> You might've heard of the cheap North Korean shells exploding in barrels,
The problem comes from the shells being “North Koreans” not because they are cheap (and I don't know why you assume they are, by the way).
> or maybe you don't have double the planes to fly CAS.
Spoiler alert, western army do actually fly CAS missions with pairs of planes already!
> It's logistically impossible to employ the kind of drones Ukraine is employing on the go and organically to infantry.
Says who? The Ukrainians where doing just that two years ago, with FPV drones. The doctrine has evolved though because it didn't make much sense to do so in the first place! When you have stand-off munitions that can hit 10-30kms away, you don't give them to infantry to manage like you would for a short-range weapon, and instead you use specialized drone units that are responsible for CAS.
> It's three Black Seas worth of distance between Guam and the Taiwan strait.
You can deploy them from closer range using a ship like you'd do with F35 for AS missiles. And you don't need to attack from Guam in the first place if you're not afraid of the first strike on your assets worth billions of dollars and can disseminate them closer to the Taiwan straight.
> On top of that, nowadays those boats are pretty effectively countered
Lol. Tell that to the russians. The only effective counter they've found being to keep the remains of the fleet locked inside the Novorossiysk naval base (where they've been sitting ducks for flying drones attacks in recent days).
The problem comes from the shells being “North Koreans” not because they are cheap (and I don't know why you assume they are, by the way).
> or maybe you don't have double the planes to fly CAS.
Spoiler alert, western army do actually fly CAS missions with pairs of planes already!
> It's logistically impossible to employ the kind of drones Ukraine is employing on the go and organically to infantry.
Says who? The Ukrainians where doing just that two years ago, with FPV drones. The doctrine has evolved though because it didn't make much sense to do so in the first place! When you have stand-off munitions that can hit 10-30kms away, you don't give them to infantry to manage like you would for a short-range weapon, and instead you use specialized drone units that are responsible for CAS.
> It's three Black Seas worth of distance between Guam and the Taiwan strait.
You can deploy them from closer range using a ship like you'd do with F35 for AS missiles. And you don't need to attack from Guam in the first place if you're not afraid of the first strike on your assets worth billions of dollars and can disseminate them closer to the Taiwan straight.
> On top of that, nowadays those boats are pretty effectively countered
Lol. Tell that to the russians. The only effective counter they've found being to keep the remains of the fleet locked inside the Novorossiysk naval base (where they've been sitting ducks for flying drones attacks in recent days).