Effectiveness of China's Air Defence?

plawolf said:

Modern SAMs travel at high supersonic speeds, there is no outrunning them unless you have a fighter designed for speed and the missile was launched at you from the edge of its engagement envelop. You get within the effective combat range of a modern SAM like the S300 or HQ9 and you are in deep trouble.

And I do not know what aircraft you are talking about that can fly above the operating ceiling of modern long range SAMs. Just as an example, the F22's service ceiling is 60,000ft, which is roughly 18,000m. The S300's operating ceiling is 25,000m.

SAMs are really a second line defense, as they are fairly static and have limited mobility. They are there to catch anything that gets past your primary line of defense, which are you own fighters.

The role of the defending fighters are to try and intercept the incoming strikers before they can launch their stand-off weapons. If they can get to the attackers, they can force mission kills as the aggressors are forced to ditch their munitions to defend themselves. If they cannot reach the attackers before they launch, a portion of the defending fighters can peel off and aim to shoot down as many of the income cruise missiles as possible before they get within SAM range. The fighters would also be able to provide the exact vector the missiles are coming in from, so that AAA and SAM sites could be read and waiting for them.

With a fighter screen in place, the PLAAF will happily intercept USN cruise missiles all day long as they have the numbers to keep enough planes on rotation 24/7.

Cruise missiles don't grow on trees, and USN ships only carry a finite amount. Cruise missiles are the scalpel of the USN, they might make deep cuts, but against someone as large and resilient as China, it will only be an irritant on its own. The USN's main hammer weapon are its freefall and glide bombs, of which they carry vast quantities of.

But to use them, they will have to get uncomfortably close to their targets. That means a requirement to neutralize the PLA's air cover as well as SAMs, or else they will never be able to land a telling blow. But it will be very difficult and costly to try and do that. With what the USN has compared to what China has.

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Thanks again, you post has been very informative!

As someone said above, economy is the strongest layer of defence.

That's the first thing which will come under attack, not the mainland or the airspace.

In other words how could US alone, or US + EU + Japan attack China's economy ?

1. Is it possible for the combined forces to enforce a naval blockade of China .... from South Korea thru Japan, Philipines on to Vietnam.

2. Is it feasible for them to sustain that blockade for a reasonable period of time? - both economically and militarily

There will be immediate impact on the raw material producers e.g. iron ore producers in Aus, Brazil who won't be able to sell their iron ore (so..losses).

World wide crude oil prices will fall, because exports to China will be blockaged.

Secondly, Textiles, shoes, toys will need to be manufactured within US, EU or Japan or they will need to be imported from rest of the developing world. Given that, capacity building takes time, there would be increased prices for all assembled products like laptops, digital cameras etc.

3. How will China react to such a naval blockade ?
- use oil reserves
- try to import from russia

Military response ? - assuming the combines forced don't attack ... just enforce the blockade ... and leave the first shot to be fired from the Chinese side.

1. China could possibly attack the naval fleet, some 800 - 2000 km from it's coast, the air battle will take place mostly over surrounding seas.

2. Alternatively, China could choose not to attack, and re-adjust it's economy internally... hoping that the naval blockade will wear down with time.

However, too much time to free the blockade will have further consequences ..... since a huge labor force would be idling with most exports stopped and limited raw materials / semi-finished parts to feed the assembly lines. It could cause a major unrest and risk an internal implosion / revolution.

On the other hand, there will be protest marches in US / Europe to open the blockade accompanied by cries to prevent a hot war.

The only way such a naval blockage could be set up in the first place is ... that China would have done something serious against the wishes of most of the world (e.g. nuking Taiwan).

Good story for a novel on international politics and drama
Hypothetical off course.

plawolf said:

Modern SAMs travel at high supersonic speeds, there is no outrunning them unless you have a fighter designed for speed and the missile was launched at you from the edge of its engagement envelop. You get within the effective combat range of a modern SAM like the S300 or HQ9 and you are in deep trouble.

And I do not know what aircraft you are talking about that can fly above the operating ceiling of modern long range SAMs. Just as an example, the F22's service ceiling is 60,000ft, which is roughly 18,000m. The S300's operating ceiling is 25,000m.

SAMs are really a second line defense, as they are fairly static and have limited mobility. They are there to catch anything that gets past your primary line of defense, which are you own fighters.

The role of the defending fighters are to try and intercept the incoming strikers before they can launch their stand-off weapons. If they can get to the attackers, they can force mission kills as the aggressors are forced to ditch their munitions to defend themselves. If they cannot reach the attackers before they launch, a portion of the defending fighters can peel off and aim to shoot down as many of the income cruise missiles as possible before they get within SAM range. The fighters would also be able to provide the exact vector the missiles are coming in from, so that AAA and SAM sites could be read and waiting for them.

With a fighter screen in place, the PLAAF will happily intercept USN cruise missiles all day long as they have the numbers to keep enough planes on rotation 24/7.

Cruise missiles don't grow on trees, and USN ships only carry a finite amount. Cruise missiles are the scalpel of the USN, they might make deep cuts, but against someone as large and resilient as China, it will only be an irritant on its own. The USN's main hammer weapon are its freefall and glide bombs, of which they carry vast quantities of.

