I doubt it will be a long and sluggish war. The war or more or less go like this ... below is an excellent post from a poster in another forum detailing what the initial stages of the war would likely look like if India attacked first (which is the more likely scenario). Once air supremacy is achieved, there would be virtually no chance for India to retain its defensive positions along the LAC as they would be under constant air and artillery attack 24/7.
I think this is a sign that China is getting serious and not just putting on a show. There would be little need to deploy JH7s otherwise, as they are very much the unglamorous workhorses of the PLAAF.
If the PLAAF was flexing for the cameras, they would be sent J16s. JH7s are for getting the job done while at the same time not placing anything too precious at higher risk.
As for air supremacy, well I don’t think the PLAAF will venture into Indian airspace in the event of combat, at least to start with.
The Chinese will focus on defence over Chinese airspace with fighters and SAMs complimenting each other while strikers and bombers spam cruise missiles form deep within Chinese airspace at Indian air bases, ground based early warning radar and other high value targets.
That puts the IAF in the impossible position of having to either pull back from most of its northern bases for fear of being obliterated on the ground, and gifting air dominance to China with a bow on top; or having to fight against overwhelming odds to try to get at Chinese bombers and strikers in Chinese airspace protected by layers of SAMs, AAA and having to fight through PLAAF fighter cap, which will almost certainly include J20s vectoring in from outside Tibet.
Forcing the IAF to fight over Tibet initially serves Chinese interests in multiple domains:
- it places the IAF at maximum disadvantage and allows the PLAAF to operate with home field advantage, which will more than offset any numerical and payload advantages the Indians enjoy due to geography.
- politically, it makes India the indisputable aggressor
- it makes it harder for India to BS away their losses as the Chinese would have actual physical evidence of shot down IAF planes and captured pilots.
Once China has cut the IAF down to size and reduced its northern air bases to rubble (via ballistic/cruise missile and air attacks), the PLAAF could then counter-attack into Indian airspace and take the fight to them and start to systematically destroy the helpless IA ground forces and any dual use pieces of infrastructure it feels necessary.
At that point it would not need to even fight very hard to achieve and maintain air dominance over huge sways of northern India.
agreed that is one scenario, another could be India does the same thing and uses its limited but potent capability to use the bhmose to attack Chinese ground positions eventually forcing the PLAAF to take losses in aggressive actions. India will be supplied by the west and if this last more than 3 months it will Begin to drain their economies! My strategic view is that this a strategy to make the Asians powers fight and weaken them all in one large swoop. This happened in the Iran Iraq and the yogoslavia war where just enough was done to create smaller much more manageable countries
Let us be very clear,
It was not the west that made CCP to try and venture into ladakh,
Why blame someone else when it's the CCP that tried to change status quo.
After all, India has been resisting to join any alliance with West as well Quad..
All CCP had to do was respect status quo,
alas, it's their own doing - China has lost India for ever. Things will never be the same.
CCP ensured that China has lost the second biggest market in the world for land it will never get...
So, why blame the west for China's misadventure?
well the west is trying to lock China in the north China sea, japan, Korea, india and Australia are part of the western naval alliance. who suggested to India that they should build a road to dbo. Who provided arms and confidence to India to make these moves.
who changed the Indian political dynamic from a centrist very thoughtful leadership from people like Vajpai and advani, Indra Gandhi etc to a chai wala! These leaders played all sides in the Cold War and help break up their enemy (Pakistan) into two.
so let’s not be this naive
Guys calm down China won't fight a war,China has never escalated when the opposition stood it's ground in the last 40 years ,there is a reason for it .Dig deep you will get the answer .CCP is fine as long as it is in power
ah this is more of the same keep ones head in the sand mentality that allowed for the 1962 Indian loss, the Kargil loss and most recently the reclamation of 200kms of Chinese territory Galwan and other spots.
what I wanted to highlight in my post was all of us are strong, all of us have blood on our hands, all of us are being disingenuous to our people. Why can’t we see that this conflict between us will have no winners in Asia and only losers. The biggest losers will be our people who will lose blood and treasure!
really why can’t we accept the current potions as the current land, aim to resolve these issues over the next 100 years. Disengage militarily and work with each other to foster trade as becoming economically stronger will help all our people.
Why does India need to be part of a western coalition, why not use trade to build all our economies ? Why not have security and Saftey for all and keep our fights on the cricket and hockey fields ?
kv