Chinese Radar Developments - KLJ series and others

The West does not trade military technology with China. Zero. Single crystal blades was a good example of even refusal for cooperation between two commercial groups and civilian scientists in an area that has potential military application. Never mind something that has full and direct military application. Any western military technology that China got its hands onto was through other means but never open trade. They are proposing this now? Huh?? US still has an arms embargo in place but now that China's radar tech is well above that of UK, they want to trade and make some money to sell their second rate stuff which they and the US know is of limited use to China, even as tools to establish UK/western radar tech development.

If any of this is true, it is clear confirmation for those in the know that US and/or UK has determined Chinese radar technologies to be far superior to what they are willing to sell (read not necessarily their best). This allows them to make a quick buck because they know China wants to take a look one way or another, and it also gives them the space to brag about how China copied them yet again and how Chinese only managed to build radars because of this sale. Get ready for those comments. Chinese radars today are possibly second only to US if that. UK barely has students that can do calculus let alone domestically born and bred ones that can join the armies of engineers that are necessary for military technology. Imported ones don't count because their political and racial allegiance can diverge after they get exposed to the intolerance that is bound to become self-evident.

This is partly why it's been easy for Russia/China etc to spy on the West. So few of their modern talents are "home grown". They truly stopped STEM dominance in the 70s and those old giants are no longer around.

Well this article confirm that China radar technology has reach parity or even better than the west if they are willing to sell the radar because they know China already has the technology so it is futile to withheld the technology

But British has tradition to sell 2nd rate radar technology as far back as 60;s eg search radar on Y 8X the bulbous nose type

Their decision makers are not dumb. Selling latest and greatest is a move in an attempt to "improve ties" and "resolve tensions" lie is for western suckers who still think they be top dog. They will more likely make strategic offers to see what China is interested in acquiring or looking at for the purposes of either adopting (if possible) and evaluating western technology. I can't think of one single major radar type that UK has which China might even be remotely interested in actually copying/ adopting specific technologies.

They haven't fielded fighter AESA (Captor radar is decades in trash talking stage and rivals India for brag over substance... absolutely laughable effort with 20 years and many millions spent and still nothing fielded let alone tested and proven). Do they even make their own AWACs that are not 100% American?

Their most impressive SAM system including radar set is Aster series which is European so they can't make an unanimous decision. SAMP/T and Aster is no more impressive than even HQ-9 let alone the next generations of Chinese SAMs which are probably in quite advanced stages of development if not already done. If these don't come with improvements to detection methods, then existing ones can handle some pretty impressive threats at great ranges and speeds.

Ballistic missile warning types are not quite relevant. Nor does China want such a passive system which they've already had since the 80s. Nowadays 052C/D and 055s are equipped with radars that are far more versatile than the old large phased arrays. Sampson is the only interesting system truly worth acquiring and taking apart but that's their crown jewels and 0% chance being sold to China. Not to mention 055's dual bands are probably much better. What's impressive about these systems is more the software than the hardware. The physics must be so well understood by Chinese now, there's virtually no real margin in capability. There is a rush to different detection means though and it's unlikely the UK is at the forefront of acoustic, quantum, or optical detection technologies. So they can shove their offers and keep copying Chinese maths textbooks and syllabus while they deal with their ice addicted chavs.

ougoah said:

They haven't fielded fighter AESA (Captor radar is decades in trash talking stage and rivals India for brag over substance... absolutely laughable effort with 20 years and many millions spent and still nothing fielded let alone tested and proven).

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CAPTOR-E has been basically production-ready for ages (IIRC the TRMs are used in the commercially successful Vixen-500 radar and Gripen-E's Raven) - that it hasn't entered service is due to the Eurofighter partner nations refusing to stump up the money.

It may take the export order by the UAE to finally get it off the ground, in the same way as the first AESA-equipped F-16s were the E-models for that country.

Generally, this may be Brexit fears talking, as the article alludes. Oh, while I'm not so certain about radar technology, in terms of acoustics (sonar) the UK is still very advanced - definitely more so than China.

Tirdent said:

CAPTOR-E has been basically production-ready for ages (IIRC the TRMs are used in the commercially successful Vixen-500 radar and Gripen-E's Raven) - that it hasn't entered service is due to the Eurofighter partner nations refusing to stump up the money.

