Chinese UAV/UCAV development

jackliu said:

If you go to page 51's last post, you can see 3 pictures. That should answer your question. Remember J-31 was displayed as a full model in 2010 Zhuhai airshow then less than 2 years later it took flight.

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A separate question is how effective is Stealth Drone? I mean aren't they slow (even though stealthy)?
I mean if you don't mind that I post this article here, it basically says that the X-47B Drone will render Chinese ASBM obsolete. Seriously?
Is this a hype or real?



By the way, Jackliu, I saw the pictures you mention, but without any weapons, unlike X-47B. I am not sure if those pictures intend to convey UAV or UCAV.

balance said:

A separate question is how effective is Stealth Drone? I mean aren't they slow (even though stealthy)?
I mean if you don't mind that I post this article here, it basically says that the X-47B Drone will render Chinese ASBM obsolete. Seriously?
Is this a hype or real?

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By the way, Jackliu, I saw the pictures you mention, but without any weapons, unlike X-47B. I am not sure if those pictures intend to convey UAV or UCAV.

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Well X-47B come from X-47A which was unarmed, so it is very possible this UAV is a step in the development of the end product. So there is no way to say, but what I see is that whatever US is trying to develop there is for sure a parallel program in China doing the exactly same thing.

For that article, use your logic, it assumes DF-21D's range is less than 3000 miles, and X-47B's range is greater than 3000 miles which means the carrier can park almost next to Hawaii and conduct bombing runs against China. But think about it, by the time X-47B is in mass deployment, I'll guarantee you China will have a similar program as well, so that means if US decide to use drones against China, what is preventing China from using drones attacking the US carrier in return?

If you use your critical thinking, you can find a lot of articles like this, it always assumes that whatever the wonder weapon US is developing will only be available for US while everyone else will stay at the exact same technology level for the next 100 years, so that when the US super weapon is ready... they will be unstoppable or something. The world no longer in the 19th century where Western civilization have the absolute advantage over other civilization like firearm vs swords, today whatever one side is going to develop, the everyone else will take notice and develop the same thing or counter measures.

jackliu said:

Well X-47B come from X-47A which was unarmed, so it is very possible this UAV is a step in the development of the end product. So there is no way to say, but what I see is that whatever US is trying to develop there is for sure a parallel program in China doing the exactly same thing.

For that article, use your logic, it assumes DF-21D's range is less than 3000 miles, and X-47B's range is greater than 3000 miles which means the carrier can park almost next to Hawaii and conduct bombing runs against China. But think about it, by the time X-47B is in mass deployment, I'll guarantee you China will have a similar program as well, so that means if US decide to use drones against China, what is preventing China from using drones attacking the US carrier in return?

If you use your critical thinking, you can find a lot of articles like this, it always assumes that whatever the wonder weapon US is developing will only be available for US while everyone else will stay at the exact same technology level for the next 100 years, so that when the US super weapon is ready... they will be unstoppable or something. The world no longer in the 19th century where Western civilization have the absolute advantage over other civilization like firearm vs swords, today whatever one side is going to develop, the everyone else will take notice and develop the same thing or counter measures.

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I see your point. But my question remains: why bother with stealth UCAV? If SAM can take care of those things, problem is solved, isn't it? If SAM can't handle them, then they must be really good.
Maybe swarming China with these things will be the ultimate goal: no human casualties, cheap to mass produce.

Aside from making its own stealth drone, what type of weapon in the present or future China inventory that can deal with this type of threat?
Does "stealth" mean that no Chinese radar, Early Warning Aircraft or anything like that can detect it? Are they that elusive or magical? Why is US media so optimistic about this weapon?
I mean, when you are optimistic about something, it must be that you don't see how your opponent can do anything about it, right?

And, if your scenario happens, China will take heavier blow. Look, Chinese UCAV can only attack Hawaii, but X-47B can attack Mainland Chinese.
If I am a US commander, I will swarm China with this. I sacrifice Hawaii only, but I can destroy all critical infrastructures in mainland China.

Reasonable logic, is it?

balance said:

I see your point. But my question remains: why bother with stealth UCAV? If SAM can take care of those things, problem is solved, isn't it? If SAM can't handle them, then they must be really good.
Maybe swarming China with these things will be the ultimate goal: no human casualties, cheap to mass produce.

Aside from making its own stealth drone, what type of weapon in the present or future China inventory that can deal with this type of threat?
Does "stealth" mean that no Chinese radar, Early Warning Aircraft or anything like that can detect it? Are they that elusive or magical? Why is US media so optimistic about this weapon?
I mean, when you are optimistic about something, it must be that you don't see how your opponent can do anything about it, right?

