Another war game simulation about a cross strait invasion of Taiwan by China, this one put "most-favorable" conditions in place for China. The goal here wasn't to see if the PRC could succeed, but rather what time window would the PRC need to capture Taipei before U.S. intervention arrived? Prior war games have shown that once the US shows up, the best case for the PRC is a horrible stalemate where they destroy Taiwan's economy while lose tens to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the bulk of their navy, air, and missile forces. But that picture for the US is not much better, in an all-out, we'd lose a shit-ton of AF assets (mostly on the ground due to missiles).
As someone (can't remember who) has pointed out multiple times up-thread, amphibious operations are really hard, prone to failure, the PRC has never done it, and their troop transports are "the size of cruise ships" with a radar cross section to match which makes them vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. Those are all bad for the PLAN especially vs. the US, even though we are critically under resourced on anti-ship missiles with standoff range (see prior war game upthread). But what happens if the PLA/N is able to get Taipai before our politicians decide to engage our military in response? The window is shorter than you might think...
First, ROC navy is gone on day 1. Out of the picture, destroyed by missiles. Second, 90% of their air force is gone too, same story.
ROC does have anti-ship missiles on land-based mobile launchers:
However as soon as they fire they can be located and attrited. And we have no idea about how experienced these teams are, same questions for the PLA/N also apply here. But with the limited # of ASMs, the limited experience of the crews, and them being under constant fire, what if the "troop transports the size of cruise ships" are able to get through...?
I could easily see politicians debating intervention for 30+ days, easily. And that assumes we are pre-positioned with everything we need to intervene, which is probably not true, there will be travel time, logistics, etc.
Oh on top of all that, Taiwanese aren't super motivated to defend themselves:
Again this isn't an assessment of how likely the PRC is to attempt invasion, which is a political decision. This war game was about could they get it done before we move in, and it looks like the answer could be yes based on Taiwan's assets and willingness to fight.
A discussion of should the US intervene is also a political decision, but we need to get our shit straight on that ASAP one way or the other so we don't vacillate in the moment. I'm on the intervene side, which is a whole other discussion but you can make a case for either.