The JGSDF Highly Vulnerable New Transport Ships Are Destined To Both Reinforce and Help Evacuate Sakishima Islands
🇯🇵 | Minimal Comment
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Japan intends to evacuate civilians residing in the Sakishima Islands in the event of a major cross-Taiwan Strait crisis or conflict. Relocating some 100,000 civilians of all age groups from the Sakishima Islands—which constitute a subset of the larger grouping of the Ryukyu Islands Chain and notably do not encompass the heavily populated island of Okinawa—to the primary landmasses of the Japanese archipelago will likely require what amounts to an all-of-government effort supported by the privately-owned shipping and aviation sectors.
Transport and amphibious warfare ships operated by both the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) are likely to not only be tasked with supporting the evacuation of civilians from the Sakishima Islands but also transporting military reinforcements from elsewhere in the Japanese archipelago to the Sakishima Islands—public indicators suggest that the recently expanded Japanese military garrisons in the Sakishima Islands will remain in place in the lead up to and during a major conflict.
While the Japanese government will almost certainly have to charter, if not requisition, ferries and other civilian-operated merchant vessels, not limited to those operating in the Sakishima Islands and the broader grouping of the Ryukyu Islands, it will likely also draw upon a series of new vessels built for and operated by the JGSDF, namely the Nihonbare-class medium landing ships and the larger Yoko-class transport ships.
These gray-hulled military vessels are notably operated by the JGSDF rather than the JMSDF, but are subordinate to a joint JMSDF and JGSDF Maritime Transport Group based at Kure. These and other military and civilian/merchant vessels flying the Japanese flag will likely be tasked with delivering larger and heavier types of equipment to military garrisons across the Ryukyu Islands Chain, including the Sakishima Islands, in the event of a cross-Taiwan Strait crisis that may be a prelude to a major war that involves Japan.
While these JGSDF-operated ships will likely be used to transport important types of military equipment, such as a Type 03 Chu-SAM medium-range air defence system to the Sakishima Islands, it bears emphasis that the gray-hulled Nihonbare-class and Yoko-class are essentially defenceless against any form of aerial or subsurface attack. These vessels will require naval escorts in a context in which the Japanese surface fleet has considerable qualitative and quantitative deficiencies vis-a-vis China’s ever-evolving and increasingly formidable maritime strike capabilities. It should be noted that the Sakishima Islands are just ~400-550 kilometers from mainland China, 270-510 kilometers from the southern tip of Okinawa island, and ~850-1050 kilometers from the southern tip of Kyushu.
The evacuation of civilians from the Sakishima Islands appears set to simultaneously take place alongside the deployment of military reinforcements to the Sakishima Islands. As explained in another post, Beijing may well decide to press its advantage in Japan’s moment of great vulnerability, not least if Japanese vessels heading toward the Sakishima Islands to evacuate the civilian population will also be delivering military reinforcements to these islands.