PLA Navy and Naval Air Force

Occupying it during peacetime when it is not actively contested does not mean they will keep it if hostilities start... you can call an Island an unsinkable carrier all you like but if any target of value on its surface can be repeatedly hit by cruise missile or standoff weapon what real value does the island hold?

Will NATO dare to attack Russia's Kaliningrad region or Japan/US dare to attack Sakhalin & Kurils 1st?

China also has nukes, so they can nuke themselves & the invaders on those islands if nothing else works.

Chinese navy has for now the same role as soviet: defendig mainland.

China still uses modified Russian engines RD-33 for their J-31 and Al-31 for J-20. Their radar is in heavy question on what is used. Their navy engines we're shit by Russian standard.

Isos wrote:

I agree. But what I mean is that combat experience is not a big factor anymore. Argetinian fighter pilots where not engaged in any naval war before Malvinas and yet they did their job while UK had better tools and they lost modern ships.

J-20 even with russian Pesa radar will be very good at launching antiship missiles from 500km away. Su-35 have also started patroling the sea.

French navy will never fight china alone. They will only go if US and dogs go. They would need all their vessels to protect the carrier and they are not so much modern. They have 7 modern frigates while the rest is old. La fayette are more like  missile boats than frigates. The MdCN is 1000km range so they will take risks to launch them. 40 rafales without refueling tankers won't help a lot.

Chinese navy has for now the same role as soviet: defendig mainland.

Isos wrote:Carriers are not stealth. 10km is half of what modern fighters can fly. A group of 48 j-20 supported by some 24 su-35 flying 15km altitude is a big threat ro any carrier. It will be faster for them to launch their long range anti ship missile than launch rafales or f-18 to catch them 300km away. You can't launch 40 rafales in 2 min and the few that are patroling have to deal with a formation of 5th generation fighters and 4++ fighters. Even f-22 couldn't do a lot agai st that. Let alone 2 patroling rafale with more fuel tanker on it than missiles.

No they don't. Their ships are not immune to missiles. 7 Fremm and 2 horizon is not what will protect a carrier from the thousands of chinese missiles. I have already had this conversation with other members here that think a carrier can stay far away from the enemy and attack zasily which is wrong. Rafale and f-18 or f-35 will always oblige the carrier to go near the shores where it is reachable by antiship missiles

They needed half of their air force to launch 9 missiles against undefended buildings in Syria. And they waited for US to launch 100 missiles. And you seriously think they can attack alone china.

China has a few hundred nukes and not a lot of options when it comes to delivering them to the US. The US engaged in regime change in the Ukraine in an attempt to seize Sevastopol from Russia and Russia has thousands of nukes and plenty of delivery systems that can get them to the US.

miketheterrible wrote:It would be mighty hard to launch so many Rafale's so fast to counter act supersonic missiles you know.

Vladimir79 wrote:.......the Japanese can force the latest Chinese submarine to surface, they won't have any chance against French ASW which sets the world's standard at Thales.      

Isos wrote:The area of deployment will be empty of fishing boats. And even if not those fishing boats will most liklely be chinese so they can give the location of the enemy ships by radio. Even easier to find the carrier.

Those escort ship will need to turn on their radar so they will be spotted. They can also be hit by antiship missiles. And aster missiles have 120 km range so the j-20 can stay out of the engagement zone of the frigates.

Chinese are not Syria. They have plenty of other tools to detect carriers. Not only j-20 radars. They also have like 3 times bigger navy than french navy. Their ssk are not that bad and they have s-300 on many of their frigates. UK jamed some exocet during malvinas which means french missile don't have 100%Pk.

They also have tactics. They won't send all the fighters at 15km altitude and turn on their radars at max power. They can prepare an attack and attack from many sides. Good luck intercepting that.

Yes 2 rafales stoping a formation of 5th generation stealth fighter supported by as many su-35. When you attack you can send all your fighters like israeli did against egypt. Defending 24/7 with all your fighters is impossible. Rafale+Meteor is good but not a miracle weapon. Su-35 are made to destroy them. What makes you think that if french rafale intercept chinese su-35 it would be the rafale that wins ?

Big value targets that they may want to hit are deep into mainland so no rafale doesn't have enough range to keep the carrier far away. Russia and china are making antiship missile with almost 1000 km range plus the range of bigger sukhoi that is bigger than rafales the carrier will need to be close enough so in the engagement zone of the chinese airforce.

And two awacs, half of their tanker fleet, 4 mirages, 5 frigates for 12 missiles.

And 3+3 MdCN that didn't work from two different frigates and 1 scalp didn't work. Don't be so rude with chinese technology.

They could attack china but they would lose many ships and fighters too.

PapaDragon wrote:

Question: how do you force the submarine to surface without attacking it?

Genuinely asking.

