Chinese Military 2005

[tonbo]

frm the info garnered frm Flight International , Pre-production J-10s number some 60 airframes accounting for the 60 current production model AL-31FN engines previously sourced frm Russia . that's just pre-production . if we are talking abt configuration , avionics or weapons trials that's alot of airframes to toy with ... hee

with the AL-31FN M1 , there'll be more J-10 trials and design changes to follow , since it has full-authority digital control , unlike the current model .
from previous articles , the Chinese have been waiting for such an engine to emerge so they could furnish their J-10s with better systems ( the examples we see today are of an interim make , with ordinary AL-31FNs as a stop-gap ) , tho the production model prolly won't look any different ... however , they might only be using the AL-31FN M1s as a benchmark for their own engine now under development ( still ? really now , looks like delay tactic ) .

addendum [edit]
on another note , i'm surprised no one mentioned how Japan regards Taiwan as it's means to counter China , despite claims on the contrary , that they are just good economic partners ... however despite how much China pours into it's military , it's civilian industries keep growing and standards keep rising , leaving the Japanese in want of a better solution .

 

[gf0012-aust]

Thailand & SK however will not enter, participation in RIMPAC does not mean they will. One has to look at the political side to see why.

I'd have to disagree with this. I deal with a few Thai and SK military people due to my work. They see RIMPAC as being critical to refine skills and RIMPAC is focussed towards a "non western" allied threat. People can be PC and avoid saying what they think, but its a bit like the Australian wargames when we used to wage war on the "Kumarians". Nobody was confused about who the "Kumarians" were.

Not surprised to hear SK military people say that, they are after all still officially under the US military alliance with Japan. I don't think many will openly talk abt their negative views if any of Japan or US. Furthermore, what they say is also probably true, SK's very capable military can hold its own against Japan, so there's no fear.
Maybe they see China as problematic due to her ties with NK, other than that they have mostly similar views wrt Japan.

I think these people are pretty well open. I have known some of them for 10 years or more at a professional level. You'd be surprised at how Karaoke and glasses of good stuff break down barriers.

Anyway, I think far too much than what's necessary has been talked abt China-US conflict due to Taiwan. China-Taiwan is getting closer. Even if China does attack Taiwan sometime in the future, it'll be a time of their choosing & when they're ready.

exactly, and I can't see the chinese govt wanting to accelerate conflict when this is better served by the progression of time.

Any future US-China conflict will most likely be initiated by US, with Japan's help of course, & it'll basically be due to US's desire to maintain her dominance. Read in the news today that Bush plans to discuss space cooperation with Hu when he goes to US in a few months time. Either US is starting to think it's better to work with China or that they see China's rise as less of a threat. Either of which is good news indeed.

I guess I disagree. The US has had more than a few opportunities to take a military option if they wanted to dislocate china before she became militarily stronger. Both countries are at that point where they are becoming inextricably intertwined - the longer that this can be fostered, the less chance of a conflict breaking out.

As for Japan, one should note that all of their behaviour in the last 35 years has been to limit military capability, the unfortunate rhetoric that was unleashed last year had immediate and adverse consequences - and I find it interesting that Japan only started to pay serious attention to this once they had some territorial violations, the attack on their soccer team, the increase in anti-japanese comments etc... I think the chinese govt realised that they had let the whole thing get out of hand. They have subsequently made a very public and concerted effort to reign in the more vocal anti-japanese elements.

Most chinese are unaware that the Japanese Govt was providing a regular contribution of $1bn in development grants every year right up until the mid year protests. It wasn't until the Japanese Govt suspended the grants that the chinese govt took the problem seriously. All in all, an unnecessary business.

 

[Gollevainen]

My feedback on this is as follows:

a cat was set up and trialled on long barges and/or caissons in Shanghaisome years ago. It was originally trialled for tests with some old MiG- J-6's

"Carrier Qualification" on the "simulation of HMAS Melbourne's deck" was done at a PLAAF (not PLANAF) base. They were running launches - not "traps" - which implies either a one way committment - or an intention to land at another base. (a variation of sea basing but on a return ticket level - not a rotate out level)

The PLAN has studied various Russian ideas on the Kuznetzov - and have also flown both MiG-29 and Su-27 variants on her.

Yeah that makes sense, as the catabult in Melbroune would have been able to launch only small jets like A-4 or in this case J-6s, not very valuable to modern carrier operations. But those were made from onboard Melbroune? This is new to me, and it raises quite few new questions. Most important is how well did chinese study the overall concept of the catabult? I belive that china is vise enough to see the benefits of catabult system over Russian STOBAR technicks and start developt an indegenious design. But it remains a mystery as almoust everything else on chinese carrier plans...just have to wait and see what will turn up from the Varyag refitting...

