Average brigade break down for PLAAF “we're seeing ~ 30 multirole airframes, with 24 expected as PMAI airframes, 4-5 as part of the training flight group [dadui] (大队), and 1-2 airframes either as attrition reserve inventory, or in other bespoke roles for the Brigade”

I'd say that if we're talking about Taiwan, and not the overall US aligned forces in the region, then yeah it's totally doable.
Firstly, I'd like to note for those who might not know... PLA service branches don't really have OPCON in wartime. In reality, that is exercised through the Joint Operations
Command Structure [联合作战指挥结构] (Which it seems used to be called the Joint
Operations Command System, but has altered a bit of its nomenclature in the past few years). imagine you yourself know that though, and I assume you're referring to the ETC-Air Force units, which could certainly do so (with TC-Army, TC-Navy, and any Rocket Force units uninvolved) on their own, though I'm assuming you allow for the enabling forces (JLSF, SSF, the rest of the TC, etc.) critical to doing so.
For starters, ETC's Joint Operations Command Center [联合作战指挥中心 聯合作戰指揮 中心] (JOCC) would be designated as the "Supreme Joint Operations Command Organization" [联合作战指挥组织] (JOCO) for Taiwan operations, in lieu of a broader conflict. For conflicts of a greater scope, the CMC's Joint (Staff) Operations Command Center [联参作战指挥中心] - responsible for national-level strategic planning, coordination, and joint operations support - would serve as the Supreme JOCO.
The ETC (Supreme) JOCO (from ETC's JOCC) is, in actuality, often comprised of multiple component sub-facilities, listed here:

Main Command Post
Alternate Command Post
Rear Command Post
Forward Command Post
Direction Command Post
The Main Command Post is (obviously) always established as part of the JOCO, and hosts the TC JOCO Commanding Officer (He Weidong - ETC Commander), their Chief of Staff, key Staff Officers, and various supporting important supporting staff.
The Alternate and Rear Command Posts are also quite common, though depending on circumstances, are not always necessary.
The Alternate serves as, well, pretty much what's in the name - an alternate command post. the TC JOCO's Deputy Commanding Officer, and also usually hosts the Operations/Logistics, Communications, and Reconnaissance staff. While the Main Command Post plans, coordinates, and provides tasking for the branch component forces, the Alternate Command Post enables and supports those forces, by providing a redundant, reliable, and capable communications network, expedient and relevant sustainment support, and generates tactical to campaign level raw intelligence inputs for the Intelligence Center in the to work with over at the Main Command Post. The Rear Command Post is an even more "rear echelon" posting, and typically serves as a liason to local government, performs political work, handles traffic control and rear security, and other tasks in that wheelhouse.
The Forward and Direction Command Posts are generally more rare and bespoke to their operational environments. They're essentially what's on the tin, with Forward Command Posts serving as a forward C2 node in locales where it may be infeasible to perform such duties farther to the rear.
The Direction Command Post is established for a Campaign Direction JOCO to operate out of, with the equipment, personnel, and staff required to perform the duties of the JOCO's subordinate units, which themselves are configured to best suit the operational environment and in order to successfully execute their Campaign Direction in support of the broader Joint Campaign.
Since there might be some folks who aren't familiar with (Joint/Service) Campaigns or Campaign Directions are, I'll touch briefly on it. Much in the way that the West considers warfare to fall into 3 major levels - those being "Tactical," "Operational," and "Strategic" - the PLA conceptualizes an "Operational Framework" through which they view the entire national-power continuum, from the philosophical down to trigger pull. This Operational Framework is characterized by having 5 (pertinent) levels, those being (grandiose-est to boring-est):
Military Thought
Defense Theory and Defense Doctrine
Strategic Thought and Operational Thought
Campaigns
Combat Tactics and Regulations
At the top, Military Thought is very much to do with THE PLA. You can think of it best a wholistic military ethos... a culture intrinsic to the PLA which has developed out of many thousands of years of Chinese history, philosophy, and the experiences of the Chinese
people and the PLA since inception. It's almost like a "mindset" more than a strictly military factor.
