PLA Air Force General News Thread:

GarryB wrote:

Its not that easy to "steal" a aircraft design.

Look at UAVs... there is a real similarity across the board, those things are repeatedly copied by countries wanting something similar... from a Russian perspective they con't care about accusations of copying... they see a design that works for the purposes they want to use it for and they copy it.

In the west it is frowned upon but who gives a shit... this frowning on copying means the US does not have an equivalent of Kornet or Pantsir or TOR on land or at sea which they would benefit from enormously now with the issue of cheap drones.

The F-15 copied the layout of the MiG-25 exactly... a shape and design never seen previously in US designs... the Bradley IFV eventually copied the layout of the BMP-2... the first model Bradleys even had a single man turret like the BMP... not understanding that the Soviets chose that layout because of the limitations of their ATGM at the time.

The Soviets were working on a 5.45mm calibre reduced power cartridge just before WWII... their 5.6 x 39mm adaptation for their 7.62x39mm round for hunting might have inspired the 223 HATO round.

China was more or less forced to buy Russian fighters. No western nation would sell them any.

Even with zero cooperation they could take detailed photos of the external surface and shape of the target aircraft and just copy that as best they can.

It does not need to be identical to start with...

And if they some how had copied the F-15 design, no way they would be able to copy and built the engine, radar ecs.

When the US copied the MiG-25 they didn't have the same radar or engines either... the result was a totally different aircraft.

Does that make it bad?

When they bought the first Su-27 they could start to copy every system it carried.

You make it sound so easy... but tell me... all the years they had access to Russian jet engines and they have not replicated them to a level where they are the first choice... not every copy needs to be as good or better than the original... they are replacing MiG-21s and MiG-15s... they do not need to leap straight to Su-57s...

If Russia decided not to sell them the aircraft it would have taken the Chinese years and years to develop a new 4th generation aircraft.

That is very true, but they would continue to try to buy or steal what they wanted too.

China did not purchase F-16 either, but J-10 is a copy of the F-16.

Exactly... for a cheaper single engined fighter they clearly were not interested in the MiG-29 so they picked a single engined fighter to copy and chose the F-16 essentially.... and why wouldn't they...

But at least that CH-6 thingy looks slightly unique

All the big long range straight winged UAVs with the satellite link in the cockpit area look very similar to me... American, Russian, everyones... which is fine because it is clearly a shape that works... I mean to be fair they look like most modern gliders too...

Isos wrote:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_People%27s_Liberation_Army_aircraft

According to wiki (the sources inside seems quite serious) China has :

>120 J-20
468 j-10
640 J-11/16
97 Su-30MKK
24 su-35

120 H-6 bombers

600 j-7/8/H7


Its naval aviation has :

24 j-10
52 j-8
72 j-11
24 Su-30MKK

Its air defence has a lot of S-300 launchers too but it's hard to tell how many systems they have.

It seems to have 5 S-300PMU, 10 S-300PMU1, 10 S-300PMU2, 5 HQ-9 and plenty of other smaller systems.

That's huge numbers but if you compare to US+japan+ Taiwan+South korea, they are still outnumbered.

However in 1vs1 none of them should be able to face China.

Isos wrote:Yes S-400 too. I forgot.

US can't really deploy its air force there. They have no bases close to China. If they base them in Japan, south korea or Taiwan they would face chinese ballistic missiles. In US islands they would be too far to have any usefulness.

You also overestimate US air force numbers. They don't have that many planes.

178 f-22
266 f-15C which is the "equivalent" of older su-27 fighter
165 f-15E which is the equivalent of su-30
939 f-16 which most are older than chinese j-10 and not that many servicable
F-35 still not really finished so I don't count it.

And they have around 40 f-18 per carrier but those carrier can't get near China and f-18 range means they will never be able to be really used against them. Only for defensive purpose but then again they face chinese very mong range missiles so they are quite useless.

Most of chinese aircraft are also newer and they enjoy playing at home in the south chinese sea.

Isos wrote:From where would they go at China ?

Modern wars are more about pushing buttons on a laptop than anything else. Those chinese pilots are good enough to launch missiles and make it impossible for the US fighter to come close because they would be very very very limited on fuel and their flight path would be calculated to the last kg of fuel.

Or push a button and launch 1000km range missiles at those carriers.

GarryB wrote:

I would think all those missile sites would be targeted by stealth bombers long before any carrier would attack.

They have not got any stealthy bombers that Russian OTH radars would not spot and track, and if they warn Iran about F-35s on the Iran Iraq border I would think they would warn China too... even given a general cue as to where a B-2 was would enable them to send a supersonic fighter to engage and destroy even if they had to use cannon and IR guided missiles.

