Poland’s First F-35A takes shape

Don’t blame me for reporting the facts. If you’ve a problem with it take it up with Poland’s military planners.

Nath or Nathan?

Russia is in no position to attack anyone in addition to Ukraine without inviting disaster. That fact must be obvious to you. Make a nuisance of itself? Certainly. Likewise China is ultimately going to accept it cannot attack the interests of those countries that it needs to trade with that do not owe it trillions they cannot or have no intention to repay.

I would say that’s a very dangerous game as most analysts shows that china is pretty serious and Taiwan is a red line it will go to war over…this is a nation that killed millions of its own people in a big sociological experiment…it’s pretty much 50/50 that china will go to war with the U.S. over Taiwan…its pissing away many many hundreds of billions of dollars in preparation…including Harding its economy..a massive military build up…civil defence and security……you don’t do what the Chinese are doing unless your very seriously considering war.

It’s very hard to see how they could pull it off Jonathan, a Chinese amphibious invasion of the huge scale needed would be cut to bits as it tried to cross the straight.

Chinese airborne forces would face stiff opposition and struggle to resupply, what’s China’s solution, threaten nuclear weapons unless they surrender???

China has to be able to capture and hold airports and ports to be able see an invasion through, their invasion would bog down and likely fail within a week.

They might well be outnumbered, but the Taiwanese Airforce have a qualitative and training edge over China, they would without doubt cause a great deal of loss to the PLAAF.

I would certainly rather have an upgraded F16 strapped to my back than a Chinese J-15, I know which one will get a medium range missile off the rails first!

If the Americans got involved, the Chinese would take huge losses and fail…

I’m not so sure and to be honest neither is the Taiwanese’s military to be honest..the mismatch is huge and china is not a bankrupt has been power…it’s a superpower that in truth is far more of a threat than the USSR ever was..it’s only really it’s geography that means the west has been able to sit comfortable…

if you look at the balance of power is not in Taiwan’s favour..

china has around 1200 5:to 4th generation fighters…the J20 is a bit of an unknown..but most feel it’s far better that SU-57….so how close it is to a F22 is not known..but it’s going to dominate f16s without question…India has said it can detect a J20 for visual range but not BVR…china has 250 plus of those…then around 1000 reasonable 4th generation fighters and around 500 older ground attack fighters…against that tiawan has 100 f16s and around another 100 3rd generation aircraft….but the big issue is all of Taiwan’s airbases are within easy strike range of china and within range of chinas very large stock of theatre ballistic missiles and cruise missiles…the final piece is china is not Russia its got money to make sure its units are functional….Taiwan would loss the air war…it would be reacting to an overwhelming attack..it’s a bad place to be.

Then you look at sea lift..china has insane amounts of sea lift capability…unless your planning to invade someone..it’s also building all its commercial local shipping to military standards..all its RoRo ferries are usable as military sea lift…and it regularly takes around 100,000 tons of civilian shipping and inserts it in its annual in adding Taiwan exercise …as stated by the U.S. navel war college

“The PLA may be able to effectively leverage civil maritime shipping on a large enough scale to support a major amphibious operation sometime in the next five to ten years.”

some estimates are that at present if it levered all its mil speced civilian ships it could have a first wave sea lift of 60,000 troops and 8 heavy armour brigades.. ROC has 5 armoured brigades and its MBTs are post war M48s and 1960s M60s…essentially the ROC has the same armour Europe and the U.S. had 60 years ago..

As for US support it’s likely the US would need to react in and most of it’s available support would be 2 weeks away..unless it reacted in piece meal..which would be a bad idea..

Well the Americans know an awful lot about the stealth capabilities of a J-20 in reality, as to a degree China will know that of F-22s simply because they have confronted each other on various occasions around the region. Now one has to be careful in taking anything at face value (esp after events in Ukraine) but information that has got in the public gaze tells us the J-20 is up to hundreds of times less stealth capable than a Raptor especially from the front, and that Raptors were able to detect them quite easily and even that a Super Hornet has a lower frontal radar profile than the J-20 (the Hornet has a lower frontal radar profile than an F-16 mind) so the only real unknown is how the J-20 compares overall against an F-16. In the end only real life data will give a true picture of relative capabilities but the US will have given Taiwan a lot of information on the J-20 that’s for sure and how best to counter it. Yes it’s a better aircraft than the Su-57 esp as it’s at last had upgraded and finally acceptable engines and more power and reliability, but the Russian aircraft is barely considered stealthy at all by most judges what with exposed exhausts and rivets.

Indeed, but unfortunately the F22 is not going to be a consideration in the front end of any Tiawan campaign..and if they are involved it will be a bit later if the US reacted into the theatre..at which point the world is heading to buggered….the air war to prevent an invasion would likely be that 100 F16s and 100 3rd generation and old 4th generation…it’s not much of a deterrent…one of taiwans problems and a big geopolitical issue is no one would sell them top end kit just incase it forces china’s hand…and Taiwan itself has been careful….remember in international law Taiwan is not a separate nation from china.

