SinoDefence Forum

dh19440113

The US purchased 168 copies of the 100 million dollar F-22. It will purchase 1000 or more F-35A at 48 million, F-35b Stovl 63 million, F-35C 62 million.
If they replace all of these by 2029, than american tax payer will be up and arms.

X-45/47 UCAV are designed to be attack aircraft, that relies heavily on GPS SATNAV. They don't have air to air capability yet. All UCAV landing on carrier has ended in wave offs. Air force cancelled their UCAV program for a new heavy bomber. Air force aren't stupid, they don't want machine to take their jobs.

SATNAV is the most vulnerable arsenal of the US arm forces. China has done multiple satelite intercept to prove this in the last few years.

IDONT the J-10 demonstrator was fitted with lyuka thrust vectoring engine and showed super manuverability. Its 1 out of 4

I am happy this thread is taking off, but be cordial or the finnish inquisitor will close this thread and give everyone warnings.

zhouj

Fifth generation aircraft is defined primarily by stealth; 4.5th generation aircraft contain or are capable of being fitted with advanced electronics and super maneuverability. Let's quote the full wikipedia article you chose to plagiarize:

Please be less selective when you quote and use slightly more common sense when misrepresenting your source's definition.

In fact, my point that was there was no way all the aircraft on that list would fail to be deployed before the F-22 replacement comes out. Tell me how any commentary on the J-12/13/14 disproves that.

dh19440113

"background info" : Us electronics and material engineering design had a significant lead on china and russia because they were either previously broke due to collapse of soviet union or backward due to cultural revolution. Now, its different. Russian economy is getting a boost from oil discovered in sibieria and china economy growth and western investment in its manufacturing.
The 21st century chinese and russian are readily coming to the west to get their engineering college degrees and go back to occupy high paying positions. The one's that stay behind are using the same textbook as american university.
This mean that the technology gap will shrink instead of grow.

The fighters designed by these young blood will be more capable than American give them credit for.

On the other hand, Republican has put america in a huge deficit, the interest rate increase as they borrow more.
Where is the money for air superiority fighter replacement in 2029 going to come from.

The more likely senario is that by the time J-xx come out, USAF has gain sufficient experience with their plane that they have tactical advantage over their PLAAF counterpart.

Look, I know what you said first here is likely, but there's always the chance of Chengdu blowing up, or worse, another revolution. We can take speculation, even darn true ones, so far.

And please DON'T bring in politics and the Republicans.

Sumdud

IDonT

Correct, the ATF, the F-15 replacement was initiated in 1981. The fly off competition between TWO different designs (F22 and F23) occured in August 1991. The F-22 won that competition.

As you said, US defense procurement is very political and encompasses Congress, Defence contractor lobbyist, and the military. If there is money to be made painting China and resurgent Russia as developing an F-22 beater, it will be made.

Tell me again how long the J-10 and FC-17 was in development before it came into service? Even now they still rely on Russian engines.

The Chinese aircraft industry has made significant leaps in the last few aircraft cycles, but developing full aspect stealth, low intercept AESA, supercruise, and supermanueverability on a stealth airframe are still a long way.

By the way, I did not plagiarized wikipedia. I took the 1st and 3rd sentence of that page. The rest of the post regarding high thrust to weight ratio, wing loading, look down- shoot down capability was mine.

We are digressing on the thread topic, I'm afraid.

zhouj

There's more money to be made by portraying China as a F-15 and F-16 beater than throwing away the sunk cost of F-22 development; it's much more cost-efficient and profitable to portray there to be a significant need for F-22 squadrons because of the advent of F-15 beaters than there is to spend 20 years developing a F-22 replacement. Corporations don't throw away products; they milk them for every cent that they can. You have a very poor conceptualization of economic thought.

The point is that a F-15 replacement wasn't in service for 30+ years and that was at the height of the Cold War. Don't expect F-22 replacements for decades.


You're comparing the development time-frame during the Communism phase of Chinese development to the one now? Are you intentionally being daft? Yes, aircraft systems are lengthy developments but no, Chinese funding levels are much higher and innovation is much more emphasize. Do you also like to feign ignorance of the WS-10A? They rely on Russian engines because at the time of design finalization, those were the ones available. It's changed. Now, your argument, again, was that NONE of those planes would see service before the F-22 replacement came out. That's obviously been proven to be an incredibly asinine and virtually impossible assertion.

