissipation blocks can change the coastal topography and increase the wave height of the incoming waves, which will exceed the design limits of the amphibious vehicle and may cause the amphibious vehicle to capsize.
In addition, there are messy fishing nets and cages, propellers that can wrap around landing ships, and waterjets of armored vehicles. Wind power equipment on the seashore can block waterways and low-altitude airspace to prevent low-altitude fire strikes by armed helicopter fleets.
These obstacles, whether by firepower or manpower, are difficult to clear, so Chen Yongkang dared to say that it was difficult for the PLA to land.
But today's People's Liberation Army is no longer Wuxia Ameng!
We can take a look at the wording used in the PLA's current exercises, which is no longer "crossing the sea to land on the island" but "crossing the sea to the island." The difference of one word symbolizes the subversive change in the entire landing mode of the PLA.
It is true that the People's Liberation Army wants to land, but who stipulates that the landing must be beached? It's already in stereoscopic landing mode, okay?
The so-called three-dimensional landing means that it will no longer be entangled in the beachhead, but will use helicopter landing, heavy loading, and airdrop to cross the beachhead and directly seize the port and airport, and then use ro-ro ships and transport planes to directly project troops to the island.
▲Why did the People's Liberation Army make 075? It is that it has the ability to land in three dimensions
This is really not whimsical, in July this year, the PLA Navy exercise, four large ro-ro ships belonging to the Bohai Ferry Group suddenly appeared, loaded with hundreds of PLA combat vehicles headed south.
The main character of the exercise, the "Bohai Jinzhu" ferry, has a full load of 14,000 tons, has three decks, each layer is 5 meters high, not to mention carrying 99A, and even 155-mm self-propelled howitzers, PHL-191 rocket launchers, and Hongqi-17 anti-aircraft missiles can easily drive in.
After this kind of ro-ro ship arrives at the occupied port, it can put in the entire strength of a heavy composite battalion at one time, not to mention, the "Bohai Jinzhu" is only the smallest ship of the Bohai Ferry Company, and there are four 24,000-ton ships, four 35,000-ton and one 45,000-ton ro-ro ship on it!
Even if the port can't be taken, it doesn't matter, the PLA already has the ability to quickly build an artificial port, as long as necessary, the PLA can build an artificial port on any beach (whether it is a red beach or not), and heavy troops on ro-ro ships can go ashore directly through the artificial port.
Therefore, although Chen Yongkang served as "Minister of National Defense," he was still entangled in the "decisive battle on the beachhead" with the PLA, which shows that he was still too self-righteous, too optimistic, and too sitting in a well and watching the sky.
He didn't want to think about it, when the French pinned their hopes on the Maginot Line, and the result?