 

[gf0012-aust]

But it remains a mystery as almoust everything else on chinese carrier plans...just have to wait and see what will turn up from the Varyag refitting...

Varyag was shifted from Dailan a while back. What will be interesting is the shape of the deck if its modified.

That will answer basically everything in one fell swoop.

She's been mocked with antennas before, then they were removed and then a different set installed. She had no PAR at that stage.

 

[tphuang]

Read my original comment.
"Su-30MKK3 - It has been rumoured on the internet tat china will recieve its own MKI standard aircraft. But from all these new upgrades it seems unlikey that china wil buy more aircraft but this cant be ruled out"

the standard will be higher than mki, T-10BM is supposed to be the ultimate flanker. which means, it will still be less capable than typhoon and rafale and F-15C. As I said, su-30 is not same as su-35. If china gets su-35, it will be called su-35bmk, or something like that.

You said retire? They are talking about storing the planes away for a future war.

it's mentionned as storing away here, but as retiring on Chinese forums.

The longer the aircraft in in service the longer they have to find out all the bugs in the system. When the bugs are found they can work on a better system or with longer service can find the areas of weakness

yes, but after a certain point, you will just say it's good enough to be certified and we should consider it to be mature at that point. J-10 has reached that already.

But the comparision is their capability. This will not factor in what role each other plays in their respective airforces.

You can compare a bomber to an air superiority fighter. As I said, you can put those pods on J-10 to give it those multi-role ability, but China isn't going to.

These are the new AL-31FNs not the orginal ones.

You mentionned that its thrust is not up there, so I just showed you that its thrust is up there. If anything, the older J-10s will be retrofitted with higher thrust engines later on. Probably soon, since the AL-31FN engines have miniscue service time.

To Tonbo, I wouldn't give so much credit to most of that JDW article. It's mostly Russian propoganda to try to gain more sale of their parts to China. Let's just say I would consider some of your assumptions to be not right.

As for Varyag, I thought they installed real ones and then removed them. And I wouldn't make the Japanese sound like the good guys here. There are reasons why South Koreans are also getting upset at the Japanese. It's not just a China thing.

 

[tonbo]

sorry but my sources are varied and i laughed at the JDW story the moment it was out ... alot of it is idealistic , i agree , technical voodoo to wow the crowds . that stuff is like 10 years in the works , only now they got the funding to implement it , that's all . the J-10 isn't officially in service yet . the Flight International article is more down to earth . there's a link to it under the Super-10 thread .

as for reports abt the SU-30 , SU-33 & SU-35 - wikipedia has good leads on those , but like the J-10 voodoo stuff , never take it wholesale .

 

[Pathfinder-X]

the J-10 isn't officially in service yet . the Flight International article is more down to earth . there's a link to it under the Super-10 thread .

In 2004, a combat regiments of J-10 was already flying in Chengdu military region. Exact current numbers are still unknown at this point, but we can safely put it between 60 to 80 units.

as for reports abt the SU-30 , SU-33 & SU-35 - wikipedia has good leads on those , but like the J-10 voodoo stuff , never take it wholesale .

I wouldn't trust Wikipedia as a valid source for this type of discussion. Pretty much anybody can edit the thing so its information is not to be taken as hard facts but rather general reference.

 

[tphuang]

sorry but my sources are varied and i laughed at the JDW story the moment it was out ... alot of it is idealistic , i agree , technical voodoo to wow the crowds . that stuff is like 10 years in the works , only now they got the funding to implement it , that's all . the J-10 isn't officially in service yet . the Flight International article is more down to earth . there's a link to it under the Super-10 thread .

as for reports abt the SU-30 , SU-33 & SU-35 - wikipedia has good leads on those , but like the J-10 voodoo stuff , never take it wholesale .

The flight international article doesn't have any more info than jdw article. The only sources I trust on J-10 are a few selected Chinese sources. It's just too hard for other people to get info on this thing. And it's definitely in service. China just doesn't want to reveal its capabilities.

 

[gf0012-aust]

And I wouldn't make the Japanese sound like the good guys here. There are reasons why South Koreans are also getting upset at the Japanese. It's not just a China thing.

Well the Japanese never took the same Mea Culpa route as the Germans - and thats been to their disadvantage. By the same note I'm not portraying them as good guys.

But they are definitely playing smarter poker.

as an example all of this is relative. various chinese govts throughout the history of the middle kingdom have been benevolent. I had relatives murdered during the time of the Ming, and then I had almost all of a generation of relatives murdered by the Red Guards purely because they were teachers, lawyers, doctors and vets - so this was done because Maos philosophy was that the peasants and the red guards were "king".

