2025 Victory Day parade thread (workup, 3rd Sept)

[plawolf]

See, this right here is the problem with the PLA: level 100 tech with zero imagination. What kind of general looks at a hypersonic missile accurate enough to hit a specific vehicle in a moving convoy and thinks "too accurate" instead of "decapitation strike"? All they can think is spam.

No, it’s more like the general saw the DF17 snipe a vehicle while also taking out 2 more either side in the convoy as collateral damage and thought, if we can get 90% of the accuracy for 50% of the price, I can afford to shoot enough DF17-lites to obliterate the entire convoy with missiles to spare.

In modern militaries, decapitation strikes are only delaying tactics, replacements will quickly advance up the ranks to replace generals you do get, and in a well organised military, the damage will be very limited and temporary.

Why settle for a decapitation strike when you can instead annihilate every cell in the target body and end the fight there and then instead of just endlessly cutting fresh heads off the proverbial hydra?

 

[dingyibvs]

I actually think China using long range expensive ballistic missile itself to strike any target is a waste of money cause these missiles are too expensive for a total war scenario where 100k missile might be needed to be produced. This was maybe the case 20 years ago when China lacked a proper air force and could only count on ballistic missile to strike at US and its allies. Its kinda similar to the strategy Iran employs now.

The right strategy is what US does, which is to use cheap air launched missiles with much smaller range, lower cost. The idea is to use overwhelming air power to destroy all air defenses and then bomb with impunity with cheaper munitions.

China should not pursue the strategy of a weak country of the past. China needs to pursue the strategy of a dominant country with overwhelming air power. Strategy needs to change with time, Rocket force is likely to become less important as Air power becomes more and more dominant.

The air launched missiles may cost less, the platforms that launch them don't.

 

[gpt]

Just as we observed with the DF-21C/D, various levels of missile warheads have adopted similar structures, so we may see a variety of HGVs.

The guidance system of the DF-17 is too expensive, and its accuracy within the missile's range is too high? It could be mounted on the DF-26 or DF-31.

It's designed that way because the US has robust counters against threats that use:
- traditional imaging/IR homing for terminal guidance
- external means of guiding it to its target

There is also the broad challenge of how to reliably deliver terminal guidance for hypersonics.

Solutions to these (very difficult) problems are inherently exotic.

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

I'd argue this is the right way of looking at a project like the DF-17 if you're America. You don't graduate many STEM people, and those you do graduate go to Silicon Valley or Wall Street and do crypto and platform monopoly. In addition, you've got legions of middlemen taking a cut every time you breathe. You don't have many resources and you're burdened with a lot of inefficiency, so every project is going to balloon in cost or end up cancelled.

Yes, China is number one in STEM talent, but you underestimate the US. When it comes to top level STEM talent, the US draws on not only domestic talent, but also on the STEM talent pool across most of the world, either directly or indirectly. The US MIC having to compete with the more lucrative and prestigious private sector is not an issue only faced by the US. The far larger problem for the US is atrophied industrial base and lack of trained manufacturing labor, not lack of engineers and scientists.

You can and should gold plate systems with the expectation that costs will eventually be wrestled down.

No, that is not how engineering is done. China has thus far done a good job of setting practical requirements, waiting for technologies to mature, not rushing platforms into service/serial production, and making the correct engineering tradeoffs. Last thing China should do is repeat the mistakes of US procurement, resulting in failures like the Zumwalt and to a lesser extent, the F-35.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I actually think China using long range expensive ballistic missile itself to strike any target is a waste of money cause these missiles are too expensive for a total war scenario where 100k missile might be needed to be produced. This was maybe the case 20 years ago when China lacked a proper air force and could only count on ballistic missile to strike at US and its allies. Its kinda similar to the strategy Iran employs now.

The right strategy is what US does, which is to use cheap air launched missiles with much smaller range, lower cost. The idea is to use overwhelming air power to destroy all air defenses and then bomb with impunity with cheaper munitions.

China should not pursue the strategy of a weak country of the past. China needs to pursue the strategy of a dominant country with overwhelming air power. Strategy needs to change with time, Rocket force is likely to become less important as Air power becomes more and more dominant.

Interception rates of ballistic missiles in Ukraine is an order of magnitude lower than subsonics for both sides, and only Russia can use glide bombs because Ukraine simply doesn't have the airpower to do so.

