PLAAF Munitions

Originally Posted by Totoro

So, are you saying china won't use it because it knows it can't use it? But at the same time, they know other countries might use it so they are selling it outside china only?

Doesn't galileo have just one working mode? Unlike GPS, it is not designed in such a way that owner can selectively deny just the civilian gps signals. In order to deny usage of galileo signal over one area on earth, one has to shut off the signal for everyone there.

Also, we don't know if there is any chinese money in rebuilding of glonass network which is going on at nice pace. Wouldn't be surprised if china is hedging its bets. And such an arrangement could fairly easely be hidden from third parties.

LGB and TV guidance is nice but like said, it is both more expensive and less precise in very harsh weather. Also, range for LGBs is fairly short. Speaking of TV guidance, one can basically turn the bomb into a RC gliding vehicle, no? If it has a protected enough datalink, that is. And target large enough/contrast-y enough for the operator to spot.

Modern e-o (tv guided) bombs probably use scene matching instead of operator control. It makes them fire and forget, more resistant to jamming, and possibily more accurate. From an AI point of view, scene-matching is a well-studied problem. Though it would be much harder for a glide bomb, since there's a much larger chance of deviation and hence a harder search for the target.

Though laser and E-O may be more expensive, they're also more jamming proof. Anything with a satelite in the link, has a rather weak link.

The recent news of the Galileo's code being broken is interesting. In retrospect China dropping out of that project was a good decision. Perhaps they saw problems coming. I'm sure China is hedging its bets with respect to satelite guidance: Beidou 1/2, Glonass, GPS, Galileo are probably all impelemented to some extent. Recent Chinese weapon systems all prominently feature modularity as a design concept. I think it is likely that any precision weapon would just have a standardized interface to a positioning system, and the most useful module (at the time of use) would be snapped in.

Do we have any information about this on our site ?

Picture: Chinese precision-guided gliding bomb revealed
A picture has been published of what appears to be a new precision-guided bomb developed by China, possibly under the designation LS-6.


The image has been revealed on the Chinese Military Aviation website which says the weapon was first revealed this month and is apparently in the 500kg class.

The bomb has what are presumably foldable wings, and cruciform tail surfaces for guidance, giving a possible stand-off range of tens of kiometres depending on launch altitude. Conceptually it closely resembles the US Longshot system used to give precision capability to dumb bombs.

It is uncertain how the bomb is guided but it could be able to use the US GPS or Russian Glonass satellite navigation systems - possibly with an eye to the export market.

China has itself long talked of developing an indigenous satellite navigation capability and is also a partner in Europe's Galileo.

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles...+revealed.html

PLAAF Munitions

We discussed it there though there's no additional info, just speculation.

This year zhuhai airshow Chinese JDAM type smart bomb was seen among the display,call FT-1.
JDAM type smart bomb was first reveal 2 years ago,to enchant her accuracy,small IR imaging camera was fitted.

I started this thread because I wanted to know aboyt PLAAF PGM.

I find the picture of the Chinese JDAM very curious. Some markings are "PS'ed" ot of the picture. No biggy. But what sort of defense sattlite tech does China have to operate this bomb? US JDAM uses the extensive and robust US DoD sattlite system.

Bottom line is is real or not??

Bomb itself is real, no doubt about that. It's been featured prominently at this year's zhuhai airshow. Its guidance method is murky, though. INS is a sure thing but that in itself is not that useful if launching platform doesn't have precise realtime navigation data. What has been suggested is that it relies on public GPS data which would be off limits to china in any conflict but would probably be available to other countries in smaller scale conflicts. Therefore, it may be for export only.