And, if your scenario happens, China will take heavier blow. Look, Chinese UCAV can only attack Hawaii, but X-47B can attack Mainland Chinese.
If I am a US commander, I will swarm China with this. I sacrifice Hawaii only, but I can destroy all critical infrastructures in mainland China.

Reasonable logic, is it?

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Well let's put it this way... first of all let us assume nukes and ICBM does not exist, otherwise this whole discussion is moot, as soon as US inflect any signification damage to China, or China inflect any significant damage to US no one can predict when will ICBM start flying and kill 1/4 of world population. Let's assume there is no nuclear weapon.

As for stealth, I think you misunderstand what it is, stealth does not mean 100% invisible on radar, stealth only means you detect the aircraft at closer range. Any jet fighter can pick up F-22 on radar if they are close enough. And when you want to use massive X-47B to attack China, trust me.... you will see a wall of radar reflection back on your screen, and yes, they will be detected well before they reach China. That article is not stupid enough to suggest that waves and waves of invisible X-47 will turn China into ruins overnight, the main emphasis is on the range of the drone than anything else.

Next, let's examine flight time, so you are saying US will park carrier 4000+ miles off Chinese coast and send swarms and swarms of suicide X-47B attacking China. I said "suicide attack" because it will be logical to assume that a lot of X-47B can reach mainland and release their payload, but most of the X-47 will not come back. Because open sources states that X-47B's cruse range is Mach 0.45, now go do some calculation on if the drone is flying at mach 0.45, how long will it take to fly over 4000 miles? It is going to take 11 hours, I'm pretty sure they will be detected well before they get anywhere close to China, that means a lot of them will get shot down, but if the drones are lucky they can release their payload 100+ km away from the target so they can still inflect some damage, but that will give China plenty of time to detect it incoming and leaving, so most of it will get shot down.

Your next assumption is that the attack is one sided, so if China can detect massive X-47 launch well before it reach mainland, what is to stopping China from launching their own massive waves of X-47 targeting the US carrier? And of course the same logic applies, most of the drones will get shot down, but some of them will get to release their payload and sink the carrier. So if you are the US commander are you going to take the trade off?

Your next assumption is that only US will have carrier parked in the middle of pacific, I think it is safe to say the day X-47B gets mass development will take at least 20-30 years. So it is also safe to assume by the year 2030-2040 China will have at least half a dozen carrier on their own, so if you think US will launch suicide X-47 on China, what is stopping China from launching suicide drones on California?

And lastly going back to my previous point, it takes X-47 over 10 hours of flying time, by the time it reaches China a lot of it will get shot down, so have you took a look at China lately on the map? If you do, I'm pretty sure it will take more than 1 waves of suicide drone attack on China to cripple it, so it is impossible to kill China in one blow unless you use nuclear weapons which we assume the world does not have for this discussion. And I will also assume that this X-47 suicide attack is gong to be Pearl Harbor style surprise attack on China, and the worst thing about surprise attack is... you only do it once, and it is impossible to cripple an entire nation base on a surprise attack, US can't do it to Vietnam or Iraq or Syberia, what are the chances they can do it on China? Once the surprise is over... the real war starts. will US commander risk that?

Or you can argue that US indeed can pull off one massive surprise drone attack that is powerful enough to cripple China in one stroke, but in order to do this, you will need more than 1 or 2 or 10 carriers, you would need 100 carriers each loaded with 150+ drones. I'm pretty sure this is impossible, and if US did have 100 carriers parked in one spot, trust me Chinese spy satellite will be watching them 24/7 so they can't be a surprise anymore. And if US have 100 carrier, I'm pretty sure China will have have 50 parked in range of California. As soon as US launch the drones China will do the same to US.

So again... you are making the falsely that US will do this... do that... and it will win. Next time before you ask something, ask yourself, if US can do it, what is preventing other nation from doing the same thing?

90% of Serbian armor survived the Kosovo War. That's because NATO couldn't tell a decoy from the real thing. Even when they suspected decoy they had to hit it just in case. That just tells you it's easy to hide things if the other side doesn't know where it is. China is a lot bigger than Kosovo.

The UAV that everyone's talking about is the Sharp Sword bomber, which has been built by 601 and will fly in 2012 or 2013. That's according to Hui Tong.

but NATO has a second option,targeting the serbia insfractrature.making the city unlivable..witness the saw same tactics during the israel hezbullah war in 2007, when israel begin to target shite muslim enclave in beirut.

hardware said:

but NATO has a second option,targeting the serbia insfractrature.making the city unlivable..witness the saw same tactics during the israel hezbullah war in 2007, when israel begin to target shite muslim enclave in beirut.

