China Wary of Speedy US Victory

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-09 08:13am

Vympel wrote:
Mate,

*It was the US* who slapped their ridiculous notions of superfighter capabilites onto that aircraft, not the Soviets. The MiG-25 is an aviation CLASSIC. It was designed to be a high speed interceptor for the PVO, and that's exactly what the PVO got.

It wasn't meant to be highly maneuverable. It wasn't meant to have highly advanced electronics better than anything the West had. The radar was designed that way on purpose: it was not designed for long range detection, that was ground control's job. It was optimized for accurate targeting in the face of heavy ECM. To burn through hostile jamming, the output was tremendous- 600kW.

To quote one of my aircraft books:

"The best analogy is Spitfire performance achieved with Sopwith Camel technology ... the result was an outstanding single mission interceptor, and the fact that Western intelligence misconstrued it as an air superiority fighter should not detract from it's undeniable virtues"

Anyway, a lot of the supposed MiG-25’s capabilities where real, but belonged to a recon drone that entered service at the same time. NATO intelligence wasn’t aware of the thing and because they couldn’t easily take photos of something flying at mach 2.8 for its whole mission they assumed it was the MiG-25

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-04-09 01:33pm

Vympel wrote:
Crown wrote:
Remember when the Mig 25 hit the stage? It was meant to routinely cruise at Mach 3.3 (while it could do this, it nearly always melted the engine, Mach 2.9 was its actual limit within safety requirements), it was meant to be highly maneouvarable (when in fact it turned like a brick, when it turned at all), it was meant to have a highly advanced and sophisticated electronics outfit, with a radar the surpased anything the West had at the time (when in fact it was nothing more than a scale-up of archaic technology and it was a court martial offence to turn it on prior to actually having taken off, due to the fact that it could 'zap a rabbit at 30 paces').
Mate,

*It was the US* who slapped their ridiculous notions of superfighter capabilites onto that aircraft, not the Soviets. The MiG-25 is an aviation CLASSIC. It was designed to be a high speed interceptor for the PVO, and that's exactly what the PVO got.

It wasn't meant to be highly maneuverable. It wasn't meant to have highly advanced electronics better than anything the West had. The radar was designed that way on purpose: it was not designed for long range detection, that was ground control's job. It was optimized for accurate targeting in the face of heavy ECM. To burn through hostile jamming, the output was tremendous- 600kW.

To quote one of my aircraft books:

"The best analogy is Spitfire performance achieved with Sopwith Camel technology ... the result was an outstanding single mission interceptor, and the fact that Western intelligence misconstrued it as an air superiority fighter should not detract from it's undeniable virtues"

Errr, is someone taking their slow pills today?

Did you completely miss the part where I drew a similarity between the articles sited and the US's fiasco over the MIG-25?

EDIT: Spelling.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2003-04-09 01:40pm

If I missed this post I'm sorry.. Wasn't the Mig 25 built to engage the NON-production B-70?

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2003-04-09 01:55pm

Axis Kast wrote:They won't be welcomed as a new power just as we are no longer beloved in our position.

So very true. Being at, or near the top means that everybody has a clear line of sight to shoot at you.

The British got it. The US got it. The USSR got it. Maybe it'll be China's turn in 20 years.

Meanwhile, the French are pissed they never got the opportunity in rcent times.

The Nice Guy

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-04-09 01:57pm

theski wrote:If I missed this post I'm sorry.. Wasn't the Mig 25 built to engage the NON-production B-70?

Nope. the SR-71 recon plane. And my original post isn't about that.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2003-04-09 02:07pm

Sorry

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-04-09 02:25pm

Crown wrote:
Errr, is someone taking their slow pills today?

Did you completely miss the part where I drew a similarity between the articles sited and the US's fiasco over the MIG-25?

EDIT: Spelling.

Yeah, but you were bagging out FOXBAT (not shouting- I always put ASCC names in caps), and didn't mention that the assumption was the US error, rather than any fault of the Soviets

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-04-09 09:25pm

Vympel wrote:
Crown wrote:
Errr, is someone taking their slow pills today?

Did you completely miss the part where I drew a similarity between the articles sited and the US's fiasco over the MIG-25?

EDIT: Spelling.
Yeah, but you were bagging out FOXBAT (not shouting- I always put ASCC names in caps), and didn't mention that the assumption was the US error, rather than any fault of the Soviets

Yes I did. I said that the article and the others that are linked to it, sound like the DoD and the Pentagon trying to scare Congress to precure more funds. I said much like the USSR was the boogie man of the 1900's with overestimated capabilities in order to justify increased defense budgets, it seems now the China is made to be the boogie man of the 2000's. Read it again buddy, you will see.

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2003-04-11 11:40am

While at this point we're still far ahead of the Chinese, I see no reason to slow down or scale back.

Especially given our newfound love of preemption and power projection, this nation needs more a defense budget rather than less.

We've got a range of issues to deal with - from ensuring that our aircraft carriers embark full compliments to putting replacements in the hands of the 3rd Infantry Division and accompanying Marine Expeditionary forces.

Not to mention that Russia - with not even half our budget or anywhere near it - has managed to keep pace in the technology race fairly handily.