China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

[chola]

with so many large hulls they need more bases around the world . the gulf-to-red-sea fleet will be next...based in djibouti and gwader.

a submarine base in vanuatu to get the aussies off balance

but the real prize would be a base on south coast of java or sumatra adjacent to deep and open water of IOR ... that would be a supreme prize worth paying anything for.

I think a modest fleet in the IOR is inevitable. The piracy patrols had given them an excuse and a history in the region.

But their surpreme prize is Taiwan bar none. With it, the US cordon is broken and the chinis will spill into the open ocean. It is not only an ultimate chini historical situation but an ultimate geo-strategic one as well.

Taiwan is why their assets in the IOR or anywhere else will always be no more than a rump force. Their focus has to remain on East and Northeast Asia. It is existential for them.

And the funny thing is the chinis probably feel they are overmatched! Their current 64-cell VLS Type 052D is outgunned by the monsters that operate in the region:

US Ticonderoga — 122 VLS
US Arleigh Burke — 96 VLS
Japanese Atago — 96 VLS
Japanese Kongo — 90 VLS
Korean Sejong — 128 VLS

They’ll be keeping most of those 052D and 055 hulls in their waters.

BTW, when we talk about rivalry helping to build up a nation this the best example, the chini navy’s massive buildout can be attributed directly to their rivalry with the US and its allies.

I kind of envy them and the way their ships and aircraft interact with those of Unkil, the Samurai, Korea, Taiwan, Oz and the others. I know it drives them to greater and greater heights. They in turn can do the same for us.

[Singha]

but below the ~60 DDG51/Tico ships the USN is very weak on hulls with the failed LCS, the perry ships now retired...no real frigate or corvette.

their smallest coin in the game is the ddg51.....PLAN can put up 5 of 056/054 to harass and swarm these lonely leviathans in the manner of a pack of jackals or hyenas dealing with a tiger or lion. 99% of the time , which is peacetime , it will work.

using these mobbing tactics, it has already taken control of the SCS.

the 052 and 055 ships will instead move into the middle pacific, south pacific and IOR in concert with subs and carriers to display global power. most of the time 2 of the 052 ships and a LPD ships are near the red sea on anti piracy patrol and replenish at djibouti.

[Singha]

cat would be in the hen coop if they can snag a good base like bandar lampung in sumarta adjacent to a deep water strait
https://www.google.com/maps/@-5.5054375 ... 5849,11.2z

they are surely working on it with carrots and sticks

or these islands near banda aceh on a 99 year lease

https://www.google.com/maps/@1.8758483, ... a=!3m1!1e3

[chola]

but below the ~60 DDG51/Tico ships the USN is very weak on hulls with the failed LCS, the perry ships now retired...no real frigate or corvette.

their smallest coin in the game is the ddg51.....PLAN can put up 5 of 056/054 to harass and swarm these lonely leviathans in the manner of a pack of jackals or hyenas dealing with a tiger or lion. 99% of the time , which is peacetime , it will work.

using these mobbing tactics, it has already taken control of the SCS.

the 052 and 055 ships will instead move into the middle pacific, south pacific and IOR in concert with subs and carriers to display global power. most of the time 2 of the 052 ships and a LPD ships are near the red sea on anti piracy patrol and replenish at djibouti.

But Singha Saar! Can a DDG51 really ever be alone when she has 67 sister leviathans?

[Singha]

Spread all around the world
I doubt more than 15 are in pacific fleet of yokosuka

[Austin]

Brahma Chellaney
‏

@Chellaney
Follow Follow @Chellaney

Any surprise that US airlines have caved in to China's pressure and removed references to Taiwan, despite the White House earlier describing Beijing's demand as “Orwellian nonsense”? The US has long accommodated China, which is still pursuing cost-free expansionism, as in the SCS

7:47 AM - 25 Jul 2018

[chola]

Here we go. New intel.