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Serbia and Hezbollah is NOT China, those nations can't even defend their own airspace, NATO and Israel was bombing them more like a target practice than anything that resemble a real warfare.

China can defend it is airspace and produce hardware just as advanced as US and NATO in the next 20-30 years when X-47B is expected to go into wide deployment.

Fact it, there is no wonder weapon anymore that US and NATO can use against China anymore. War between US and China will only end in disaster and set human race back for 100 years or more. The only option is peaceful co-existence between those two nations and work together.

jackliu said:

Serbia and Hezbollah is NOT China, those nations can't even defend their own airspace, NATO and Israel was bombing them more like a target practice than anything that resemble a real warfare.

China can defend it is airspace and produce hardware just as advanced as US and NATO in the next 20-30 years when X-47B is expected to go into wide deployment.

Fact it, there is no wonder weapon anymore that US and NATO can use against China anymore. War between US and China will only end in disaster and set human race back for 100 years or more. The only option is peaceful co-existence between those two nations and work together.

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The fact that US develops X-47B seems to suggest that DF-21D is a credible threat to them. If DF-21D is not a real threat, why station your carrier 3000 miles away, and dvelop carrier-borne stealth UCAV?
I think this is an indirect confirmation that they know better how effective DF-21D is.

jackliu said:

Serbia and Hezbollah is NOT China, those nations can't even defend their own airspace, NATO and Israel was bombing them more like a target practice than anything that resemble a real warfare.

China can defend it is airspace and produce hardware just as advanced as US and NATO in the next 20-30 years when X-47B is expected to go into wide deployment.

Fact it, there is no wonder weapon anymore that US and NATO can use against China anymore. War between US and China will only end in disaster and set human race back for 100 years or more. The only option is peaceful co-existence between those two nations and work together.

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Exactly! Decades of fighting much inferior enemies has allowed the West to form a habit of not thinking about defense. As the coaches say, defense wins you championships. You can win many games in the regular season, but you won't go too far in the playoffs when people start to defend. If the West is a kick-ass professional basketball team, it has been playing high school B-ball teams, bad ones. So when faced with another NBA team, they have to change their strategy completely. Although this new opponent may not be as good as they are, it is still an NBA team. They will lose badly if they treat this NBA team like those bad high school teams they played in the past. They have to begin playing defense. Playing a lot of defense will take a lot of enery out of them. So their offense will not be as amazing as it used to be when playing high school teams.

The same applies to wars. China will not sit idle and watch its enemy getting lose and attacking them without doing anything other than yelling at the sky and vowing to avenge whatever. They will defend and counter attack. More than that, China will not simply defend, they might send their CVs to meet their attackers head-on. So it is actually possible that no actual attacks will ever happen. There will be a stand-off on a massive scale with multiple CVBGs from both sides facing each other on the high sea. No one will be able to make a move since no one can be sure they can absorb the blow from the other side. Then, both sides back off and everybody goes back to the negotiating table.

I find the notion of "making a Chinese city unlivable" laughable. Like Jack said, China is not Serbia. China has layers and layers of defense lines extending hundred of miles out to sea. Any suspicious activities will be detected far away from the mainland and response will be swift. Even if the first wave of attack was successful, China has reserves, like air bases and missile bases, deep within its broad territory. The reinforcement will swarm the attacker in no time. The second attack wave and all the waves after that will become less and less effective. This is because any attacks will have to come from the ocean. It is much much more difficult to gather resources on the high sea. Attacking China is not attacking Serbia. It would need much much more resources to prepare an attack on China. The attacker might have enough time to prepare its first wave, but they will have neither time nor space to gather following waves while on the high sea. So even without China fighting back, making a Chinese city unlivable would be close to impossible. Then lets factor in the inevitable Chinese counter attack. Even if it is less effective than its attackers' first wave, this counter attack will be devastating to say the least. Let's keep in mind that the first wave of attack is very much likely to have depleted the resources of the attackers. With minimal means to defend itself, the attacker will be no match to the Chinese counter attack.

Surprise surprise, China fights back. There is no doubt that the West is now superior to China. However, if one does not fully prepare itself against possible counter attacks when fighting China, he will lose badly. Just like how any elite NBA team can be beaten badly by a lottery team if they don't prepare we'll enough.