Then please explain what the P.L.A. are waiting for?

Well at the moment they are putting about 300,000 tons of warship in the sea every couple of years or so…and will essentially be improving their capabilities faster than tiawan and the US for the next 5-6 years..infact the optimal timing from the point of view of Chinese power is between 2027 and 2030…xi has specifically instructed the nation to be ready for war by 2027….so the reason why is every year is an improving situation for china and will be for the next 6 or so years….

Yes and that is to frighten off the US war would be a disaster for both Countries and in part is why China was very happy to see Russia weaken, frighten and drive Europe out of the US or it so that a large part of its exports could be retained and the US eventually brought back onside by the simple fact China would potentially suddenly control up to 90% of various chip sectors… if they don’t destroy it all in the process of course.

Also don’t forget, in regards to the Russian Ukraine war..it’s a double win for china…Russia was a potential geopolitical enemy..with a real geostrategic set of issues for china…now it’s a nation within its own area of influence…a reasonably powerful ally huge, nuclear power, vast land mass full of resources..with a direct land link and easy sea links…Russia falling into Chinas influence and being a threat to Europe is a huge geopolitical and geostrategic influence and power multiplier…I don’t think people see how that affects the worlds balance of power…once the west was faced with a number of dispersed threats..in order of power..china, Russia , Iran, we now have these powers and all their satellites joint as essentially an allied power…that most worryingly is all linked by land routes and has Essentially most of the resources of Asia to play with.

I think that Chinas massive build up more to ensure it won’t be going to war with the US ie that the US simply wouldn’t take the hit of trying to stop it and thus whinge but do little to stop it. An actual war would be a disaster.

I think china will look at the U.S. posture at the time..they will use all the elements of political warfare in the meantime to try and win before it goes kinetic “ part of their paradigms is winning before the armies meet…But if they think the U.S. will join the fight ( and US rhetoric since JB took over is very strong) it’s very possible they will go for strategic surprise and try for a knockout of US western pacific forces to ensure they get a less opposed landing….the vast bulk of US forces are 2-4 weeks transit from the theatre…to be honest I think on present tragedy all the evidence would lead to a set of events in which china invades Taiwan between 2027 and 2030… most of the geopolitical, economic, military and sociological events to drive that have already occurred or are occurred…the truly world changing question is will the U.S. fight for Taiwan or are the Chinese completely convinced the US will fight for Taiwan..if the answer to either of those is yes then we are probably heading for a superpowers war, which means a world war…to my mind china invading is almost inevitable when looking at all the data, the meaning of reunification to Chinese core beliefs in nationhood, the core beliefs of the CCP, the fact Xi is more than anything a fanatic believer in the core values of the CCP..his actions and the cost of his actions to china ( we are talking many many hundred of billions even trillions of dollars for the full package of social, economic, industrial, political and military hardening in preparation for war)…from this the west really has only three roads,

1) massive levels of deterrent to stop china invading Taiwan.. to make Xi believe the west would win and utterly destroy china in a years long world war..wining in every domain..military, political, economic and industrial…this would need a fundamental change in the west..massive investment in defence, industrial strategies that are essentially mercantile, massive political warfare campaigns to harden the populations against a the impact of a future war…..( this is never happening).
2) essentially cut Taiwan loose, industrial strategy to move semi conductor industries away from Taiwan…provide it with access to arms…decouple the wests supply lines from dependence on China..set red lines away from Taiwan ( china can be managed in a more normalised way in anyplace other than Taiwan)…up arm to ensure it can provide deterrent for its red lines…reset the relationship to a late Cold War and see if the perestroika and glasnost approach can work with a United china that feels it’s finally removed the shackles of the century of humiliation. This will be hard, there will be massive tensions but if the west holds.
3) maintain its preset position…weakening political position, not massively investing in deterrence..but claiming it will defend Taiwan..while losing ground in the second and third world…this is the easy position as it’s a no change see how it all goes..no hard messages for the population..but it’s the most likely to end in a devastating world war..that the west may not win..or if it does it’s still shattered..worse case is humanity destroys itself via MAD.

Nath or Nathan…both are fine.
Would you and the rest of the reactionary ilk below read my comment. I was reporting what happened before 2019 when Poland was in it’s planning phases.
Poland isn’t just making it’s procurement strategy up on the basis of the last few years they’ve been expecting something like this for years….warned the West who laughed at them, they’re not laughing now.
The latest round of land purchases is just one pearl in a string of acquisitions that were based on war gaming done years before the invasion of Ukraine. YEARS BEFORE, for those who struggle with English comprehension. This war gaming showed, now I’m repeating myself, that even with the purchase of the F35s and a few other items at the time they (THEY didn’t believe…not me) they would be able to stop Russia overrunning them in days. Hence the continued expansion of their re-armament programme.
Now all the armchair generals here equipped with the latest hindsight goggles can see Russia would have struggled even then, but POLISH (not me) military planners didn’t have access to a time machine and had to make do with assumptions and intelligence gathering and in the absence of some mind bending physics determined they needed to continue their military expansion.
Note historically Poland always had a strong military, given their neighbours they needed it …it seems they have recognised the need to return to their history books.

