Vympel wrote:"We have one engine that works" is hardly an established "competency in core areas" by any stretch of the term.
I could list off all the core areas that China has made massive progress in this last decade, and you'd just shrug them off like you have been moving the goalposts in this debate.
Its "inane" to say a fifth generation fighter needs fifth generation engines?
You seem to be stuck on the concept that a fifth generation aircraft needs a thrust to weight ratio exceeding 1:1 like on the F-22.
You only need a T/W greater than 1:1 if you expect aerial combat to consist of high alpha manouvers that bleed off energy.
Maybe you've been watching too many videos of Sukhoi products demonstrating so called supermanouverability by bleeding off their forward airspeed to zero meters per second at airshows?
It is just as likely that they will simply try and do their best to emulate the F-22A's capability and fail.
And your reasoning behind this is? I've put forth the logic and rationale behind my reasonings in this thread.
For one, nobody in the world really has the experience that the United States does in fabricating large composite structures for aerostructures, and doing it to the precision required for very low observable stealth.
What's your rationale, beyond "Chinese will try to slavishly copy F-22" and "I like reading press releases from NPO Saturn, Phazotron, and Sukhoi?"
"A little bit greater thrust?" Yeah, no. The Russians have quite a bit more capable engines than the Chinese, and have had for some time.
While they are ahead of the Chinese by a couple metric tonnes of thrust per engine, this advantage does not fully offset the fact that Russian aircraft have historically contained very low percentages of composites and other advanced materials in regards to total empty weight.
They can't increase this percentage by a major factor and still retain the producibility they're counting on to help re-equip the VVS and make sales to India.
That assumes the Chinese will be more willing to buck sanctions [on Iran] than the Russians are.
The Chinese and Russians are actually the big winners of this whole sanctions business. Plus the Chinese do get a significant fraction of their oil from Iran alone.
But yes, too many intangibles to mark it down as definite.
snip Vietnam/Indonesia talk
I think the big variable here is whether Russia can deliver PAK-FA on a reasonable timeline and budget -- and what kind of blood agreements bind the Indians into the whole business, seeing as they are paying for what, 50% of the costs.
If the Russians stumble or get locked in a contractural dispute with the Indians over prices; then J-14/20 has a chance to make a splash.
No, I just don't buy this inflated talk of China as some rising great power that's going to threaten US dominance anytime in the foreseeable future because they're no longer embarrassing themselves like they were in 2000.
Take a look at the projected future GDPs -- the Japanese in 2004 estimated that by 2020, the Chinese GDP would be greater than that of the US, and the famous Goldman Sachs BRIC report estimated that they would cross over somewhere between 2025-2030.
Even with the whole world Global Financial Crisis throwing a monkey wrench into the matter and the serious structural problems that exist in the Chinese political and economic system, that's more than enough to create a bipolar world with two credible great powers by 2020-2025.
Come on man, I'm supposed to be impressed by that obvious bad joke? This is the big indicator of China's capability to build a modern long range bomber? An embarrassing POS that went nowhere decades ago?
30 years ago they had the capability to build aircraft with a MTOW of about 85-93 tonnes; the same range as a Vulcan; which is more than sufficient for a lot of strategic bombardment needs.
If they want the Y-20 airlifter to have the same rough performance as the IL-76, it's going to have a MTOW of 150~ tonnes, which is getting close to Tu-95 range (188 tonnes).
So yes, they have the capability to do so in the foreseeable future, but there is no sign of it at all, even in concept art; other than some really really bad fanboi made up stuff about a supposed H-8 Stealth that recycles ATB concepts
Building such an aircraft is an entirely different story, in aeronautical engineering terms, than building tiny little tactical fighters.
They've built about 150 aircraft over the last 40 years that are comparable to the early British V bombers at 70-79 metric tonnes.
Certainly a far cry from tiny little tactical fighters.
That's a leap in logic. The problems encountered in fulfilling the original order due to problems with the original plant ! = the situation in 2010.
The plant has been relocated from Uzbekistan to Ulyanovsk; removing one of the supposed claims for non-delivery -- that the Russians agreed on one price and the Uzbekistanis on another price.
So where are the Il-76s now that the supposed major factor holding up production is gone?
Which does not, in any way, prove the HQ-9 is adequate.
Considering we've seen frames of an intercept carried out by the HQ-9 earlier in this thread, and that
Nike-Hercules of all things was capable of an ABM role when given the necessary update to the complex....you seriously are arguing that a complex developed and deployed in the 1990s lacks the capability of a 1960s complex?