Copying sentences verbatim is plagiarism regardless of whether it two sentences or twenty. Did you not learn that in grade school? You also completely fail to address the point that your own source identified stealth as the main characteristic of fifth generation aircraft.

Money drives the world and everything and everyone can be bought. It's not a question of whether China will deploy a fifth generation fighter in the next two decades, it's a question of how soon.

dh19440113

IDONT If you're talking about WS-10A, it has been cleared for install on J-10. Since JF-17 can't be exported to pakistan with russian engine, the first batch to delivered to pakistan must have been installed with indiginous engines.

Since IDont is talking about 6th gen air superiority fighter, what are its characteristic for dog fighting? I can see that it has no tail to reduce radar signature which is a (new feature) and 3d thrust vector which is already part of S-50 demonstrator's design. Has the 6th gen fighter characteristic been defined?
From the X-36 demonstrator, relative few new features has been established. Its a losing proposition to start a new fighter program with the relative small technological gain we have now. The defense department will probably wait till AI is mature for UCAV before a next gen fighter replacement is even considered.

sumdud

Check the news again, Russia seems to have allowed China to re-sell the RD. Check FC-1 Thread.

But guys, you are REALLY drifting off topic. How are stealth fighters going to dogfight? With what?

__________________

Give us a break. Don't try ranting at SDF.

dh19440113

The American fighters F-22 and F-35 has defined short range arsenals. Both
F-22A F-35A/C has built in gatling cannon F-35B has a verticle machine gun pod. All US arsenal can fire Aim-9X lock-on after launch. J-XX and PAK's new weapon suite are still undivalged. There are indication that both will feature new lock on after launch weapon suite (5th generation IR).

spec 5th generation IR
lock on after launch, (since missile can't squeal or lockon while holstered internally)
guidence by HMS,
thrust vector missile/super manuverable,
advanced seeker that lockon IR imagery.
seeker paint a image of enemy IR sig, missile computer that match IR sig with known countermeasure, only unique IR sig is targeted.

Raptoreyes

China won't sell its stealth to either the Cubans or the North Koreans so long as they have difficulty detecting those airplanes on their own ground defense sets. Remember that dictatorial regimes are more likely to attack one another. Any state that regards its own citizens as property of the state is more likely to sacrifice other citizens from other states to the same governmental bureaucracy. Enemies after all make dangerous friends. The North Koreans relationship to the Chinese after all cannot be in any way likened to you United States relationship with the United Kingdom.(Even Franco-American relations are more trusting than relations between the PRC and NK.)

Well said and I think it's useful to note that the Soviet Union only achieved partial military technological parity with the United States by so severely neglecting her internal economy that she imploded all on her own. Thus it's likely that the list the fifth generation fighters is much shorter than the original one provided in this thread.

Also remember that the once dreaded MIG 21 proved far less fearsome once we had a team of American experts take the thing apart after Belenko successfully to defected to Japan in the early 80s. I'm sure many of the fighters on the list will look the same, once we get a good look at them up close or a good test against them in actual combat.

Personally I'm much more worried about the US military's hostility in the upper ranks to teaching superb dogfighting tactics to its pilots, than any supposed technological edge or parity a hostile nation could get with the US.

Actually the top speed of the "flying cocktail lounge"---- err.... MIG 21 could achieve a safe speed of Mach 2.5, but anything above that and the engines would accelerate out of control which is why NATO mistakenly believed that the aircraft had an operational top speed of Mach 3.5 when one such aircraft was seen doing that speed over Egypt. (The MIG in question suffered heavy damage from going that speed, but such information took quite some time to become generally known.) In any case the Mach 2.1 number that you cite had more to do with the often sloppy and inpure high octane alcohol that Soviet distilleries at the time were putting out to fuel the plane.


Please note that the current US military figures for fighter and fighter replacements and for any hard military hardware for that matter are merely a sign of the times and not an upper speed limits so to speak. If cold war style tensions flare up between China and the United States for any significant length of time, the rate of generational improvement in US fighters could double or even triple. Please keep in mind that between major wars (not the terrorist police actions we see now) but rather wars against worthy opponents, the United States is capable of remarkable and nimble speed in technological development.

