‘Zhen Hua 28′ and a Z-8 helicopter. Via Twitter
Forbes: Thousands Of Ships, Millions Of Troops: China Is Assembling a Huge Fleet For War With Taiwan
To have any chance of conquering Taiwan, China might need to transport as many as two million troops across the rough 100 miles of the Taiwan Strait and land them under fire at the island’s 14 potential invasion beaches or 10 major ports.
That’s a lot of people—far, far more than the People’s Liberation Army Navy can haul in its 11 new amphibious ships.
To transport the bulk of the invasion force, Beijing almost certainly would take up into naval service thousands of civilian ships.
To that end, the Chinese Communist Party has created a legal and bureaucratic framework for taking over control of commercial shipping.
Meanwhile, naval engineers have begun modifying key vessels to make them better assault ships.
All that is to say, the vast flotilla that would be both the vehicle for China’s assault on Taiwan—and the biggest target of Taiwanese forces and their allies—is taking shape.
“If the PLA invasion force was a million or more men, then we might expect an armada of thousands or even tens of thousands of ships to deliver them, augmented by thousands of planes and helicopters,” Ian Easton, an analyst with the Project 2049 Institute in Virginia, wrote in a recent report.
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WNU Editor: Taiwan will need to buy more missiles .... Taiwan says new Harpoon missiles will help it crush half of Chinese invasion fleet (Taiwan News).
