Chitchat The winds of war is blowing: Trump to recall 1000 combat pilots to active service!

[pakchewcheng]

Meet the man, the creative genius and the catalyst behind the rockets from the Silkworm to the DongFangs and the China leap into space. And also of the China H bomb.


Qian Xuesen or Hsue-Shen Tsien (Chinese: 钱学森; 11 December 1911 – 31 October 2009) was a Chinese engineer who contributed to aerodynamics and rocket science. Recruited from MIT, he joined Theodore von Karman's group at Caltech, including the founding of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.[1] Later he returned to China as Qian Xuesen and made important contributions to China's missile and space program.

During the Second Red Scare in the 1950s, the United States government accused Tsien of communist sympathies. In 1950, despite protests by his colleagues, he was stripped of his security clearance.[2] Tsien decided to return to China, but was detained at Terminal Island near Los Angeles.[3]

After spending five years under virtual house arrest,[4] in 1955 Tsien was released in exchange for the repatriation of American pilots captured during the Korean War. He left the United States in September 1955 on the American President Lines passenger liner SS President Cleveland, arriving in China via Hong Kong.[5]

Upon his return, Tsien helped lead the Chinese nuclear weapons program. This effort ultimately led to China's first successful atomic bomb test and hydrogen bomb test, making China the fifth nuclear weapons state, and achieving the fastest fission-to-fusion development in history. Additionally, Qian's work led to the development of the Dongfeng ballistic missile and the Chinese space program. For his contributions, he became known as the "Father of Chinese Rocketry", nicknamed the "King of Rocketry".[6][7]

In 1957, in recognition of his achievements, Qian was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences .

Tsien was the cousin of mechanical engineer Hsue-Chu Tsien, who was involved in the aerospace industries of China and the United States; his nephew is Roger Y. Tsien, the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Named after him are Asteroid 3763 Qianxuesen and the ill-fated space ship Tsien in the science fiction novel 2010: Odyssey Two.

Early life and education[edit]
Qian Xuesen was born in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, 180 km southwest of Shanghai. He left Hangzhou at the age of three when his father obtained a post in the Ministry of Education in Beijing. Qian graduated from The High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University and attended Chiao Tung University, later known as Jiao Tong University, in Shanghai in 1934. There, he received a degree in mechanical engineering with an emphasis on railroad administration. He interned at Nanchang Air Force Base.

In August 1935, Qian left China on a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Master of Science degree after one year.

While at MIT he was called Hsue-Shen Tsien. He was influenced by the methods of American engineering education, especially its focus on experimentation. This was in contrast to the contemporary approach practiced by many Chinese scientists, which emphasized theoretical elements rather than "hands-on" experience. Tsien's experiments included plotting of pitot pressures using mercury-filled manometers.

Theodore von Kármán, Tsien's doctoral advisor, described their first meeting:

“ One day in 1936 he came to me for advice on further graduate studies. This was our first meeting. I looked up to observe a slight short young man, with a serious look, who answered my questions with unusual precision. I was immediately impressed with the keenness and quickness of his mind, and I suggested that he enroll at Caltech for advanced study ... Tsien agreed. He worked with me on many mathematical problems. I found him to be quiet imaginative, with a mathematical aptitude that he combined successfully with a great ability to visualize accurately the physical picture of natural phenomena. Even as a young student he helped clear up some of my own ideas on several difficult topics. These are gifts which I had not often encountered and Tsien and I became close colleagues.[8]:309 ”
Kármán made his home a social scene for the aerodynamicists of Pasadena, and Tsien was drawn in: "Tsien enjoyed visiting my home, and my sister took to him because of his interesting ideas and straightforward manner."

Career in the United States[edit]

Left to right: Ludwig Prandtl (German scientist),Hsue-Shen Tsien, Theodore von Kármán. Prandtl served Germany during World War II; von Kármán and Tsien served the United States; after 1956, Tsien served China. Tsien's overseas cap displays his temporary U.S. Army rank of colonel. Interestingly, Prandtl was von Kármán's doctoral adviser; von Kármán in turn was Tsien's.
Shortly after arriving at Caltech in 1936, Tsien became fascinated with the rocketry ideas of Frank Malina, other students of von Kármán, and their associates, including Jack Parsons. Along with his fellow students, he was involved in rocket-related experiments at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at Caltech. Around the university, the dangerous and explosive nature of their work earned them the nickname "Suicide Squad."[9][10]

In 1943, Tsien and two other members of their rocketry group drafted the first document to use the name Jet Propulsion Laboratory, originally a proposal to the Army for developing missiles in response to Germany's V-2 rocket. This led to Private A, which flew in 1944, and later the Corporal, the WAC Corporal, and other designs.

Tsien’s willingness for public service was described by von Kármán:

“ I was pleased to take him along with me to Germany toward the war’s end to look into Hitler’s secret technical developments. With Drs. Hugh Dryden and Frank Wattendorf, Tsien inspected the famous Kochel and Otztal wind tunnels, which were to influence Wattendorf into suggesting similar equipment in the United States and give rise to Arnold Engineering Center in Tullahoma. He was with me at Gottingen when I found myself in the position of interrogating my old teacher Ludwig Prandtl. What a strange meeting: my most brilliant student, who was to join Red China, together with my own great teacher, who worked for Nazi Germany. How odd of circumstance to separate three aerodynamicists who wanted nothing more in life than to work together in harmony.[8]:309,10 ”
Von Kármán wrote of Tsien, "At the age of 36, he was an undisputed genius whose work was providing an enormous impetus to advances in high-speed aerodynamics and jet propulsion."[11] Furthermore, the American journal Aviation Week & Space Technology named Qian its Person of the Year in 2007, and commented on his interrogation of von Braun, "No one then knew that the father of the future U.S. space program was being quizzed by the father of the future Chinese space program."[12]

During this time, he also worked on designing an intercontinental space plane. His work would inspire the X-20 Dyna-Soar, which itself would later influence the development of the American Space Shuttle.

Tsien married Jiang Ying (蒋英), a famed opera singer and the daughter of Jiang Baili (蒋百里) and his wife, Japanese nurse Satô Yato. The elder Jiang was a military strategist and adviser to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek. The Tsiens were married on September 14, 1947[13] in Shanghai, and had two children; their son Qian Yonggang was born in Boston on October 13, 1948,[14] while their daughter Qian Yungjen was born in early 1950[15]when the family was residing in Pasadena, California.

Shortly after his wedding, Tsien returned to America to take up a teaching position at MIT. Jiang Ying would join him in December 1947.[16] In 1949, with the recommendation of von Kármán, Tsien became Robert H. Goddard Professor of Jet Propulsion at Caltech.[9]

In 1947 Tsien was granted a permanent resident permit,[5] and in 1949 he applied for naturalization, although he could not obtain citizenship.[2] Years later, his wife Jiang Ying said in an interview with Phoenix Television that Tsien could not raise the necessary funds.[17]

Detention[edit]
By the early 1940s, US Army Intelligence was already aware of allegations that Tsien was a Communist, but his security clearance was not suspended.[18] However, on June 6, 1950 his security clearance was revoked and Tsien was questioned by the FBI. Two weeks later Tsien announced that he would be resigning from Caltech and returning to China, which by then was effectively governed by the Communist Party of China led by Mao Zedong.[4][19]

In August, Tsien had a conversation on the subject with the then Under Secretary of the Navy Dan A. Kimball, whom Tsien knew on a personal basis. After Tsien told him of the allegations, Kimball responded, "Hell, I don't think you're a Communist", at which point Tsien indicated that he still intended to leave the country, saying "I'm Chinese. I don't want to build weapons to kill my countrymen. It's that simple." Kimball then said, "I won't let you out of the country."[20]

After the firm in charge of arranging Tsien's move back to China tipped off U.S. Customs that some of the papers encountered among his possessions were marked "Secret" or "Confidential," U.S. officials seized them from a Pasadena warehouse. The U.S. Immigration and Nationalization Service issued a warrant for Tsien's arrest on August 25. Tsien claimed that the security-stamped documents were mostly written by himself and had outdated classifications, adding that, "There were some drawings and logarithm tables, etc., which someone might have mistaken for codes."[21] Included in the material was a scrapbook with news clippings about the trials of those charged with atomic espionage, such as Klaus Fuchs.[22] Subsequent examination of the documents showed they contained no classified material.[5]

While at Caltech, Tsien had secretly attended meetings with J. Robert Oppenheimer's brother Frank Oppenheimer, Jack Parsons, and Frank Malina that were organized by the Russian-born Jewish chemist Sidney Weinbaum and called Professional Unit 122 of the Pasadena Communist Party.[23] Weinbaum's trial commenced on August 30 and both Frank Oppenheimer and Parsons testified against him.[24] Weinbaum was convicted of perjury and sentenced to four years.[25] Tsien was taken into custody on September 6, 1950 for questioning[5] and for two weeks detained at Terminal Island, a low-security United States federal prison near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

When Tsien had returned from China with his new bride in 1947, he had answered "no" on an immigration questionnaire that asked if he ever had been a member of an organization advocating overthrow of the U.S. Government by force. This, together with an American Communist Party document from 1938 with Tsien's name on it, was used to argue that Tsien was a national security threat. Prosecutors also cited a cross-examination session where Tsien said, "I owe allegiance to the people of China" and would "certainly not" let the United States government make his decision for him as to whom he would owe allegiance to in the event of a conflict between the U.S. and communist China.

On April 26, 1951 Tsien was declared subject to deportation and forbidden from leaving Los Angeles County without permission, effectively placing him under house arrest.[20]

During this time Tsien wrote Engineering Cybernetics which was published by McGraw Hill in 1954. The book deals with the practice of stabilizing servomechanisms. In its 18 chapters it considers non-interacting controls of many-variable systems, control design by perturbation theory, and von Neumann’s theory of error control (chapter 18). Ezra Krendel reviewed[26] the book, stating that it is "difficult to overstate the value of Tsien's book to those interested in the overall theory of complex control systems." Evidently Tsien’s approach is primarily practical, as Kendel notes that for servomechanisms the "usual linear design criterion of stability is inadequate and other criteria arising from the physics of the problem must be used."

Return to China[edit]
Qian became the subject of five years of secret diplomacy and negotiation between the U.S. and China. During this time he lived under constant surveillance with the permission to teach without any classified research duties.[4] Qian received support from his colleagues at Caltech during his incarceration, including president Lee DuBridge, who flew to Washington to argue Qian's case. Caltech appointed attorney Grant Cooper to defend Qian.

The travel ban on Qian was lifted on 4 August 1955[5] and he resigned from Caltech shortly thereafter. Qian departed from Los Angeles aboard the SS President Cleveland in September 1955 amidst rumors that his release was a swap for 11 U.S. airmen held captive by China since the end of the Korean War.[27]

Under Secretary Kimball, who had tried for several years to keep Qian in the U.S., commented on his treatment:

"It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go."[2]

Immediately upon his return, Qian began a remarkably successful career in rocket science, boosted by the reputation he garnered for his past achievements as well as Chinese state support for his nuclear research. He led and eventually became the father of the Chinese missile program, which constructed the Dongfeng ballistic missiles and the Long March space rockets.

Chinese nuclear program and other studies[edit]
In October 1956, he became the director of the Fifth Academy of the Ministry of National Defense, tasked with ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development. He was part of the overall effort that resulted in the successful "596" atomic bomb test on October 16, 1964, and the "Test No. 6" hydrogen bomb test on June 17, 1967. This was the fastest fission-to-fusion development in history at 32 months, compared to 86 months for the United States and 75 months for the USSR, and gave China a thermonuclear device ahead of major Western powers like France.

Qian's reputation as a prominent scientist who essentially defected from the United States to China gave him considerable influence in the era of Mao Zedong and afterward. Qian eventually rose through Party ranks to become a Central Committee member. He became associated with the China's Space Program - From Conception to Manned Spaceflight initiative.

Qian was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1957, a lifelong honor granted to Chinese scientists who have made significant advancements in their field. He organized scientific seminars and dedicated some of his time to training successors for his positions.[28]

Outside of rocketry, Qian had a presence in numerous areas of study. He was among the creators of systematics, and made contributions to science and technology systems[clarification needed], somatic science, engineering science, military science, social science, the natural sciences, geography, philosophy, literature and art, and education. His advancements in the concepts, theories, and methods of the system science field include studying the open complex giant system.[29][30] Additionally, he helped establish the Chinese school of complexity science.

From the 1980s onward, Qian had advocated the scientific investigation of traditional Chinese medicine, Qigong, and the concept of "special human body functions". He particularly encouraged scientists to accumulate observational data on qigong so that future scientific theories could be established.[31]

Later life[edit]
Qian retired in 1991 and lived quietly in Beijing, refusing to speak to Westerners.[32]

In 1979 Qian was awarded Caltech's Distinguished Alumni Award for his achievements. Qian eventually received his award from Caltech, and with the help of his friend Frank Marble brought it to his home in a widely covered ceremony. Furthermore, in the early 1990s, the filing cabinets containing Qian's research work were offered to him by Caltech. Most of these works became the foundation for the Qian Library at Xi'an Jiaotong University, while the rest went to the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Qian was invited to visit the US by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics after the normalization of the Sino-US relationship, but he refused the invitation, having wanted a formal apology for his detention. In a reminiscence published in 2002, Marble stated that he believed Qian had “lost faith in the American government” but that he had “always had very warm feelings for the American people.”[33]

The Chinese government launched its manned space program in 1992, reportedly with some help from Russia due to their extended history in space. Qian's research was used as the basis for the Long March rocket, which successfully launched the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003. The elderly Qian was able to watch China's first manned space mission on television from his hospital bed.