The chini watchers community was thrown into a tizzy today. Ze top German chinesisch expert and le Francais chinois expert both tweeted what might be the first section of the Type 003 CATOBAR carrier at Shanghai.

https://mobile.twitter.com/HenriKenhman ... 7903818752

https://mobile.twitter.com/RupprechtDei ... 7878545409



There is a related report that a similar section was spotted in Dalian. Two CATOBARs at once? Someone else said they could be just tanker sections. Stay tuned.

Here is a flyover snapshot of the Shanghai yard from some airliner. There are at least 7 destroyers in this one picture with modules in place for even more. Type 052D+ is the new variant I posted earlier in the thread. The pace of construction is insane.

[abhik]

What's that behind the 055, a ballistic missile tracking ship?

[chola]

What's that behind the 055, a ballistic missile tracking ship?

Yeah, it looks like a space tracker. One of these:

[Singha]

type55 sailing through monsoon storm to punish Yindia

https://www.facebook.com/thelegendarysa ... 45419/?t=0

seriously the US pacific fleet based in yokosuka(the forward deployed part) suffered a series of collisions and inspection failures. their top admiral was sacked. reason was traced to crew fatigue from very long deployments and constant series of low intensity exercises with other nations that leave no time for people to catch up on basic training and real war game scenarios.

[chola]

type55 sailing through monsoon storm to punish Yindia

https://www.facebook.com/thelegendarysa ... 45419/?t=0

seriously the US pacific fleet based in yokosuka(the forward deployed part) suffered a series of collisions and inspection failures. their top admiral was sacked. reason was traced to crew fatigue from very long deployments and constant series of low intensity exercises with other nations that leave no time for people to catch up on basic training and real war game scenarios.

Craps, I remember now. Looked it up. Two Arleigh Burkes suffer major collisions with deaths, a Tico ran aground and yet another Tico hit a Korean fishing boat!

Entire top staff in Japan were dismissed. The disgraced commander Aucoin pleaded that the Japan fleet was run ragged with constant deployment and stress with no time for rest, maintenance and training.

Singhaji, you are right. This does not sound like a fleet with excess ships.

[Prasad]

Including the singapore collision. Same reason.

[nam]

The only way Chinese can get the US off East Asia, in peacetime, is to have Chinese deployment in Atlantic or Pacific.

If they can place 50 ships on American East Coast on "Freedom on Navigation", to just go up and down the coast, US will be forced to divert resources with threat so close to home. You cannot monitor them using aircrafts, there needs to be ships.

Chini must be looking for log bases on West Africa or Latin America. There are quite a few anti-American countries in Latin America or victims of Road and Belt.

To do this, they need numbers. It is not to fight, but to provide the same "Freedom of Navigation", which US does near China. More the number, better it is.

This is the real price. Keep US busy near US.

[Singha]

exactly. to pressure the US they need a few foreign bases (africa, indonesia, vanuatu, .... djibouti & gwader are already in place) and the logistical muscle for long deployment.

the hull numbers are smoothly building up.

this is esp true of N-subs. even 1 old SSBN mounting a deterrent patrol in the east pacific or atlantic (closely tailed by 5 american subs even) will send a thunderclap of alarm all the way up to POTUS level and result in calls to beef up the home fleets.

phreedom of navigation in international waters onlee

to add some spice to the handi, putin might send a few of his new nuclear torpedo midget subs to patrol up and down the coasts . he might even say some accident scuttled a few in the atlantic and none know where they are in miles deep water

rattling the cage is can be done by all who are willing

[Singha]

https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/us-paci ... -training/

years of mundane missions in mid-east had made them sloppy....now they are being worked into cold war ship shape

[Singha]

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/23/poli ... index.html

n a testimony delivered to Congress in September, John Pendleton, director of defense capabilities and management in the Government Accountability

Office (GAO), said the Navy was operating on what people in the service call a 'train on the margins' approach.
That means ships had no dedicated training time but instead fit whatever they could into time on missions, said Pendleton.

