Does the PRC really have those hypersonic missiles? I mean, it was one claimed test that there seems to be quite a bit of confusion about. They might have them in a few years, but considering how great a lot of their technology works...
They built some kind of amphibious tank which sinks...
Have you been to Taiwan? It's not a tropical island with sandy beaches, so in as much as the PRC might be able to take out some strategic targets, it's not an island where it's easy to land.
Once again, I see a lot of opinions in favour of the PRC from people that have never visited Taiwan and it's making me a bit fed up. Believe whatever you want, but it's not going to be a walk in the park to invade Taiwan if that's what Xi decides he wants to do.
It all comes down to hypersonic missiles. Without them, China cannot land in Taiwan. With them, China will make the landing easy.
There's no doubt that China has hypersonic missiles. The question is if China has
homing hypersonic missiles (ie: can kill a Carrier moving at 35mph). Its one thing to use GPS / BeiDou to destroy all of Taiwan's military airports and stationary defenses... those move at 0mph. Its totally a different thing to hit a moving aircraft carrier that can turn on a dime (
).
There's almost no doubt that Chinese subsonic cruise missiles, supersonic missiles, and hypersonic missiles will work as a team and systematically destroy Taiwan's air-force and defenses. Once those are down, Chinese Air Force will simply bombard the landing sites with smart bombs (and much, much cheaper cruise-missiles), making any landing a piece of cake. You can't expect the Taiwanese Army to stay on the beaches if cruise missiles + Chinese air force are killing them all.
Opposed landings are hard. Taiwan's military is pretty decent. They've got an air force, small navy, and a decent army actually. But with CRAM's destroyed and the entirety of the Taiwan air force grounded (aka: Hypersonic missiles to destroy all the runways), there's really nothing Taiwan would be able to do against a combined Chinese Missile-force + Air Force supporting a mass landing.
--------
How does US Military change this? Well, first off, we have the option to destroy all of China's satellites, which means the hypersonic missiles won't be able to accurately hit their targets. That's probably a step too much towards total war though (China would retaliate by destroying the GPS system), so there's a chance we won't do that.
Assuming we aren't authorized to start a space war... we rely upon the fact that US Ships are
moving targets, and therefore much harder to hit. US Aircraft Carriers serve as the air-support (replacing the Taiwanese Military Airports destroyed by Hypersonic missiles)... and US AEGIS Cruisers to shoot down the cheaper subsonic missiles as they approach Taiwan. (Each AEGIS Cruiser has the same technology used in Israel's Iron Dome, albeit small enough to fit on one ship and less capable than Israel's Iron Dome... but you get the general gist of what those ships can do). Of course, this assumes that the Chinese Hypersonic missiles can't hit our ships (moving targets are much harder, even if its just moving at 35mph... that's a lot faster than 0mph runways in Taiwan). So I'm still being quite optimistic about this kind of setup...
Chinese hypersonic missiles are probably too expensive to use against Taiwanese artillery positions (an M777 is like $700,000. The Hypersonic missiles are probably tens-of-millions of bucks). So if we can just "keep Taiwan's military in the game", they'll defend the island perfectly. Cruise missiles are on the order of ~1-million bucks, and probably cost-effective to use against M777 positions.
------
Taiwan has very nice weapons. M777 + GPS Excalibur rounds can hit a car at 70km out. It will be difficult for China to make opposed landings with that kind of lethality and accuracy.
--------
Oh right, and for the range of China's hypersonic missiles:
Taiwan comfortably sits inside of China's DF-21 missile range, let alone their ICBMs. With a map like this, there's no doubt in my mind that all of Taiwan's airports and stationary defenses will be destroyed in a matter of days if war begins. The only reason why US Carriers have hope is because carriers move, and are therefore harder to hit and target.
But you can see that China can
easily destroy airports in the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, let alone Taiwan's military airports. I don't really see how the US Air Force can help out in this fight, the US Navy + US Marines will be on their own.
----
Remember that "moving target" thing? Well... here's what a DF-21 looks like.
Yeah, that DF-21 hypersonic missile is
launched from a truck. China can place those babies anywhere in their country without the need of a base. Any road in all of China serves as a potential launch point for the DF-21.
------
In any case, that's what China is openly, and publicly, parading around. They want the world to know that they have these capabilities. Its part of their 'Wolf Warrior" diplomacy. I mean, maybe China is bluffing, maybe this stuff doesn't work very well. But... they're not exactly being secretive about this:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...df-26-anti-ship-missiles-destabilizing-167901