In 2008, he was named Aviation Week and Space Technology Person of the Year. The recognition was not intended as an honor, but is given to the person judged to have the greatest impact on aviation in the past year.[11][34] Furthermore, that year China Central Television named Qian as one of the eleven most inspiring people in China.[35]

In July 2009, the Omega Alpha Association, an international systems engineering honor society, named Qian (H. S. Tsien) one of four Honorary Members.[36]

On October 31, 2009, Qian died at the age of 97 in Beijing.[12][37]

A Chinese film production, Qian Xue Sen, directed by Zhang Jianya and starring Chen Kun as Qian was released on December 11, 2011 in both Asia and North America,[38] and on March 2, 2012 in China.

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, in his novel 2010: Odyssey Two, named a Chinese spaceship after him.
===============================================================================

His obituary in New York Times

Qian Xuesen, Father of China’s Space Program, Dies at 98
By MICHAEL WINESNOV. 3, 2009


BEIJING — Qian Xuesen, a brilliant rocket scientist who single-handedly led China’s space and military rocketry efforts after he was drummed out of the United States during the redbaiting of the McCarthy era, died on Saturday in Beijing. He was 98.

China’s state media reported the death. Mr. Qian had been frail and bedridden in recent years.

In China, Mr. Qian was celebrated as the father of Chinese rocketry, the leader of the research that produced the nation’s first ballistic missiles, its first satellite and the Silkworm anti-ship missile.

But in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, he was no less valuable, if not so publicly celebrated, as a pioneer in American jet and rocket technology.

As a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later as a scientist and teacher at the California Institute of Technology, Mr. Qian, also known as Tsien Hsue-shen, played a central role in early United States’ efforts to exploit jet and rocket propulsion.

As a graduate assistant at Caltech in the late 1930s, Mr. Qian helped conduct seminal research into rocket propulsion, and in the 1940s he helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, now one of NASA’s premier space-exploration centers.

Mr. Qian served on the United States government’s Science Advisory Board during World War II. On the war front in Germany, he advised the Army on ballistic-missile guidance technology. At the war’s end, holding the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel, he debriefed Nazi scientists, including Werner von Braun, and was sent to analyze Hitler’s V-2 rocket facilities.

In the 1940s his mentor and colleague, the Caltech physicist Theodore von Karman, called Mr. Qian “an undisputed genius whose work was providing an enormous impetus to advances in high-speed aerodynamics and jet propulsion.” In 1949, Mr. Qian wrote a proposal for a winged space plane that the magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology, in 2007, called an inspiration for research that led to NASA’s space shuttle.

Photo

Qian Xuesen in 1948 CreditAssociated Press
But by 1950 his American career was over. Shortly after applying for permission to visit his parents in the newly Communist China, he was stripped of his security clearance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and accused of secretly being a Communist. The charge was based on a 1938 document of the Communist Party of the United States that showed he had attended a social gathering that the F.B.I. suspected was a meeting of the Pasadena Communist Party.

Mr. Qian denied the charges, his Caltech colleagues came to his defense, and the university hired a lawyer to assist him. Mr. Qian first sought to return to China but was placed under virtual house arrest by the government; later, he sought to stay and fight the accusations, but the government sought to deport him.

In 1955, Mr. Qian was sent back to China, where he was proclaimed a hero and immediately put to work developing Chinese rocketry. By many accounts, he later became a committed Communist and served on the party’s ruling body, the Central Committee.


The loyalty allegations have never been fully resolved. Aviation Week, which named Mr. Qian its man of the year in 2007, quoted Dan Kimball, a former under secretary of the Navy, as calling Mr. Qian’s deportation “the stupidest thing this country ever did.” A 1999 United States Congress report on Chinese espionage called Mr. Qian a spy, but critics say the report provides no basis other than a claim that he passed to China the secrets of the American Titan missile program, which began years after he had been deported.

Qian Xuesen was born in 1911, as the Chinese imperial government was collapsing, in Hangzhou, in eastern China. He earned a mechanical engineering degree in 1934 in Shanghai. At the age of 23 he went to the United States on a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering at M.I.T. Later, at Caltech’s Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, Mr. Qian met Mr. von Karman, who recommended him for the Science Advisory Board and gave him the lead role in research that developed the first American solid-fuel rocket to be successfully launched.

After his deportation, Mr. Qian wrote a position paper for Chinese leaders on aviation and defense, according to the state-run news service Xinhua.

Under his leadership, China developed its first generation of “Long March” missiles and, in 1970, launched its first satellite. Most of China’s recent space achievements, like its manned space program, began long after Mr. Qian’s retirement.

Mr. Qian never returned to the United States. In a 2002 published reminiscence, a Caltech colleague and professor, Frank Marble, stated that he believed that Mr. Qian had “lost faith in the American government” but that he had “always had very warm feelings for the American people.”

Caltech gave Mr. Qian its distinguished alumni award in 2001.

 

[pakchewcheng]

Remember too Israel claimed their F-35 was attacked by 2 fierce big storks flying in the air .

Shit man!

Jowdies telling the truth about their F35 not being hit by S-200.
Kenna langar by storks
Dun play play.

Storks can be fucking dangerous!

 

[pakchewcheng]

Relax folks.

It is not likely US of A will fight or want to fight China in Pacific Ocean, or even South China Sea.
Their top think tanks already know much earlier than you folks from all that is CtrlCV into here.

See report below
Which is why they make some noise in SCS and never go more than that , or will dare to go more than that. If push comes to shove, US of A know the outcome be very tiew liang for them.

China got SunTzu, Art of War embedded in her soul. And China know the best way to win a war is a war that you do not even need to fight. And year by year, China will be even stronger in economy, and militarily, and in scientific knowledge. The lead of China now will never be matched by US of A.

So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.



Kong langjeow wei



=======================================================
https://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr/2017/07/01/chinas-new-destroyer-the-u-s-navys-anti-ship-missile-failure-and-preemption/

China's New Destroyer, The U.S. Navy's Anti-Ship Missile Failure, And Preemption


Anders Corr , CONTRIBUTOR
JUL 1, 2017

China unveiled its Type 055 naval destroyer on June 28, the latest step in its decade and a half of military buildup. The new Chinese destroyer outcompetes U.S. destroyers and cruisers, highlighting a major failure in U.S. Navy planning that stretches back to the 1990s. Given the 055’s long-range supersonic YJ-18 and YJ-12 over the horizon (OTH) anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), the Chinese destroyer currently outcompetes U.S. Arleigh Burke class destroyers and bigger Ticonderoga class cruisers. Both ships rely on fewer and shorter-range Harpoon anti-ship missiles (ASMs) and aircraft carriers that are themselves vulnerable to China’s ballistic missiles. The U.S. Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), under development since 2009, would right the balance, but not for years to come, and meanwhile we must assume China will continue improving its capabilities. Reaction times to the latest supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship weapons can be as short as 15-30 seconds. The YJ-18 and YJ-12 are inspired by Russian design, and the threat environment is complicated by unconventional technologies such as Russian-made anti-ship missiles camouflaged as commercial shipping containers. The U.S. Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) ASCM variant, which may be deployed before 2020, has less range than its Chinese counterparts. China’s military development cooperation with Russia, and fielding of the 055 destroyer, will fuel already-existing incentives for conventional first strike options, political tension and an arms race with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and India. The arms race and tensions will hurt each country’s economic growth and international trade, as well as increase the risk of military conflict.

Chinese officers from the 24th Chinese navy are seen onboard a Harbin Type 052 destroyer, which arrived as part of the Chinese fleet at Shuwaikh Port in Kuwait City, on February 1, 2017. The visit is the first to Kuwait in 5 years, and comes after finishing a watch mission at the Gulf of Aden and the Somali waters. Credit: YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images

As military technology gets more sophisticated, a naval arms race in Asia will lead to military systems on hair-trigger alerts. The danger is that, as in World War II with Japan, China could one day calculate a military advantage to striking first with an array of air, sea, and rocket-delivered conventional weapons that could debilitate U.S. Navy vessels in the Pacific, as well as other regional U.S. bases. China is prepared to do so, at least in the South China Sea. According to Captain James Fanell (USN ret), former Director of Intelligence for U.S. Pacific Fleet, China has since 2015 adopted a man-to-man, rather than zonal, defense against U.S. Navy ships that traverse those international waters. China’s trend towards shadowing U.S. ships in the East China Sea is the same, according to Fanell, so we should assume that U.S. destroyers and cruisers there have been highly vulnerable over the past two years, and until at least 2021 when a subsonic U.S. ship-based ASCM will be fielded.

A Chinese conventional first strike against U.S. military forces in Asia is now technically plausible, and backed by China’s consistently preemptive naval, missile and cyber doctrines. This gives an incentive to the U.S. to itself strike first, especially if Chinese nuclear retaliation is calculated as unlikely. Such preemptive strikes, by either side, would lead to major power military conflict that would start with multiple nuclear powers, rather than end with one nuclear power as did World War II. It would be the most destructive war in world history, and so military technologies such as China’s 055 destroyer armed with YJ-18 ASCM that upset the balance of power in Asia are profoundly destabilizing and contrary to what one should expect from a status quo power. Such technologies are therefore ultimately counter to China’s broader commercial and security interests.


According to Fanell, U.S. Navy warship anti-ship cruise missile programs are just now being developed. Fanell said, "And how long will [it be before] LRASM or SM-6 numbers reach the numbers the PRC already has with the YJ-18? We appear to be behind the power curve for what could be a rather long time just as the PRC begins to consolidate its territorial claims in the maritime domain of the South and East China Seas over the next decade." Fanell has long argued for increased U.S. naval spending.

China’s 055 destroyer is for the first time among Chinese surface combatants capable of land attack missions. Just as U.S. and Russian destroyers have attacked land targets in Syria, we will likely see the advent of a more territorially aggressive Chinese navy in the next decade. Last month, China’s state-run media, the Global Times, quoted military expert Song Zhongping as saying, "The 052D, a 7,000-ton-destroyer with 64 launch units, is designed for tasks including anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-warship defense, while it does not and should not be required to have ground attack capability, which should be carried out by bigger destroyers, the coming 055." The 055 modular weapons system includes the capability to launch the nuclear capable CJ-10 land-attack cruise missile.


The 055 is a 10,000-ton destroyer, but under a full load it displaces 12,000 to 14,000 tons of water. It could as easily be classed as a cruiser. There are 3 more under construction, and 4 on order, for a total of 8 “Renhai” 055 destroyers. The 055 has stealth features and up to 128 Vertical Launch System (VLS) tubes for missiles capable of hitting air, land, and sea targets. The VLS can also launch anti-satellite and anti-ballistic missiles currently under development by China. The stern of the ship has a hangar to accommodate two Z-18 anti-submarine warfare helicopters and vertical-launch unmanned aerial vehicles. The sophisticated 055 bow-mounted and variable depth sonars and dual x- and s-band radar systems can see hostile air, surface, and underwater objects up to 600 km away, as well as track smaller nearby projectiles. The 055 fuses this data with other Chinese ship, air, and satellite sensors for a global view of the battlespace.

The 052 destroyers can also launch nuclear-capable missiles, and each has 64 VLS tubes. There are 4 operational 052-class destroyers, and 8 more under construction. This makes 20 total 052 and 055 Chinese destroyers capable of blue water operations far from shore. The relative lack of Chinese rearmament ships will not heavily affect Chinese destroyer operations in the South and East China seas, on which China appears to be focusing its maritime territorial growth.

Another 25 smaller 056-class Chinese frigates are operational, with 60 likely to be constructed in the coming years. These are also optimal for operations closer to China, for example in the South and East China Seas, or against Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan.

The 055 competes directly with the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke class destroyers and Ticonderoga cruisers, which are the main delivery system for naval surface combatant firepower globally. The Ticonderoga class cruisers currently have 16 operational ships and 6 undergoing refurbishment at any given time.





There are 62 Arleigh Burke’s worldwide, and the U.S. Navy is building 14 more. They are smaller and carry less firepower than the 055’s. The Arleigh Burke destroyers displace 8,000 to 10,000 tons and have up to 96 VLS launch tubes each. That is a lot of potential firepower. But what debilitates the Arleigh Burke destroyers is their reliance on 8 Harpoon ASM tubes each, the range of which is limited to only 67 nautical miles compared with the YJ-18’s 290 nm range. Harpoon missiles do not fit into VLS tubes.

According to naval analysts, some of the U.S. destroyers in Asia do not even carry their full complement of Harpoon ASMs, and since 1999, the Arleigh Burkes have not had any Harpoon launchers installed. Most U.S. destroyers, therefore, have only token anti-ship capabilities, making them vulnerable to a debilitating first strike in case of war. As Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Bryan Clark noted in testimony to Congress in 2015,


“So if I want to shoot another ship and I am a surface ship, I have to wait until I am within Harpoon range if I have Harpoons even onboard, which means I am probably half of the distance that he can reach me. So he can — I am well within his weapons envelope when I do that.”

Professor of Strategy James Holmes at the U.S. Naval War College has some harsh words for the lack of a long-range ASM capability on U.S. cruisers and destroyers.

“The originators of this mismatch were the service chiefs back in 1992, who in a directive called From the Sea declared that there was no one left to fight after the Cold War and thus that our navy should reinvent itself as a "fundamentally different" naval force, [i.e.], a force that didn't have to fight to control the sea, and thus could concentrate on noncombat missions. When you get a signal like that from top leadership, what do you do? You stop training and equipping to fight rival navies, and you stop upgrading your armaments. After that it was inertia. No one corrected the mistake, and no one really started trying until CNO Greenert.”

Admiral Jonathan Greenert served as Chief of Naval Operations from 2011 to 2015. Bryan McGrath, who commanded an Arleigh Burke class destroyer from 2004 to 2006, told Congress in 2015 that because of the lack of an effective anti-surface warfare (ASuW) capability on the surface fleet, it has to rely for defense on air and submarine-delivered capabilities.

