And yet they're a dying breed, with 187 left, the US should put them in engendered list.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
The US is turning into a satirical sitcom who’s writers fear they are about to be cancelled so keep jumping the shark with more and more outrageously ridiculous plotlines.
With just 6 destroyers and 48 carrier aircraft they aren't capable of arming and escorting a single carrier reliably anyway. They have to operate it below its capabilities or offshore those tasks to Americans. This is why their so publicised trip to SCS involved American aircraft, a Burke and a Dutch DZP-class destroyer. Just like the French, they sometimes train carrier personnel using USN carriers too. So please don't talk to me about global capabilities of French and British navies. Both are pretenders.
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They could just use it as an oversized royal yacht. Would be more financially sound at this point than whatever BoJo was proposing back in 2021.
Are there even 90 countries that have air forces? This sounds like a brag. No offense to the Iranian defense industry but what special ingredient is there in the Iranian suicide drone (which is very effective by the way) that China doesn’t have?
The fuselage — similar to Harpy, which China a has acquired in the 90s.
Motor — MD-550 engine, which based on Limbach, now a Chinese company.
Electronics — off the shelf components by Western firms, which are available in exponentially larger quantities in China.
Economy of scale — don’t make me laugh.
Performance wise, while the 136 series helped turn the tide for Russia, did it really perform any more impressively than the Mugin-5? Both are slow, loud, fly low and are difficult to spot on radar. But Mugin-5 is similarly battle tested, scoring direct hits on the Black Sea Fleet head quarters despite efforts by air defense to down them. You don’t see PLA going on a massive shopping spree on Aliexpress do you?
Now let’s make an enormous leap and assume that all of the above are not true and that there is some special magic about the Iranian suicide drone that makes China want to buy them in bulk. Is Iran a reliable source for weapons? After all China does do steady military business with the Arabs, selling even strategic weapons like ballistic missiles to the House of Saud. Are they going to tolerate something like that?
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Wake me up when that manage to down a j20 because shooting a slow moving target mid air doesn’t seem to be worth all the training that these pilots are given
I think our Iranian friends are using it as a flex, ie look we are together also with another yankee adversary. At the most the Chinese may have bought a small batch to see its effectiveness is as reported.
From what I know there will be a highly detailed and comprehensive report about all the weapons and tactics employed by all sides in this war, it is the Chinese way.
15,000 drones is not a small batch.
Let's just say I am highly sceptical about that number, 500 would be a more correct number. Iranians are good people but do tend towards the hyperbolic side