Exhausted crews can make bad decisions. As Schuster points out, in the case of the Fitzgerald collision, officers on watch did not wake the sleeping captain when the warship got in range of the merchant vessel.
"They were either incredibly complacent or sloppy beyond description," said Schuster.

...
The Navy has also taken several personnel actions, including sacking the commanders of the Fitzgerald and the McCain, several other senior officers, as well as the commander of 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the first time a fleet commander has been relieved of duty in the history of the US Navy.
,,,,

Top commanders acknowledge the Navy may be asking too much of its sailors, ships and aircraft.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this month, Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, commander of the US naval air forces, detailed the extraordinary lengths the Navy now has to go to send fully equipped carrier air groups to sea, due to the low stocks of working equipment -- including fighter jets and trained personnel.
"To get Carl Vinson, Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt ready to deploy in January, June and October of this year, and equip their embarked air wings with the required number of mission capable jets, 94 strike fighters had to be transferred, to and from the maintenance depots, or between F-18 squadrons on both coasts," said Shoemaker.
While this exercise is encouraging, the reality remains that our Navy is underfunded, over-tasked, and too small.

In September, Moran said hundreds of parts were cannibalized from some F/A-18s and used on others to get carrier-based squadrons combat ready.
One congressional aide told CNN that having to reshuffle 94 fighters to equip three carriers is "crazy."
The problem also directly impacted the sailors and pilots aboard those ships as the Navy was forced to fill gaps in those deploying squadrons and the three carriers by temporarily reassigning more than 300 sailors or extending their deployments beyond normal lengths, Shoemaker said.
Such moves, which Shoemaker called a strike fighter "shell game," hurt morale, meaning personnel don't sign up to extend their Navy careers, leaving positions open and years of training and experience wasted.

[Singha]

this is certainly not a cold war navy able to send 11 carrier groups fully staffed and stocked into deep battle around the world.

PLAN may be undercooked at the moment in personnel training but all of their sailing around incl to africa is on the job training. in ten years they will have enough well trained crews and a large land based training system and lots of good captains

[chola]

this is certainly not a cold war navy able to send 11 carrier groups fully staffed and stocked into deep battle around the world.

PLAN may be undercooked at the moment in personnel training but all of their sailing around incl to africa is on the job training. in ten years they will have enough well trained crews and a large land based training system and lots of good captains

@Namji, Singhaji

When the PLAN is tasked with sailing in hostile American waters then we will see Type 052Es colliding with Canadian container ships and Type 055s running aground off Mexico.

Right now, they are engaging the USN on home waters and doing warm water cruises to the Arden Gulf on “piracy” patrols.

The strain will be the same as the 7th’s if they do the same thing in the Americas. Likely much worse because Venezuela or Cuba facilities will be far less built up than Japan’s. My guess is the SYRE chinis will never attempt this. It takes a TFTA warrior mindset to operate at a rival’s doorstep.

[Mihir]

https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/us-paci ... -training/

years of mundane missions in mid-east had made them sloppy....now they are being worked into cold war ship shape

There are serious issues with the US Navy's training as well.

[nam]

The strain will be the same as the 7th’s if they do the same thing in the Americas. Likely much worse because Venezuela or Cuba facilities will be far less built up than Japan’s. My guess is the SYRE chinis will never attempt this. It takes a TFTA warrior mindset to operate at a rival’s doorstep.

Chinis have no other choice to pressurize the yanks, short of a war. If they don't do it, US will ways be blocking them in South China sea.

Yanks could then make a deal, we stay off your coast, you stay away from us.

Chinis will never allow natives anywhere near their bases. It will be all Chini funded and built, with enough noodles to decorate the Great wall.

Money is not a problem for Chinis now. And Cuban leaders won't mind few millions in their personal bank accounts.