“That decision and decisions about how to allocate missions within the portfolio — surface, subsurface and aviation — has led to a situation in which ... the Navy looks at the surface force, as something that needs to be protected by the air wing. I think that needs to be questioned…. As part of the peace dividend and in recognition of the lack of a blue water threat, the Harpoon missile system was removed from the Flight IIA Arleigh Burke Destroyers as a corporate Navy decision was made to rely on the carrier air wing and the submarine force to perform the ASuW mission.”

The Republic of Korea destroyers Sejong the Great (DDG 991) and Yang Manchun (DDH 973), the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108), USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) and USS Stethem (DDG 63), the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG 57) and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) patrol May 3, 2017 in the western Pacific Ocean. Credit: Z.A. Landers/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

Reliance on submarines and the carrier air wing limits the ability of surface combatants to execute missions individually, and entails risk from destruction of a single component in the system, effectively making the entire highly complex network as vulnerable as its weakest link. Fanell says, "We have this belief that Carrier air cover will always be there to protect our fleet and sink enemy ships … but what happens when a DF-21D or DF-26 sinks or seriously damages our aircraft carriers? Or when one of the PLAN Song, Yuan, or Shang submarines attacks our carriers with supersonic YJ-18 ASCMs … or PLAAF/PLANAF fighter bombers attack with air launched ASCMs? It seems to me that prudent military planning would take this into account and adjust our acquisition strategy accordingly … meaning the USN would have a surface fleet that could survive on its own by having the capability to fight other PLAN combatants mano-e-mano."

The U.S. Navy has made efforts at improving its ship-based ASuW capabilities. The SM-6 was recently converted for use as an ASM, but its range is only 250 nm compared to the 290 nm range of China’s YJ-18. The Navy has not even fielded the ASM variant of the SM-6. According to Fanell, “the SM-6 ASM variant that was successfully tested in Hawaii last year ...may be fielded sooner than 2020 … but again, it is a piecemeal approach that is behind the timeline of PLAN production and fielding.”





The Next Generation Land Attack Weapon (NGLAW), which also has an anti-ship function, will not enter U.S. Navy service until 2028 or 2030. Tomahawk cruise missiles, with a range of 1,000 nm, are also undergoing modification for an ASCM capability, but are subsonic and therefore more easily targeted. They will not be fielded until 2021, and will likely go out of service in 2040. Until then, and if China’s surface fleet has an anti-missile system capable of downing the slow Tomahawk, Navy destroyers and cruisers are uniquely vulnerable to China’s 052 and 055, armed with the long-range YJ-12 and YJ-18 ASMs. This vulnerability is a major mistake in naval planning that has led to the dangerous reliance of destroyers and cruisers on deterrence from aircraft carriers, submarines, and strategic escalation.

China’s new destroyer will fuel already-existing plans in the U.S. for increased naval spending, which will in turn lead to more naval spending in China. This is a costly arms race fueled by a security dilemma on the U.S. side, and territorial aggression on the Chinese side. China knows it has nothing to worry about in terms of U.S. initiating conflict were China a status quo power. But China is courting major power war through new military technologies that alter the status quo, at the same time as it initiates zero-sum territorial conflicts with multiple U.S. allies, including Japan in the East China Sea, the Philippines in the South China Sea, Taiwan (for its sovereignty), India in the Himalayas, and South Korea through China’s proxy North Korea.


The ground attack capability of the 055 should be of especial concern to Taiwan, whose territory is already under threat by ground-based missiles across the strait in mainland China. Because of China’s military buildup and territorial aggression, even during President Obama’s 8 years of relative pacifism toward China, it appears that China does not seek to be a responsible member of the international system. It seeks regional hegemony, even at the expense of strong U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines. It seeks increased global influence and power projection capabilities, including through a string of naval ports reaching to Africa, and blue water naval vessels such as the 055 destroyer.

According to Fanell, the 055 launch “should be another wake-up call for the USN. This is a formidable combatant...that again out-guns/out-sticks its rivals in the USN. Watch for this to be mass produced over the next 5 years [with] numbers approaching a dozen at least.” Professor James Holmes, Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College, has made a similar argumentregarding China’s coming superiority in submarine deployments.

With the Chinese Navy gaining in absolute numbers of naval combatants over the U.S., Fanell said, “a 350 ship navy that cannot engage and sink other nation’s warships is not acceptable.” The current USN of 276 ships is projected by President Trump to grow to 355. If achieved by 2035, 355 ships would cost $107 billion per year, every year, until 2047. According to Holmes, “We'll be lucky to break 300 ships by 2020, no matter what Congress does…. We have some old stuff we could recommission, but (unlike the Iowa class battleships in the 1980s) those ships already have an awful lot of mileage on the odometer.”

Type 001A, China's second aircraft carrier, is seen during a launch ceremony at Dalian shipyard in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, April 26, 2017. China has launched its first domestically designed and built aircraft carrier, state media said on April 26, as the country seeks to transform its navy into a force capable of projecting power onto the high seas. Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images

China has plans to reach 351 ships by 2020, almost all of which will be concentrated in Asia. The U.S. will only devote about 60% of its Navy to the Pacific. That gives China the advantage in an Asian naval contest in 2020, with 351 Chinese ships against about 180 U.S. ships. Holmes points out that,

“Absolute numbers aren't everything. The Soviet Navy outnumbered us throughout the Cold War and we got by. We were better on a ship-for-ship basis than they were. Still, numbers are important. Plus, this isn't just a fleet-on-fleet competition. We're talking about a fraction of the U.S. Navy matching up against the whole of the PLA Navy backed by the PLA Air Force and the PLA Rocket Force -- i.e., the PLA Navy backed up by a large arsenal of land-based planes, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. That's a lot of firepower to supplement the PLA Navy fleet. That could be China's great equalizer even if we remain stronger on the whole.”





The next four years are a critical period of vulnerability for the U.S. Navy. China will have a bigger and more concentrated surface fleet in Asia than will the U.S., and it will be better armed. It is no surprise that China, which cares little for international law or the status quo, is risk-acceptant, and subscribes to the principle that might makes right, is taking advantage of its regional naval superiority to take territory in the South and East China seas with impunity. It is no surprise that our allies have cold feet and are hedging towards China with economic and security agreements. It is an avoidable tragedy of our own making. We have watched since the early 1990s while China made great economic and military strides, often with our stolen technology. Yet we have not sanctioned it for its failure to make progress on international common values, such as democracy and human rights, that would make it a responsible international partner in terms of peace and stability.

Now we are paying the price, starting in the South and East China seas. According to Holmes, China’s regional strength “probably does help explain their confidence in the China seas.” If the U.S. cannot convince China to back away from its militarization and territorial revanchism in Asia, we will be forced into a dangerous and costly arms race, Cold War brinkmanship, or even conventional preemptive strike, to stop China’s expansion. The only other option will be conceding more territory and relative military power that will eventually lose us any vestiges of global moral, military, and economic leadership that remain after failing and debilitating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and our general weakness against Russia and China’s territorial expansion. That will also lose us allies. It arguably already has.


China has given the U.S. a moment of truth. Will we take a stand, or continue our slide towards irrelevance? The U.S. is not the only country that needs to wake up. China is taking catastrophic risk with its growing militarism.

 

[pakchewcheng]

So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.



Kong langjeow wei



Bear in mind the paper below was written in April 2014. If anything, China advanced even more than the projections made in the paper. They could not dream YJ-18 already on horizon with its sub Mach sea skimming speed that will transmogrified to a Mach 3 hell coming their way with change of radar signature and image. The paper thought the Type 055 "Renhai" guided missile destroyer (DDG) be ready in mid or late 2018. It was built and christened on late June 2017.
https://www.popsci.com/china-launches-asias-biggest-post-wwii-warship

US of A fell further behind as can be seen partly in their fiasco of F-35s. And the way their warships showed the world how good they are in langaring other ships
while claiming US of A naval ships see all ships within 300 km of them.

The PDF or readmore will lead you to 196 pages of reading material if you want something better to do then twiddling your thumbs or wanking yourself or fucking SYTs or ahquas.



A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier: Assessing China’s Cruise Missile Ambitions
By Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan | Book | April 01, 2014

By Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan (Photo by Joanna Seich)



DOWNLOAD PDF

Executive Summary

China’s military modernization is focused on building modern ground, naval, air, and missile forces capable of fighting and winning local wars under informationized conditions. The principal planning scenario has been a military campaign against Taiwan, which would require the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to deter or defeat U.S. intervention. The PLA has sought to acquire asymmetric “assassin’s mace”1 technologies and systems to overcome a superior adversary and couple them to the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems necessary for swift and precise execution of short-duration, high-intensity wars.

A key element of the PLA’s investment in antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities is the development and deployment of large numbers of highly accurate antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs) on a range of ground, air, and naval platforms. China’s growing arsenal of cruise missiles and the delivery platforms and C4ISR systems necessary to employ them pose new defense and nonproliferation challenges for the United States and its regional partners. This study surveys People’s Republic of China (PRC) ASCM and LACM programs and their implications for broader PLA capabilities, especially in a Taiwan scenario. Key findings are presented below.

The Military Value of Cruise Missiles

• Cruise missiles are versatile military tools due to their potential use for precision conventional strike missions and the wide range of employment options.
• Modern cruise missiles offer land, sea, and air launch options, allowing a “two-stage” form of delivery that extends their already substantial range. They may also be placed in canisters for extended deployments in harsh environments.
• Because cruise missiles are compact and have limited support requirements, ground-launched platforms can be highly mobile, contributing to prelaunch survivability. Moreover, cruise missiles need only rudimentary launch-pad stability, enabling shoot-and-scoot tactics.
• Since cruise missile engines or motors do not produce prominent infrared signatures on launch, they are not believed to be detectable by existing space-warning systems, reducing their vulnerability to post-launch counterforce attacks.
• The potentially supersonic speed, small radar signature, and very low altitude flight profile of cruise missiles stress air defense systems and airborne surveillance and tracking radars, increasing the likelihood that they will successfully penetrate defenses.
• Employed in salvos, perhaps in tandem with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles could saturate defenses with large numbers of missiles arriving at a specific target in a short time.
• Optimal employment of cruise missiles requires accurate and timely intelligence; suitable and ideally stealthy and survivable delivery platforms; mission planning technology; command, control, and communications systems; and damage assessment.

Chinese Antiship Cruise Missile Developments

• China, like other nations, has come to regard ASCMs as an increasingly potent means of shaping the outcome of military conflicts.
• China has developed its own advanced, highly capable ASCMs (the YJ series) while also importing Russian supersonic ASCMs, which have no operational Western equivalents.
• China is capable of launching its ASCMs from a growing variety of land, air, ship, and undersea platforms, providing redundant multiaxis means of massing offensive firepower against targets at sea (or at least against their predicted locations).
• Virtually every new surface ship and conventionally powered submarine in the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) can launch ASCMs, allowing these platforms to serve as “aquatic TELs” (Transporter-Erector-Launchers). Navy training has become more diverse and realistic in recent years with increasing focus on cruise missile operations.
• Beijing has furnished its ASCMs with improved guidance and has recently begun selling satellite navigation capabilities. Still, over-the-horizon (OTH) targeting remains a challenge.
• Chinese researchers are studying how to best overcome Aegis defenses and target adversary vulnerabilities. ASCMs are increasingly poised to challenge U.S. surface vessels, especially in situations where the quantity of missiles fired can overwhelm Aegis air defense systems through saturation and multiaxis tactics.
• Possible future uses of Chinese aircraft carriers might include bringing ASCM- and LACM-capable aircraft within range of U.S. targets.
• A consistent theme in Chinese writings is that China’s own ships and other platforms are themselves vulnerable to cruise missile attack. But China appears to believe it can compensate by further developing its capacity to threaten enemy warships with large volumes of fire.

Chinese Land-Attack Cruise Missile Developments

• China has deployed two subsonic LACMs, the air-launched YJ-63 with a range of 200 kilometers (km) and the 1,500+ km-range ground-launched DH-10. Both systems benefited from ample technical assistance from foreign sources, primarily the Soviet Union/Russia.
• The first-generation YJ-63 employs inertial navigation complemented by an electro-optical terminal sensor to achieve 10–15 meter (m) accuracy.
• The second-generation DH-10 has a GPS/inertial guidance system but may also use terrain contour mapping for redundant midcourse guidance and a digital scene-matching sensor to permit an accuracy of 10 m.
• Development of the Chinese Beidou/Compass navigation-positioning satellite network is partly intended to eliminate dependence on the U.S. GPS for guidance.
• Beijing has purchased foreign systems and assistance to complement its own indigenous LACM efforts. It has received Harpy anti-radiation drones with stand-off ranges of 400 km or more from Israel. China may also have the Russian Klub 3M-14E SS-N-30 LACM,5 which can be launched from some PLAN Kilo-class submarines and deliver a 400-kilogram (kg) warhead to a range of 300 km.
• Time and dedicated effort will increase the PLA’s ability to employ LACMs even in challenging combined-arms military campaigns.

Potential Employment in a Taiwan Scenario

• Chinese ASCMs and LACMs could be used in conjunction with other A2/AD capabilities to attack U.S. naval forces and bases that would be critical for U.S. efforts to respond to a mainland Chinese attack on Taiwan.
• Operating in tandem with China’s huge inventory of conventionally armed ballistic missiles, LACMs could severely complicate Taiwan’s capacity to use its air force to thwart Chinese attack options.
• Chinese military planners view LACMs as particularly effective against targets requiring precision accuracy (for example, airfield hangars and command and control facilities). They also view large-salvo attacks by LACMs and ballistic missiles as the best means to overwhelm enemy missile defenses.
• Chinese planners emphasize the shock and paralytic effects of combined ballistic and LACM attacks against enemy airbases, which could greatly increase the effectiveness of follow-on aircraft strikes. These effects depend significantly on the number of launchers available to deliver missiles.
• China currently has 255–305 ballistic missile and LACM launchers within range of Taiwan, which are capable of delivering sustained pulses of firepower against a number of critical airfields, missile defense sites, early warning radars, command and control facilities, logistical storage sites, and critical civilian infrastructure such as electrical distribution.