My family never had any apologies about that - and the chinese govt today glosses over the murder of literally millions of chinese due to internal politics ever since the long march - right through to tiananmen. In the scheme of things what is more evil? Killing 20+ million of your own people or the Japanese committing despicable acts against a few hundred thousand?

It's all relative.

 

[tphuang]

Well the Japanese never took the same Mea Culpa route as the Germans - and thats been to their disadvantage. By the same note I'm not portraying them as good guys.

But they are definitely playing smarter poker.

as an example all of this is relative. various chinese govts throughout the history of the middle kingdom have been benevolent. I had relatives murdered during the time of the Ming, and then I had almost all of a generation of relatives murdered by the Red Guards purely because they were teachers, lawyers, doctors and vets - so this was done because Maos philosophy was that the peasants and the red guards were "king".

My family never had any apologies about that - and the chinese govt today glosses over the murder of literally millions of chinese due to internal politics ever since the long march - right through to tiananmen. In the scheme of things what is more evil? Killing 20+ million of your own people or the Japanese committing despicable acts against a few hundred thousand?

It's all relative.

Well, I would think Japanese killed millions of civilians overall. Nanjing was just their biggest atrocity. Although, I always think there is a difference between a foreign nation killing citizens of your country than your own government killing citizens. Maybe I'm just into keeping the family door closed.

And I do want to set one thing straight. I'm of the belief that Tiananmen was not as brutal as some people make it out to be. I remember talking to a person in my Christian fellowship a while back. He was involved in Tiananmen. He said that it was no where near as bloody as being portrayed by the western media. Contrary to popular belief, those Chinese soldiers didn't want to shoot at civilians either.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Well, I would think Japanese killed millions of civilians overall. Nanjing was just their biggest atrocity. Although, I always think there is a difference between a foreign nation killing citizens of your country than your own government killing citizens. Maybe I'm just into keeping the family door closed.

I think a lot of countries are like that. keeping the dirty laundry inside but complaining about the neighbours washing.

And I do want to set one thing straight. I'm of the belief that Tiananmen was not as brutal as some people make it out to be. I remember talking to a person in my Christian fellowship a while back. He was involved in Tiananmen. He said that it was no where near as bloody as being portrayed by the western media. Contrary to popular belief, those Chinese soldiers didn't want to shoot at civilians either.

again we'll have to disagree here. I was 2nd in charge of what was called the "China Task Force" in Canberra. It was set up to deal with the issue of students and refugess who were seeking asylum and wanted fast tracked entry into australia.

My job was to interview these people - and we went through a very rigorous process to validate claims of applicants. It meant that we also used people who were part of the protest as referees to support some applicants claims.

If anything - I'd argue that there were more deaths and that they were suppressed. and as much as there were some chinese troops who didn't want to shoot at their own people, they were rapidly replaced by non Beijing units from the far north or north west who were not sympathetic to the cause. that was a deliberate move by the local military commander so as to remove "soft" army units.

so, I guess we'll have to make our own judgements on this as well.

it's a sad and sorry side - lets just hope its never repeated.

 

[Francois]

First thing, S-Korea doesn't modify its military procurement policy to fight Japan. They are turning to the far reaching high-seas capable forces with limited power projection capabilities (hence Dok-Do, F-15Ks, T-214s, KDD-III... to name few).

Even they still complain via the mass-media system, both SKorea and Japan are maintaining high level of coop with the US forces to the least.
No, they are more worrying for their SLOCs, like every country of South-East Asia (from Singapore to Japan and all in the middle).
It is evident that the big part of the crude is going to be diverted in the near future, and it is understandly not going to please many.

And for the blame on Japan : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

 

[crobato]

On the numbers of the aircraft, I would have to say that the J-11s are numbered to fit at least four regiments, perhaps five. There should be at least 24 single seaters in each regiments, which uses the J-11, and four additional two seaters (UBKs or JJ-11).

These are the

One regiment in the 1st Division
The 6th Regiment in the 2nd Division
one regiment in the 7th Division
one regimeint in the 14th Division

In addition, there is mixed Su-27/J-11 planes in the following regiments

one regiment in the 6th Division
one regiment in the 19th Division which I believe is turning into an all J-11 force plus few UBKs.
one regiment in the 33rd Division which I believe is turning into an all J-11 force plus few UBKs.

That is definitely more than 60 or even 100 J-11s, closer to 116 to 124 in my own count.

 

[Pathfinder-X]

I think a lot of countries are like that. keeping the dirty laundry inside but complaining about the neighbours washing.



again we'll have to disagree here. I was 2nd in charge of what was called the "China Task Force" in Canberra. It was set up to deal with the issue of students and refugess who were seeking asylum and wanted fast tracked entry into australia.