Defense Theory/Doctrine are where we start coming back down to Earth lol. Defense Theory is a more concrete, "operational" version of conclusions drawn from Military Thought, and lays them out in a meaningful manner. Defense Doctrine is a codification of the fundamental manner in which the PLA fights. High level strategic concepts, perceptions about the nature and characteristics of modern war, and lays out their view on how they're gonna tackle it.
Strategic Principles and Operational Principles are best described as "Doctrine." They lay out the manner in which the Defense Doctrine (note: even though Defense Doctrine has "doctrine" in it, it doesn't mean the same thing as the Western definition) manifests itself in the PLA. These include things such as shared terminology, shared understandings about the PLA's duties to and relationship with the civilian population, shared understanding about the PLA's place in Chinese society as a whole, their relationship with and interactions with militias, their role in upholding CCP (fine, CPC, whatever) values, and other "Who are we" and "How do we act" standards.
Campaigns are something not really found in Western doctrine. Campaigns are extensive, joint, operational-level tasks and mission sets undertaken by members of a Joint Operations Command System. The major difference between Operations - as would be the closest western counterpart - and Campaigns, is that where Operations are fundamentally effects-oriented, and are based around achieving an objective or reaching an end-state, Campaigns are oriented around the task/mission they perform, and are operationalized to best support performing that mission-set. (If you've ever heard of those kinda silly sounding PLA "Campaign Types," that's where those come from - they're some of the more "common" "Campaign Types" we see the PLA train for and muse on.
Last but not least, Combat Tactics and Regulations, as the lowest of the major levels identified in the PLA's Operational Framework, I'm sure it's no surprise that they are essentially its tactical level. Everything at the unit level, from TTPs to basic maneuver, to standardized procedures for the myriad of tasks PLA personnel perform.
When these concepts are operationalized, responsibility for maintaining, developing, and leveraging them is delegated, and those delegees are performing their role in Intelligentized Warfare / Joint Operations Under the Conditions of Intelligentization in its Systems Confrontation and Systems Destruction / Target-Centric Warfare form, the 5 "levels" reduce to 3 "scope"s.
STRATEGIC / NATIONAL-LEVEL (CMC)
CAMPAIGN / THEATER COMMAND-LEVEL (TCs)
TACTICAL (Joint and Service Tactical Forces)
These are where we get our Strategic/Campaign/Tactical delineators from, why I referred to as the CMC J(S)OCC/JSD as being the "National-Level" "Strategic" planning entity, and it's where we get Campaign Direction JOCOs from. Due to the mission- oriented nature of Campaigns, they typically involve subordinate/supporting "Campaign Direction" efforts, which are a smaller-scale, single-task component of the overall Joint Campaign, and are typically depicted as being between the Tactical and Campaign/Theater Command scopes.
Now, hopefully that got you back up to speed on the terminology if you started to get lost, so welcome back lol.
All of these layered, mutually supporting, mission-tailored, joint forces coordinated and employed in a wholistic manner are what the PLA refers to when they reference an "Operational System." So, if you were ever wondering what it actually looks like for the PLA to construct a task-organized, mission-optimized operational system to confront the enemy's with... well, now you know!
To finally run through whether or not the ETC PLAAF branch component could achieve "air dominance" per your words, we'll start by constructing our own own operational system. with the forces at hand. However, to do so, we need to determine what our path to achieving that "air dominance" goal is. To start, we'll identify and clarify our desired end-state. (NOTE: I'll be trying to go through this process as doctrinally as is
feasible and to the degree that doesn't take me another 5 hours per Target Centric Warfare CONOP/EMP).
In order to have successfully achieved air dominance, we seek a desired end-state with these notable characteristics:
The ROCAF is unable to generate fixed wing sorties in sufficient volume to affect PLA air operations over Taiwan
The ROCAF is able to coordinate or employ GBAA systems in sufficient volume or disruptiveness to affect PLA air operations over Taiwan
The PLA is capable of generating sustaining a sufficient volume of airpower over Taiwan such that the ROC is unable to return to a state in which it is capable of affecting PLA air operations over Taiwan
With these in mind, we can now examine the most vulnerable elements of Taiwan's "Operational System" currently facilitate those effects Taiwan is capable of generating. I also want to stress, I am doing a suuuuuper dumbed down, ultra-low fidelity version of the target development/weaponeering+allocation/tasking process that real air planners conduct (and while using significantly more capable automated and computer-aided tools). It's mostly for illustrative purposes to show the kind of considerations that would have to be made here.