Proliferation Implications of China’s Cruise Missiles

• If China’s past record of proliferating ballistic missiles and technology is any indication of its intentions vis-à-vis cruise missile transfers, the consequences could be highly disruptive for the nonproliferation regime and in spreading A2/AD capabilities.
• China has sold ASCMs to other countries, including Iran.
• Beijing is suspected of furnishing Pakistan with either complete LACMs or components for local assembly.
• China’s lack of adherence to the principles of the 34-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is especially problematic regarding cruise missiles and UAVs.
• China has sought unsuccessfully to become a full member of the MTCR since 2004. However, should China become a fully compliant MTCR member, it would be a salient achievement in limiting widespread LACM proliferation.

Assessment
China has invested considerable resources both in acquiring foreign cruise missiles and technology and in developing its own indigenous cruise missile capabilities. These efforts are bearing fruit in the form of relatively advanced ASCMs and LACMs deployed on a wide range of older and modern air, ground, surface-ship, and sub-surface platforms. To realize the full benefits, China will need additional investments in all the relevant enabling technologies and systems required to optimize cruise missile performance. Shortcomings remain in intelligence support, command and control, platform stealth and survivability, and post-attack damage assessment, all of which are critical to mission effectiveness.

ASCMs and LACMs have significantly improved PLA combat capabilities and are key components in Chinese efforts to develop A2/AD capabilities that increase the costs and risks for U.S. forces operating near China, including in a Taiwan contingency. China plans to employ cruise missiles in ways that exploit synergies with other strike systems, including using cruise missiles to degrade air defenses and command and control facilities to enable follow-on air strikes. Defenses and other responses to PRC cruise missile capabilities exist, but will require greater attention and a focused effort to develop technical countermeasures and effective operational responses.

READ MORE >>

 

[pakchewcheng]

This Piece of Chinese Military Hardware Could Change the Balance of Power in Asia

The Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft represents a significant evolutionary step for the Chinese military.

David Barr
November 6, 2017


On October 7 2001, the U.S. military initiated air operations against Taliban and Al Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Fifteen bombers and twenty-five strike aircraft launched fifty cruise missiles against forty planned targets. By the time the first phase of the war ended on December 23, 2001, the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps had collectively flown approximately 6,500 strike sorties and dropped an estimated 17,500 munitions against various targets.



U.S. Air Force land-based combat aircraft operated from bases such as Ahmed Al Jaber, Ali Al Salem in Kuwait and Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory. U.S. Navy and Marine Corps F-14 Tomcat fighters and F/A-18 fighter-attack combat jets conducted multiple strike sorties from aircraft carriers stationed in the Arabian Gulf and off the coast of Pakistan on a daily basis. These sorties originated from bases and operating areas hundreds to thousands of miles from the target areas in Afghanistan, requiring the creation of an “air bridge” which included approximately 4,700 aerial refueling sorties by U.S. Air Force KC-135s and KC-10s plus carrier-based refueling aircraft such as the now decommissioned S-3 Viking.



China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) observed U.S. military operations in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, NATO operations in the Balkans, and Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom closely, noting the significant role of airpower in modern warfare. These operations “shocked the PLA into the realization that it had to become capable of engaging in high-tech warfare or otherwise face the certainty of falling ever further behind other modern militaries.” This marked a momentous shift in Chinese national military strategy and the subsequent issuance of the “The Military Strategic Guidelines for the New Period” by the Chinese Communist Party and PLA in1993. The long distance air strike missions during Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom provided vivid examples of the criticality of aerial refueling in air power projection—a powerful reality fully recognized by Chinese military leadership.


Origins

The genesis of the Chinese aerial refueling program dates back to the late 1960s when China initiated production of cloned Tupolev Tu-16K Badger bombers followed by an extended series production build of the platform until the late 1980s. The bomber, redesignated the H-6 Badger, would serve as the developmental platform of the H-6U aerial refueling tanker starting in 1986. The H-6U program, however, did not fit within the 1993 national military revamp as the PLA set out to rapidly modernize its military by reducing its reliant on foreign arms producers, such as Russia, and indigenously producing its own military hardware. Therefore, fewer than twenty H-6U airframes were actually developed in the subsequent years and proved less than optimal in servicing the PLA’s growing number and variants of combat aircraft. These limitations forced the PLA to embark on a supplementary effort to acquire IL-78 Midas tanker aircraft from Russia and Ukraine. After years of negotiation, the Midas tankers not only provided the PLA the means to fuel its fleet of Russian-made combat aircraft but also the aerial refueling technologies which could be applied in the creation of its own indigenous program.

However, the lack of aerial refueling continued to limit the operational power projection of both the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and PLA Naval Air Force (PLANAF) as noted in a 2014 report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “At the moment, the Chinese do not have a sizeable or modern fleet of tankers and many of their current aircraft are not engineered for aerial refueling, a scenario which limits their reach… China’s current fleet of air refueling aircraft, which consists of approximately twelve 1950s-era H–6U tankers, is too small to support sustained, large-scale, long-distance air combat.”

In an attempt to address this operational limitation and establish a sustainable aerial refueling program of its own, the PLAAF initiated an indigenous aerial refueling program via the Xi’an Y-20 “Kunpeng” (named after an ancient Chinese mythical bird that can fly for thousands of miles) heavy transport aircraft platform with the first Y-20 prototype, successfully making its first flight at Shaanxi Yanliang Aviation Base in January 2013. The ensuing years involved prototype and engine research, development, testing and evaluation.

Then in March 2017, the PLA publicly confirmed the series production of the Y-20. The aircraft’s design chief Tang Chang Hong said that after eight months of operational trials, the PLAAF was pleased with the airlifter. “The Y-20 is a good starting point and will enable us to produce larger and more ‘important’ aircraft projects.” These “more important aircraft projects” likely include airborne early warning and control (AEW&C), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and aerial refueling variants.

But aerial refueling represents only part of the long-distance, airborne power-projection equation.

Application

Since 2007, the PLAAF has been flight testing its latest comprehensive upgrade of its H-6K Badger bomber to include aerial refueling capability. Since March of 2015, the PLAAF has utilized the H-6 bomber platform to conduct long-range and increasingly complex over-water air combat operations all along its eastern coastline, including the Sea of Japan, the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea. These flights originally concentrated on breaking through the First Island Chain into the Western Pacific via both the Miyako Strait (between Okinawa and Taiwan) and the Bashi Channel (between Taiwan and the Philippines). In 2016, the PLAAF expanded these flights to include circumnavigating Taiwan and flying “combat air patrols” over disputed features in the South China Sea, including Fiery Cross Reef, Scarborough Shoal, Mischief Reef and Woody Island. These flights are becoming more complex through the incorporation of at least six different types of supporting aircraft, including intelligence/reconnaissance, early warning, fighter and electronic warfare aircraft. Additionally, many of these flights have taken place via direct interaction with PLA Navy surface action groups, coordination that underscores an increasingly joint Chinese military.

Strategically, these bomber flights are not only meant to coerce and pressure Taiwan and the Tsai administration but also to discourage U.S. armed forces intervention into a potential China-Taiwan conflict. Operationally, these flights provide vital operational training for PLAAF crews on a range of skills that can only be cultivated in a combat-realistic situation, such as pilot endurance flights, varying weather conditions over water, navigational challenges, interaction with foreign aircraft and signals intelligence collection. Aerial refueling, although utilized during these flights by escort fighters on a very limited basis, did not play much of a factor.

Implications

With a reported combat range of nearly 1,890 nautical miles (nm), the H-6K can carry six CJ-10 or CJ-20 land-attack cruise missiles with ranges of over 430 and 1,080 nm respectively. Alternatively, the H-6K could carry the YJ-12 anti-shipping missile with a range of 220 nm. Assuming air superiority within the first island chain and east of Taiwan via a combination of fighters and special mission aircraft, the H-6K could easily threaten land and sea-based targets operating inside the second island chain—areas such as Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Palau and northern Australia.

Assuming air superiority within the first island chain and farther east of Taiwan, the combination of Y-20 aerial refueling and the H-6K bombers’ long-range missiles, the H-6K gains the ability to put U.S. and partner armed forces operating outside the second island chain, such as Alaska and Hawaii at risk. Additionally, depending on overflight restrictions, or a lack thereof, strike distances could also range all of Russia, the Middle East and as far west as the Red Sea.

Furthermore, should the PLAAF be able to create and sustain a multiple-hit refueling air bridge of its own—presumably while operating within a weapons-engagement umbrella provided by a combination of air-refuelable, low-observable fighters such as the J-20, J-16, or J-31 and the long-range, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missile capabilities of the PLA Navy’s Type 055 Renhai and Type 052 Luyang III destroyers—these strikes ranges could be extended even farther.

Conclusion

The PLA’s aerial refueling program is rapidly progressing to a formidable and sustainable model. The Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft represents a significant evolutionary step for the Chinese military. Once the Y-20 is fully operational, it will be capable of refueling multiple variants of PLAAF and PLANAF strike and support aircraft which could be combined to form a lethal, long-range airborne land and maritime strike capability. Coupled with the extended endurance and long-range armament of an air-refuelable H-6K Badger bomber, the PLA will not only be able to threaten U.S. and partner land bases and sea-based strike groups operating well beyond the second island chain in the U.S. Pacific Command area of operations but also threaten forces operating within both the U.S. Central Command and U.S. European Command areas of responsibility. This threat presents a formidable challenge to U.S. military and political planners as they consider possible military engagement scenarios against China.

 

[pakchewcheng]

A-10 firing GAU-8 30mm Gatling Gun at 4,200 rounds a minute

You all know of the A-10 , with her main weapon the GAU-8 Gatling gun 7 barrels firing at 4,200 mintues a second of effective firing range of 1,200 meters

Copying meant a copy of similar type or less power.
But if what is made is even more powerful, let us not talk of it being a copy.
Bear in mind who copied who first, the ang moh who copied gunpowder and guns form the Chinese who first made them 800++ years ago.

The Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS) was developed as the last line of automated weapons defense (terminal defense or point defense) against anti-ship missiles (AShMs or ASMs) and attacking aircraft, including high-g and maneuvering sea-skimmers. It is a 6 barrel 20mm Gatling Gun. Max range of 3.5 km and 3000 rounds per min.

Now meet the Chinese CIWS 1130

China Type 1130 CIWS Gatling Cannon. China has developed a new close-in weapon system, or CIWS, called Type 1130, which has the firing power of 10,000 rounds per minute,. The particular CIWS model, recently spotted being installed on a PLA Type 054A frigate, can reportedly destroy 90 percent of hypersonic missiles even travelling 4 times the speed of sound.


Say Hello to China's New 11-Barrel Hypersonic Missile Killer

Andrew Tarantola
1/15/15 11:40am

The future of naval warfare will likely include lasers, auto-cannons, and hypersonic missiles launched from the other side of the horizon. But while it may not have a defense against frickin' lasers, China's newly unveiled Type 1130 close-in weapon system can make short work of inbound warheads travelling at four times the speed of sound.



It reportedly does so by spewing 10,000 rounds per minute—166 rounds per second—perforating any inbound threat well before it can do any damage to the PLA Type 054A frigate that the 1130 has been installed on. According to the Want China Times, a Chinese news outlet, the Type 1130 carries a pair of 1280-round magazines—enough to shoot down as many as 40 threats before requiring a reload. It's also reportedly quite accurate, notching 90 percent accuracy against hypersonic threats. It can also target fixed wing and rotary aircraft, surface ships, terrestrial targets along a coast, and even sea mines with its 30 mm rounds.


Details on the weapon system are scarce, but if its 6 to 10-barreled predecessors are any indication, the Type 1130 should be able to target threats anywhere from 8 to 20 km out. Due to the limited range of the Gatling gun it employs, however, the system shouldn't actually be able to engage until the threat is right on top of it, around 3 km.

The system is guided by radar, which are what those two dishes are located above the barrel, but due to its weight and power requirements, is limited to large PLA frigates and destroyers. The system has also been spotted on China's newest aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. Future iterations are expected to be installed on China's upcoming Type 055 Destroyer. Combined with the PLA's new WU-14 hypersonic glide vehicle, naval battles may soon be over in the blink of an eye.
In case incoming missiles got through the Chinese anti missiles, the CIWS1130 will stand guard.

If 90% of incoming Mach 4s can be taken out, it is more likely than not 100% will be taken out of missiles and shells of Mach 3 and less.
CIWS1130 will easily take out the 18" shell fired from superbattleship Yamato (if that can be refloated) as the 18" shell muzzle velocity is only 780m/sec or just Mach 2.2

CIWS 1130 is installed on all big Chinese naval ships and carriers.

So while China can take out US of A carriers and other Naval ships, USA will not find it easy to do that to China.


So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.



Kong langjeow wei

 

[steffychun]

Why not hire Desmond Quek.

 

[pakchewcheng]

A look at China's most exciting hypersonic aerospace programs


The latest scramjets, near-space planes, and super wind tunnels.

By Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer April 19, 2017

THE FUTURE OF THE PLAAF, 2030?

This "what if" piece of CGI fan art from the Chinese Internet shows what a hypersonic military aircraft would look like; with a streamlined fuselage, a large ventral air intake and relatively small wings. Flying in near space (12 miles to 60 miles in altitude) at speeds of up to Mach 10, such aircraft could cover the distance between New York and San Francisco in under 30 minutes—plus dodge existing air defenses.