But to use them, they will have to get uncomfortably close to their targets. That means a requirement to neutralize the PLA's air cover as well as SAMs, or else they will never be able to land a telling blow. But it will be very difficult and costly to try and do that. With what the USN has compared to what China has.

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True, in theory. However just one strike at China's key manufacturing, economic states will be devastating. That said, the main cities that are bringing in the money in china was actually Shanghai, Shenzhen and a few other coastal states... and so any attacks will be focus on these states.

The most important thing for us right now as we try to look into how well China is able to withstand an attack from US or the west would be to look at how well these coastal cities could withstand concentrated attacks against the aggressors from sea...

As it is seen, there are a couple of places where the US could mount their attacks,

1) Guam,
2) Japan,
3) South Korea
4) Taiwan
5) Vietnam (recently they are pretty close to the US)
6) some ASEAN countries (such as Singapore)

Well, that said, we can actually see a huge sum of tactic ballistic missiles and cruise missiles that could be used against China, fired from bases in these countries. Not to mention US had a vast fleet of destroyers and a number of carriers. The destroyers and cruisers could be used as tomahawk missiles carriers that could also be use against china's coastal cities.

With China's current navy fleet, I seriously doubt she is coming anywhere close to the US's navy fleet... plus US normally don't go into battle alone... So China would actually be facing Japan, SK and most probably Taiwan's navies too... and also their combined air forces.

(Note, the abovementioned hypotnsis was without the mentioning of nuke of any kinds).

China had a huge number of fighters - yes... but the bulk of them are obsolete J-7 and J-8... which could easily be picked off by F-16 and F-15 fielded by the SK and Japan.

Of course China could launch a counter offensive against SK and Japan and most probably Taiwan by launching their own ballistic missiles, but it would be one country against multiple nations... do China actually have that much ballistic missiles? Also not to mention... SM3, patriot missiles and the kind that are fielded by Japan, SK and Taiwan...

China had advances quite a lot in recent decades, but her defences are not impenetrable. And in any war, I would see China bleed quite a bit... even suffering from mortal wounds. But US and other aggressors will not be having a day too... it will definitely not be like Japan coming into China during WWII or the combine attacks by eight foreign nations in Qing's era whereby victory are kind of easy.

Military attacks on Chinese cities - population centers, would be considered a war crime by many, maybe even an act of terrorism (9/11 was targeting economic infrastructure was it not?) and would certainly be seen as a strategic strike by China, and would invite reciprical Chinese counter against American population centres. You start bombing cities, you start WWIII. Even if America had the stomach for such carnage, the consequences would force the rabid wardogs to be put on their leash. If you don't want a hypothetical to go nuclear, you should forget about targeting civilan infrastrue.

As for the use of bases in SK and Japan, well SK would almost certainly sit out any dust up between China and America, since if they get involved, there is a good chance North Korea will as well, and the NKs will be getting direct Chinese military support, and the Koreans have no wish to repeat the korean war. Japan is more likely to get involved, but there is a very low chance that they would take part in any combat operations. Their contribution to Afghanistan is strictly non combat, and it's hard to see them applying a different role to an infinately more dangerous fight against someone who has the ability to strike heavy blows against Japan, and may have the motivation to exact some payback for WWII if Japan shows itself acting in an aggressive manner again.

Japan will probably supply bases, but may be disuaded from allowing Americans to launch combat sorties from those bases but the threat of direct retalitory strikes against Japan or Japanese interests. Even if Japan did allow combat missions from its territory, their bases are so far from China that they would make little difference.

Taiwan would be stupid to get involved as that would garentee an invasion.

As for the rest, well isn't that just repeating what i already said? If America brought its fully military might to bare, it can defeat China military. Then what? It hasn't a hope of forcing regime change in Beijing with air strikes and a naval blockade, and it hasn't the manpower for an invasion even if there wasn't the threat of a full scale Chinese nuclear strike as a response.

Any conflict will be very limited, focusedon military targets and objectives and hyperintense and probably short lived. Anything else and we are looking at wwIII and nuclear MAD territory.

Without getting into too much pointless detail, it will be extremely difficult to analyse tge possibilities any further.

Just a couple of points in passing.

1) Such circumstances would not erupt out of nowhere and any hostile build up in the region would be against a background of rising tensions. China would have the home advantage and be able to produce a diplomatic template that would allow a pre-emptive first strike before the opposition had managed to concentrate sufficient forces. Such a strike would principally be missile attacks on bases in the region where hostile Air Power was being assembled.

2) When operational ASBM is as much Air Defence as it Anti Ship and will should be considered a key component of China's long range Air Defences.

3) Any country which allows its territory to be used to launch attacks against the PRC will have no option but to consider itself in a technical state of war and expect to suffer the consequences especially those with direct land borders where Ground Action could be used to neutralise hostile airbases.

In summary, China's best defence is that the enemy has to come to it and China can now interdict at distance. Disrupting supply lines and refuelling capability, damaging regional bases, blanking out Intel coverage and generally preventing the enemy to concentrate and prepare to optimum levels.

