Chinese UCAV/CCA/flying wing drones (ISR, A2A, A2G) thread

4Tran

Junior Member
Registered Member

According to Binkov, US is not going for high end CCA because it wants "affordable mass" when it comes to CCA drones. Its interesting that as time goes on, China goes on for more and more sophisticated Aircrafts while US keeps degrading its planes to try to produce more numbers. China is going for high quality AWACS in KJ-500/700 and KJ-3000. While US basically gave up on a good large sized AWACS and wants more "mass" by going for a much smaller E-2.

Its clear US is losing its ability to compete with China on the cutting edge of Aircraft technology and still wants to maintain some semblence of a force by going for cheaper but more numerous planes.

Now the question is, if China can maintain both quality and quantity at the same time. If China can pursue its high end CCAs but can produce them by the thousands as US wants for its CCAs, then that will be the clear game changer.
On a cursory look, going with more nonstealthy drones seems like a prudent idea, but I don't think it passes the smell test. Frankly, such measures are unnecessary if confronting any opponent other than China, and against China it's going to be inadequate on at least a couple of fronts.

First, the per unit costs are going to be much higher than what the USAF is talking about. Knowing how the MIC works, the contractors are going to gouge the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is going to let them get away with it. At a $20-25 million expected cost, the actual price per unit will probably settle to the $30-40 million range. Secondly, these are supposed to be air superiority platforms, each equipped with 2 AMRAAMs. If the Air Force actually gets the 2000 drones they want, it'll take 4000 AMRAAMs to arm these drones for a single sortie. So guess how many AMRAAMs the USAF plans to procure for FY 2026? It's 426.

And finally, the plan is supposed to be to outproduce China? In drones? That's not a real strategy; it's how a slacker pretends to be working at fixing a problem without doing any real effort into it. A generous interpretation is that they're looking at an intractable problem and are just throwing ideas onto the wall. But that's still too generous for my blood because it doesn't address any of the problems facing the US in a fight against China, and instead introduces a bunch of new ones.
 

enroger

Senior Member
Registered Member
On a cursory look, going with more nonstealthy drones seems like a prudent idea, but I don't think it passes the smell test. Frankly, such measures are unnecessary if confronting any opponent other than China, and against China it's going to be inadequate on at least a couple of fronts.

First, the per unit costs are going to be much higher than what the USAF is talking about. Knowing how the MIC works, the contractors are going to gouge the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is going to let them get away with it. At a $20-25 million expected cost, the actual price per unit will probably settle to the $30-40 million range. Secondly, these are supposed to be air superiority platforms, each equipped with 2 AMRAAMs. If the Air Force actually gets the 2000 drones they want, it'll take 4000 AMRAAMs to arm these drones for a single sortie. So guess how many AMRAAMs the USAF plans to procure for FY 2026? It's 426.

And finally, the plan is supposed to be to outproduce China? In drones? That's not a real strategy; it's how a slacker pretends to be working at fixing a problem without doing any real effort into it. A generous interpretation is that they're looking at an intractable problem and are just throwing ideas onto the wall. But that's still too generous for my blood because it doesn't address any of the problems facing the US in a fight against China, and instead introduces a bunch of new ones.

It makes even less sense if you consider the sortie rate they can support in westpac, even if we ignore what China will do to their limited number of airfields they simply can't support large number of drones at once.

Given this fact one would think they need to cram as much survivability into each drones as possible to alleviate the bandwidth but they went the other way?
 

valysre

Junior Member
Registered Member
So they admit that they will be using plane wave attacks against superior PLAAF assets? How the turn tables.
I'd like to meet the genius who sat down and suggested: "Let's try and outproduce China in the field of cheap, expendable assets," and the table of other geniuses who nodded and agreed with this brilliant suggestion.
 

Syrida2887

New Member
Registered Member
pardon, I don’t understand what you Said!?? … and where is this Image from?

do you suspect it to be faked/psed ? And any Info when it was taken?
It should be a satellite map of Yan Liang's production base in Xi 'an.

And the source of this picture should be circulated in China social media, and the original source has not been found, and its authenticity is in doubt at present.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
It should be a satellite map of Yan Liang's production base in Xi 'an.

And the source of this picture should be circulated in China social media, and the original source has not been found, and its authenticity is in doubt at present.

So far, I haven't see this photo getting posted or shared by any of the reliable big shrimps on the Chinese side of the internet.
 
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Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
It should be a satellite map of Yan Liang's production base in Xi 'an.

And the source of this picture should be circulated in China social media, and the original source has not been found, and its authenticity is in doubt at present.

Thanks a lot for your explanation ..

So far, I haven't see this photo getting posted or shared by any of the reliable big shrimps on the Chinese side of the internet.

So the usual "wait and see-game" again!
 

Syrida2887

New Member
Registered Member
Thanks a lot for your explanation ..



So the usual "wait and see-game" again!
This is to judge the state that the PLA often falls into in the progress of undisclosed projects. After all, its openness is far from the propaganda army that trolls repeat.
 
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