Armystar.com

Hypersonic technology has the potential to revolutionize both military and civilian aerospace, so it's no surprise that China is showing off its program.

At the 21st International Space Plane and Hypersonic Systems and Technology in Xiamen—a global forum of scientists and engineers researching hypersonic concepts and technologies—Chinese scientists provided key details on several little-known but game-changing scramjets, near-space planes, and super wind tunnels.

CHINA'S SCRAMJET

This December 2015 scramjet test flight is the first public-source picture of China's scramjet program, which set a high speed of Mach 7.

National Natural Science Foundation of China

First, let's talk about scramjets. These have air-breathing engines (like turbofans and piston engines), so they don't need to carry a supply of oxidizer to combust their fuel. This makes them lighter and more efficient than rocket propelled missiles, as well as being more maneuverable. The first open source image of a Chinese scramjet test emerged in December 2015. It flew to an altitude of 30 kilometers (over 18 miles), and reached a Mach 7 speed. Interestingly, while American scramjet tests have generally been air dropped before firing their rocket boosters, the Chinese scramjet test was boosted from a land-based launcher. Scramjets could enable more efficient and easier forms of space launch and hypersonic airliners, just as they could be used for high-speed cruise missiles to replace ballistic missiles.

TRRE

The turbo-aided rocket-augmented ram/scramjet engine (TRRE), which uses rocket augmentation in order to aid in the transition into the supersonic and hypersonic flight regimes, could be the world's first combined cycle engine to fly in 2025, paving the way for hypersonic near space planes and single-stage space launchers.

Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute

A hypersonic plane can fly in the "near-space" altitude of 12 miles to 60 miles, allowing it to shoot into orbit with integrated rockets, or fly civilian and military missions in near space. Such a hypersonic plane could circumnavigate the world in a couple hours, out of the reach of conventional air defenses. China has several programs researching hypersonic combined cycle engines, which consist of a turbofan stage for subsonic/low supersonic flight, and a ramjet stage for the transition from supersonic to hypersonic flight.

The most promising program is Beijing Power Machinery Research Institute's turbo-aided rocket-augmented ram/scramjet combined cycle (a mouthful often abbreviated to TRRE), which uses integrated liquid-fueled rockets to boost the performance of the turbine and ramjet stages, thus making a safer and smoother transition from supersonic to hypersonic flight of Mach 10. With key components like the engine inlet, cooling, and combustion already developed, ground tests of the system are beginning later this year. The reported plan is for a full-scale TRRE testbed to begin flights by 2025, with a 2030 test flight.

FD-21

The FD-21, a 556-foot-long wind tunnel, was finished in 2016 by the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, who will turn it on later this year. Reaching speeds of Mach 10-15, it's also large enough to test full-sized components of hypersonic propulsion, like gliders and scramjets.

China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics

And then there are the hypersonic wind tunnels. China has the world's largest hypersonic wind tunnel, the detonation drive JF-12, and is working to build an even larger one. The 556-foot-long FD-21 hypersonic shock tunnel can reach speeds of Mach 10-15, well above the JF-12's Mach 5-9 range. Clearly, China is not content to restrict its flight research to the lower end of the hypersonic speed range.

THE FUTURE?

Chinese scramjets, as part of combined cycle engines, could allow China to fly Mach 6 airplanes, as portrayed in this speculative CGI, anywhere in the world in under three hours, at speeds and altitudes impervious to modern air defenses. It is highly likely that due to the nature of material sciences and laws of physics, hypersonic aircraft like the American SR-72 and its Chinese counterparts would look similar to each other (like how most modern attack submarines share the same general hull shape).

Grassroots (artist)

At the Xiamen event, Chinese engineers also reported on a wide range of other hypersonic technologies, such as plasma jets to steer hypersonic thrust, advanced heat resistant composites, and new fuels. The event was yet another indication that, with well established programs in spaceplanes and scramjets, China is set for a hypersonic flight boom.


=====================================================================================


Rare footage of Beijing's £5 million hypersonic wind tunnel built to help Chinese scientists beat Americans in developing futuristic aircraft

• 'Hyper Dragon' is more advanced than American devices, said Chinese experts
• The 'unprecedented' wind tunnel can blow gusts 10 times the speed of sound
• A plane is being developed that can fly from Beijing and New York in two hours
• Experts are reportedly testing a strike aircraft that could carry nuclear warheads

By TRACY YOU and HARRY PETTIT FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 15:35 GMT, 10 November 2017 | UPDATED: 16:56 GMT, 10 November 2017

• 
  Chinese scientists have claimed to be able to make more discoveries than their American counterpart in developing supersonic aircraft thanks to better equipment.

A secretive £5 million hypersonic wind tunnel, nicknamed 'Hyper Dragon', is helping the experts 'reveal many facts that Americans have not found out', one Chinese researcher said in a propaganda documentary.

The programme also revealed that Chinese scientists are developing a commercial plane that could connect Beijing and New York in just two hours.

Video playing bottom right...






ExpandClose

+8
China's state TV revealed a clip of the secretive JF12 hypersonic wind tunnel (pictured)

+8
The device, in Beijing, can blow gusts of wind travelling as fast as 10 times the speed of sound

China Central Television, the state broadcaster, showed a glimpse of the mysterious equipment in a documentary on October 8.

Built by Chinese Academy of Science with 46 million Yuan (£5 million), the 2.5-metre-wide (8.2 feet), 265-metre-long (869 feet) tunnel is said to be able to blow gusts of wind as fast as 10 times the speed of sound.

The temperature of the gusts could reach a staggering 3,000 degrees Celsius.

Jiang Zonglin, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Science, called the 'unprecedented' wind tunnel an incubator of advanced aircraft.

Mr Jiang said because planes couldn't fly during a lab experiment, they would need a wind tunnel that could generate gusts as fast as the desired speed of the aircraft to simulate a flying environment.

In the case of JF12, it could simulate flying conditions between Mach 5 and Mach 9.

+8
The footage also shows a triangle supersonic aircraft being tested in the advanced wind tunnel

+8
A researcher said the tunnel can help them 'reveal facts that Americans have not found out'

Mr Jiang claimed that he and his team carry out one experiment every two days, and each experiment last 100 millisecond, which equals to one-tenth of a second.

The researchers pointed out that China is currently developing a supersonic commercial plane that could travel as quickly as five times the speed of sound.

This means the aircraft would be able to fly from Beijing to New York in two hours, compared to the current 14 hours.

The TV clip apparently also shows an arrowhead-shaped model inside the Beijing-based wind tunnel.

Its design looks like official Chinese mock-ups of the DF-ZF, China's 7,680mph hypersonic strike aircraft that could carry nuclear warheads past US missile defenses.

Chinese officials have confirmed several test flights of hypersonic glide vehicles since 2013, but have kept the details top secret.

This is likely the first time China has shown any test models linked to the project.

+8
Another supersonic aircraft apparently being developed by China has been shown in the video

+8
Chinese state media has revealed the country's first ever images of a model (pictured) of its hypersonic glide vehicle, a nuclear weapons expert has claimed. The secretive missile delivery craft, known as the DF-ZF, could travel at up to ten times the speed of sound

+8
The hypersonic strike aircraft is getting ready to be launched into the 265-metre-long tunnel

In addition, The broadcast showed a weapon with a shape similar to the last stage of a ballistic missile, and computer generated images of a new triangular-framed glider.

Raymond Wang, an expert in stopping the international spread of nuclear weapons, from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, was one of the first to spot the DF-ZF model.

Writing on Twitter, he noted the programme's narrator didn't specifically refer to hypersonic boost-glide vehicles (HBGVs) or the DF-ZF at any point.

+8
Raymond Wang, an expert in stopping the international spread of nuclear weapons from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, was one of the first to spot the DF-ZF model

'China just showed its hypersonic-BGV in a vid on 08 Oct. Probably a test design model, but AFAIK [as far as I know] this is first pics of an actual object,' he wrote.

'Vid is about JF-12 hypersonic testing tunnel. Narrator never explicitly says its HBGV. Resembles mock-ups of WU-14.

'Not an expert, cannot tell if useful info. BUT WATCHING PROPAGANDA IS IMPORTANT.'

Mr Wang said the wind tunnel shown in the clip has sharper angles than any known models of the Chinese design.


So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.

What's the point of having a longer range that the US bombers when it is clear that the chinks' bombers will be shot down before they fly past Taiwan or Japan?



Kong langjeow wei

 

[pakchewcheng]

China's stealth fighter may be getting a new engine


Relying on Russian engines has put China at the mercy of a single, foreign supplier. That could be changing.

By Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer September 9, 2017

A FLIGHT SEEN AROUND THE WORLD

Two J-20s make the public debut of China's first stealth fighter, coming low over the Zhuhai runway.

dafeng cao (@xinfengcao)

With its J-20 heavy fighter, China became the second nation in the world (after the USA) to field a fleet of stealthy fifth generation fighters. But until recently, there has been a key limitation for the J-20 heavy fighter, and Chinese aerospace in general: a reliance on foreign engines. That's looks to be changing, quickly.

Images that just surfaced online show a new-built J-20 with stealthy WS-10 turbofan engines, which are developed and manufactured in China. These engines are distinguished by their serrated afterburner nozzles and interior flaps for manipulating the exhaust flow.

Once these new J-20s enter service, China will have comprehensively mastered the major parts of fighter technology, including radars, stealthy fuselage, missiles, computers, and engines.

WS-10A

The WS-10A, which powers the J-11 heavy fighters, is China's first operational low bypass, afterburning turbofan engines.

Errymath

Both prototype and production models of the J-20 fighter currently rely on an advanced variant of the Russian Al-31 turbofan engine. Using this tech since the fighter's first flight in 2011 has put China at the mercy of a single, foreign supplier. But not for much longer, it seems.

Photos of the new Chinese J-20, production number "2021," reveal turbofan engines that clearly belong to the WS-10 Taihang (built by Shenyang Liming). Among the shared features are the semicircle of small flaps, vanes for controlling exhaust flows, on the inner nozzle, and wider afterburning, variable geometry petals. The Russian Salyut AL-31 does not have those features.

Additionally, the WS-10X (possibly officially designated WS-10G or WS-10IPE) has sawtoothed serrations on the edges of its afterburning nozzles, like the F-35's F119 engine. The sawtooth edges provide a gain in stealthiness, as they redirect radar waves away from the nozzles. (The straight edges on non-stealthy engines like the AL-31 are major contributors to the radar cross section of a fighter).

In addition to the gains in stealth, the WS-10X is believed to provide about 14-15 tons of thrust. This may be enough power to allow the J-20 to engage in low supersonic supercruise at Mach 1-1.2 speeds. The Eurofighter Typhoon has a similar low supercruise capability, which means it can hit supersonic speeds without using fuel-thirsty afterburners.

The gains in engine connect to broader news in materials. The Chengdu Aerospace Superalloy Technology Company, a privately held corporation, made a major breakthrough in superalloy research. CASTC, according to the Global Times and People's Daily, is producing world class single crystal turbine blades from rhenium-nickel superalloys; adding rhenium to nickel increases the superalloy's melting point, allowing for a hotter and more efficient engine. High rhenium content superalloys are used in light weight, high thrust engines like the F-22 Raptor's F109 turbofan. Previously, the development of Chinese engines like the WS-10 were delayed as they suffered from quality control issues regarding single crystal turbine blades. China's mastery of the rhenium superalloy (and by the private sector, no less) won't just help China build current fighter engines, but also quickly research more capable, higher tech models.

 

[steffychun]

Loser USAF

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/1...undated-aviators-carry-very-heavy-burden.html

The Air Force’s pilot shortage continues to get worse – the armed services branch is now about 2,000 below its target number.

"Almost 2,000 pilots short of a force that has 20,000 pilots, so that's one in 10 that we're short," Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters during a Pentagon briefing Thursday.

Wilson didn’t say what kind of pilots were needed, but said "increasing the readiness of the force so that we win any fight, anytime are our top priorities,” Military.com reported. Last summer, the Air Force said it was 1,500 pilots short.

Wilson added that the service is currently too small "for all the missions that we're being asked to carry out.”

"Surge has become the new normal in the U.S. Air Force – and you can do that maybe for about a year, two years, maybe three or four years," she said, according to Military.com. "Less than 1 percent of Americans serve in uniform... and they are carrying a very heavy burden."

The Air Force has flown 14,000 sorties in the past three months alone. It is handling missions in the Middle East and Europe, a pressure campaign against North Korea and hurricane relief efforts, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said, according to CNBC.

To help retain pilots, the Air Force this year has announced salary increases and bonus programs, up to $455,000 over 13 years for select fighter pilots.

The Air Force has been losing pilots to commercial aviation companies, who offer better pay and more stable schedules, Military.com reported.