And the new SM-6 missile can actually intercept ballistic missiles. Also would China start to launch ballistic missiles the war would reach a new level very fast.

Probably can, but how many are ready to launch and are in an appropriate place to make that interception?

I would say China could easily put ballistic missiles into mass production far quicker and easier than the US could mass produce SM-6 missiles and deploy them to locations where they could cover most of the targets that need covering...

China to take the Swarm concept to the extreme... a 10kg warhead with control fins with a 1 KT nuclear dirty nuke device.... pack hundreds into each BM with a simple gyro stabilisation and spacing system so they all land about 1km apart in a grid square shape... once the ballistic missile leaves the atmosphere it can release each of the warheads so for each missile there might be 200 targets that need to be intercepted...

walle83 wrote:

Isos wrote:From where would they go at China ?

Modern wars are more about pushing buttons on a laptop than anything else. Those chinese pilots are good enough to launch missiles and make it impossible for the US fighter to come close because they would be very very very limited on fuel and their flight path would be calculated to the last kg of fuel.

Or push a button and launch 1000km range missiles at those carriers.

I would think all those missile sites would be targeted by stealth bombers long before any carrier would attack.

And the new SM-6 missile can actually intercept ballistic missiles. Also would China start to launch ballistic missiles the war would reach a new level very fast.

GarryB wrote:

   


Well they already have the SM-3 that can intercept short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Add the SM-6 to every other missile destroyer and cruiser and the ballistic ones will have trouble getting to thier targets.
Also the SM-3 can engage the DF-21 already in the atmosphere where the DF cant use any of its controll fins ecs. So far I havnt seen any report about the Chinese missile being armed with mirvs or decoys but only use one glide warhead.

But hey im not on any side, who can do what is very hypothetically.

It is not about being on anyones side... it is about the consequences of actions.... the US has traditionally set the EU against Russia, because they are neighbours and Russia could sell the EU and supply them with all the products and resources that the US wants to sell at higher prices... even when they don't have enough to meet their needs like gas.
Then China starts to grow and is spending billions creating trade routes from the EU to Asia and back... that is something that is going to create trade routes that don't go through the US, so the US does not benefit from so now the US wants the Chinese to be the bad guys and threw the EU under the bus by ripping up the INF treaty so they can make intermediate range missiles to point at China...

But wait... the US is creating a lynch mob of countries to "counter" China... countries like Japan and South Korea and Australia and India... they even want Russia to join in on sanctions against China... are they expecting China to do nothing?

Are they expecting China to sign up to the New Start treaty and then be able to keep US missile warhead limits at 1,500 and have Russia have 1,200 and China can have 300 warheads that they are allowed?

Come on. China is going to look at US forces and say **** you... I am not signing up to limit my nuclear security when you are bringing lots of IRBM and IRCM weapons into my part of the world... the first thing they need to do is develop silo based missiles that can survive attacks that don't have direct hits on silo lids and still launch ballistic missiles at the perpetrators... whether they are in India or South Korea or Japan or Australia or the US... the UK has just added its own name to that list with AUKUS.... which is ironic because with France in that group it almost sounds like an invitation to FUKUS-A  (**** us eh)...

Of course they are going to boost their air defences and early warning systems.... Russia has already promised to help them implement that, so we know it will work... and of course now they have the challenge of facing the entire US Navy together with Japan and South Korea and Australia and India, so their efforts to expand their navy have been very sensible and further efforts on anti sub capacity are probably in order... as well as new decoys and ballistic weapons... remember they are not limited by any nuclear or ballistic missile agreements so they can make as many as they like...

In five years time when new new start is being talked about China might say.... well we have 10,000 nukes and we are not interested in signing up to any nuclear weapons treaty...

China has never shown any intrest of going the same way that the Soviet union did with building thousands of nuclear warheads. They will keep thier numbers below 500 and concentrate on creating advanced delivery vehicles insted.

Isos wrote:You are totally wrong. Before they were a third world country and couldn't develop their nuclear forces.

Their nuk power plant were from soviet union so they couldn't use it. And their universities were shitty just like their industry.

Then the west used China in the 00s as the world factory, so they got rich and invested in r&d which lead to better programs for their nuclear weapons.

Chinese just want to take US place. They will be the same crazy assholes as US are today. They are led by their appetite for money.

Similarly, this idea that the West came up of pumping billions of dollars into China has now come to haunt them. Not sure what they were thinking.