Originally Posted by Totoro

Bomb itself is real, no doubt about that. It's been featured prominently at this year's zhuhai airshow. Its guidance method is murky, though. INS is a sure thing but that in itself is not that useful if launching platform doesn't have precise realtime navigation data. What has been suggested is that it relies on public GPS data which would be off limits to china in any conflict but would probably be available to other countries in smaller scale conflicts. Therefore, it may be for export only.

well, I'm first going to post the pictures of the three major types of PGMs that they demonstrated in Zhuhai.
This is FT-1 along with FT-3

This is the JSOW like weapon - LS-6

And this is the new generation export LGB - LT-2

The first two would need some kind of satellite guidance, so I guess right now, we can only speculate what kind of guidance they use. I would imagine Beidou 2 has to be the preferred satellite guidance in future (ie: 2010 onward). I read on Chinese forum that Beidou 2's accuracy would be comparable to that of GPS in areas close to China. But I think what this shows is that China has these types of weapons ready already, it's just waiting for its own satellite network to be up in order to fully utilize its PGMs.

Hmmmm .... ????? Just found at CDF !

J-8H or F + LS-6 ... real or PSed ???? ... and the number 60093 is also strange to me !

Deino

Oh brother..the PS artist are at it again...jeez..That LS-6 is PS'ed..no doubt about it. look at the position of the weapon on the pylon. It's just not quite right.

Of course I could be wrong..yea right..

The PGM pics are real. But are the weapons? The grey LT-2 looks like a laser guided bomb should. It does. It is probally the real deal. The red FT-1 looks like a certain type of munition we had in the USN...

The white FT-3 has no lug nuts to load it. So it is just a mock up.

What I would like to know is there any data in English about the testing of these weapons?

Thanks!

It does look real to me. Would be very difficult to PS this, since you don't have an existing picture of the LS-6 at that angle. I don't see any motivation of changing PL-8s to R-73s, and the 6 number in the first digit may be that of a new test group.

I would say its bogus. Not only is there a picture from the zhuhai airshow that fits it (when you shrink it, flip it horizontally and vertically) then all you need is some airbrushing around and you can easely pull off what has been done on this pic.

On top of that, why j-8II??? for the photoshopper, i can understand that it was a clear pic of an underbelly of a plane, and they needed to use a not well known pic. But it makes VERY little sense that j8II would be carrying a guided bomb, let alone testing a prototype and let alone doing it on center pylon. It would have certainly be done on underwing pylon of any plane. On this particular plane, it also looks to take it over the clearance from the ground, as i remember how j8II looks with that small fuel tank on belly pylon, very close to the ground. and this is bigger.

I've seen the J-8II carry two multiple racks of 250kg bombs on the underbelly. One rack each has 3 250kg bombs. So yeah, an LS-6 can clear the belly. The wing height of the plane is quite high given the pics of maintenance people around the plane.

Note that the bomb has gradient lighting from underneath, with the shadow on top. Meaning it's lighter on the bottomside than on the top. That is consistent of an object whose photo is taken airborne hanging from a plane's belly.

If you took the picture of the bomb from the airshow, two things would happen. First with ambient lighting the bomb would be yellowish in color. Second, if the picture was taken with a flash, it would have a flat lighted appearance. Neither of which fits the way the bomb is lighted in this picture.

J-8IIs have been seen with rocket pods and bombs. It's quite clear the plane has a secondary strike role.

I must add that the J-8IIs are the favorite test platforms used to test technologies, many of whom don't end up in some version of the J-8II but in other planes. It's China's flying lab animal.

Originally Posted by bd popeye

I started this thread because I wanted to know aboyt PLAAF PGM.

I find the picture of the Chinese JDAM very curious. Some markings are "PS'ed" out of the picture. No biggy. But what sort of defense sattlite tech does China have to operate this bomb? US JDAM uses the extensive and robust US DoD sattlite system.

Bottom line is is real or not??

according to miltech,the electronic component for JDAM can easily purchased in the commercial market.
the FT-3 resemble russian JDAM.but what happen to FT-2?

And another one ....



Seems to proove that these tests are quite further advanced than we thought ... and definitly no PS !!!

Besides ... it also looks not like a PL-8s or R-73 missile but more like some kind of an instrumentation pod as I suggested .... any other suggestion H or F-version ???

Thanks for posting, Deino