Major ROC operational system "affecters" preventing the desired end state from being achieved are:
ROCAF air counter-air shooters: (Descending in threat level)
• 4th Tactical Fighter Wing[Chiayi Air Base] (CA/STW)
o 21st Tactical Fighter Squadron (F-16V) {24}
o 22nd/23rd Tactical Fighter Squadron (F-16A) {48}
• 5th Tactical Fighter Wing[Chiashan Air Base/Hualien] (CA)
o 17th/26th/27th Tactical Fighter Squadron (F-16A) {72} o 12th Reconnaissance Sqn (RF-16) {24}
• 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing[Ching Chuan Kang Air Base] (CA)
o 7th/28th Tactical Fighter Squadron (F-CK-1) {48}
• 1st Tactical Fighter Wing[Tainan Air Base] (CA)
o 1st/3rd/9th Tactical Fighter Squadron (F-CK-1) {72}
• 2nd Tactical Fighter Wing[Hsinchu Air Base] (CA)
o 41st/42nd/48th Tactical Fighter Squadron (Mirage-2000) {72}
ROCAF Strategic GBAA shooters:
(In descending order of threat level)
6 TK-3 Batteries
7 MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3 Batteries
6 TK-2 Batteries
ROCAF Air Search Radars: (In no particular order)
• 6E-2K
11 AN/FPS-117 (7 Fixed 4 Mobile)
1 PAVE PAWS (Fixed)
When roughly (and a bit outdatedly now) put onto a map, the coverage looks something like this:
(Sorry for the awful filesize, I had to shrink it because SDF wouldn't let me post the full one lol)
It's not the most uber-high fidelity model, but it should at least help give an idea of the disposition of ROC sensors. You've also gotta consider that - seeing as how this is literally just an ETCAF operation - there would be a much larger degree of strategic, operational, and tactical surprise possible, further degrading the capabilities of these systems. It is also worth noting that ROCAF pilots get rather less hours than PLAAF pilots, and mission-capable rates hover around 75% compared to the PLAAF's 90% for
3rd (4th) Gen and up Brigades - which, obviously, could and would be augmented in the event of an invasion.
Providing C3 and other logistical support to these forces are the following:
• Republic of China Air Force Command Headquarters
o Air Force Combatant Command
§ Air Tactical Control Wing
o Air Force Air Defense and Artillery Command
• General Staff Headquarters
o Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Communications, Electronics and Information
o Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Operations and Planning
o Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence
• Air Force Command Headquarters
Beyond these immediate providers, it would further operationally degrade the ROCAF's counter-air capabilities to strike power, fuel, base-support infrastructure, and other logistics materiel and personnel. In addition, disrupting communications, GNSS, and sensors through broad spectrum or even targeted EA where possible, would be feasible for the PLA, and would further contribute to a decline in ROC decision making, reaction speed, and coordination.
With this (very rough, very non-thorough lmao), understanding of the enemy operational system's "linchpin" targets (the PLA also sometimes calls them Key Point Strike Targets), we can identify the main campaign type most prudent to embark on, and any sufficiently notable Campaign Direction JOCOs that will need to be stood up to facilitate them:
• Air Information-Firepower Strike Campaign
o Intelligence Reconnaissance Direction
o Information Offense and Defense Direction
Translated into "normal," this essentially solidifies the TC "Campaign" as one fundamentally oriented around seizing information superiority and employing fires to a given end. Further, in doing so, there is particular emphasis on Intelligence & Reconnaissance, and on Information Offense and Defense (lots of EW lol).
