Standing up to China
 

Just curious what people thought on this.

Suppose China went all in on securing SouthWestern Pacific resources for themselves, without worrying about the possibility of triggering armed conflict. Say also, that the US made it clear (for whatever reason you want to give) that they would not become directly involved. Would any of the affected Pacific nations, currently included in WinSPMBT, stand up to her, even knowing that they may be doing to alone? Would they put aside old animosities and band together against the common threat?

Thoughts?

Re: Standing up to China
 

For what it's worth, I see little reason to doubt the Australians, Japanese, and Taiwanese would jump in without US assistance.

Re: Standing up to China
 

Agreed. I was thinking it would be left to those with the most coastline along the South China Sea, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines and who have the most to lose. None of them would likely stand a chance, at least at sea or the air.

Re: Standing up to China
 

Historically the Vietnamese have been willing to face China with only logistical support from the Soviet Union in the 1970s and I believe have skirmished with the Chinese more recently as well - You could certainly justify an argument that they would stand up again with or without assistance.

Re: Standing up to China
 

Big problem the Chinese have is a lack of naval assets.
REALLY hard to invade Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines without proper support and especially sealift.
While none of those nations have a Navy worth mentioning themselves what little they have would make a Chinese invasion unlikly.

Re: Standing up to China
 

Which is why I think the Chinese military is overrated.

Re: Standing up to China
 

China would find it hard to invade them outright, but its naval and air forces are enough that if the US doesn't bail them out, China can make life h*ll on the SE Asia nations.

But that would be a battle more suited for this wargame:
http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=1101

Re: Standing up to China
 

Or you can simply do what the Chinese are already doing to secure resources, especially e.g. in Africa - buy them, and set up Chinese owned companies to do the development projects.

China is using its cash reserves from all that manufacture of goods for the globalised economy much as Britain used its money as "gold soldiers" in the Napoleonic era.

Western governments give aid as cash money, which the officials squirrel away in Switzerland, usually...:mad: Chinese aid is done by a Chinese company that actually makes the dam, lays the roads, builds the mines or whatever the aid package was supposed to do. And they buy Chinese parts, trucks etc, thus helping the Chinese economy. Experts are Chinese, labour is provided by the host. The Chinese way of doing aid projects does bring benefits to both sides - unlike the western gifts of cash tend to, IMHO.

The Chinese armed forces are defensive, they have no need to go out invading their neighbours. They are not particularly large in percentage terms, just appear so in total. But the country and population is huge. Same goes for India - army looks large in totality, but not when seen as a %age of the teeming population.

Taiwan - just wait, and the errant child will be reunited to the fold as with Hong Kong. It may be 50 years hence - which is just a blink in the Chinese view of timescales.
Tibet - already integrated with China by the simple expedient of exporting settlers.

The Chinese work in the long term - a decade is just a tick of the clock.

They are not a militarily adventurous nation, and never have been. They are content to hold onto the "Middle Kingdom".

But they have though been invaded by "foreign barbarians" many times, or have had periods of anarchy when the central government has lost control. The WW2 warlord period being the last time, and in Chinese terms it was yesterday. That scenario is what the Chinese armed forces are there to avoid. The Chinese value stability, and abhor chaos. So their leaders favour a strong stable centralised government, where change is managed in a slow and steady planned manner - whether the old Imperial system or the current Party one and they do not like democracy ("chaos").

So - the likelihood of a "Chinese horde" going on the rampage is a little above nil, really. Just do not invade them or get into a border dispute about land that they consider to be "Han".

And since this thread is now getting onto Political chat - if someone does not produce a "what if" scenario out of it, best to let it die off. We do not have a political chatter forum, and don't want one either.

If there is a campaign or scenarios - then we can move it to the campaigns & scenarios sub-forum.

cheers
Andy

Re: Standing up to China
 

Well, they do say war is politics by other means. ;)

Honestly, a possible what-if campaign is what prompted this thread. The Pacific is not my "area" so I am not familiar with a lot of the friction points there other than what is generally known propaganda although I have taken a stab at it before. For now I have worked up the basic story of a Chinese based user campaign but what I need is a credible/probable opponent for them that's not going to seem to far out there in make believe land.