The US idea is great, except for 2 things:

1. What if you can't get air superiority? Even air parity isn't enough for their strategy.
2. What if you get hit first and lose the capability to project airpower?

US strategy isn't brilliance, it's basically the exact same strategy as WW2 and Cold War: deterrence through mass. It is kind of like how the

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, long after antiship missiles and air power made gun ships obsolete. Soviets had a more modern doctrine centered around new technologies, but a worse economy to back it up.

The bet is that:

1. 90% of countries will be deterred by the US's sheer mass and the fact that being in a war against a major power sucks, win or lose, as Vietnam found out even in victory.

2. 9% of countries are deterred by nuclear weapons, sanctions and the fact that fighting WW3 isn't worth what the US is demanding unless the US invades outright, which the US won't do against nuclear powers. They'll just strangle them with sanctions. This is what China, Russia, North Korea and post-war Vietnam dealt with.

3. 1% of countries that fight anyways don't have sufficient air defense to make a difference.

When the US doctrine was put to the test, they got hit with ~10k aircraft losses in Vietnam, which would've annihilated any other country's air force. Their smartest next move was to pick the right target and to soften up with sanctions and proxy wars first. They've never, ever again fought a core member of the socialist bloc. They don't even touch Cuba less than 100 miles away.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

I don't want to belabor this too much further since I seem to be on an island of one defending the DF-17 Plus, so I'll address some of the feedback and then drop this.

If you genuinely believe what you're writing, do you really want me to write another tirade in the idiocy of chauvinism and triumphalism?

Yes, I do genuinely believe what I'm writing and we can disagree without the ad hominem. You (and several other people here) think I underestimate America and that China should continue to be risk-averse in miltech development, I think you overestimate America and that China should be more risk-tolerant.

I wouldn't count your chickens on that yet.

This is not the America of Kelly Johnson, this is the America of Palmer Luckey. I'll leave it at that.

There are alternative approaches to spreading the R&D costs through broader application, beyond merely procuring more DF-17s. These are also existing platforms.

Right, that's why I don't understand this criticism of the DF-17's development. You are going to have to address a variety of problems related to any HGV, be it an exquisite scalpel or penny-a-pop spam. For example, let's consider cooling the sensor aperture - you might need to design intricate cooling channels and use a material tolerant of high temperatures with excellent heat conductivity for the windows.

In the case of the cooling channels, designing them might be difficult and expensive, but once that engineering work is done it's just a matter of loading up the CAD files in the 3D printer and running the job. That part could go into any HGV. In the case of the window, you might have the option of going with sapphire or diamond with a performance tradeoff that'll degrade accuracy with the former. My view is go with the diamond because the developing supply chain and industrial policy will eventually bring the costs of the material down, as is already happening with synthetic diamond (check out the price declines just this year).

Why settle for a decapitation strike when you can instead annihilate every cell in the target body and end the fight there and then instead of just endlessly cutting fresh heads off the proverbial hydra?

I had in mind the "political" leadership, not the military. Yes, that goes against the laws of armed conflict, but those only apply to states. Taiwan is not a state.

Russia would be having a much easier time of it if Ukraine and its backers didn't have a figure to rally around in Zelensky.

The far larger problem for the US is atrophied industrial base and lack of trained manufacturing labor, not lack of engineers and scientists.

The US can't compare with China in either. In scientists and engineers, China enjoys a 5-10x advantage in STEM graduates and it's starting to tell in the university rankings (the ones that weight research output, not "prestige"), and the number of published papers and patents. It's severe but not the ROFLstomp advantage China has in manufacturing like the 220x advantage in shipbuilding.

Also, a lot of the STEM workers in America are boomers nearing retirement. There's many an anecdote of the 70 year-old millionaire engineer keeping an antique system underpinning the entire company going because he's the only one who knows how and there's no one to replace him.

No, that is not how engineering is done. China has thus far done a good job of setting practical requirements, waiting for technologies to mature, not rushing platforms into service/serial production, and making the correct engineering tradeoffs.

There are problems with the overly cautious, risk avoidant approach as well. The WS-15 followed this model and had to be redesigned from scratch at least once because the result was mediocre and the industrial base had advanced faster than the designers anticipated. I think that was the right approach at the time because it wasn't reasonable to predict back then that China would become the juggernaut it is today.

Given that China now has all these advantages, I think it can and should adopt the mentality of the early Cold War US and just fund a bunch of moonshots.