I think we need to remember how everyone assumed Russia would walk over Ukraine in a matter of days. That this prooved to not be the case was a surprise to many. Russia would be foolish to try anything with Poland now.

‘Would you and the rest of the reactionary ilk below read my comment.’

The only response to my comment to Nath Nathan is abusive. You do not know me or my affiliations and I suspect that goes for others you seek to casually insult. Awareness of Polish history to the present is not confined to yourself.

Are the Polish military planners reporting that? Their original plan was to slow down any invasion till NATO mobilised, these new investments are the last I heard due to the new policy of fighting for every inch of their territory from day 1. Because they know what happens to territory and the people that Russia occupies and the threat of a nuclear response in any counter attack to retake what is now ‘new Russia’. Warsaw must be some 500km from Belarus that’s a lot of land to occupy on a broad front before NATO support arrives judged by Ukranian events. Yes it will be a few years for Poland to build up its new forces and indeed Europe generally but it will take Russia a long time even if the were to win in Ukraine to take on such a new invasion of that size.

Poland is rapidly becoming the European No1 military conventional NATO power.

It’s more than capable of throwing back a Russian incursion with heavy losses.

That’s true but we need a time to reach full operational readiness till 2030, all our high ranking military officers say that openly, also we have exactly same problem like majority of NATO that is not enough of new recruits so there is debate now in Poland about return of mandatory military service if we want to complete all our units plus we must rebuild our reserves.

You should certainly be proud of the impressive way Poland is stepping up to the plate!

A first rate NATO country and an example to us all….

Less tv mate

Can you be more specific? I don’t watch TV btw

Indeed, the Russians have lost a huge amount of their professional trained base and it’s modern equipment.

They are now reliant on warmed over T72’s and 1970’s artillery.

They certainly aren’t in any position to launch an attack on NATO

There are now a number of reports saying that Putin wants to test NATOs resolve. One said he’d even go so far as start a limited attack on a bordering Country.

These reports aren’t just limited to Russian news agencies and online propaganda. There are even a few western agencies saying the same.

The question would be why? At this point Russia are making limited gains in the Donbass. But at significant manpower and materiel cost. Which to any western country would be unsustainable. However, Russia have ramped up their war materiel production. Where they can now replace these losses (on certain types of equipment), but also produce a surplus.

So perhaps in Russia’s (Putin’s) mind a limited attack on a NATO country may divert NAT’s attention away from Ukraine, especially in logistical resupply. If is the case, then Russia will be playing a very dangerous game, which won’t end favorably for them!

I don’t trust much in Germany readiness by 2030, they are just slow with everything atm. Sweden and Finland are definitely very valuable allies but they military rather focus on defence of their own territory, Finns especially, but thanks to them domination over Baltic is almost certain. Russians to have a chance in conflict with us would have to declare full scale mobilisation and we’d all know about it months before anything potentially could happen. More than Moscow invasion on Poland I’m afraid they could try to go into Baltic States though. Generally Russians know that NATO has overwhelming power in the sky and I don’t think they will risk direct conflict.

Russia weapons have been proven to be much better than what’s produced in US and the west generally and their army is battle hardened not like Nato who are fine fighting 3rd class armies or insurgents. The spell has been broken for the rest of the world to see. The combined West cannot even produce enough ammo to fight the Russians for more than few months. The Russians and Chinese both have hypersonic missiles which are unstoppable. The greatest fighting force in the world is a myth. You should read Andre Martanyov’s book ” Losing military superiority” to get up to date.

I don’t think Russia will chance it’s arm against Poland..even without NATO…its only chance would be a beheading move and Polands geography is not as open to that move…they would have to build up in Belarus then punch through the main axis of Polish defence….with Ukraine they had an option to try this because most of Ukraines land forces were in the east of the country and well away from the axis of advanced from Belarus….

This would change a lot if Ukraine fell, but there are lots of other places for Russia to expand and work on before it ever got to Poland…The big danger is Russia hovering up the none NATO nations and getting places like Hungary on side.

That’s correct conclusion, if Ukraine fell then we have significant problem on our Eastern border but I don’t belive it happens although Ukraine has a big problem with lack of manpower. You are also right that invading Poland is very risky for Russia as our territory is smaller and heavily forested with lot’s of rivers, lakes etc so it’s easier to hide and set up ambushes or shell approaching columns.

Hopefully will as I’m living in the UK and also want this country to be safe. On the other hand Britain has the best geographical position in Europe and Russian invasion is very unlikely. Poland is on potential frontline though so we do not have much choice, only what angers me and other Poles is that our governments woke up to the situation late as usual when it was obvious since at least 2014 that something major will happen soon.