China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

souravB · Post by **souravB** » 03 Apr 2019 18:02

chola wrote: --snip--

Chola sir, thank you for the educational post. Yes I agree that any country would like to ape US in miltech including Russia. China is not an exception.
So in your view was this TVC for WS10 sourced alongside Lavi or is it something they stole later?

chola · Post by **chola** » 04 Apr 2019 15:01

^^^ Sourav ji, Israel was involved in the MATV program for the F-16 and it was for the Lavi. Unkil dropped support after they decided it would present a threat on the market. Israel pulled out of the MATV program in 1992 and gave up on the Lavi a few years later. The J-10 then took full swing and flew first on 1998.

So I believe the Israel vision of a full 3D vectoring was always there for the Lavi and therefore the J-10. But the chinis didn't have the ability early on and needed the WS-10 to mature. Which didn't happen until recently. To me, the TVC show at Zhuhai signals the maturation of the WS-10 program with multiple variants including those for the base J-11B, another more powerful one for the J-16, yet another even more powerful one for some of J-20s (not production ones) and finally the TVC one.

I think they were heavily influenced by the MATV and Aven program. It might have come from the Israelis or copied or outright stolen but the influence was always there.

The WS-10 -- like J-10 to Tejas -- was always the bigger uglier counterpart to the Kaveri. The programs started at the same time. Both tested with the Russians in the same period. GTRE personnel were at Gromov and saw chini ones there with the WS-10. And we ahead in those early days.

https://twitter.com/sjha1618/status/559545869226110977

Saurav Jha
@SJha1618
The Kaveri engine performed for 57 hours continuously during tests in Russia, whereas the Chinese WS-10 could not.

But they had a perfect guinea pig in the twin-engined SU-27sk/J-11 and went into mass production with an inferior but indigenous product. A decade of tinkering and here they are.

chola · Post by **chola** » 04 Apr 2019 15:08

^^^ Here we go: the J-11 testbed used to wring out the WS-10.

When I first saw this, I literally smacked my forehead. Why didn't we do the same with the Kaveri? The dimensions of that are within those for the MiG-29.

On the right is the WS-10. Easy to spot with the short petals. On the left is the established Al-31 in case the test engine fails:

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Apr 2019 15:50

reason that was advanced the iaf did not want to spare any a/c and pilots to support the kaveri whether fighters or a IL76 gromov type testbed.

even now, they are happy with 404x/414x but will be unhappy if these do not meet thrust needs and demand whatever is next be acquired.

chola · Post by **chola** » 04 Apr 2019 16:42

Singha wrote:reason that was advanced the iaf did not want to spare any a/c and pilots to support the kaveri whether fighters or a IL76 gromov type testbed.

even now, they are happy with 404x/414x but will be unhappy if these do not meet thrust needs and demand whatever is next be acquired.

Yass Singha ji, having access to the best in market of Russia, Israel and the West is both a boon and a bane. Cheen didn't have this choice save for Russia and we know they like Western stuff. So that forced them to go big on domestic programs every time. The WS-10 is a case in point.

When you are starting out, everything domestic will be a bit below the global standards. The IAF, correctly, tries to maintain a standard that matches what is available. If what is available are SU-30MKIs and Rafales and C-17s and F-404/414s then why should they settle for anything less? It is not their job.

That job belongs to the GOI. It has to decide whether the country's defense is strong enough with what we have (I think we are -- by a wide margin) and that we can give some priority to the MIC.

The Tejas variants -- MK1A, NLCA and MWF -- are good start for the MIC this coming decade. The 414 would be critical to the MWF and maybe even the later marks of the Naval LCA. But maybe the base Tejas can be split off from the MK1A for a Kaveri-engined variant. But better if we had a twin engine to ease worries about failure. In the end, the GOI would have to dictate it.

If the GOI does then the Kaveri will be a game-changer for us like the WS-10 was for the chinis. Again, the one difference was they had a ready made twin-engined ac in the domestic Flanker to de-risk the induction of a new engine.

nam · Post by **nam** » 04 Apr 2019 16:55

Nothing stopping MoD from ordering couple of Su30 from HAL , using test pilots and self maintaining them?

After all it is HAL which will ultimately built Kaveri.

And why are we even designing kaveri in TFTA 404/414 form factor? What's wrong with AL31 size like the Chinis are doing?

chola · Post by **chola** » 04 Apr 2019 17:09

^^^ The chinis picked the right-sized engine when they were picking up the Lavi/J-10 and licensing the Flanker/J-11. They went heavy weight across the board as a standard.