 

[crossbow_sg]

Pentagon just realized that PLA does not just rely on 高分4号 spy satellites to track US carriers battle groups. There is a new drone at near space level over 20km to 25km with very wide view from altitude, can FLY UNLIMITED TIME & DISTANCE using Solar Energy, much cheaper than satellites, can take off and land any road surfaces, PLA can have many many in e.g. Pacific Ocean, you can not hide from it!

http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/jssd/2017-11-13/doc-ifynstfh6702567.shtml

中国一新飞机发布俩月后美才反应过来：美航母在裸奔
2017年11月13日 08:05 新浪军事



新浪扶翼 行业专区

彩虹太阳能无人机
　　在9月份中国进行了两次临近空间的无人机试飞，其中一次两架无人机试验近日才被港媒披露，在9月10日，两架有蝙蝠大小的微型无人机，使用超压气球高空电磁脉冲发射，这种数百元的微型无人机在“无人机禁区”的临近空间成功完成试验。

　　随后，在9月19日，中国进行了另外一次无人机在临近空间的飞行，这次飞行的无人机是彩虹太阳能无人机，这次在高度20公里的临近空间飞行了15个小时。当时媒体报道称，这是中国最牛的无人机，无人驾驶，无需加油，无限续航。

　　有分析认为，9月10日发射的两架无人机是没有动力装置的滑翔无人机，他们携带了地形测绘传感器和电磁信号探测器，或许是为彩虹太阳能无人机做一些提前的技术验证。

美军游弋在太平洋上的航母战斗群
　　这两次在临近空间的无人机测试，让中国成为美英之后第三个掌握这种技术的国家。

　　两个月后的今天，美国人突然发现了一些蹊跷。中国在临近空间飞行的无人机将对美军游弋在太平洋上的航母战斗群产生严重的威胁。

　　美媒报道，彩虹太阳能无人机无限续航的特殊属性，可以让其成为一款比卫星高效监视工具，其成本比发射卫星低的多，但是通讯功能更加强大，且发射更加简单。如果部署在太平洋上空执行反舰任务，完全可以对覆盖海域的舰艇实行实时监控。

彩虹太阳能无人机
　　如果该无人机用于监控航母战斗群，游弋在太平洋的庞大的航母舰队将无所遁形。这意味着，中国可以随时掌握美军航母战斗群在太平洋的位置。结合中国现有的卫星、雷达以及反舰武器，这将能有效的震慑美军航母战斗群的部署。

　　不过，美媒强调，彩虹太阳能无人机目前或许还不具备执行这样任务的能力，但是在可见的未来，中国新的无人机将会同卫星、远程巡逻机、雷达系统、海底网络对接，建立一个全面的监视系统，届时在太平洋海面及空中数以千计的目标都会出现在中国的清单上，中国可以选择对其中相应的目标进行实时追踪。（作者署名：前沿哨所）

 

[pakchewcheng]

For those that roll up eyeballs at the sight of chinese characters.
China just flew a 130-foot, solar-powered drone designed to stay in the air for months


The CH-T4 has already set a national flight record.

By Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer June 7, 2017

CH-T4

While it has a wingspan of over 130 feet, the CH-T4 only weighs about 880 pounds—with payload.



Meet China's huge solar-powered drone, a 130-foot-wide machine designed to fly at more than 65,000 feet, for days on end. How? A super lightweight body and renewable energy tech that can power all eight of its electrical propellers.

Oh, and it can reach speeds up to 125 miles per hour.

FLIGHT

The CH-T4 is propelled by eight electrical propellers, allowing it to reach speeds of about 125 miles per hour and a height of over 65,000 feet.



The "Caihong-T 4" (CH-T4), built by the Chinese Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics (CAAA), has a double-bodied fuselage, cranked wing, and twin tail. It's got a wingspan of 40 meters—or about 130 feet, which means its wider than a Boeing 737 jetliner. Despite the large size, it weighs between 880 and 1,100 pounds. It owes its this lightness to its carbon fiber and plastic components.

NEAR SPACE

The CH-T4, flying 12 miles up into the atmosphere, has line-of-sight radio and visual coverage over 400,000 square miles—an area the size of Egypt.




In size and flight altitude, that's second place to only the NASA Helios Prototype, another solar-powered flying wing, which boasts a 246-foot wingspan, and a elevation of 96,863 feet. CAAA scientists told the China Daily that the CH-T4 has a flight time design goal of several months, needing only minimal human supervision. Flying up to 65,000 feet means that the CH-T4 will fly above almost all cloud cover, so it will enjoy almost unlimited access to sunlight during its operations (during night, the CH-T4 will draw from onboard batteries to power its motors).

A BIG START

The CH-T4 can use its high altitude and long endurance for a variety of long-term surveillance and communications missions.



China's long-duration drone projects parallel work at both DARPA and tech companies like Facebook. For militaries, tech like this provides an excellent platform for surveillance missions against military and terrorist targets. It can utilize its high flight ceiling to maintain line-of-sight contact with over 400,000 square miles of ground and water. That's about the size of Egypt. For both militaries and tech firms, covering so much territory makes it an excellent data relay and communications node. This will allow the drone to replace or back up satellite communications, maintain coverage between distant aircraft and ships, or even provide broadband to rural Chinese households.

While conversations around drone usage are often limited to their roles as potential missile-toting killers and parcel-delivering quadcopters, some of the most important drones of the future may be those like the Caihong X and Helios Prototype, unseen and high up, gathering data day in and day out

 

[pakchewcheng]

Angmoh dua dua kee lampek orledi
Chink dua dua kee and tumescent

So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.

What's the point of having a longer range that the US bombers when it is clear that the chinks' bombers will be shot down before they fly past Taiwan or Japan?



Kong langjeow wei



This new ramjet engine could triple the range of Chinese missiles


Deadly surprises for even the most modern stealth fighters.

By Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer June 12, 2017

KILLS OF THE FUTURE

This 2014 computer-generated image shows a J-31 stealth fighter launching a long-range ramjet BVRAAM (beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile).

lt.cdjby.net via errymath

China's developing a hypersonic weapon that has triple the range of existing Chinese air-to-air missiles. The premise: a ramjet engine that can turn already deadly missiles into weapons that have greater range, maneuverability, and speed.

LONG SHOTS

China's PL-12 and PL-21 are long-ranged missiles usually mounted on aircraft. But with ramjet engines to improve maneuverability (not to mention some covert modifications), the PL-12D and PL-21 would make deadly ground- and drone-launched surprises.

CASIC

In a May 31 report, the Science and Technology Daily announced that the 4th Research Institute of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has twice successfully tested a ramjet engine aimed to power air-to-air missiles. Song Zhongpin, a former PLA Rocket Force expert, told the Global Times that the engine was hypersonic, which suggests a speed of at least Mach 5, or 3,835 miles per hour.

J-31

This Zhuhai 2014 Airshow graphic shows the J-31 carrying four long-range PL-21 BVRAAMs, which use ramjet engines (the PL-21 has a diameter of about 250-300mm, while the smaller PL-12 and PL-15 BVRAAMs are about 203mm in diameter, so the J-31 can carry 6 of them).

Chinese Military Aviation

The 4th Research Institute been looking into solid-fueled ramjets since 2000. This type of ramjet is preferable for use on aircraft because they can be launched on demand, without having to fill up their fuel tanks before launch, as some liquid fueled ramjets demand. The speed and burn rate of the engine are controlled by manipulating the ramjet's air intakes.

RAMJET

Ramjets make longer-range rockets, since they don't need to store oxygen onboard to combust the fuel; they scoop it in from the air.

Wikipedia

Song said the ramjet engine could more than triple the range of Chinese BVRAAMs. The PL-12's range, for example, could increase from 62 miles to over nearly 200 miles. If so, this would be a key factor in any future conflicts, as CASC ramjet engine would be both faster and longer-ranged than most BVRAAM rocket engines like the AIM-120 AMRAAN and PL-12, which have a top speed of about Mach 4.

To increase range, ramjets can carry more propellants than rockets of the same size, since they use atmospheric oxygen to burn fuel instead of carrying onboard oxidizers. The greater range and speed also implies a larger "no escape" zone, or the maximum range at which a target maneuvering at a speed of, say Mach 2, cannot outrun the missile.

T3 TERMINATOR

The T3, a ramjet missile built by Boeing and funded by DARPA, used its ramjet engines to extend its maneuverability and range in order to effectively target aircraft, cruise missiles, and even surface-to-air missiles. Unfortunately it was apparently cancelled, probably due to budget constraints.

DARPA

A ramjet BVRAAM would provide a huge overmatch against existing and even planned U.S. air-to-air missiles. For example, the most modern U.S. BVRAAM—the AMRAAM AIM-120D—has an active radar seeker, two way datalink, Mach 4 top speed and a range of more than 100 miles.

DARPA's Triple Threat Terminator (T3) ramjet missile was about the size of the AMRAAM, and would have been targeted against both enemy aircraft and radar systems. Despite four test flights by Boeing before 2015, the T3 missile does not appear to have lead to an actual development program (hence United States Air Force General Herbert Carlisle calling January 2017 for Congress to fund an AMRAAM replacement). However, the USAF does intend to introduce the Small Advanced Capabilities Missile in the 2030s, which will be half the size of the AMRAAM but has the same 100-mile range.

What's especially dangerous for foreign fighter jets is that the CASC's larger ramjet BVRAAM (with a highly efficient engine, and similar dimensions to the 203mm diameter and 13-foot-long PL-12) could outrange the world's only other ramjet BVRAAM, the 175mm diameter, 12-foot-long MDBA Meteor.

PL-12

The PL-12 BVRAAM is China's front-line, long-range air-to-air missile. With a range of over 62 miles, active radar seeker, and Mach 4 speed, it's plenty lethal already—a ramjet engined version would make it even more deadly by increasing its range, maneuverability, and speed.

Sinodefence

This new missile would give Chinese fighters like the J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters (both of which can carry 6 BVRAAMs in their central weapons bay) long-range but very compact air-to-air missiles.

If cued by long-range radars from airborne early warning and control aircraft, a ramjet BVRAAM could even do some of the stuff that the long-range, rocket powered PL-XX does, namely attacking enemy airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) and tanker aircraft. (Though the BVRAAM wouldn't be able to match the PL-XX's near-space flight profile to avoid interception and detection).

When coupled with AESA radar seekers on modern Chinese BVRAAMs, a ramjet BVRAAM—like the PL-12D, PL-21 or a PL-15 variant—would be a long-range threat even to stealth fighters and bombers.

A key factor for CASC's ramjet engine to reach its full potential, though, is a network of sensor fusion and data provided by other fighters and the growing Chinese fleet of AEW&C aircraft, electronic intelligence assets, high-altitude UAVs, and surface radars—all of which China is actively working on.

YJ-12

The ramjet powered YJ-12 is China's deadliest air-launched anti-ship missile. With a range over 250 miles, the missile travels at speeds above Mach 3.5, meaning that once it flies from out of the horizon, the target ship has less than 10 seconds to respond with last-ditch defenses like Gatling cannons. Re-engining it with the new CASC ramjet could push its speed to near hypersonic levels.

Chinese Military Aviation

CASC's new ramjet motor is not just notable for air-to-air roles. Much as U.S. systems like the Sparrow and AMRAAM have been retasked, it could also be used to produce a range of compact, air-launched supersonic anti-ship missiles, or highly maneuverable, medium-ranged surface-to-air missiles that can be quad-packed into the vertical launch systems of warships such as the Type 055 Renhai destroyer.

 

[pakchewcheng]

Report: China’s Advanced Weaponry Threatens U.S. Military
Beijing pursuing 'leap ahead' high tech arms strategy



Chinese soldiers carry the flags of the Communist Party, the state, and the People's Liberation Army during a military parade / Getty Images

BY: Bill Gertz Follow @BillGertz
November 17, 2017 5:00 am

China is developing an array of advanced, high technology weapons designed to defeat the United States in a future conflict, according to a congressional commission report.

"China is pursuing a range of advanced weapons with disruptive military potential," says the annual report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The report outlines six types of advanced arms programs that Beijing has made a priority development in seeking "dominance" in the high-tech weapons area. They include maneuverable missile warheads, hypersonic weapons, laser and beam weapons, electromagnetic railguns, counterspace weapons, and artificial intelligence-directed robots.

China revealed two anti-ship ballistic missiles with maneuverable reentry vehicles in 2010 and 2015 and also has set up the sensors and satellites needed for striking moving targets at sea—weapons designed for use against U.S. aircraft carriers and other warships.

Beijing's hypersonic missiles are in the developmental stage but are "progressing rapidly," with seven hypersonic glide vehicle tests since 2014 and one reported scramjet engine flight test in 2015.

Directed energy weapons include work on a high-power microwave anti-missile systems this year and high-energy chemical lasers that can blind or damage satellites.

China also is developing electromagnetic rail guns capable of firing projectiles that use kinetic instead of explosive means to destroy targets.

China's space weapons include direct-ascent antisatellite missiles, ground-based directed energy weapons, and rendezvous and proximity operations for destroying or grabbing satellites.

Artificial-intelligence weapons include robotic, self-thinking cruise missiles, autonomous vehicles, and swarms of drones.

Technology advances supporting the weapons include semiconductors, supercomputing, industrial robotics, and quantum information science.

The threats to the United States from the arms include potential attacks against ships at sea, hypersonic missiles to penetrate missile defenses, targeting U.S. forces with railguns, and space arms that could block U.S. military operations in a future conflict.

China also could use unmanned artificial intelligence weapons in large numbers to saturate U.S. air defenses using swarm technologies.

"Given Beijing’s commitment to its current trajectory, and the lack of fundamental barriers to advanced weapons development beyond time and funding, the United States cannot assume it will have an enduring advantage in developing next frontier military technology," the report concluded. "In addition, current technological trends render the preservation of any advantage even more difficult."

Once characterized by decades-long development, China is moving rapidly in the area of specialized weapons in ways designed not for military parity with the United States but military supremacy.

Advanced weapons work today appears aimed at "moving from a phase of ‘catching-up' to pursuing ‘leap-ahead' technologies," the report said.

The advanced arms could produce potential intelligence surprises that pose a threat to the United States and its forward-deployed forces and regional allies.

"China's achievement of a surprise breakthrough in one of these technologies is possible, due to the secrecy surrounding these programs and the uncertain nature of advanced weapons development in general," the report said, noting, "such a breakthrough could have significant strategic implications for the United States, particularly in its potential to further existing access challenges and hold forward deployed U.S. forces at risk."

Three commissioners, in an "additional views" note in the report, warned China's advanced weapons pose a threat to the Asia Pacific region.

"There are a number of areas where the PLA could make breakthroughs that would be decisive in a conflict with the United States and its regional allies," said James M. Talent, Michael R. Wessel, and Katherine C. Tobin.