[KrishnaK]

The strain will be the same as the 7th’s if they do the same thing in the Americas. Likely much worse because Venezuela or Cuba facilities will be far less built up than Japan’s. My guess is the SYRE chinis will never attempt this. It takes a TFTA warrior mindset to operate at a rival’s doorstep.

Chinis have no other choice to pressurize the yanks, short of a war. If they don't do it, US will ways be blocking them in South China sea.

Yanks could then make a deal, we stay off your coast, you stay away from us.

Chinis will never allow natives anywhere near their bases. It will be all Chini funded and built, with enough noodles to decorate the Great wall.

Money is not a problem for Chinis now. And Cuban leaders won't mind few millions in their personal bank accounts.

Japan, S. Korea & Taiwan, US allies in the region are economic, industrial and military heavyweights. Japan & S. Korea alone have a defense budget of 42+39 billion USD. These countries have been spending that kind of money for decades - Japan's MPA numbers are scary. They were built up to counter the erstwhile Soviet Union, which was at that point a far more scary opponent. Russia still is in the submarine realm. If you add US military hardware in the region (let's assume that's a 50B USD), the US has at its disposal 131b to China's 150-200B of defence spending. That's just dollars, if you add the military capacity of forces that have had much longer to build up their force levels and training, China has more than a match right at its doorstep.

They also trade intensely with the US. There is economic & military incentive for the US to behave the way it does. The US has always been very good at building and maintaining alliances (bar Trump).

China simply does not have that capacity. A few million in Cuban bank accounts or a few destroyers in the Americas isn't going to change a thing. The US is not about to leave 2 very capable allies out cold and reduce its own capacity by making any deals with China to stay away from the South China Sea. That's just not happening.

[nam]

All these argument is valid for a war, not peace time deployment. The idea is to thin out American presence in South East Asian, not remove them completely.

Will the American be still be sitting in Asia if Chinese deploy 50 52D across New york in International waters? They don't even have to move, they can stand still throw noodle packets over-board, and US will go crazy. Either US start building up more ships to counter Chinese deployment or recall their ships from oversea deployment.

For all the TFTA talk from Americans, they did not stop the Chinese in SCS.

Regarding South Korea, if NK puts a conditional of US withdrawal for de-nuking & permanent peace, will South Korea ask US to stay?

[chola]

All these argument is valid for a war, not peace time deployment. The idea is to thin out American presence in South East Asian, not remove them completely.

Will the American be still be sitting in Asia if Chinese deploy 50 52D across New york in International waters? They don't even have to move, they can stand still throw noodle packets over-board, and US will go crazy. Either US start building up more ships to counter Chinese deployment or recall their ships from oversea deployment.

Namji, if Cheen puts up 50 52Ds across from New York, the chinis will have little capital ships to protect its own waters. The Vietnamese and Filipinos, not to mention the Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese and even Russians will run riot in all of the “China” seas. Even the US only has 68 destroyers/cruisers, Saar.

The US is unique in that it has only two neighbors and they are both supplicants. Amreekis can put its navy all over the world and not worry about its own territorial waters. Cheen does not have that luxury.

For all the TFTA talk from Americans, they did not stop the Chinese in SCS.

Ah but you are forgetting that there are three bodies of water that are even more important to Cheen. They the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Each one of those are heavily contested by the US, Japan and Korea. Instead of paths to the open oceans for China, they’ve been turned into barriers by the US and its allies. The SCS is Cheen’s only avenue because of the USN and allied navies. And the SCS is still contained by the first island chain.

Squatting on a main rival’s doorstep and restricting his movement is not TFTA enough for you?

I think Cheen’s strategy will be to flood its regional seas with ships not the the US coast. They are smart enough to know they cannot play the TFTA game. Those 50 052s (probably E’s and F’s by then) will be in the East China Sea and around Taiwan.