We chose to be "light" this and "light" that and so chose a smaller size aircraft and resultant engine to begin with. Even though we had already planned on the Flanker as the IAF backbone even then (we were flying the SU-30MK (no I) in the late 1990s!)

If HAL were building a domestic Fulcrum then I think we would have done what the chinis did with the J-11 and the Kaveri would most likely be flying today. Asking the IAF for a plane to alter would have been full of politics though again if the GOI orders it to be done it probably would have.

But it all goes back to that original decision to pick a size for the single-engine project that is mismatched with the twin-engined backbone project. A few years ago we heard about uprating the Kaveri for the MKI. Heard nothing hence since the idea is not practical. The tolerances are too different between a medium weight engine like the Kaveri/RD-33 and a heavyweight one like the WS-10/Al-31.

souravB · Post by **souravB** » 04 Apr 2019 23:51

Chola sir, no ji for me please. I am still a xiaohuángdì.

If ws-10 to kaveri is J-10 to Tejas, I am hopeful that we'll make have a contemporary engine tech albeit at a later date. If LCA program is any indication, once we crack the initial phase, the spin offs will be fruitful.
As for Tejas, we can always replace F404 with Kaveri-9/9+ during MLU.
I am hopeful once our material problem for blisks are resolved, we can progress pretty substantially. But still it would present a problem for low tolerance high output manufacturing which we seriously lack in.

chola · Post by **chola** » 05 Apr 2019 16:28

^^^ Hah, a L'il Emperor. Single child and spoiled to the core?

Very unlikely that it is possible for a MLU to go from F404 to Kaveri. You would need a separate variant from the MK1/1A. F404 to F414 is a different story. The latter is an evolution of the first, though a bit bigger, it is within the general footprint of the first so a change during MLU is possible there. That said, the Tejas was originally designed for the Kaveri so developing the variant to use it would be fairly easy compared to say a totally new engine like a RD-33 or M-88.

We will get there. As you, I think the Kaveri story will parallel the Tejas'.

chola · Post by **chola** » 05 Apr 2019 16:43

What the Japanese deal with on a daily basis (from the Joint Staff twitter account of the Japanese Ministry of Defense.)

Intercepts of PLA war machines:

March 30:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jointstaffpa ... 8772861957

April 1:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jointstaffpa ... 5357036544

April 2:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jointstaffpa ... 0504562688

chola · Post by **chola** » 05 Apr 2019 16:59

^^^ The H-6K's in the first two photos from March 30 carried KD-20 LACMs. I would say deliberately threatening when they are in Japan's littorals.

syam · Post by **syam** » 06 Apr 2019 21:56

Chola ji, any gossip on this new china rocket?

It is very similar to elon musk rockets. twit handle - @Linkspace_China

chola · Post by **chola** » 07 Apr 2019 08:10

syam wrote:Chola ji, any gossip on this new china rocket?

It is very similar to elon musk rockets. twit handle - @Linkspace_China

Actually, I thank you for bringing it to my attention, Syam.

It is a private firm so their stuff don't get much attention in the watchers community. Those accounts tend to be overwhelmed by a constant stream on aircraft and ships. The official Long March launches and Beidou satellites get the most exposure on routine space stuff. Private firms nearly none.

That said, the chini private sector is something that many say we should keep an eye on but nobody really does.

Seems like it only happened a few days ago.

https://room.eu.com/news/linkspace-succ ... -prototype

NewLine Baby, or RLV-T5 as it is officially known, is 8.1 metres high, weighs 1.5 tons and uses five liquid rocket engines in parallel to get it off the ground. It hovered in place for 10 seconds after rising to a height of 20 metres during a test flight in eastern China’s Shandong province last week.

The rocket made a perfect landing despite strong cross winds to touchdown very close, if not almost exactly, on the same spot it had taken off from - a white circular launch pad emblazoned with the words “Welcome to Earth”.

This momentous undertaking was watched by Dr Robert Zubrin, a NASA engineer, and LinkSpace founder Wang Jian, amongst others. Zubrin likened LinkSpace’s recent accomplishment to watching “a 7-year-old Mozart composing a symphony,” adding that simply getting off the [launch] pad is a victory in its own right.