First of all, why will the USN be fighting? For what cause?
The United States is a mercantile power that relies on world sea lanes for projection of its power and the maintenance of it's economy. We also have treaties for the protection of our allies like Japan, who are even MORE dependent on them than us.
China is an emerging mercantile power that is becoming ever more dependent on those same sea lanes for it's economy. For example, the Indians sit astride the major SLOCs that funnel oil into the Chinese economy. And of course there's the increasing appetite of China for raw materials which come by ship by the most part.
Control and maintenance of the SLOCs is the basis of strategic planning by both sides to maintain deterrence, even though a war is the last thing both sides expect.
With which allies?
You do realize that South Korea and Japan have a history regarding each other? While we might be able to count on one, we cannot definitely count on both.
And there of course is the continuing self destruction of the Royal Navy to be considered in calculations of the friends we can bring to the party.
And how does 3 carriers to 1 (the Crapyag) = uncertain parity of forces?
*sighs*
Do the words U.S. Sixth Fleet and U.S. Fifth Fleet ring a bell? You can't just arbitrarily decide that all deployed at-sea CVs at any one time will all be assigned to the Third or Seventh Fleets.
Maybe that would be feasible if we had Salvation War type portals allowing us to teleport warships thousands of miles instantly, but we don't.
How many SSNs do you think China will have in service by the time the 688s retire? Enough to counter the SSN-688i / SSN-774 horde? That's clearly an absolute fantasy.
As I said before regarding the CVNs -- not all the 688Is and Virginias will be deployed with Third and Seventh Fleets.
Depending on the geostrategic situation in the middle east, we may need to keep a permanent number on station with the Fifth Fleet as TLAM shooters.
Look, the point I'm making here is that you're being extremely uncritical and praiseworthy about a military about which you have pretty much no solid information apart from what you hear from uncritical and praiseworthy Chinese internet flag wavers jumping up and down everytime they see some of their hardware on whatever state-run media channel they watched the other day.
So you try to shift the goal posts again. Fine.
You have completely missed my point regarding the new Amphibious vehicles the PLA and PLA Marine Corps have introduced.
I am not getting into the technical/tactical minutuae over how many rounds the new 2005 era AAV family have stowed, how fast they can fire, their top speed, water range, or armor protection, blah blah blah *GRAPHS*.
Consider that you can deduce the following from photographs of the vehicle:
- They have much greater reserve buoyancy than what they replaced and because the buoyancy is integral to the vehicle itself rather than being bolted on; the dangers of foundering on a open ocean crossing are much decreased.
- Consider THIS. Do you see any way for the crew inside to leave the vehicle easily, other than having to climb out of the top hatches? Same thing with the two types of BMP modifications we've seen: MOD A and MOD B. It's going to be harder to leave via the rear doors with those outboard motors in the way. By contrast the new IFVs have an unobstructed rear exit the same rough dimensions as the USMC's EFV.
- There is a considerable boost in firepower across the board, since instead of either an open topped HMG behind a gunner's shield or a 73mm Low pressure gun, you now have a uniform armament of a 30mm~ caliber cannon in a fully enclosed turret for the Infantry Carriers.
- The fact that the Amphibious IFV and the Amphibious Light Tank are built off the same universal Amphibious chassis simplifies logistical and mechanical upkeep requirements; compared to having three different chassis in service -- Type 63 Amphibious Light Tank / Type 63 APC / Type 86 IFV (BMP-1 Clone).
There are some problems with the new Amphibious IFV -- for one, the ATGM armament of the IFV is a 9M14 "Malyutka" style launcher that's reloaded externally; you can see a picture of it in action
HERE.
But overall, a significant improvement even if it has some random teething problems like the engines eating lube oil at five times the rate expected.
That's hardly the case. The information we have available, open source, on Russian armor etc is far more comprehensive and detailed
That only brings us up to the rough late 1980s and early 1980s; because we have a good idea now what SANDBAR was made up of now. Anything involving the T-90 is just pure speculation in the areas where special armor is involved.
than the inscrutable assumptions drawn from whatever random pictures might grace our screens from China on any given day.
Inscrutable how? We clearly know where the armor inserts are and we can figure their dimensions off known quantities like width; same with the armor modules -- it's not often that you get to see such a clear photogaph of a removed module.