Constructing an operational system/TC JOCO + Campaign Direction JOCOs, and with the forces involved, you end up with an organizational structure something akin to this (Yes, I know, it's ugly - but I've been at this for like 10 hours and even I get tired):
Alrighty. So. To understand the CONEMP here, we'll have to check out ETC-AF's airpower first. Their ORBAT pretty much (open source lol, it's wrong but it's the best you'll get) goes like this:
Shanghai Base:
8th Air Brigade (~20x J-10A PMAI, ~4x J-20 PMAI - notional Dadui)
83rd Air Brigade (24x JH-7A PMAI)
95th Air Brigade (24x J-11B PMAI)
93rd Air Brigade (24x(?) J-8FR PMAI)
7th Air Brigade (24x J-16 PMAI)
9th Air Brigade (~24x J-20 PMAI)
84th Air Brigade (~24x JH-7A PMAI)
86th Air Brigade (~24x J-10C PMAI) < Apparently converted to J-10C from J-7L
according to y'alls OSINT lmao, so ok
78th Air Brigade (~24x J-16 PMAI) < Under conversion from J-8DF, but says
"Replaced" implying completion..
Fuzhou Base:
ETC:
40th Air Brigade (24x J-16 PMAI)
85th Air Brigade (24x Su-30MKK PMAI(?))
25th Air Brigade (24x J-10C PMAI + ~4-6 J-10AS PTAI/AR)
41st Air Brigade (24x J-11A)
28th Air Regiment (~15-18x H-6K PMAI)
76th Air Regiment (~12-18x(?) KJ-500 PMAI)
77th Air Regiment (~~4-12x(??) KJ-200 PMAI, ~2-4x(?) KJ-2000 PMAI,
~~2-4x Y-8T (GX-4)(??))
29th Air Regiment (
12-18x(??) H-6H(?) PMAI)
30th Air Regiment (12-18x(??) H-6M(?) PMAI)
42nd Air Regiment (24x J-7L PMAI)
1st UAV Regiment
~12x(??) Wing Loong II(?))
2nd UAV Regiment (~~~12x(???) BZK-005(?))
5th Fendui/Detachment (< 50 J-6W)
4th Fendui/Detachment (< 50 J-6W)
3rd Fendui/Detachment (< 50 J-6W)
1st Fendui/Detachment (< 50 J-6W)
NOTE: SAR, Transport, etc. was excluded from the count to keep focus on relevant forces
All in all, this is quite the force lmao. One of the limitations though, as a result of the ETC-AF restriction, is the relative lack of special mission aircraft (Since it's not in the spirit of the question, I'm not counting those WTCAF Y-9Gs near Shanghai). Luckily, KJ- 500s, J-20s (especially), and UAS bros can pick up the ELINT slack, H-6s/JH-7s can bring EA to the party, and the simple solution to insufficient tanker tasking is "don't run out of fuel"
The CONEMP is fairly simple. BZK-005s and Wing Loong IIs maintain a near persistent presence around the island, hoovering up SIGINT/ELINT, and building out an EOOB (Electronic Order of Battle) while lower-end aircraft (think J-8s, J-7s, J-10As) perform slightly more provocative ADIZ incursions than typical, and get everyone a-radiating, and see how their electronic system reacts. KJ-2/5/2000s will maintain a higher presence than typical, allowing them a last-minute "surge" of experience gain vis-a-vis ROCAF air ops and typical behaviors, COMINT loads, etc. etc. Much of this will have gone through the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Direction Command Post, as they're practically a one-stop-shop for intaking, transforming, and disseminating useful intelligence product.
Once the EOOB is essentially complete, ELINT exploited and tailored destructive waveforms poured in to the EW pods (that's how it works, right? waves? like water?) for best EA results, it's pretty much go time. Assuming there's no abnormally large air activity (aka there's likely very little - the ROCAF doesn't exactly blacken the sky with DCA, even on their good days), and ROCAF airframes are at their typical standard of readiness (low, lol)... towards the evening, the Information Offense and Defense Direction
Command Post would coordinate with the Main Command Post to synchronize and employ its Information Operations Center (made up in large part of PsyOps staff, and iirc is in every standing Theater Command JOCO) to spread immediate confusion and reduce the state of ROCAF TACAIR and GBAA readiness. This would be things along the lines of """"deepfaked"""" calls from loved ones saying they're in the hospital, and to come quick because it's bad and they might not make it, deliberately designed and high-effort ""phishing"" attacks with the goal not to acquire money, but to rattle them or get them away from their aircraft. Something like (if they have children) exploiting some unknown vuln in home security systems by sending them [I would never consider something so horrible] pictures of their children collected with it, and threatening to spread them far and wide if they didn't come home to talk to them and their child right away. Just really, deliberally horrific stuff that nobody would ever in a million years want to think was happening to them, so that their whole world kinda "stops" and they get laser-focused on literally anything other than being ROCAF pilots. Cruel as it may be, kids are a great vector for generating these kinds of effects.
