Comment by philwelch
7 hours ago
China still has an amphib fleet, and there are reasons to use amphibs for at least the initial forced entry operation, but once you have a beachhead the dual use ROROs are a good way to sustain and reinforce the landing force without needing to capture or build a port facility.
And it’s not like the amphibs are only useful for Taiwan; there are plenty of disputed islands in the South China Sea worth fighting over.
Specialized pieces of amphib equipment for initial landing, but bulk of sealift is going to be done via commercial ships / RO/ROs. Likely down to 100,000s of fishing boats / commercial vessels to distribute survivability for a reverse dunkirk. Point is PLAN never had intention to build out enough gray hulls to ferry 100,000s men + equipment, so analysts/arguments fixating on PRC _military_ sealift readiness needs to recalibrate on what % of sealift work will actually be done by military procured hulls. My guess is... very minor %, and a shockingly many of commercial ships will get drafted / voluntold to assist with sealift.
SCS islands are too small to need amphib. Like even largest Taiping island is basically just a 1km long airstrip. LHD + paratroopers is enough. Maybe for Ryukyus if things get really spicy.