Now that the Chink chimpout over the $11B Taiwan weapons deal and most recent numbers print from their imploding economy has wrapped up, I want to tally some numbers for the 'explicitly presented as the largest-ever military exercise around Taiwan'. This exercise was also explicitly stated as a blockade exercise vs the strike exercises of 2024.Taiwanese sources have reported that >6:00 a.m. Dec 29 - 6:00 a.m. Dec 30, 130 PLA aircraft detected. 14 PLAN warships + 14 CCG vessels.>6:00 a.m. Dec 30 – 6:00 a.m. Dec 31 Aircraft: 77 PLA aircraft detected. 17 PLAN warships + 8 CCG vessels.What's so damming to me is that the area of operations for the exercises were 2x larger than that of the 2024, and 3x that of the 2022 Pelosi chimpout. Yet there were less aircraft than in 2024, 130 in a single day vs 150 in a single day. The sorties also started slow, taking till the mid afternoon to get to peak detection rates as per Taiwan MOD. So this is where I really get to the main bit. A blockade requires substantially more sorties, I'm talking 48 sorties just to get 8 planes on CAP for 24h. Yet the PLA did only 130 in a day, barely enough for a dozen planes to be on 24h CAP. There's just no excuse. You NEED to have CAP or else US and Jap planes can just sneak in and rape you. The second day is so pathetically bad with 77 aircraft so I don't even wanna talk about it, just assume it's 2x worse.So you've got what is >supposed to be the biggest exercise ever>covering an area 2x bigger than previous ones>supposedly have 1600 aircraft stationed east of Beijing>yet can only muster up 130 sorties 6 hours laterImplessive. My theory is that the PLA airforce not only has a low readiness, but the logistics are so fucked that they actually can't turn around airplanes fast enough with things as basic as fuel.picrel is taiwan missilehttps://news.usni.org/2025/12/31/china-wraps-justice-mission-taiwan-blockade-drillshttps://mickryan.substack.com/p/justice-mission-2025-is-a-golden
Those exercises is only to piss off Taiwan and show strength for intern audience. They can't afford a war specially with their biggest trade partner.
+20 ¢
>>64702859>They can't afford a war specially with their biggest trade partner.they used to say exactly the same thing before WWI.Germany was UK's second largest trade partner.
Bumping my own shit but we also saw 3 out of their 4 commissioned LHAs do a parade formation but then nothing after that. Barely any ASW patrols with the helo wing or anything to suggest they could do any amphibious duties.>>64702909My 2¢ indeed.
>>64702859Their economy is already doing worse than during the wuhan flu so I'm looking to see how much worse it can get.