Than being said, can you go ahead and move this thread to the Campaigns, Scenarios & Maps section.

Re: Standing up to China
 

First, let me suggest pick a timeline of events which suit what you want to design and go with it.

Politically there is tension between China and: Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, over ownership of islands which would support a claim to exploit valuable ocean. Without suggesting there is likely to be military conflict it would not (in my opinion) be too big a stretch to build a camp/scenario based around very limited military clashes over the islands (maybe commando raids on islands or naval bases). A more thoroughly hypothetical choice could see the clashes get bigger.

Re: Standing up to China
 

I've been looking at the South China Sea area and the bordering countries. IMHO, Vietnam seems the most likely candidate as they seem to have a longer border of that area and have come to blows with China in the fairly recent past. Also, there is a lot of what I would call, non-resident traffic through that area so it would be easy for others to be drawn in, even if only in a covert backing of one side or the other.

Right now I am contemplating a Chinese SOF/Marine/Airborne based campaign, with pretty small battles of short duration. get in, blow stuff up, rescue civilian (oil workers), etc. For the base force I think whatever it is it be heliborne since that would be the best way to move troops around across such large areas without airfields and land bases.

Re: Standing up to China
 

About the only real possibility for a "big" war with a serious opponent might be in the Mao era when they had a split in opinion.

Here you have China effectively under one man's control (and he did do some strange things!) - which the present system is designed to rule out (see the recent election/appointment of new Chinese leaders - a bunch of them).

See this Alternative History thread for ideas perhaps?
Sino-Soviet split becomes Sino-Soviet War
http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=252876

And just to add to the "What ifs" - the China-Vietnam war "going large" is another one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
- According to the Wiki Article, China had 1.5 million troops massed on the Soviet border just in case it all kicked off into a full-scale war. What if it had done so?. Likely you would have to use sheer infantry and arty based human-wave mass, if playing as Chinese since the USSR '79 stuff is so technically advanced comparatively, whereas you have T-54 knock-offs at best, no man portable SAM or decent AAA etc.

Re: Standing up to China
 

I actually did a Soviet-Chinese campaign-mostly infantry based-set in 1956. It was actually one of the most fun campaigns I've played with battles reminding the Eastern front of WW2. I have posted one mission of that campaign here (The crossing the Amur thread...)

Re: Standing up to China
 

Locationwise, it should only really affect Vietnam as Hainan is pretty much shielded by them and the Chinese coast. Unless they push that boundary out past the Paracel Islands its pretty much their sphere of influence anyway.

Chinese police plan to board vessels in disputed seas

Re: Standing up to China
 

So . . . anyone have any scenario ideas based on possible tensions?

Re: Standing up to China
 

Two airborne commando groups fighting for a small island. You could make it as similar or as different as you wanted to the first battle of the "Balken wars 2008" campaign.

Marine/commando raid in boats on an island outpost.

"Spoiling" raid to sink boats before they can cause trouble - perhaps secure a position to be able to fire ATGMs at opposing patrol boats.

Heliborne raid on opposing artillery as part of crossborder firing as tension mounts. Perhaps in response to intelligence that there are bioweapons being prepared for use. Could be a raid on AA instead.

If a map could be persuaded to look enough like an oil platform you could fight over a deep sea rig.

Given the resources in dispute; raids on gas/oil terminals or even fish processing plants could make a political point


Extract some significant civilians/agents/diplomatic staff from a city - mostly opposed by armed police to start with.

Just some thoughts.

Re: Standing up to China
 

If you wanted to you could even fight on a supertanker although you may need reinterpret the scale for that to work.

