CHINA would sink least US two aircraft carriers and destroy hundreds of American aircraft in a war over Taiwan, a new wargame has predicted.
The short but brutally intense conflict would see around a fifth of US carriers and combat planes destroyed, as well as least 20 other warships, according to the chilling scenario.
The wargame was carried out by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and maps out what a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and the ensuing 21-day war would look like.
It looks at simulated fighting with conventional weapons, rather than the implications of a nuclear conflict between the two superpowers.
China regards the self-governing island as part of its territory and has vowed to reunite it with the mainland by force if necessary.
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping has refused to rule out force and after becoming leader for life, some are predicting Beijing is "all but guaranteed" to attack Taiwan.
The CSIS wargame envisages a number scenarios for a Chinese attempt to take the island in 2026 and the damage inflicted on US forces coming to its aid.
In their basic scenario, the US Navy’s losses “included two US aircraft carriers as well as between seven and 20 other major surface warships”.
The losses of combat aircraft range from a low of 90 to a high of 774.
Currently the US has 11 aircraft carriers and is estimated to have around 3,800 combat aircraft.
The attacks would include strikes by China's DF-17 hypersonic missile dubbed the "carrier killer" for the its ability to be guided onto powerful US ships at terrifying speed.
The losses translates into at least 3,200 US dead at a rate 140 a day, which dwarfs those suffered during America’s recent conflicts and approaches the 300 killed per day in World War Two.
By comparison, the US sustained about three killed per day in Afghanistan and Iraq, while at at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968, it lost 30 killed per day.
The wargame sees the Chinese hitting US bases at Kadena in Japan and on the island of Guam with a barrage of missiles and strikes by planes.
Such an attack has been compared to that carried out by the Japanese on us forces at Pearl Harbor.
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The wargame paints a grim picture off what reinforcements arriving at Kadena would encounter.
There would be “entire squadrons" of wrecked US aircraft "bulldozed to the side of the runway”.
In addition to the material damage there is the shocking sight of “hundreds of wounded in the base hospital, and temporary cemeteries to handle the many dead”.
“Missile attacks and air combat will have wiped out squadrons that arrived only a few days earlier.
“Newly arriving personnel will be required to immediately conduct operations against the powerful Chinese forces that have caused so many casualties.”
According to the CSIS, a think-tank based in Washington DC, the devastation would come as a blow to the US.
“In addition to shocking the US public, the scale of casualties and equipment loss would stagger a US military that has dominated battlefields for a generation,” says the CSIS.
“These losses would be particularly difficult for the Air Force and Navy, which have essentially operated in sanctuary since the end of World War II.
“Such losses would damage the US global position for many years.”
Ultimately, China can only take Taiwan if the US doesn’t come to its aid “suffers heavily” if it fights America, the wargame predicts.
“Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war."
While the US would win and Taiwan survive as a self-governing island, the losses on all sides would be staggering, says the CSIS.
“The United States might win a pyrrhic victory, suffering more in the long run than the ‘defeated’ Chinese. Victory is not everything.”
While Beijing may be preparing for a lightning war to storm across the Taiwan Strait and capture the island, experts have said the war could be anything but quick.
With tough beaches, rocky terrain, well-drilled defenders, and unforgiving seas, China could face the same brutal grinding warfare that Russia is facing in Ukraine.
Taking Taiwan could even require Beijing to muster a force of two million troops, it's been claimed.