By the way, I think I found out where all the Russian fanboi speculation on why the ZTZ-99 sucks comes from.
It's based on a top-down drawing of the ZTZ-99.
You can see how if you hit in a
certain area, you don't have to go through as much armor.
Of course, this is not surprising, since certain areas of the armor scheme will always be weaker; and as we all know, an Abrams was knocked out in Vietraq with a
RPG-7 in the right spot.
But what was left unsaid by the Russian Cheering Brigade was that the problem was rectified -- the drawings they showed on TankNet only showed the ZTZ-99 -- they didn't also show the drawing of the ZTZ-99G, which had a redesigned turret (bottom tank dwg) that largely fixed the problem -- it was reduced to a very small area.
The only drawback would be that due to the longer, wider frontal turret area to fix the problem; combat weight would increase.
Hmm, the decision to go for a longer hull and a more powerful 1.500 PS engine isn't looking so stupid anymore, now is it?
And of course, we have the ZTZ-99A2 coming down the pike with the heavy ERA covering the entire front half of the turret and possibly more changes to the turret shape for better protection.
In a way this reminds me of the Russians themselves.
You would think after defeating Nazi Germany in the greatest tank war ever fought; and learning about the dangers of shot traps; and also producing a whole bunch of efficient tank designs, including the IS-3 Stalin; that the Russians wouldn't make such a bone headed design such as
THIS, and then build 713 of them before sort of fixing the problem with
THIS, building a further 2,523 before someone said:
"Comrade, what about that shape used a bit back for the ИС-3 and other ИС prototypes? Wouldn't it work great for our new tank?"
"DA! COMRADE, DA"
Before they finaly hit on the classic T-54 shape.
The fact that the armor module has 'lifting rings' does not in any way establish the armor of the tank, which is what I said was speculation.
Do you even know about things such as yield strength?
It does no good if you lift a complete armor module off the factory floor and before you've placed it onto the tank, the lifting rings deform and ultimately break, dropping it onto the floor?
You could make a very good guesstimate of the upper limit for that module's weight and thus the protection it offers by studying the lifting rings and making some basic assumptions about the material used for the lifting rings.
But that's beyond this thread.
What evidence do we have that Chinese ERA = heavy ERA?
FY-IV defends against single/tandem charge HEAT and APFSDS threats. Weight is 10.4 kg per brick, about the same weight as Kontakt-5. The prior generations had 26 to 32.5mm plates in them. Claimed protection was on the order of 70% HEAT / 30% APFSDS penetration reduction.
That's well within the ballpark of Heavy ERA.
Hardly - for one you're assuming thickness = RHA.
Don't insult my intelligence like that. I am on Tank-Net too; and have perused the Armor Scientific Forum there.
If I say T-90, do I really need to say T-90A?
You wanted to know more details about the ZTZ-96 deployment; so I gave them to you.
Yes, I know. Interesting. Genuine question, how do we now the ZTZ-96A has thermal sights?
The Chinese put into service about 1,000 x ZTZ-96s over eight years at a rate of 125 tanks a year. The ZTZ-96A has been in production for five years now; but only 300~ are in service. That's half the production rate of the older variant.
Or we could just always you know...ask comrade Sarekovvich. The Bangladeshis are buying a variant of the ZTZ-96G and a whole bunch of ZTZ-96G parts to upgrade their existing Type 59s. ^__^
I'll grant it may have potential for growth, but this is still based on the assumption that the ZTZ-99's chassis is optimal to support same compared to the M1 Abrams / Leopard 2, which were both built that way from the start.
It's already swallowed a lot of extra weight over the first models, with no sign of stopping. So it's a safe bet on that.
But who says they are being completely built in China?
So...the Chinese are able to pretty much reverse engineer a F110 from a civilian derivative of it; but they can't reverse engineer a 1970s diesel engine?
True, but the question is the fighting compartment, not the vehicle itself.
There's only so many ways you can design an autoloader, you know.
Exactly my point.
Wrong. Your point was that there were more tanks in the US active duty inventory than just the ~1,200 M1A2s. Sure -- 400~ M1A1s, and they'll be gone via conversion in a few years to M1A2; and the difference between 1,200 and 1,600 tanks isn't that much of an extra burden to build up to at a rate of 100-150 a year.
There's a big difference between what's actually in service, versus the stuff sitting in storage depots.
Theoretically, the US Army has 4,000+ Abrams in it's inventory...theoretically.