Helping rebels/minoreties in opposing countries. This wouldn't match Chinese policy as shown to date but could be an interesting battle. On the flip side you could decide the unrest has lead to internal strife for China and run a counter-terrorism opp

Re: Standing up to China
 

Deep sea drilling rigs are not that big. CNOOC's 981 rig, for example, is 114 meters long and 90 meters wide and 137.8 meters high. That's not real large in game terms and its one of the larger ones. Using a complex of several rigs with interconnected shallow water hexes to simulate crew walkways / pipelines might make a good setting. Most of these complexes also had helo-pads at one or more locations.

I would ignore the height of the platforms for design purposes, You'll have to construct flat terrain and then add buildings to simulate an actual offshore facility and make it possible for boat borne troops to access the facilities.

Unless of course DRG and Mobhack want to do some special offshore facility tile sets for us. :)

For defense, I would put limited AAA on some, but certainly not all, of the rigs, and then add some infantry for a garrison. Give them some light arms, maybe a Manpad or two and some rpgs (range variable). Some limited mortar support might be possible but nothing heavy. You can add patrol boats and limited air / helo assets for support as desired and you're set.

(Actually that's pretty close to the config for the Sirri oil complex which consisted of seven connected drilling structures and was a target of Operation Praying Mantis in 1988.)

For attackers, probably a mixed air / sea elite assault team with rigid raider type boats and some air, helo and patrol boat support as well.

If the intention is to retake your own platform or to seize the platform for yourself, then you should avoid giving the attacker any artillery or naval gunfire support. You will want to inflict as little damage as possible to preserve the facility for your own use. If this is a puntive strike, then the gloves come off and you can reduce the facility to a twisted mass of metal.

For patrol boats, I recommend grabbing Malaysian, Greek or possibly one of the Scandanavian countries (Sweden I think?). The gunboats in those countries are fairly modern or at least typical of what would be available. Alter the weaponry as needed and then just reflag them as captured equipment.

For additional color or to change the scenario objectives, you can add some civilians to represent non-combatant crewmen, make them hostages and turn the scenario into a "rescue mission".

Modify the nationalities as needed.

Using a large supertanker is another interesting idea. The largest supertankers are around 450 meters long and might make a great base for AAA assets or some other facility.

Vietnam/China would be a good match, Double Deuce. Lots of history and recent issue between the two. Malaysia, Phillipines, Japan, Brunei and even Taiwan could all be possibilities. A multinational force might be one possibility as well

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/24/world/...ner/index.html

Re: Standing up to China
 

Interesting thread. Hmm... I am reminded of Tom Clancy's "The Bear and the Dragon" wherein Clancy weaves a story of a battle between China and Russia with support from the US. Although the book is over 500 pages, of particular interest to our community is the part story of an ACR commanded by Diggs, a native of Chicago. The battle is most interesting as Clancy rightly portrayed the value of predator drones. Now back to our discussion here in this thread, "Standing up to China," a scenario based loosely on Clancy's Bear and the Dragon (see the chapter: Deep Battle) where a Chinese PLA MD is blocked by an ACR (you know Clancy, he has a lot of sub plots going on too) is I suggest a very good starting point to develop a winSMBT scenario.

What I want to share in this thread is that it is conceivable that China would "invade" an area of Siberia to exploit rich deposits of rare earth minerals and gold (as their economy falters from over reaching economic growth) under the pretext that Siberia is historically Chinese. Politically, the US could back the Russians against the Chinese if US manufacturing assets were being diverted from China to another country, say India, Mexico, Brazil or Agentina as a check against Chinese industrial hegemony (and to cancel our debt to China to boot!)

Ha, that's my two cents.

Re: Standing up to China
 

IF the Chinese felt the need to secure raw material resources they'd be far more likly to invade Siberia then the island nations.

1) No need for a Navy
2) It's right next door
3) It's relatively undefended (except right along the border)
4) There are literally mountains of untapped raw materials

Re: Standing up to China
 

Except this is property of Russia and it's wise not to start a war with a nuclear power, even if it's not in the best condition.

Re: Standing up to China
 

Why the "IF" is in big bold red !