My job was to interview these people - and we went through a very rigorous process to validate claims of applicants. It meant that we also used people who were part of the protest as referees to support some applicants claims.

If anything - I'd argue that there were more deaths and that they were suppressed. and as much as there were some chinese troops who didn't want to shoot at their own people, they were rapidly replaced by non Beijing units from the far north or north west who were not sympathetic to the cause. that was a deliberate move by the local military commander so as to remove "soft" army units.

so, I guess we'll have to make our own judgements on this as well.

it's a sad and sorry side - lets just hope its never repeated.

*cough* politics *cough*

Well moving on to the military capability of China shall we?

 

[crobato]

On the J-10 units, there appears to be two regiments of the 44th Division located in Yunming and Mengzhi that has them. This is the 130th Regiment, which appeared converted by the second half of 2004, and the 131th Regiment, which appeared converted by the spring of 2005. Each regiment appears to have 22 to 24 planes to my estimates based on the serial numbers in the pics.

I am interested to know and feel quite likely that the third regiment of the 44th, the 132nd, might be converted to J-10s. It should be noted that this regiment has the exact same number as the PLA number for Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, which is often referred to as Factory 132.

In addition to this, there are J-10s in the 13th Trials Regiment located in the FTTC (Flight Test and Training Center) located in the Beijing MR. There might be around 20 to 24 of these planes. Their mission is to break the J-10 into IOP status and probably with a variety of other tasks as well, including Blue Flag aggressor, training for new units and air defense of the Beijing region. This regiment is converted around the spring of 2003.

Around 12 prototypes are retained by Chengdu Aircraft Company for development, two of which are the new twin seater type.

These are my fairly precise estimates of the J-10 numbers based on current deployment. Around 64 to 72 aircraft in service, with another 12 in development. If there is information about the third regiment (132nd) having J-10s, the number will reach past 90.

 

[tphuang]

my personal feeling is that there are more J-10 regiments than that in service. I think that even aside from the prototypes, there should be up to 100 J-10s.

 

[chinawhite]

the standard will be higher than mki, T-10BM is supposed to be the ultimate flanker. which means, it will still be less capable than typhoon and rafale and F-15C. As I said, su-30 is not same as su-35. If china gets su-35, it will be called su-35bmk, or something like that.

What about the Su-30MKI.? Theres as much difference as the Su-35 from the Su-27 as the MKI standard and normal Su-30 standard. Overall chian is not looking for a Single seat fighter but a [double[/b] seat fighter. Better workload sharing and have two brains instead of one. The Su-35 is firstly a Air superioty fighter while china is looking more to a strike fighter. Thats why any chinese version will not be a one seater etc for a carrier version.

Dont believe the hype about the EF. It might have been designed to defeat the Su-27 varients but on paper they are not as capable in some areas, and in manuverbility. Also CAPTOR is not advanced as BARS but it is better made and has a hiugher track range

J-10 has reached that already.

LoL.

 

[chinawhite]

had relatives murdered during the time of the Ming

Your chinese?. Well if you are where you from?

Killing 20+ million of your own people or the Japanese committing despicable acts against a few hundred thousand?

The difference is 20million is a western figure which has never been proven. Its funny actually i forum and no one has eveer provided proof of this actually happengin instead of quoting "books" or their "sources"

 

[edisonone]

It always feels good seeing how 'some people' keeps rejecting reality and how they keep 'kiddin' themselves' about how far behind the Chinese and their Pakistani partners in business are in comparison to advance nations of the world in the field of aeronautics. I mean exactly as how it is these people first rejected the potentials of the j-10, of the 093 and 094's, and much more as mere myths and products of photoshops, the truth, I guess, will eventually come back to haunt them.

The next surprise? Carriers, my take!

 

[Francois]

It always feels good seeing how 'some people' keeps rejecting reality and how they keep 'kiddin' themselves' about how far behind the Chinese and their Pakistani partners in business are in comparison to advance nations of the world in the field of aeronautics. I mean exactly as how it is these people first rejected the potentials of the j-10, of the 093 and 094's, and much more as mere myths and products of photoshops, the truth, I guess, will eventually come back to haunt them.

The next surprise? Carriers, my take!

This is a double sided blade.
There are so much speculations on the so called platforms, and so few from the mouth of chinese official, that it may just be nothing as well.

SSBN 094 is supposed to be a deterrent platform.
As such, if it was already sailing there, I deeply believe that the chinese gov would show it to the world. Other wise deterrent doesn't work.
My take is that, so far, they have nothing to show.

Chinese platform are merely based on russian ones so far, and we know already that they were never very formidable at many levels.

Heard of Saint Thomas? I believe things when I see them.