The flight was designed to test many key technologies such as multiple engine thrust adjustment, multiple start, vector nozzle, and roll control ready for subsequent testing at increased heights.

“With this success, we will now aim to reach a height of 1,000 meters with our reusable technology,” Chu Longfei, LinkSpace’s chief technology officer said.

Although the controlled hover was a resounding success for this private Chinese aerospace company, it has no plans to take on its US competitors just yet. Instead this self-professed lower-budget player is aiming at a smaller but currently uncontested suborbital launch market.

Of course, they are going after the low budget market. It is the chini MO.

syam · Post by **syam** » 08 Apr 2019 11:48

How important is this suborbital market? I think chinis just want to experiment with what ever americans experiment.

chola · Post by **chola** » 08 Apr 2019 16:24

syam wrote:How important is this suborbital market? I think chinis just want to experiment with what ever americans experiment.

It's nominally a private firm and the MO of the chini export engine has always been to attack the low price-points before moving up.

The suborbital market might be small for the current pricepoints but if someone comes along and move the pricepoints down then the demand will go up.

They created a hobby drone market out of nothing and then moved on to the armed drone market in the Middle East.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 09 Apr 2019 16:53

China’s Next Naval Target Is the Internet’s Underwater Cables

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/artic ... s-are-next

chola · Post by **chola** » 11 Apr 2019 11:31

https://twitter.com/OedoSoldier/status/ ... 5688139776

J-10B TVC搭載型のAOAセンサーを見れば、最大迎角が-30°～135°に達する。これと比べると、普通のJ-10B（2枚目の画像）の最大迎角は-30°～60°。

------- Google translated from Japanese ------

Looking at the AOA sensor with J-10B TVC, the maximum attack angle reaches -30 ° to 135 °. Compared with this, the maximum attack angle of the normal J-10B (the second image) is -30 ° to 60 °.

chola · Post by **chola** » 11 Apr 2019 11:37

Peculiar Far Eastern perversion:

R-Rated:
https://i.ibb.co/tx9GfFk/465-A1-D35-1-A ... -DDF69.jpg

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 11 Apr 2019 13:35

Chinese Counter Space Capabilities documented along with others

https://swfound.org/media/206408/swf_gl ... 19_web.pdf

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 13 Apr 2019 17:01

Chinese amphibious gearless transporter

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3606742.html

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 13 Apr 2019 17:04

Shaanxi Baoji Special Vehicles

This vehicle will be a hit in Mumbai during Rainy Season

chola · Post by **chola** » 13 Apr 2019 18:35

^^^ Chinis have an endless range of vehicles from their 200 auto companies. Yet their civilian market is owned by phoren brands especially from Germany and Japan. lol

Still very interesting. They innovating in a viciously competitive market.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Apr 2019 18:39

Yeah bleah lets see them export their models to asean or mount a proper fleet patrol into the ior then i will do my dharmic duty and shiver

chola · Post by **chola** » 13 Apr 2019 19:44

^^^ The truth is based on their numbers alone at the border and in the IOR there is nothing to dhoti shake about. The advantage we have is more than 10 to 1 in manpower and aircraft. A handful of ships at any given time in the IOR is like a gnat to the whole might of the IN.

Numbers alone is a foregone conclusion in favor of an OVERWHELMING Bharati victory over Cheen in any realistic scenario.

Then you factor in quality and experience and it's a complete no brainer. They haven't fought in decades and don't seem like they want to. Doklam proved that they won't. No major buildup in forces though they were heavily outnumbered along the entire border.

To me the "two front war" is nothing more than scare stories we tell our children. The facts on the ground is that the "bigger" front is a rump force from a SRE civilization more adversed to fighting than even we are.

This thread is not about their "military" but their MIC. They are a good benchmark in manufacturing war machines not using them.

chola · Post by **chola** » 14 Apr 2019 13:30

CFTE (China Flight Testing Establishment) is their ASTE and CABS. It is full of Flanker and Y-8/9 variants with many in primer. An indication of how much they tinker with those types.

There are multiple Y-20s too so that is beginning to look like a base platform for future variants -- easy to imagine what they'll be. AWACS, tanker, maybe engine testbed.