Once there are enough of them then the scenario that Singhaji brought up will come into play. Each USN leviathan will have to face not just 5 054A FFGs but a couple of 052s and a 55 as well. The PLAN do not need to run themselves ragged sailing all the way to the Americas, colliding with tankers and fishing boats along the way. They would let the Amreekis do that. This is how smart SREs should handle TFTAs.

[Singha]

you see will things change if they can get a couple of bases in south american anti-american nations.

but submarine patrols will be the first step.

5 not 50 DDGs will be sailing freedom of navigation accompanied by some subs and paying friendly visit to vancouver and mexico and going through panama canal.

[nam]

Namji, if Cheen puts up 50 52Ds across from New York, the chinis will have little capital ships to protect its own waters. The Vietnamese and Filipinos, not to mention the Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese and even Russians will run riot in all of the “China” seas. Even the US only has 68 destroyers/cruisers, Saar.

Which is exactly why the Chinis are building like crazy. They will have enough to protect home waters, with many of them on "international adventure".

At 12 trillion GDP for US, which was last decade it already had 11 aircraft carriers. I don't see why Chinis cannot produce a similar sized navy.

At the order size and speed they are building, it will be much cheaper than US for them to reach the numbers.

[Karan M]

Chola, talk of missing the point. My point was exactly this - if things fly, can sail, the PRC trots them out as examples of overnight, rushed success. Whereas India's MIC tests its to be inducted equipment to the max, and YET, there are still niggles with imports especially. Take the case of the BAE ULH in the other thread and the number of rounds being fired per gun. Or the manner in which India has resolutely built up its Strat Missile program.

Like it or not, we have two options - get overawed by the PRC and then shiver about their professed military prowess. Or run silent, run deep in building up our own capabilities and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. For instance, the intense testing regimen which we deploy before we induct any equipment.

What they do, is because they perceive a show of strength and success is critical. We deem results to be more important. IAF did not allow optics about crashing MiGs to tone down its flying regimen & this is the way it should be.

This is not to say we should not monitor what the Chinese are doing and ALL they are doing is optics. Of course not, but nuance and context are important and it behooves us not to lose sight of this and hence nor should we worry as if we have already lost a conflict.

At the same time, nor should we rush into conflict. Actual war on the ground will be won by enough Arty, well equipped infantry and proper comms. We have a ways to go to achieve optimal levels in all these areas. That will come with the 2nd term of the NDA as economic impetus allows for more laissez faire and better expenditure on capex.

Gentlemen, please stop worrying about Chinese "deep TOT" and "supapawa supa build times".. their kit is not as fancy or as well tested as you think it may be. India's kit is put through hundreds of trials & yet we face challenges which we do fix. The Chinese otoh are clearly very much into optics and messaging. Don't fall for it.

All these might be true:

1) we test more
2) chinis are into optics
3) their kits are not as fancy “as we think”

All the following statements are true too because we have recent pictures posted in this very thread:

a) they have launched four 13K tons DDGs in the past year and there are two more in advance stages of construction,
b) the J-20 can fly and some with WS-10 engines,
c) the FC-31 can fly,
d) the Y-20 can fly and there 7 new ones photographed on a patch of factory ground,
e) the J-15 can fly and land on a Kuznetsov class STOBAR carrier,
f) their homegrown copy of the Kutz/Varyag launched two years after the keel was photographed in 2015 and on sea trial a year after launch,
g) there are 6 strategic H-6K bombers on factory grounds in June

We can talk about optics AND we can talk about the fact they are not bragging about a prototype here and there but putting these things into service in great numbers. It makes sense to talk about how they are doing this and why.

Does it help us to just call it optics when their numbers are overrunning the SCS and creating a permanent presence for them in the IOR?

[Karthik S]

Chola, talk of missing the point. My point was exactly this - if things fly, can sail, the PRC trots them out as examples of overnight, rushed success. Whereas India's MIC tests its to be inducted equipment to the max, and YET, there are still niggles with imports especially. Take the case of the BAE ULH in the other thread and the number of rounds being fired per gun. Or the manner in which India has resolutely built up its Strat Missile program.

