China's Defense/Military Breaking News Thread

[Tempest]

Regarding Patch's comment about the J-20, he asked me to clarify that he meant to say "in service" as opposed to "in production"

 

[Mirabo]

After what went down in the J-20 thread, this comment from him definitely feels like a sh*tpost, unless I misunderstood him in that he thinks F-22 (not in production) is still superior to the J-20.

Seek truth from facts.

Three months ago, the "facts" say the J-20 still loses out in A2A to the F-22. Today, the "facts" say J-20 is "significantly superior." So where's the truth?

And "superior" is defined in what regard? Are we talking about components, aerodynamics, avionics, or weapons? Where are the facts? Is someone going to claim that these facts are in sniffing distance but can't be posted without getting arrested?

Chinese OPSEC in the last 5 years, especially the closure of public military forums, has truly killed PLA-watching. With the exception of wall-climber photos, we're just grasping at straws.

Face it, the only truths and facts that matter are the ones everyone can see. And the ones we can't see, don't.

 

[antiterror13]

Patch mentions the Burke's VLS only being able to energize 1 cell per 4 for a salvo. So Burke's initial salvo is divided by 4 right off the bat which drops that salvo size from the full 96 to 24. Then they factored in spares and missiles lost in the pre-flight phase to drop it to 16.

The Chinese UVLS operates somewhat different in exhaust formats etc. so I don't know if that divide by 4 applies at all to the 052D. If I recall correctly the UVLS has individual exhausts unlike the Mk41 so that's one hint that the PLA may potentially have access to more for the initial salvo.


For some cases it is because of production lines being shut down; Toaster mentions the SSN-22 Connecticut being disassembled for parts to repair the SSN-23 Jimmy Carter because the companies/yards that produced them have shutdown. But that doesn't fly for the other stuff. VA-class subs are still being built for example.

My personal view after hearing their discussion is the US force simply wasn't built for these sorts of tempos. They're dealing with a major surface fleet & air force challenge from the PLA that isn't remotely comparable to what other nations are putting out. So their force structure might have worked in the post-USSR collapse world but not so much in the current day.

I_Y8_H8 touches upon something similar when he talks about Taiwanese procurement. He says Taiwan's current force structure (thought up in the 1990-2000s) makes perfect sense if they were fighting 2005 PLA. The problem is the PLA has moved so extremely far beyond that level.


As far as I recall, this is something Patch was saying even before that incident happened. He was saying J20 was superior as system/platform/overall etc. but that the F22 was tactically/individually better. Some folks took a lot of issue with that. I don't think his position has changed at all on the topic.


Patch made a comment about the Indian military being made of the stuff they talk about (poo). Toaster and the rest were saying pretty much the same thing. It just confirms what I've gleaned about the Indian military for all these years. It's a joke.

Hard not to see it even from an outsider's point of view. Abysmal procurement and maintenance. Almost complete lack of domestic industry that can service existing equipment or innovate new platforms. Extremely visible poor morale in their troops. Military service functioning as a handout / safety net for the chronically hungry. India's been having these issues for how many decades now? And they've never made any move to actually fix their problems. At this point you have multiple generations of the military from top to bottom that has grown up in this sort of culture. This sort of rot becomes almost impossible to break from within.

If you look at their indigenous military procurement, it's a complete disaster. So I think of India's military in the same vein as Myammar, Thailand, and Vietnam's.

"As far as I recall, this is something Patch was saying even before that incident happened. He was saying J20 was superior as system/platform/overall etc. but that the F22 was tactically/individually better. Some folks took a lot of issue with that. I don't think his position has changed at all on the topic."

Try to find it and no luck ... could you please help me the link when Patch said that in this forum? Thanks

 

[Blitzo]

@BoraTas in 2784 has it the closest.

Being a "superior" aircraft in a given specific operating environment, in context of a specific system of systems, doesn't mean that an aircraft is individually "superior" in every single domain or parameter.

You can absolutely be not as good in signature reduction and not as capable as kinematic maneuvering, as an opponent -- but you can still be a more suitable and capable aircraft in the operational context that you're oriented for due to other parameters where you fare better and due to the way your friendly system of systems are organised.

That's all I write on this.

 

[Michaelsinodef]

Seek truth from facts.

Three months ago, the "facts" say the J-20 still loses out in A2A to the F-22. Today, the "facts" say J-20 is "significantly superior." So where's the truth?

