Yuan Class AIP & Kilo Submarine Thread

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Isn't that how the entire world works if you think about it? LOL

Only for the "big boys" who have their own military industrial complexes. Everyone else gets played as all their military expenditure on hardware is pretty much import consumption in economic terms, and they suffer a huge net outflow of resources when they buy weapons.

OTOH for those countries that can build their own arms, expenditure on those systems can be argued to be almost like investment, or at the very least domestic consumption, as all or most of the resources spent on those weapons remain within their own economy, generating its own multiplier effect to boost the economy as a whole.

Anyways, back on topic, I would imagine that because Thailand is a rival to Vietnam, and also because Thailand does not have any territorial claim conflicts with China, China may well have put them on the "friends and regulars" list, which gives Thailand access to equipment not ordinarily offered for general sale, and/or at a discount/ with attractive financing options.

Subsiding the arms purchase of rivals and enemies of your own rivals is also a tactic often employed by major powers as a means to expressing their displeasure or punishing others.

With the way Vietnam has behaved in the SCS in recent years, I'm sure many Beijing could be very receptive if Thai officials know how to play their cards right.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Isn't that how the entire world works if you think about it? LOL
Yes...for nations like the US, Russia, China, the French, the UK, Italy, Spain, etc. who have the wherewithal and the reputation.

For the smaller nations...if they befriend the larger ones (or are large enough to be in a position to play them off against one another)...then they can expect to be able to buy some pretty decent stuff.

Nations like Brazil, India, Japan, and others want to get more and more of a leg in that game to make such sales themselves at whatever level possible because selling such technology provides a real cash ROI on the R&D that has gone into the development of their own systems...or the expenditures they make buying from the other supplier nations.
 

delft

Brigadier
The Netherlands also wants to earn something back for buying an ever smaller number of F-35A's, now down to about 35, from 120, 85 and then 56. It invested $1b in the project to win some work for Dutch companies but it looks likely that just buying them "of the shelf" would have been cheaper.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
The Netherlands, Germany, , Norway, Sweden, and others are all nations that have decent military development and production capabilities of their own. All of them export certain military equipment and technology and bring in good money for it..

All of them also, to one degree or another, buy some of the more advanced systems that they cannot develop themselves from the larger tier countries.

A lot of nations fit into that type of category to one extent or another. Heck, the US, Russia, and China all buy, on occasion, certain systems from other providers too.

But let's get back On Topic. This is, after all, the PLAN Yuan and Kilo sub thread.
 

by78

General
One of the best frontal view yet:

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