Like it or not, we have two options - get overawed by the PRC and then shiver about their professed military prowess. Or run silent, run deep in building up our own capabilities and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. For instance, the intense testing regimen which we deploy before we induct any equipment.

What they do, is because they perceive a show of strength and success is critical. We deem results to be more important. IAF did not allow optics about crashing MiGs to tone down its flying regimen & this is the way it should be.

This is not to say we should not monitor what the Chinese are doing and ALL they are doing is optics. Of course not, but nuance and context are important and it behooves us not to lose sight of this and hence nor should we worry as if we have already lost a conflict.

At the same time, nor should we rush into conflict. Actual war on the ground will be won by enough Arty, well equipped infantry and proper comms. We have a ways to go to achieve optimal levels in all these areas. That will come with the 2nd term of the NDA as economic impetus allows for more laissez faire and better expenditure on capex.

All these might be true:

1) we test more
2) chinis are into optics
3) their kits are not as fancy “as we think”

All the following statements are true too because we have recent pictures posted in this very thread:

a) they have launched four 13K tons DDGs in the past year and there are two more in advance stages of construction,
b) the J-20 can fly and some with WS-10 engines,
c) the FC-31 can fly,
d) the Y-20 can fly and there 7 new ones photographed on a patch of factory ground,
e) the J-15 can fly and land on a Kuznetsov class STOBAR carrier,
f) their homegrown copy of the Kutz/Varyag launched two years after the keel was photographed in 2015 and on sea trial a year after launch,
g) there are 6 strategic H-6K bombers on factory grounds in June

We can talk about optics AND we can talk about the fact they are not bragging about a prototype here and there but putting these things into service in great numbers. It makes sense to talk about how they are doing this and why.

Does it help us to just call it optics when their numbers are overrunning the SCS and creating a permanent presence for them in the IOR?

Karan Sir, our policy on inducting systems after thorough tests and checks is fine. But where I feel we need to ramp up is the scale and speed. Take for example our P-15B destroyers, what we do, we launch a ship of the class, then the next ship's construction starts. We are building only 4, whereas we can easily double the numbers and construct 2 simultaneously.

[Karan M]

I agree with you but placing more orders in parallel means more budget for capex, and to be honest, after Modi's interview in Swarajya about real state of the economy in 2014, plus OROP, subsidies etc..I don't see the leeway for significant new orders till economy picks up post 2019. Private sector involvement has been opened up but budgetary limitations remain.

Till then,it will be consolidation and optimization of existing assets. Under this GOI, we are finally seeing serviceability metrics being given the importance they deserve.

[chola]

Like it or not, we have two options - get overawed by the PRC and then shiver about their professed military prowess. Or run silent, run deep in building up our own capabilities and not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The first choice is completely irrelevant in the real world, Karanji.

Worrying about “getting overawed and shivering” is believing our only problem is psychology. And psychology would be the only problem if the chinis were just bragging about a stupid super duper prototype here and there.

But that’s not the case, Saar. Our greatest problem with Cheen is not psychology. It is the real physical spilling of their industrial output, their infrastructure and their machines (war and commercial) into OUR area of influence.

They did not take over the SCS with just optics. They took it over with massive numbers of ships and aircraft and man-made islands. They are not just propagandizing they are in the IOR. They are really here with subs, frigates, destroyers and a base in East Africa.

At the same time, nor should we rush into conflict. Actual war on the ground will be won by enough Arty, well equipped infantry and proper comms.

At Doklam, we had 20-1 advantages in manpower, 200 available aircraft to their 12, far shorter lines of communications and far more advantageous geographic locations for our airbases that allow full loads to be carried.

So what else did we needed to wait for in order to win? Forget about it, Saar. We are not going to war with them. I’ve given up all hope of that.

