The underlying tactical conundrum, defense of an invaded country which has a mix of urbanized and rugged natural terrain, reappears in ... Taiwan. I have been intermittently thinking about Uhle-Wettler as a possibly guiding spirit for a low-cost, mass-mobilized defense force in Taiwan. For the price of one surface vessel, which will be destroyed in the first 30 minutes of the preliminary missile barrage, a lot of more relevant combat power could be created. Imagine that the PLA gets some large force ashore. Imagine further that some of that force breaks out of its beach head. It will not confront aviation (destroyed on the ground), or heavy units (destroyed or pinned to the cordon around the invasion beaches), so what then? Give up? How about confront the PLA breakout force with a hornets nest of militia armed with man-portable ATGMs and other weapons, people who know the local area and have rehearsed their response on the actual fighting terrain, who are trained to shoot and scoot. From my proverbial basement keyboard, though not in the proverbial pajamas, to the ears of the Taiwanese high command!
The underlying tactical conundrum, defense of an invaded country which has a mix of urbanized and rugged natural terrain, reappears in ... Taiwan. I have been intermittently thinking about Uhle-Wettler as a possibly guiding spirit for a low-cost, mass-mobilized defense force in Taiwan. For the price of one surface vessel, which will be destroyed in the first 30 minutes of the preliminary missile barrage, a lot of more relevant combat power could be created. Imagine that the PLA gets some large force ashore. Imagine further that some of that force breaks out of its beach head. It will not confront aviation (destroyed on the ground), or heavy units (destroyed or pinned to the cordon around the invasion beaches), so what then? Give up? How about confront the PLA breakout force with a hornets nest of militia armed with man-portable ATGMs and other weapons, people who know the local area and have rehearsed their response on the actual fighting terrain, who are trained to shoot and scoot. From my proverbial basement keyboard, though not in the proverbial pajamas, to the ears of the Taiwanese high command!