Concurrently, large scale J-20 sorties would begin to generate and get vectored by KJ- 500s around the island, H-6s would begin to form up at low altitude and make their way around the island to very cheeky points of launch, laden with cruise missiles or EW kit - depending on the exact threat environment, while J-16s carrying anti-runway standoff munitions, KD-88s, ARMs and other penetrating strike munitions start getting airborne and making their way along the same path as the H-6s
The initial phase of execution would have a few major goals:
Employ PsyOps, Information Warfare, Cyber Operations, and plain old peculiarity to ensure the ROCAF is in as degraded of a state as possible.
Employ KD-20s from launch positions and along along routes traveling farther "behind" the island than the ROCAF EWR system is oriented to deal with efficiently - and utilizing terrain masking, operational and tactical surprise, the effects of goal #1 - which were targeted at individuals closest to the transit route, and Electronic Attack from standoff H-6 Jammer Pods, all for those KD-20s to inflict major damage on, or outright destroy those aforementioned crucial ROCAF command and control targets, (for weapons launched on mission #2) to destroy or render useless the PAVE PAWS system, and (for those launched on mission 3) to proceed down the "soft innards" of the counter-air complex that you'll break into post-penetration, and engage Patriot/Tien Kung 2/3 along unexpected axes (can be very deadly in the case of Patriot, if all goes well - but that can never be guaranteed), and in coordination with the now extensive cyber, information,
and EMSOperations, to ideally create ingress windows and speed up the strike timetable.
To illustrate what I'm referring to, the bright green line in the image below is a VERY VERY VERY freaking rough, not hi-fi, route plan for a random KD-20. While I'm well aware that this exact, literal route impractical due to the rapid changes is terrain elevation - the point is, with more than 5 seconds spent, there absolutely 100% are viable paths to take through this much less defended environment. So long as those aforementioned J-20s are able to keep any unfriendly investigators away, and the KD-10 platform performs at least roughly in the same ballpark as TLAM, this is a pretty tough employment profile to defend. I promise, I'd know lol, I've spent lots of time optimizing AMD configurations.
Finally, the third effect sought by this "opening action" is to at least put Hualien out of commission with the J-16s I mentioned we brought earlier. Since it has been checks clock about 15 hours of working on this now (I was intending to get to sleep 12 of them ago smh lol, so I'm seriously fighting to finish it lol), I'll spare you the 1,000 word weaponeering writeup on tarmac blast effects, aimpoint selection and munition allocation, employment best practices, and all that other crap. Suffice to say that with the amount of J-16s at our disposal, they're able to do so at least for the near future. Further, as the BZK/Wing Loong IIs move towards the shore, they'll be able to provide
persistent reconnaissance of the air base, and let us know if folks are out there trying to fix it (or, if God himself grabs a shovel) if they actually do, before we can do anything about it (somehow).
The next phase is targeted at Chiayi Air Base. Nominally (and most likely, given how stacked the deck was in favor of the cruise missiles, KD-20s will have either destroyed or rendered the Taichung TK battery battery useless, but if not, this was factored in. As the H-6/J-16 strikes were underway, J-10s, JH-7s, and the J-6W horde would have begun to get airborne as well. Assuming the KD-20s didn't manage to generate effects on their target, then JH-7s,with KG-800 pods a-blazin', and the nearly 200-strong J-6 swarm, are a baaaad time "yuck!".
Once the Western side is breached as well, and Chiyari is shut down, that's effectively game-set-match. Damage will only cascade to larger and large scales and target sets for the PLA to strike, and the immediately more permissing environment will allow higher volume, less sophisticated weapons to be usual at an acceptable at least. Just about everything else would be vulnerable to DAMs and glide standoff munition

Edit
Pub: 27 Sep 2022 12:41 UTC
Views: 218