Before World War II the United States was far behind both axis primary powers in many types of military technology. The gap however did not take long to close in the most vital areas of warmaking technology. Quite simply the United States is keeping up with the rest of the world and maintaining a slight advantage in its sleep. The US military is doing all this while living on a thin stipend of 6% of GDP. Just think what would happen if Congress was really motivated and afraid enough to truly open the purse strings and unleash the experts upon the problem of developing a next-generation fighter with far greater speed and intensity.

On the other hand a major depression would depress US military progress faster than it would her more dictatorial possible future opponents. Indeed it was a major reason why we're so far behind the axis Powers at the opening of World War II. The point is that the speed of US military technological development outstripping or falling behind other nations tend to more of a matter of the United States being motivated to compete rather than the competition's ability to compete with the United States. After all freedom and creativity in the American style of things tends to put a supercharger on technological developments that does not take place in most other nations to nearly the same extent and he is rather underdeveloped in countries lacking proper checks and balances to government power.

This might be the best point you bring up Dh19440113. Information intensive warfare is still at this writing quite vulnerable to disruption. It is still far easier to shoot down satellites then to properly protect them. Most of the weapons systems that could shoot down possible Chinese satellite killers aimed at American orbital assets were originally designed to destroy ICBM style weapons in the boost phase. Unfortunately destroying satellite killers in the boost phase is an extremely provocative act and dealing with a weapon of that type once it has picked up speed is far more difficult to say the least. It's also unclear whether or not the United States has installed enough backup communications capacity into orbit to be able to withstand a partial loss of space assets without the necessity of reverting to an older less advantageous warfare paradigm.

Raptoreyes

Future dogfights may happen in the closer range than previously. The trend has been since the beginning of aerial combat for combat to happen at longer and longer ranges. Stealth technology tends to reverse this trend. Certain weapons systems that were once out of favor, such as machine gun pods and other such things may come back into vogue. Visual detection range may again become a requirement and radar, or least radar aboard the aircraft themselves is rendered far less reliable. The fuzzy logic chips on many homing missiles left to become extraordinarily advanced so as to extrapolate an aircraft's course from only intermittent radar or IR data, to say nothing of accounting for evasive maneuvers under such circumstances.

Visual imaging technology controlled by more advanced computers than we may have a moment may also make a more traditional style dogfight possible again. However I expect by this time that the actual pilots will be controlling their aircraft from ground stations as an unmanned vehicle controlled by the operator on the ground will be able to perform maneuvers that are just not possible, for even the most physically fit to men and women.

As for China selling Russian technology without full Russian consent? At least as your sentence implies above this would seem to indicate that Russia ease off on any sort of exports to China of major weapons systems. The Russians may be desperate for cash but if they get burned often enough they will stop selling to the Chinese government.

Roger604

Mig-21

No it wasn't. Germany had a mere edge over the allies at the beginning. Japan was significantly BEHIND the US. The allies won because of quantity, not quality.

Last time I checked, almost nobody spends 6% of GDP on military. The actual figure for the US is even higher if certain uncounted costs are figured!

See USSR.

It's an interesting assertion, and I agree. But actually this principle works against the US nowadays, not for it.

peperez

Oooops! Wrong numbers...

Argentina has no Kfir. They use Daggers, a kind of Israeli built Mirage V. Brazilian Air Force (the FAB) has only 46 F-5E fighters. Some of them, around 20, were modernized to F-5EM standard. Of 53 AMX attack planes, only 12 are avaiable. FAB intends to modernize all of them to A-1M standard, with same Elbit designed cockpit used at F-5EM modernization. Defence Ministry also intends to built another Mirage 2000C Squadron. At the next year, Brazilian Air Force intends to select his new fighter. Rafale and Sukhoi 35 are the preferred candidates.

Cheers from Brazil

Pepe

dh19440113

Dont' confuse mig 25 Foxbat against Mig 21 Fishbed.

Updated numbers good, where do you find these numbers from? My Jane's guide is a bit out of date.