And "superior" is defined in what regard? Are we talking about components, aerodynamics, avionics, or weapons? Where are the facts? Is someone going to claim that these facts are in sniffing distance but can't be posted without getting arrested?

Chinese OPSEC in the last 5 years, especially the closure of public military forums, has truly killed PLA-watching. With the exception of wall-climber photos, we're just grasping at straws.

Face it, the only truths and facts that matter are the ones everyone can see. And the ones we can't see, don't.

I think he also either said the F-22 was superior in WVR or in a 1 v 1 situation (so also BVR)?

But his assesment might be that the J-20 is superior in any realistic scenario, due to many various factors that would play out (since a 1v1 situation isn't just gonna happen).

EDIT: With the 2 above posts, this post should probably just be deleted huh, although I'm quite curious if patch also thinks the F-22 would be superior in BVR vs the J-20, or would that again only maybe be in some contrived 1v1 and not actually any kind of realistic setting I suppose?

 

[gelgoog]

I think the only advantage of the F-22 is the 2D TVC in the engines. It is way inferior to the J-20 in every other metric.
I cannot see it winning WVR vs the J-20 when the J-20 has IRST and it lacks that. Plus the J-20 also has longer range missiles and likely more modern radar. F-22 is simply outclassed as it is a product of the 1990s.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Does anyone know what Toaster's reddit or Twitter handle is?

 

[AndrewS]

I think the only advantage of the F-22 is the 2D TVC in the engines. It is way inferior to the J-20 in every other metric.
I cannot see it winning WVR vs the J-20 when the J-20 has IRST and it lacks that. Plus the J-20 also has longer range missiles and likely more modern radar. F-22 is simply outclassed as it is a product of the 1990s.

You could also argue that the F-22 has better stealth than the J-20, but yes, that doesn't make up for

1. Lack of IRST
2. Shorter ranged air-to-air missiles which aren't dual-pulse or air-breathing. So the targets find it much easier to evade
3. The old computer architecture which has completely obsolete hardware and code baked in
4. Less modern radar modules and datalinks to the rest of the battle network

If the F-35 had been designed for air-to-air for Pacific distances from the beginning, then yes, I expect it would be broadly comparable to the J-20. But the F-35 was designed to be smaller for shorter-ranges, along with air-to-ground and also VTOL operations, which detracts from air-to-air role

 

[AndrewS]

Yea, I would also like to add that I can see a future where the Vietnamese military reforms itself and become much more capable again just like the PLA did.

I can't see the same happening for India, Myammar, and etc. Unlike Vietnam, they don't have a history of military excellence. I'm trying to think of what sorts of cultural and social-economic changes would have to happen for a country like India to have a competent military. It will be difficult.

I don't see India having a culture of excellence overall
One of the most basic precepts is that an individual is expected to be on-time

If you arrange a meeting time, then you are expected to be on-time in places such the US, Northern Europe, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and China

But India operates on Indian time, which is noted for being tardy like Southern Europe or South America for example

How would you change such a culture?

 

[AndrewS]

My personal view after hearing their discussion is the US force simply wasn't built for these sorts of tempos. They're dealing with a major surface fleet & air force challenge from the PLA that isn't remotely comparable to what other nations are putting out. So their force structure might have worked in the post-USSR collapse world but not so much in the current day.

If you look at the US naval force structure, it's still larger overall than the Chinese Navy
The issue is the operating tempo where the US Navy has to be forward deployed everywhere in the world

Either the US Navy increases in size to match the operating tempo or the number/duration of deployments needs to shrink
But the US now faces a classic example of Imperial overstretch
Many commitments were made during the easy days after the Cold War, but now these need a lot more military heft and presence
It's simply not sustainable
But the US retreating from its commitments anywhere means everyone in the world (allies/neutrals/competitors) sense weakness

As an example, look at how the US pivot from the Middle East to China is turning out.
China is now moving into the space vacated by the US in the Middle East, because China and the countries of the Middle East can see this

If you look at their indigenous military procurement, it's a complete disaster. So I think of India's military in the same vein as Myammar, Thailand, and Vietnam's.

To be fair, Vietnam's military procurement has been sensible/effective, given the constraints they face

They have to consider the Chinese Army on their northern border, and the fact that statistically, Vietnam is equivalent to one of China's poorer provinces. Vietnam has 14x fewer people, an economy 23x smaller, military spending some 20x less for example