The two choices I present, unlike yours, have nothing to do with psychology. They have everything to do with the physical assets on the ground that change status quo.

Option 1 is to continue on our current path which is arming ourselves with slow induction of heavily tested (and often firangi) gear for a great power war that Doklam showed us would be unlikely to ever come.

Option 2 would be to change our path to counter a rival’s strategy that we should study in earnest and not worry about the childish psychological fear of being “overawed.” Study and then counter. And being earnest here might require initiating an early war to attrite their numbers or, more likely, a long term MIC strategy to match their numbers.

If you think it is all optics then Option 1 is a good and fine.

If you see, like me, a rival’s strategy that is applied during peacetime with overwhelming numbers then you have to take Option 2.

If the chinis had chosen Option 1 in the 1980s and worried about being overawed by the USA then we would probably not even bother having a chini mil thread today. But they chose Option 2 and ended up with a MIC.

I want us to have one as well.

[Neshant]

Michael Pillsbury advises the Trump administration on China.

[chola]

Here we go. New intel.

The chini watchers community was thrown into a tizzy today. Ze top German chinesisch expert and le Francais chinois expert both tweeted what might be the first section of the Type 003 CATOBAR carrier at Shanghai.

https://mobile.twitter.com/HenriKenhman ... 7903818752

https://mobile.twitter.com/RupprechtDei ... 7878545409



There is a related report that a similar section was spotted in Dalian. Two CATOBARs at once? Someone else said they could be just tanker sections. Stay tuned.

The sections at Shanghai are pretty much confirmed. The one at Dalian is looking increasingly to be that of a carrier as well.

It looks like their next carrier class will come as a pair.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RupprechtDei ... 1488881666

[AdityaM]

J20 has some interesting surface features. What would they be

https://mobile.twitter.com/xinfengcao/s ... 2235413505

[Rakesh]

China’s air force recruitments hit by poor eyesight of air force pilots, experts warn
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-ne ... ytRPP.html

A report by Chinese military experts didn’t say if the People’s Liberation Army air force had a shortage of pilots but indicated it was difficult to select a candidate who could be trained to fly, and could eventually affect national security.

[souravB]

J20 has some interesting surface features. What would they be

https://mobile.twitter.com/xinfengcao/s ... 2235413505

^^ Not entirely sure which features you meant. That glass thingy is I'd hazard a guess an EOTS (Electro Optcal Targeting system) like F-35. Not entirely sure if it works similar to F-35 or just there for show boating.

The protrusions inside the inlet is DSI (Divertless Supersonic Inlet). Keeps from air vortices forming at the mouth of the Inlet. It is indeed a very simple and efficient method compared to other solutions but results in keeping the speed below Mach 2.

Not sure if that answers your query or not.

[Singha]

with FCS and flight tests mostly done, they are filling out the capacious airframe with more sensors and ew for sure. that is natural curve.

they are dead serious about the J20 as a long term strike platform.

[SaiK]

^^^

Here is the link
http://amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war ... y-insights

[chola]

CGs of chini carriers CV-16 and 17 and the upcoming CATOBARs 18, 19 and 21.








The artwork in the chini watchers forums are incredible. Professional grade.

Let’s see how closely the last three matches up with the real things.

[Rahul M]

The artwork in the chini watchers forums are incredible. Professional grade.

it's all done by the 801st Photoshop Battalion of the PLA.

[Rakesh]

The artwork in the chini watchers forums are incredible. Professional grade.

it's all done by the 801st Photoshop Battalion of the PLA.

[chola]

The artwork in the chini watchers forums are incredible. Professional grade.

it's all done by the 801st Photoshop Battalion of the PLA.

Exactly. The propaganda arm. And probably not the 801st, they suck:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... oster.html

Oops, wrong ship! Chinese defence ministry apologises for Photoshop fail showing Russian and US weapons in its own military propaganda poster