During the vietnam war at the peak of tension, the USAF declare dogfighting dead, because the us has developed unreliable sidewinder and sparrow missile that sometimes fall like a droptank, on top of that pilots weren't being trained in close encounter air to air tactics.
Alot of USAF fighter pilots were shot down by obsolete mig-17 fresno and mig-19 farmer. At one time, the kill ratio was 1 to 1 against NVA in dogfights.
If neglegence is the benefit that generation improvement bring to USAF, then F-22 pilots are in trouble.

F-22/F-35 rely too heavily on high tech BVR radar 150km and beyond. They are again, neglecting air to air training and instead have easy BVR training against F-15s. This will be a disaster, when facing a PAK Su-50 that has superior 3d thrust vectoring and anticipating close dogfights with F-22.

Raptoreyes

Whoops you were talking about the Mig 21. My mistake hehe.... the middle of the night might not be the best time to read this forum to be sure.


Well the 1960's were a perfect storm so to speak. With one of the worst presidents in American history in office IMO. No country in history has EVER won a purely defensive war but LBJ decided to fight the Vietnam war consistently on that basis. Even the former president of South Vietnam commented on the absurdity of this if the strategy, in his autobiography.

Then there is the downright incompetence of Robert McNamara thrown into the mix. Apparently running Ford Motor Co. and a pair of other corporations into the ground, wasn't good enough evidence for the Johnson administration to deny him a cabinet post. As a civilian and military leadership goes the 1960s was indeed the lowest of the low. Never before and never since have things ever been run so poorly or so many boneheaded decisions been made in any other 10 year time span. Such poor management of from above will quite naturally destroy the effectiveness of fighter pilots at far lower rungs of the command chain. Nevertheless the 60s were a horrid aberration which we will not soon see again.

Yet politics aside I think we can all agree that the disasters detailed above from that era were more the work of horrible policymaking, procurements, and military management. When properly trained and led the US military technological advantage begins to play key a role. Nevertheless I heartily agree that the USAF is once again trending back towards an over reliance on fire and forget weaponry especially in an era where fighter craft feature both excellent maneuverability and some stealth capability as well. Better training regimens for fighter pilots are indeed needed in the USAF.

Raptoreyes

As another pointed out I confused the ordinary MIG 21 Fishbed with the extraordinary MIG 25 Foxbat when reading an earlier post... my bad.


I wouldn't call the differences between say... the Tiger tank and the Sherman tank a mere edge. Nor I call the differences between the Fokker wolf in the Buffalo Brewster a mere edge, to say nothing of the Buffalo Brewster versus the Zero Fighter. Most of the early Curtis Hawk aircraft could not compete with axis designs either. By any static analysis the United States was at least 10 years behind but made up the difference in a tiny fraction of that time.

For example the famed flying Tigers were given standing instructions never to dogfight zeros as no plane in the sky at that time could turn inside of the Zero Fighter. It was not until about 1943 that the United States had a qualitative edge over the Empire of Japan in the majority of air to air engagements in the Pacific. And let's not forget that Germany was one whole aeronautical age ahead of us (near wars end) with jet engines and rockets against the US/British Air Force that was still entirely propeller driven.

The last part of your comment above however is absolutely right. The allies mainly won the war by quantity over quality. This being the age before microchips and guided weapons, such strategy worked quite well. That strategy is no longer a feature of contemporary (large-scale open battlefield) warfare, particularly when you're talking about air combat.

Whether you're comparing official numbers against official numbers or including expenditures that tend to elude official accounting, the United States still tends to get more bang for its buck for every military dollar spent. In any case the United States is not the only government out there that grossly understates its actual military expenditures via accounting gimmicks (they all do every single one) and indeed this is a feature of bureaucracy in general, no matter what you're spending money on... Especially in the public sector.

As dishonest as the US government is in its accounting, it's far more honest than most other governments out there about such matters. In other words most governments hide even more of their military expenditures as most other governments are far less accountable.


I wonder how long it'll take before China replaces the USSR in this role?

I'm not sure what you mean. The patent and copyright system of the United States originated by Thomas Jefferson has never been fully replicated nor improved on by any other nation. Inventors and most other nations are much more vulnerable to having their hard work a comb filter by corporations were more commonly the government if we're talking about militarily relevant technologies. How would the US edge in creative thinking hinders the US today when it is helped so greatly in the past? Please explain!