Russia sells S-400 systems to China

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Shoulder fired SAMs like Stingers usually are fairly close range with usual maximum range of around 5 km (4800 m to be exact) and can hit aircraft at altitudes up to 3,800 m. That means unless the aircrafts are flying very low the chance of you hitting it with shoulder fire SAMs is extremely low.
I'm talking about taking out the drones.
 
That's a funny little tactic. What it is basically is a system of baiting - a robotic bait in front to bait the AA to fire at it so F-35 and the flying truck behind it can fire at the AA. What is funny is when I view that video I keep thinking what is the point of F-35 acting as middleman? They don't need it there - the C-130 can basically just fire the LCCM or drones in front as bait and when the AA engage the drones or LCCM the C-130 then fires the missiles at the AA from safe distance.

Of course, understanding how it works means there are many ways to turn it against this tactic - the baits can be baited themselves - eg. a "bait" bi-static radar transmitter can be further inland while the mobile missile TELs be forward deployed - that means when the LCCM gets baited to fly further inland the trailing C-130 also flies inland too - right into the trap where the S-300/S-400 TELs are which then fire at it in optimal firing distance ensuring 100% kill.

Of course, It can be even simpler than that, the tactic will just evolve into havinig just a swarm of robotic drones that does kamikaze when engaging the target. They don't even need the C-130. Fire the swarms from ship or submarine and it will start loitering the target area engaging targets as needed; then the counter tactic would be having also swarms of drones to engage those drones and we basically have a drone war!

As drones requiring communications can be more easily hacked these drones are better autonomous, as AI for these autonomous drones are developed they are also surreptitiously deployed as self-repairing sleeper cells like Blaster or Soundwave all over potential hostile territory, some of the AI is so successful that they evolve into Skynets and Terminators which in turn out of "love" become the Borg absorbing all organic life!!! I need to develop this into a screenplay.
 

Hyperwarp

Captain
HQ-12 and HQ-16? So how come the Taiwan regime can't even come up with their very own instead of having to wait for Uncle Sam to give them some trick-or-treat sales?o_O

Well they do have their Sky Bow I/II/III series of SAMs. But, unlike Japan, Taiwan does seem to have trouble with seeker tech. Even the TC-2/2A seeker is of Motorola-Raytheon origin. US had once denied clearance for Sky Bow seekers.
 

Akkarin

New Member
Registered Member
Anyone knows what in the S-400 China can't build on its own?

Same as for the Su-35 deal: we dont know. Maybe they want a look at some specific subsystems they havent mastered yet. Maybe they are already on par (or better) than the russians in every regard, but still want a to take a look at it. Maybe they just want some additional units because local manufacturers are already at 100% capacity. Maybe its a purely political deal and the military doesnt really want or need it and would rather order more HQ-9s.

Everything is pure guesswork. Some guesses are more educated than others, but in the end, everyone is just stabbing in the dark.
 
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