"In short, China is not just an asymmetric threat to the United States, or even a near-peer competitor. It has become, in its region, the dominant military power. That fact, more than any other, explains why China’s aggressions over the last five years have been successful."

The successes include encroachment in the South China Sea, imposition of an air defense zone in the East China Sea, aggression against Philippines, coercion of Vietnam, increasing pressure on Taiwan, harassment of Japan and other provocations, they stated.

Rick Fisher, a China military expert, said the commission should be commended for examining China's large investment in advanced military technologies.

"As in most areas of military capability, the United States is in a race with China to develop the technologies and systems that will dominate the future global military balance," he said.

Overall, the report paints a dire picture of Chinese security and economic developments that portend difficult ties with the United States in the coming years.

For example, the commission faulted "Beijing’s discriminatory treatment of U.S. companies and ongoing failure to uphold its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations" as damaging U.S.-China relations.

The current U.S. trade deficit with China was $347 billion in 2016 and $238 billion in the first eight months of 2017.

"U.S. companies are feeling increasingly pressured by Chinese policies that demand technology transfers as a price of admission and favor domestic competitors," the report said.

Internally, high and rising debt levels pose an increasing threat to China's financial stability. Beijing's current total debt reached $27.5 trillion by the end of 2016.

China also has sharply increased investment in the United States in a bid to obtain new technologies, including information and communications technology, agriculture, and biotechnology.

The technology transfers pose risks to U.S. economic and national security interests.

On the South China Sea, the report said China has tightened its effective control of the strategic waterway by militarizing artificial islands, and pressuring states in the region to accept its illegal sovereignty claims.

China's military buildup also is continuing, with new and advanced arms and capabilities, including warships, aircraft and cyber and space weapons.

"The PLA Rocket Force continues to improve both its conventional and nuclear forces to enhance long-range strike and deterrence capabilities and is modernizing its forces to increase the reliability and effectiveness of both conventional and nuclear missile system," the report said.

The missile modernization is "eroding the United States’ ability to operate freely in the Western Pacific."

China also is rapidly expanding its state-controlled media influence operations overseas that involves pressuring foreign publications.

For example, China’s influence over Hollywood and the U.S. entertainment industry has increased and Chinese authorities pressured Cambridge University Press into censoring several academic publications.

"The investment activities of large, Chinese Communist Party-linked corporations in the U.S. media industry risk undermining the independence of film studios by forcing them to consider self-censorship in order to gain access to the Chinese market," the report said.

The report noted that in April, the Chinese government also launched a major international media campaign to discredit a Chinese whistleblower living in the United States.

Among the commissions recommendations are new laws updating the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to deal with potentially threatening Chinese investment.

For example, the commission recommended blocking Chinese-state owned or state-controlled companies to buy U.S. companies.

To counter Chinese influence operations, the panel recommended requiring Chinese state-run media outlets and entities to register as foreign agents "given that Chinese intelligence gathering and information warfare efforts are known to involve staff of Chinese state-run media organizations," the report said.

More U.S. military spending is needed to counter the Chinese buildup of weapons, both traditional and advanced.

"As China expands its role on the world stage, it seeks to diminish the role and influence of the United States in Asia and beyond," the report says. "It is incumbent on U.S. policymakers to advance a coordinated and comprehensive economic, geostrategic, and military strategy that ensures these goals and ambitions do not disrupt U.S. interests at home or abroad."

Reaction from China was swift. The annual commission report was denounced by Chinese state media on Thursday as "another anti-China report."

"From China's perspective, the commission is one of the most hostile U.S. organizations," the Communist Party-affiliated Global Times states.

 

[pakchewcheng]

Chinese will enforce a no-go zone in the Eastern Pacific and the USA carriers dare not move past Haiwaii.
And the Chinese will take the 2nd island chain as well to the first island chain which is already China in all but the name.

US NAVY FEARS China's DF 21D missile WORLDS FASTEST ANTI SHIP MISSILE

A Chinese DF-21D ASBM costs only $5 to $10.5 million. China can afford to build hundreds of them.

China Successfully Tests 'Carrier Killer' Missile In The Gobi Desert.
That was in 2013. The missile will be even more lethal by now and in future


China's 'Carrier Killer' Missile Test

Remember I wrote earlier that the 1st island chain is China in all but the name.

China with her much superior military power and much better missiles and ships are now rising and pushing to that 1st island chain.

Next will be 2nd island chain. And no need to fight either. China just nudge, and USA will give in as USA know now no more ang moh dua kee

It is China dua dua kee.

Just remember I told you all so earlier.
China Is Competing With The U.S. For Military Control Over The Whole Western Pacific

NOV 24, 2017


Ralph Jennings , CONTRIBUTOR

J-15 fighter jets are seen on the flight deck of China's sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, as it arrives in Hong Kong waters on July 7, 2017, less than a week after a high-






If you follow military rivalries in East Asia, start by learning the term “first island chain.” That term refers to the Kuril Islands of Russia, the Japanese archipelago, Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo. If strung together on a map from north to south they form a chain past which China was informally blocked from push its military influence eastward into the open U.S.-dominated Pacific Ocean.

Now China is out to change that. An intelligence aircraft that it flew Saturday near southern outlying islands of Japan came as a recent example. The mission hackles in nearby Taiwan, which had watched a Chinese aircraft carrier encircle it nearly a year ago. In August, Taiwan sighted Chinese planes three times.

Forbes
China's "First Island Chain" - Design by Luke Kelly/Forbes Staff





China wants its world third-ranked armed forces to vie with No. 1, the United States, for influence in the western Pacific instead of being held in check behind the island chain.

“(The Saturday flight) fits a growing Chinese pattern of operating naval vessels and military aircraft beyond the ‘first island chain,’” says Joshua Pollack, editor of The Nonproliferation Review in Washington. “They want to project power there and ultimately push the U.S. further back, or be seen as able to do so.”

Historic U.S. control

The United States and Japan normally police much of the island chain to keep China, their old Cold War foe and rival in modern diplomacy, from passing through. Washington has held annual joint exercises with Manila, as well, and it sells advanced weapons to Taiwan.


“Sealed off by the occupants of the islands, the chain would present a formidable barrier to exit from or entry into the (east and south) China Seas,” the American research institution RAND Corp. says in a 2014 commentary. “This is an ideal opportunity for mischief-making at the PLA Navy’s expense. Contingents scattered on and around the islands and straits comprising the first island chain could give Beijing a bad day” in the case of “geopolitical controversy.”

China's aircraft carrier Liaoning (top L) sails past residential tower blocks in Hong Kong on July 7, 2017. (RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP/Getty Images)

The U.S. military has dominated the Pacific east of the island chain since the end of World War II. Over that time Japan has become a U.S. ally and China has focused more on big domestic issues than military expansion. Today the Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Fleet patrols the western Pacific with some 200 ships and submarines, nearly 1,200 aircraft and more than 130,000 personnel.

Tokyo has backed that fleet through a U.S.-Japan security alliance. Their teamwork has grown from a 1951 deal on U.S. bases in Japan to training and exercises that bind U.S. troops with Japan’s military, which ranks as the world’s seventh strongest.

Enter China

China announced through official news media in 2013 it had “fulfilled its long-held dream of breaking through” the island chain after ships passed between Japan and Russia. The same year Beijing began regular air and naval missions to Japanese-controlled East China Sea waters where it disputes Tokyo’s claim to eight uninhabited islets. Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to tighten command over the military now so it gets better at farther-flung overseas missions, which in turn complement an across-the-board rise in China's international clout.

China’s intelligence aircraft as seen over the weekend “sends a message” around Asia that it “has its own sphere of influence and there’s a new normal,” says Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. Beijing's military probably hopes other countries drop any protests as it does reconnaissance of facilities operated by its Asian neighbors and the United States, he says. China has the same right as any other country to the high seas, Huang adds. “You can’t say China’s exercises are violating existing rules," he says.

=================================================

Chinese air force patrols over South China Sea ‘show PLA’s capacity to breach Cold War line of containment’

Latest training exercise over disputed waters sees jets flying through ‘First Island Chain’


PUBLISHED : Friday, 24 November, 2017, 2:52pm
UPDATED : Friday, 24 November, 2017, 11:16pm

COMMENTS: 21

Minnie Chan
[email protected]


A team of Chinese air force bombers has carried out a series of patrols over the disputed South China Sea, in an exercise the People’s Liberation Army said showed its capability to breach the cold war era line of containment.

SCMP TODAY: HK EDITION



The air force said on Thursday that the exercises involved H-6K bombers flying over the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines and the Miyako Strait near the Japanese island of Okinawa in a series of training exercises.

PLA air force spokesman Shen Jinke told China Central Television that the air patrol aimed to show that Chinese jets had the capability to break the “First Island Chain”, a line stretching from Japan and Taiwan which Beijing says has been used by the United States to contain it since the cold war.

Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said the drill indicated the PLA had been able to deploy different aviation teams from different military regions.

Asean’s ‘landmark’ South China Sea deal may not mean it will all be plain sailing in future

“The PLA is stepping up joint operation combat training as President Xi Jinping ordered them to be combat-ready all the time,” Li said.

“The air patrol also aimed at showing the PLA air force is ready to join with the navy in the high seas for all kinds of missions.”

The Island Chain concept was first mentioned by John Foster Dulles, the US statesman and diplomat, in 1951 during the Korean War as a way of containing Communist countries allied to the Soviet Union.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, China worried that the chain would be used against it.

Recent drills conducted by China’s navy and air force have been used to display the PLA’s ability to gain supremacy in both sea and air around the First Island Chain.

Three American aircraft carriers – the USS Ronald Reagan, the USS Mimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt – are currently operating in the area and recently carried out training exercises with the Japanese navy further to the north in the wake of North Korea’s recent missile tests.

On Wednesday, the US Navy said a C2-A aircraft with 11 passengers and crew had crashed into the Philippine Sea on its return to the USS Ronald Reagan. Eight have since been rescued but three are still missing.

Taiwan leader promises to raise defence spending as she praises ‘unprecedented’ friendship with United States

Shen did not detail how many aircraft were taking part in the drill.

He said the one-day air patrol was aimed at strengthening China’s combat capability in the high seas.

The PLA air force started regular high seas training in 2015.

Late last month, China also sent its H-6K to fly near the US territory of Guam, a US military news portal reported. Military analysts said the patrol was part of a deterrence strategy aimed at the US.

In July, 10 PLA aircraft also passed through the same strategic channels that the air force crossed in the latest drill before flying to the Western Pacific for drills.

Two H-6K bombers deliberately crossed Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone on the island’s east side, causing Taipei to scramble two of its jets to follow them.

China has become increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, where Taiwan and a number of Southeast Asian nations have competing claims.

The mainland authorities regard Taiwan as a breakaway province and have failed to rule out the use of force if the island ever declares independence.





So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.



Kong langjeow wei

 

[pakchewcheng]

You have heard from me the 1st Island Chain and the 2nd Island Chain.

There is also the 3rd Island Chain.

The second island chain runs from Japan in the North, South towards Indonesia encompassing the North Mariana Islands, Guam, and Palau.The third island chain includes the Hawaiian Islands and runs through the mid-Pacific to New Zealand in the South.

In the first phase, which was to be achieved by the year 2000, the PLA Navy needed to be able to exert control over the maritime territory within the First Island China, namely the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea. In the second phase, which has to be achieved by 2020, the navy’s control was to expand to the second island chain. In the third phase, to be achieved by 2050,

here is a 4th Chain. That will include Frisco Bay

That was why I said much earlier the 1st Island Chain is already China in all but the name.

So anymore talk cock about
Then take out China little by little. First thing first, the SCS... island chain around it. Enforce a no fly zone for ship and aeroplane.
Plot the downfall of Yuan.



Kong langjeow wei




THE EVOLUTION OF THE PLA NAVY AND CHINA’S NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS
NOVEMBER 27, 2017


China’s Defense & Foreign Policy Topic Week

By Steve Micallef

Since the beginning of the 21st century the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has steadily developed into a blue-water force able to rely on an ever increasing amount of modern equipment and platforms. This has been the result of years of intense effort on the part of naval planners in support of a more-forward oriented Chinese foreign and security policy. Indeed, until the 1990s, the PLAN was mostly a littoral or brown-water force tasked with protecting China’s waterways and never venturing far from coastal waters. Today the PLAN is enjoying an influx of money and new equipment as well as the fruition of development programs started in the 1990s and 2000s. All this has resulted in a professional force which is able to protect Chinese interest abroad, further Chinese foreign policy, and build Chinese prestige worldwide.

Strategic Context

The communist victory in 1949 was achieved through the efforts of the Army. The PLA could not project power far beyond Chinese Communist shores, indeed Taiwan remained under Kuomintang rule whilst the Kuomintang navy sailed with impunity, raiding coastal installations, merchant craft, and fishing vessels. The PLAN’s first task was to secure the Chinese coast and the Yangtze River and prepare for an invasion of Taiwan.1

Despite this there was a great lack of amphibious equipment and training, naval transportation and air cover for a successful invasion of Taiwan. Despite this, the PLA did manage to occupy Hainan although at a very heavy cost. Renewed American interest in the area at the start of the Korean War and the perceived American commitment to defend Taiwan stopped any further expansion.2

This highlighted the main problem that the PLAN has faced since then, that is, it has limited ability to project power beyond its shores. Although during this period it was mostly due to technological and equipment deficits, geographically China is also disadvantaged. Even if it had managed to acquire blue water capability in the 1950s, China is surrounded by U.S. bases and allies checking its expansion. To an extent this also remains the problem today.