The strange one with the carnards on its head is the Tu-204C testbed for the J-20.

https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/stat ... 8646752256

@Rupprecht_A
@RupprechtDeino
Several interesting images showing the CFTE at Xi'an Yanliang (dated 12/12/2018)

via BHarwana/PDF

chola · Post by **chola** » 15 Apr 2019 14:26

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190413_04/

SDF scrambles in FY2018 2nd highest on record

Japan's Defense Ministry says the number of times Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets were scrambled in fiscal 2018 was the second-highest on record.

The ministry says that in the year that ended in March ASDF jets were scrambled 999 times against unidentified aircraft approaching Japan's airspace. That's an increase of 11 percent from fiscal 2017.

638 scrambles, or 64 percent of the total, were against Chinese aircraft. The number against Russian aircraft was the second-highest at 343, or 34 percent of the total.

OTOH, there were no recorded Indian interception of chini manned aircraft in 2018 nor 2017 nor 2016 ... nor ever for as far as I could tell.

Why?

1) Geographically impossible; can't place large numbers in the ratified air of Tibet. They had 11 planes in Tibet during Doklam and then had a major buildup afterward ... to 32,

2) Geopolitically impossible; can't place major formation on the western border when 90% of their critical human, industrial and strategic assets are along a narrow strip of the coast facing some of the most advanced militaries on earth in the US, Japan and their allies,

3) Afraid of Bharati power; Cheen is no dragon but a chicken. While we cannot expect to see hundreds of PLAAF aircraft like Japan, why not a J-11 or J-10 here and there? There are none, year after year. Which is a signal telling us that they do not want to engage with our planes at all, that they do not want to fight by not flying anything in our area. Sounds like dhoti shaking me -- were chinis wearing dhotis.

IMHO, we should use the Chini rivalry as a challenge to build our MIC. We should develop more homegrown systems like the Tejas and its variants (NLCA and MWF) and buy them in huge numbers just as the PRC do the J-10 and other indigenous designs.

But using the "two front" war to buy more phoren gear like the Rafale is complete bull manure when the chinis cannot constitute a proper front.

abhik · Post by **abhik** » 15 Apr 2019 19:22

@chola saar There have been many reports of "airspace violations" in the past, mostly helicopters (though not many recently - don't know if such incidents have actually reduced or the media has lost interest), which is far more serious than scrambles. On the ground they have nonchalantly built roads well into Indian territory, and we came to know after civilians raised the alert (like Kargil). Such incidents don't jive well with the 1:10 numeric superiority theory, the full picture is probably a little different.

chola · Post by **chola** » 15 Apr 2019 21:42

^^^ Abhik ji, Cheen is notoriously deficient in high altitude helos. They had been attempting to reverse engineer the S-70 Black Hawk for three decades.

If you can give me the type of rotary craft involved in those intrusions then it would be appreciated. I've seen those reports before but never once have we've gotten a type. Their Z-10 failed in Pakiland because of underpowered engines especially at altitude. Their deepest, tallest fliends picked the Turkish T-129 instead. So I have my doubts on the helos they could be using to intrude.

In fact, I can safely say they have nothing in numbers for the mountains like we do in the Chetaks, Cheetals and Dhruvs.

abhik · Post by **abhik** » 17 Apr 2019 10:02

Cheen does have plenty of Mi-17 no? In fact don't they have an assembly line for it.

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 17 Apr 2019 13:07

chola wrote:https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190413_04/

SDF scrambles in FY2018 2nd highest on record

Japan's Defense Ministry says the number of times Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets were scrambled in fiscal 2018 was the second-highest on record.

The ministry says that in the year that ended in March ASDF jets were scrambled 999 times against unidentified aircraft approaching Japan's airspace. That's an increase of 11 percent from fiscal 2017.

638 scrambles, or 64 percent of the total, were against Chinese aircraft. The number against Russian aircraft was the second-highest at 343, or 34 percent of the total.

It seems the Japanese plan to sell of their older f15s to buy f35. We are looking at over 100 air frames. I'm sure Lockmsrt is salivating

chola · Post by **chola** » 17 Apr 2019 15:56

abhik wrote:Cheen does have plenty of Mi-17 no? In fact don't they have an assembly line for it.

Yes, from what I read they have hundreds. I always thought they had a line but there are some debates about that with some saying it was a local screwdriver giri deal that ended after a specific amount (unlike the Flanker lines which can continue for perpetuity.)

Chini helos in Tibet are in the handfuls from what I read because even the Mi-17 has issues taking off at that altitude. Ours take off from lower altitude to the mountains but theirs must take off from altitude on the plateau. The one aircraft which operated well in Tibet was the S-70 and they are using the remaining 20 or so even today and under embargo. Once the CopyHawk Z-20 is fully operational then maybe we'll see chini helos in numbers.