 

[Michaelsinodef]

Given that China now has all these advantages, I think it can and should adopt the mentality of the early Cold War US and just fund a bunch of moonshots.

Don't need to.
Or rather, should not "just fund a bunch of moonshots".

As they are already increasing basic research, and also allowing military and civilian institutes do research and testing of new tech (tengyun, many other projects such as CCAs for 6th and likely more than we have seen.

In other words, i trust the CPC's civilian and military leadership in their ability to plan and setup projects for the future.

Also, in regarde to blitzo and others, i think they are just quite conservative (both in pushing China up butvalso in pushing US down, whether in military, industrial or economic capabilities).

And i think that is fine, along as one is not too conservative and not open to the idea that comes conservative opinion might not hold up (i actually think blitzo also fufill both)

 

[Blitzo]

Yes, I do genuinely believe what I'm writing and we can disagree without the ad hominem. You (and several other people here) think I underestimate America and that China should continue to be risk-averse in miltech development, I think you overestimate America and that China should be more risk-tolerant.

I don't think we can disagree without recognizing that your positions are inconsistent with procurement common sense.
It is one thing to argue that China should strive to be more ambitious or aim for more "moonshots". I have no issue with that.

The problem is that you are arguing the solution to procurement challenges (even if things are over-specced) are just to shovel more money and more resourcing and manpower, rather than recognizing China, like any nation has to abide by common sense matching of performance/capability with requirements, and there are costs to overshooting (as well as undershooting) it.

This is not the America of Kelly Johnson, this is the America of Palmer Luckey. I'll leave it at that.

That has nothing to do with the fact that you described F/A-XX's cancellation as if it is a done deal.
At present, it is not yet cancelled.

 

[taxiya]

Basically tonight they again reinforced the message from previous stream: DF-27 will not be the only hypersonic weapon on display this time
They said things are advancing so fast that DF-17 is now considered to be no longer worthy of being included in parades.

Yankee told an amusing story that after DF-17 went into service, the brass looked at its stats and concluded that it was "too accurate" for its own good. Their logic was this degree of accuracy isn't really needed and if that criteria was loosened then perhaps a less accurate but cheaper alternative DF-17 could have resulted and be even more suitable for even larger scale production.

Maybe it is only me, but I usually would put quite some amount of salt in what they say, especially something less about technology but more of analysis, judgement etc. Their style of speech is quite frivolous, braggish and exagerating that makes me unsure of whether they speak of some real insider information or just their own brainstorm, or miss-interpretation. One example was one of them calling CV-18 being IEPS ship when reading "综合电力系统" at the launch date, that is the sign of hearing what one want to hear, and I judge it unreliable personality.

I remember hearing a partial report (in this forum? 2 or 3 years ago) about some attack simulation or actual excersize on ships from two types of missile in separate salvos, presumably DF-21D and DF-17 in coordinated attack. The result was that to destroy one ship, they still need multiple missiles even for DF-17. So nothing including DF-17 is too accurate (100% hit probability by single shot) for a moving target. Neither do I believe any missile being too accurate if it want to hit a moving target. DF-17 would only be too expensive for an unnecessarily high accuracy if it was never envisioned to hit a moving target.

 

[Temstar]

Maybe it is only me, but I usually would put quite some amount of salt in what they say, especially something less about technology but more of analysis, judgement etc. Their style of speech is quite frivolous, braggish and exagerating that makes me unsure of whether they speak of some real insider information or just their own brainstorm, or miss-interpretation. One example was one of them calling CV-18 being IEPS ship when reading "综合电力系统" at the launch date, that is the sign of hearing what one want to hear, and I judge it unreliable personality.

I remember hearing a partial report (in this forum? 2 or 3 years ago) about some attack simulation or actual excersize on ships from two types of missile in separate salvos, presumably DF-21D and DF-17 in coordinated attack. The result was that to destroy one ship, they still need multiple missiles even for DF-17. So nothing including DF-17 is too accurate (100% hit probability by single shot) for a moving target. Neither do I believe any missile being too accurate if it want to hit a moving target. DF-17 would only be too expensive for an unnecessarily high accuracy if it was never envisioned to hit a moving target.

The 2020 test against a moving ship target somewhere south of Hainan? IIRC that test involved DF-21D (launched from Ningbo) and DF-26B (launched from Qinghai)