Looking outward from China, one immediately realizes how precarious its geographical position is. Its economy depends on the manufacturing of goods and their export. China depends on oil imports to maintain its economic growth. All shipping movements have to pass through narrow straits and shipping lanes that can be easily cordoned off in case of war. Indeed, the whole of East Asia can be cordoned off through a series of islands that run from north to south, these include the Kuril Islands, the Japanese Archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Northern Philippines, and Borneo; from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the Malay Peninsula. This is known as the first island chain3 and having control of the features and waterways of the chain effectively means control of access to both the China Seas and the Sea of Japan. Similarly, there is also the Second Island and the third island chains. The second island chain runs from Japan in the North, South towards Indonesia encompassing the North Mariana Islands, Guam, and Palau.4 The third island chain includes the Hawaiian Islands and runs through the mid-Pacific to New Zealand in the South. From Beijing’s perspective these island chains cut off China’s access to the high seas, keeping it isolated.

Understandably, the Chinese are obsessed with these geographical features and their naval strategy is dictated by them. As its economy grew and became more dependent on sea trade, China set out to remedy its weakness at sea. For a traditional continental power like China, what Chinese admirals and generals see looking out from Beijing are concentric rings of American naval power stretching all the way across the Pacific (many would consider the U.S. West Coast as the fourth chain with Naval Base San Diego at its center). All these island chains are either directly occupied by the U.S. or by allies who give the U.S. access to ports and facilities.

The first to envision a shift in role for the navy was General Liu Huaqing (1916-2011) in the mid-1980s.5 Until this point the PLAN’s role was that of a subordinate to the PLA, it was a brown-water navy operating close to shore. Using its small units, it was expected to operate up and down the coast in guerrilla style attacks under the cover of land-based artillery and aircraft. This has been labelled as the “coastal defense” strategy. General Liu was instrumental in shifting the PLAN’s strategy into one of “Offshore Defense” and transitioning the navy from a brown-water force to a green-water force, and subsequently to a blue-water one. For this, he has been labelled as “the father of the modern Chinese Navy.”6

According to Liu, the PLAN should strive to develop four important capabilities: the ability to seize limited sea control in certain areas for a certain period of time, the ability to effectively defend China’s sea lanes, the ability to fight outside China’s claimed maritime areas, and the ability to implement a credible nuclear deterrent.7 To achieve this Liu suggested expanding the Navy and strongly advocated for the PLAN to acquire aircraft carriers. Huaqing outlined a three-step program for the PLAN. In the first phase, which was to be achieved by the year 2000, the PLA Navy needed to be able to exert control over the maritime territory within the First Island China, namely the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea. In the second phase, which has to be achieved by 2020, the navy’s control was to expand to the second island chain. In the third phase, to be achieved by 2050, the PLA Navy is to evolve into a true global navy.8 This is the broad outline of the PLAN’s strategy and since the 1980s it has been gradually acquiring the capabilities to carry it out.

Today we are seeing the outcomes of this strategy. The PLAN has expanded rapidly, acquiring the capabilities for a true blue-water force able to protect Chinese interests abroad while Chinese foreign policy expanded concurrently.

The Early Years of the PLAN

In the early 1950s most of the PLAN’s equipment was taken from the naval forces of the Republic of China as they retreated from the mainland. Officially the PLAN was established in September 1950, grouping together all the regional forces, some of which had defected, into a centralized command. The state of the PLAN was nothing to boast about. It was increasingly dependent on the Soviet Union to provide it with training and advisors, while home-built systems were basically none existent. As many as 2,500 Soviet naval advisers were deployed to China to boost the training of Chinese sailors while the Soviet Union also provided much of the PLAN’s equipment.

With the help of the Soviet Union the PLAN was reorganized in 1955 into three operation fleets9 and divided into five distinct branches. Today, the PLAN mostly maintains the same composition: its units are divided between the Submarine Force, the Surface Force, the Coastal Defense Force, the Marine Corps, and the Naval Air Force (established in 1952). All these fall under the responsibility of the three main commands: the North Sea Fleet, based in the Yellow Sea; the East Sea Fleet, based in the East China Sea; and the South Sea Fleet, based in the South China Sea

Throughout the 1950s indigenous shipbuilding programs were instituted, shipyards were constructed, and Soviet-licensed designs were constructed without Soviet assistance. In 1958 when the Soviet Union refused to support the development of Chinese SSNs and SSBNs, the PLAN opened up the first institutes dedicated to the study of shipbuilding, naval weapon systems, underwater weapons, hydro acoustics, and other areas in a bid to remove its dependence on foreign designs.

Expansion continued into the 1960s with the Chinese licensing more complex ship designs and weapons from the Soviet Union. By the mid-70s the PLAN could call upon a series of indigenous designs. In 1971 the Type 051 destroyer was commissioned. This was the first modern surface combatant to be designed and built in China, and the first Chinese ship to be fitted with an integrated combat system. This was followed by the commissioning of the Type 053 frigate and its various subclasses for air-defense, anti-surface, and export purposes. In 1974 the first indigenous designed nuclear submarine started service (the Type 091). Together with this a host of other smaller surface combatants, including gun boats and torpedo boats, also entered service.

However, China had little interest in dominating the seas beyond defense. Its large border with the Soviet Union and the Sino-Soviet Split meant that China preferred to spend its resources guarding the border with the Soviet Union and Vietnam. The risk of a land invasion was perceived as a greater threat and took precedence over maritime power projection. Preoccupied with matters closer to home, the navy continued its training and expansion, competing for resources from other branches.

In the 1980s naval construction fell below the levels of the 1970s. Up until that point the PLAN was still considered a regional naval power with green-water capabilities. Emphasis was placed on personnel development, reformulation of the traditional coastal defense doctrine, and force structure in favor of more blue-water operations; as well as training in naval combined-arms operations involving all elements of the PLAN (submarine, surface, naval aviation, and coastal defense forces). The PLAN also started to venture beyond coastal waters and into the Pacific. However the strong Soviet presence at Cam Ranh Bay kept most naval units tied down in defense of the coast. It also prevented more Chinese involvement in the various Sino-Vietnamese skirmishes.

Gen. Liu Huaqing in March 1996, at closing ceremonies for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing. Credit Greg Baker/Associated Press
Spurred in part by the growth of the Chinese economy and the concentration of industry to coastal areas the Chinese increasingly looked at the sea as an economic lifeline. This was also the era when Liu came to prominence. His friendship with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping allowed him to influence the development of the PLAN. His programs included the reorganization of the navy, redeveloping the Marine Corps, upgrading bases and research and development facilities, and reforming the school system.10 These efforts can be considered as the origin of the professional navy that it is today.

Despite these advances the PLAN was still largely subordinate to the People’s Liberation Army Ground Force until the 1990s. However, during this decade the PLAN continued with its modernization with the acquisition of more modern equipment from Russia and deployments to the Western hemisphere with visits to the U.S., Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

The 21st Century Navy

The PLAN came into its own in the first decade of the 21st century. In terms of equipment the navy is increasingly relying on indigenous constructions. Today, of the entire surface force, only the 4 Russian Sovremenny-class destroyers and a number of Kilo and improved Kilo-class submarines are of foreign origin.11 The PLAN has also managed to acquire an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier from Ukraine which it has commissioned into service as the Liaoning. Whilst its combat capability is limited, it is being used as a testbed and indigenous designs are already under construction.

A number of destroyers and frigates of indigenous design capable of blue-water operations are also in service. The Type 052 destroyers and the Type 054 frigates are all indigenous, proven designs which have been deployed in various operations worldwide. Effort has also gone into the creation of quieter indigenous SSBN.

One may argue that it is not the equipment used but rather the way it is used that is of most interest. While in the early years the PLAN was mostly in charge of coastal defense this has now changed, the main reason being the growing Chinese economy which relies increasingly on the maritime domain for the export and import of goods. The PLAN’s main mission today is to “independently or jointly with the Army and Air Force, to guard against enemy invasion from the sea, defend the state’s sovereignty over its territorial waters, and safeguard the state’s maritime rights and interests.”12

The world got its first demonstration of the PLAN’s new worldwide presence in 2008 when for the first time PLAN vessels were deployed operationally off the Horn of Africa on an anti-piracy mission. PLAN vessels have been escorting merchant shipping in collaboration with other navies ever since.13 The message here is clear, the Chinese leadership is placing the security of its seaborne trade as critical for the overall development of the nation. The sea lines of communication must remain open.14 Overall these missions have been a resounding success for the PLAN and the Chinese have demonstrated remarkable willingness to collaborate on this issue, presenting China as a responsible player on the world stage but also gaining important operational experience in the process. Indeed, short of an all-out war, these operations were the closest that PLAN personnel got to quasi-combat missions.15 The construction of a PLAN base in Djibouti in 201716 is expected to enhance the Chinese presence in the area while also increasing the Navy’s capabilities to project power abroad. This is part of a wider effort to secure vital sea lines of communication through the Indian Ocean.17

The PLAN has been more active worldwide since the first decade of the 21st century. It has been invited and attended RIMPAC in 201418 and 2016,19 and has again been invited in 2018.20 It trained with the Russian Navy during Joint Sea 2016 and 2017 military exercises, the later involving exercises in the Sea of Japan21 and the Baltic Sea.22 The fact that Chinese ships travelled to the Baltic is a testament to how far the PLAN has come. En route the flotilla of Chinese ships made various goodwill visits to Western ports.

Whilst the PLAN has been active in combating piracy abroad, closer to home it has also been employed for less ‘noble’ purposes. The PLAN has been actively supporting the Nine-Dash Line claiming most of the South China Sea. The dependence on seaborne trade, the relative ease by which South China Sea-bound maritime traffic can be blockaded, and the ability of the USN to sail in it without impunity (as during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996 when two aircraft carrier groups were deployed near Taiwan) have reinforced Chinese conviction that it needs to strengthen its defenses. Through its claim of the South China Sea, China has been engaged in a significant land reclamation project and turned minuscule features into military bases, from where aircraft, ships, and shore-based weapons could readily target the shipping transiting the critical waterway. As Admiral Harry Harris put it, the Chinese are building a “Great wall of sand.”23

While the Nine-Dash Line is hardly new, never before has China been able to enforce it. Indeed, after the Second World War, none of the features in the Spratly and Paracel islands were occupied, today various claimants maintain a multitude of facilities.24 This could not have been possible without naval support. China has also demonstrated an unwillingness to compromise, as events regarding Scarborough Shoal, Vietnam’s oil drilling, and the ITLOS ruling have demonstrated. The Chinese Navy and coast guard have steadily pushed out Philippine fisherman from traditional fishing grounds, and China has been left in de facto control.25

In this situation might has made right and China is certainly succeeding in getting its way in the South China Sea. Beyond the protection of trade this could also have other implications. Since the end of the Second World War the U.S. has been able to maintain a permanent presence in the region through a network of alliances and military bases. Under its hegemony the region has prospered economically. A powerful navy would allow China to challenge U.S. dominion in the region and usher in an era where China could be the hegemon in Asia, perhaps even envisioning its own version of the Monroe Doctrine.

Conclusion

The modernization of the PLAN and the broadening of Chinese foreign policy are both linked. A larger, more advanced navy has allowed China to be more present on the world stage. Beyond prestige the PLAN has allowed China to be more engaged and aggressive in its foreign policy dealings. The need to maintain sea lines of communication has pushed China to further develop its navy. One can only speculate on what effect this will have in the long run; whilst some welcome a more present PLAN which can help secure the seas for all, there are those that reason that Beijing will increasingly use its newfound naval strength to expand its sphere of influence, creating an international or regional system that more suits its needs at the expense of others. After all, navies are the chief tool of global power projection and why build capability if not to use it?

Steve Micallef graduated from the University of Malta with a B.A. (Hons) in International Relations in 2015. He also holds an MSc in Strategic Studies from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

 

[pakchewcheng]

China invest in 'BIG BROTHER' satellite to track US military in case WAR breaks out
CHINA could soon have Big Brother style “ghost imaging” satellites that will allow them to track all US military planes, according to local media.

By DAN FALVEY
PUBLISHED: 06:28, Tue, Nov 28, 2017 | UPDATED: 07:41, Tue, Nov 28, 2017






The spy satellites will allow the Chinese government to track stealthy targets such as US B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, which usually cannot be seen, within 10 years.

Using a system called ghost imaging China will be able to take pictures of the military air force, even if they are flying below heavy cloud.

The new equipment would essentially allow them to identify and monitor all aircrafts that are currently invisible at night from space, such as the US Air Force's stealthy B-2 Spirit.

GETTY

China is investing in technology to see all aircrafts flying around the globe

Among the B-2's stealth characteristics is a special outer coating designed to deflect and absorb the waves produced by cameras on satellites in orbit.

Xiong Jun, a physics professor at Beijing Normal University, said: “The theory of ghost imaging has been well established and understood.

“The speed of application very much depends on the government and the amount of money it's willing to spend."



The communist state is currently hoping to invest enough money to have a prototype satellite complete by 2020, test the new technology by 2025 and then implement the big Brother styled satellites by 2030.

The announcement comes after Eric Schmidt, the head of Google’s parent company Alphabet, made a stark warning earlier this month about Beiing’s plans to invest heavily in technology.

Speaking about whether the US or China would have more technological power Mr Schmidt said: “It's pretty simple.










“By 2020, they will have caught up; by 2025, they will be better than us; and by 2030, they will dominate the industries of Artificial Intelligence (AI).”

The tech boss warned that China’s AI strategy could give the communist state the upper hand in any future war with the US.

The American said his country needed to get its “act together” and improve its military procedures for any potential conflict.

GETTY

The Big Brother satellites will show up stealth bombers

GETTY

Donald Trump and Xi Jin-Ping met earlier this month amid rising tensions between the two countries
He accused the US Government of wasting too much time with red tape and pleaded for a change to the military’s planning procedure around the implementation of AI technology.

China’s national AI strategy speaks of the need for the “modernisation of the national defence and armed forced”.

It goes on to say: “The people’s armed forces will be transformed into world-class military by the mid-21st century.”