I am highly skeptical that defensive warfare is going to be very sucessful against the USA and I am the first to admit I am not a military expert. I recently watched the launch of the X37b I expect its first objective is to take out an enemys space defenses and communicatiions in case of war. A year or so ago I saw Israel easily defeat the air defenses of Syria and I dont really expect considering the size of China that Chinas air defenses are all that superior. Its almost certain that the USA has EMP weapons and has probably used them against Iraq. The USA has stealth drones that can carry EMP weapons that will be used to take out anti air craft missle systems and the F22 has the radar signture of a bumble bee. You just dont know if anti aircraft systems work untill they have been tried in full combat mode. If I remember right the USA out numbers China about 3 to 1 in military air craft. If I was a military planner and I wanted to damage China in a conventional war I would concentrate of their railroads, especially bridges. I just dont have much faith in Air Defence unless its done by fighter planes.

noname said:

I am highly skeptical that defensive warfare is going to be very sucessful against the USA and I am the first to admit I am not a military expert. I recently watched the launch of the X37b I expect its first objective is to take out an enemys space defenses and communicatiions in case of war. A year or so ago I saw Israel easily defeat the air defenses of Syria and I dont really expect considering the size of China that Chinas air defenses are all that superior. Its almost certain that the USA has EMP weapons and has probably used them against Iraq. The USA has stealth drones that can carry EMP weapons that will be used to take out anti air craft missle systems and the F22 has the radar signture of a bumble bee. You just dont know if anti aircraft systems work untill they have been tried in full combat mode. If I remember right the USA out numbers China about 3 to 1 in military air craft. If I was a military planner and I wanted to damage China in a conventional war I would concentrate of their railroads, especially bridges. I just dont have much faith in Air Defence unless its done by fighter planes.

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EMP weapons and countermeasures are something than powers like China already have dealt with, so the issue isn't quite what pop-sci writers think it is. The thing about Chinese air defenses is that even if Chinese were stuck only with HQ-2s and lots of old radars sites for ground air defence, the shear number alone would be daunting for a US air strike to deal with; even if this scenario was GW1 US vs PRC 1980 it would be hell for attacking, and time has made disparities ever smaller still.

noname said:

I am highly skeptical that defensive warfare is going to be very sucessful against the USA and I am the first to admit I am not a military expert. I recently watched the launch of the X37b I expect its first objective is to take out an enemys space defenses and communicatiions in case of war. A year or so ago I saw Israel easily defeat the air defenses of Syria and I dont really expect considering the size of China that Chinas air defenses are all that superior. Its almost certain that the USA has EMP weapons and has probably used them against Iraq. The USA has stealth drones that can carry EMP weapons that will be used to take out anti air craft missle systems and the F22 has the radar signture of a bumble bee. You just dont know if anti aircraft systems work untill they have been tried in full combat mode. If I remember right the USA out numbers China about 3 to 1 in military air craft. If I was a military planner and I wanted to damage China in a conventional war I would concentrate of their railroads, especially bridges. I just dont have much faith in Air Defence unless its done by fighter planes.

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Well I want to correct a few things:

#1) You said you watched the X-37b launch, so did I. If you actually paid attention to the reporters you would've realised that the primary purpose for the X-37b, at least for now, is surveillance. It is, in effect, a glorified spy satellite that could change orbit (to avoid Chinese ASAT attacks and perhaps anti-satellite lasers). It DOES NOT carry weapons.

#2) The United States has NOT deployed EMP weapons against Iraq. Currently EMP weapons are generated either by a nuclear explosion in the presence of Earth's magnetic field or explosive pumped flux compression generators. The military is developing a conventional EMP weapon however the flux compression generator is suppposed to be carried by tomahawk missiles, not drones.

#3) It is true that the F-22 is the most capable combat aircraft ever built. However it too has its weaknesses. The stealth coating, for one, is know to deteriorate in rainy conditions and who knows what other problems may pop up (we'll see when the F-22 is used in combat).

#4) The United States airforce is larger than the Chinese airforce. However you must be really naive to think that the U.S. will deploy the ENTIRE airforce in a war with China. What about defending the homesoil against invasions by a third power? Besides the Chinese could certainly build more planes in war time.

#5) Look up the number of kills the SAM scored against the U.S. airforce during the Vietnam war and the number of kills stinger missiles scored against the Soviet airforce during the Afghan Invasion.

One interesting question will be: apart for all the fancy new toys like missiles and fighter planes, how credible is good old traditional flak or pom pom - maybe radar sighted?

China has a huge array of 14.5mm, 25mm, 37mm, 57mm, 100mm AA guns.

Lezt said:

One interesting question will be: apart for all the fancy new toys like missiles and fighter planes, how credible is good old traditional flak or pom pom - maybe radar sighted?

China has a huge array of 14.5mm, 25mm, 37mm, 57mm, 100mm AA guns.

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I don't think they'd be very useful against anything other than attack planes. That is just my opinion though. I doubt your average anti-aircraft gun has the range/accuracy to strike the high fliers but they make decent point-defence. There is a reason China invests so heavily in missiles.