To be perfectly honest I think using helos is a massive step down from flying armed J-11s, J-10s and especially H-6K bombers that Japan or Taiwan are seeing daily.

On April 15th, H-6s with LACMs:
https://twitter.com/alert5/status/1117778021136527360

Alert 5
@alert5
Taiwan says bombers were escorted by J-11, Su-30, Y-8 and KJ-500 out to sea.

F-16s from Hualien reportedly intercepted them.

That is showing the tip of your spear. And they do it constantly and in heavy numbers in their east in front of the TFTA Japanese, Taiwanese and Americans.

But they are dead silent against us by any measure of comparison so to me there is really no other way to interpret this except that they don't want to tangle with us and are rightly afraid to because they can never bring the same preponderance of force west as they do east.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 17 Apr 2019 16:19

What is the smaller weapon at the underbelly Hardpoint of the H-6?, 2 massive CM's and 3rd a Missile or a Decoy or Sonobuoy or Lightweight torpedo- what is it?

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 17 Apr 2019 16:30

Tbh, they are facing USN, Japan and Taiwan on their eastern coast. More pressing need to deploy H6Ks there than over Tibet. We do not fly bombers flying and testing out their responses in Tibet. There was one widely publicised incident. They have radars on the mountains that look down.

chola · Post by **chola** » 18 Apr 2019 08:50

Aditya_V wrote:What is the smaller weapon at the underbelly Hardpoint of the H-6?, 2 massive CM's and 3rd a Missile or a Decoy or Sonobuoy or Lightweight torpedo- what is it?

Looks more like a pod -- jamming or targeting -- than a weapon.

chola · Post by **chola** » 18 Apr 2019 09:05

A few intel tweets.

1) WS-15 ready for flight testing?
https://mobile.twitter.com/dafengcao/st ... 2079733762

dafeng cao
@dafengcao
It's rumored WS-15 has been fitted on aircraft for testing, but not on J-20. Maybe J-11?

2) In Japanese, WS-19 revealed with developers. WS-19 is one of their Kaveri/F404/414 class medium engine projects for the FC-31 and JF-17. The other, backup project is the WS-13.
https://mobile.twitter.com/OedoSoldier/ ... 6813859840

3) Their Flanker ripoff J-11D variant. Note sawtooth canted radome:

4) In French, the rollout of the first Chinese carrier AWACS is imminent. It looks like a copy of the Amreeki E-2.
https://mobile.twitter.com/HenriKenhman ... 7625658369

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 18 Apr 2019 10:06

J-11D is their carrier borne EW version. Leading edge arrays etc.

negi · Post by **negi** » 18 Apr 2019 13:00

Chinese xerox masters remind me of school days when some kids at times would copy from another letter by letter but would underline their answers in red hoping examiner might given them an extra mark here or there .

chola · Post by **chola** » 18 Apr 2019 14:39

Prasad wrote:J-11D is their carrier borne EW version. Leading edge arrays etc.

Prasad ji, it is actually their latest land based variant. Follow-on to the J-11B. All their carrier Flankers are J-15 variants with canards -- SU-33 ripoffs. Their carrier EW variant is the J-15D.

chola · Post by **chola** » 18 Apr 2019 14:48

negi wrote:Chinese xerox masters remind me of school days when some kids at times would copy from another letter by letter but would underline their answers in red hoping examiner might given them an extra mark here or there .

Lol. They actually paid the smart kids (Russians, French, Ukrainians) lots of money for the originals so they can copy by hand. Xeroxing doesn't work for 3D objects with complicated internals. Because they learned copying by hand they are able to make adjustments and variants to the originals.

The kid (Amreekis) who wouldn't sell them the blueprints to the originals made them pass in their homework late (CopyHawk.)

Speaking of which, here is the latest tweet on the Z-20.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RupprechtDei ... 97/photo/1

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 18 Apr 2019 15:22

chola wrote:
Prasad wrote:J-11D is their carrier borne EW version. Leading edge arrays etc.
Prasad ji, it is actually their latest land based variant. Follow-on to the J-11B. All their carrier Flankers are J-15 variants with canards -- SU-33 ripoffs. Their carrier EW variant is the J-15D.

Right. My fault.