From a strictly strategic viewpoint, France’s announced plan will not have a determining impact on the situation in the South China Sea. After all, despite being a major military power with global reach, France’s military presence in the region is limited. Besides, outside of France, what other EU nation has a permanent naval and air presence in the Pacific? https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/south-china-sea-the-french-are-coming/

The YJ-10 is thought be one of China’s most advanced ASCMs with an estimated operational range from 220 to 540 kilometers. According to Chinese media reports, the missile is fitted with a 300-kilogram high-explosive or anti-radiation warhead. The missile, reportedly capable of reaching a terminal speed of Mach 2, has an inertial guidance system using BeiDou Navigation Satellite System data. Type 093A/B and Type 093G subs are reportedly comparable to U.S. Navy’s Los Angeles-class Flight I and the more advanced Flight III variants in terms of stealthiness. https://thediplomat.com/2018/06/image-may-confirm-advanced-anti-ship-capability-of-chinas-type-093-submarine/

Isos wrote:

chinese have access to pretty advanced kilo class so they can copy to have something "good enough". At least for SSK. Their SSN are probably limited by their reactors because russia and soviet never helped them on that technology.

Isos wrote:They probably have some radios if they go far away.

And No they are not. Heracles on FREMM are pesa with 250km range. EW goes ahead. Those LPI radars will be detected as electronics improves.

For french awacs it is  the same. A su-30 accelerating to mach 2 at 15 km altitude could attack it with a r-27 from very far.

They have su-35 and Irbis-E and also awacs that work in a band of frequency spectra will have hard time jamming. I would fear more japanese missiles with aesa radar than meteor. Spectra proved to be good against some soviet export monkey models systems nothing more. China also has jaming pods, maybe not that good but who knows how really good meteor is against jaming.

J-20 is also stealth. At least from the front and it will get an aesa radar and very long range. So the same lvl as rafale if not better for anti shipping.

It is 2 meteor and the rest being mica or fuel tanks. Mica is not better than r-77.

And again j-20 and su-35 are just as good as rafales. Even your army doesn't feel necessery to replace 4++ fighters with 5th gen because western fighters are not that much advanced.

You also forget chinese ssk that coukd wait for target passing near them. 1 torpedo can stop aircraft launching from a carrier.

Then why the third one launched its missiles. Did russian ships sailed on top of the french VLS  ?

IMO this is all political. They had a-50U in the air, they had grigorovitch with probably radars turned on because it was already near enemy ships and the rafales were protected by not stealth mirages which can be detected by A-50 from very long range. So yeah that's total BS not to hurt the french.

For UK and US, french are useless and their rafales are bullshit. Saying rafale was better than US and UK fighters kinda trolls them but also could make french sell more and reduce to US arms market. It is easier for russia to enter in a new market where france sells its products than where US has the monopole. They sold bmp-3 to Emirats who operates Leclerc but they never sold anything to Saudi Arabia which is US private market.

Tsavo Lion wrote: HOW DO INDIAN SUBS COMPARE?

Isos wrote:Seriously stealth doesn't make them invisible. A fisher can see it if it is close enough. Fremm has 1 gun and horizon has two gun. Carrier are huge and anyone can see them and identify them as carriers. Those fishers probably see military ships everyday.
They also have a bigger missile in developement for anti awacs.

Spectra is not a miracle tool. Against aesa it is not so good. Russia has also gained information on rafale like its rcs and its radar too. Corrupted egyptian generals have also access to aesa radar of rafale ...

Su-57 is aesa. They probably didn't even detected them.

4 rafale + buddy refueler. How long do you think they can do this. They have only one carrier, 1 crew and 40 rafales.


J-20 is stealth feom the front so for anti shiping it can be good. If a ship is detected they can approach very close.

They have lot of diesel subs, put them 600km away from the cost and 50km away one from another and patrol. Carriers are noisy. Even a kilo would detect it from far away. And CdG needs to move to launch its fighters.

Su-24 were flying above them 2 days before. A grigorovitch class intercepted them before launch. All the group was detected. Their mdcn is 1000km range. Draw a circle 1000km from syrian coast and you know where they are. All you need then is patrol that area with a radar which takes 1h.

French also said that they said to russians they will attack prior to the attack. Mirages are not stealth, neither are rafales and the refueling tankers with them. A-50U works in L band, you can't jam it with mighty Spectra. They intercepeted even f-22 which far more steakthy than spectra. They also have ELINT assests so any jamer is detected around syria.

Even if they didn't saw them, they knew they will attack with US because Putin was informed so russia would have said they did saw them. Why then say that brand new s-400 and grigorovitch and A-50U didn't detect them ? That makes no sense unless they try to make confusion in NATO offices by saying french are better than UK, US  because theUS and UK hate them.

French def minister said all the missiles were successfully launched which proved to be a lie. They are liars.

So saying they detected only UK and US is total bullshit. I don't know why they said that, you shold have relation in the army ask them.

I don't want to start a new debat but just about the mighty French army, Nazi had inferior tech before ww2 than french and they won. A rafale that wins in exercices with the best pilot is not the same as a eafale piloted by a normal guy during a real war when he knows he can die against a fighter he never met in combat.