It may take the export order by the UAE to finally get it off the ground, in the same way as the first AESA-equipped F-16s were the E-models for that country.

Generally, this may be Brexit fears talking, as the article alludes. Oh, while I'm not so certain about radar technology, in terms of acoustics (sonar) the UK is still very advanced - definitely more so than China.

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Also in terms of things like the milimeter wave seekers on the Brimstone missile they are reasonably advanced. With regards to radar it is like you said a chronic lack of funding to put systems into production and IMHO poor military priorities.

ougoah said:

The West does not trade military technology with China. Zero. Single crystal blades was a good example of even refusal for cooperation between two commercial groups and civilian scientists in an area that has potential military application. Never mind something that has full and direct military application. Any western military technology that China got its hands onto was through other means but never open trade. They are proposing this now? Huh?? US still has an arms embargo in place but now that China's radar tech is well above that of UK, they want to trade and make some money to sell their second rate stuff which they and the US know is of limited use to China, even as tools to establish UK/western radar tech development.

If any of this is true, it is clear confirmation for those in the know that US and/or UK has determined Chinese radar technologies to be far superior to what they are willing to sell (read not necessarily their best). This allows them to make a quick buck because they know China wants to take a look one way or another, and it also gives them the space to brag about how China copied them yet again and how Chinese only managed to build radars because of this sale. Get ready for those comments. Chinese radars today are possibly second only to US if that. UK barely has students that can do calculus let alone domestically born and bred ones that can join the armies of engineers that are necessary for military technology. Imported ones don't count because their political and racial allegiance can diverge after they get exposed to the intolerance that is bound to become self-evident.
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Actually to a large degree the UK suffers from brain drain to places like the USA and has had for years. The smartest and most able typically end up working for the financial sector in London and the tech sector has been chronically underfunded for decades as the UK learned to live on the teat of North Sea oil & gas ever since the Thatcher government.

Still it is not like the UK does not have access to AESA radar technology they just don't fund it properly. This problem is hardly new especially for anyone who knows of the joke that was Foxhunter radar development for the Tornado ADV.

I agree with you that they only made trade available because China now has equivalent technology. This is similar to how the USA handles ITAR issues in the space launch sector with the Russian Federation.

With regards to military cooperation in things like single crystal blades, you would have to see that the USA was not even willing to share that technology with France originally, see the history of the CFM56 engine. The French later did the same to the Russians in the PowerJets engine alliance.

Also, before the Tiananmen incident, there was a lot of Western technology sales to China. Read about the Type 052 destroyer for example. In the aerospace sector the British sold China the Rolls-Royce Spey engine which was used in the JH-7.

The new CETC 14th AESA Antenna Shooting Radar, capable of "looking backwards". It should actually have several planar faces pointing to different directions of the aircraft.
From Henri K blog

ougoah said:

There is a rush to different detection means though and it's unlikely the UK is at the forefront of acoustic, quantum, or optical detection technologies..

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The UK is very much a world leader in these technologies. You need to do better research.

lucretius said:

The UK is very much a world leader in these technologies. You need to do better research.

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I said it's unlikely because I've not seen any indication this is true yet you are 100% certain they are a world leader. To know this, you need to know exactly how advanced UK research is in detail and ALSO exactly how advanced everyone else is. Therefore there's nothing wrong with what I said while it is nearly impossible for you to make your statement with any certainty because you are certainly not intimately working within UK research teams AS WELL AS China's and US' and etc etc to determine a "world leader" ranking or sorts. Sonar they are probably exceptionally good at but that's nearly everyone. Passive detection is king and those details are a black hole for every nation. Good luck making any comments about that and proving it.

As far as I'm aware (obviously this is based off limited knowledge because these things are never disclosed) UK does not have any projects. This doesn't mean they don't but there's never been a single news of breakthrough or potential and who is responsible for it, coming out of the UK whereas China's continuously demonstrated ability with quantum telecom and there's been heaps of rumours about new detection technologies. Then add the drastic differences in defense spending and related research spending between the two nations and it's likely that China is ahead in these regards. It also means that since China may not be world leader in these fields, if they are likely in front of the UK then that's to say UK is not at the forefront. BTW never did I say China's a world leader in these fields. Just that UK hasn't shown itself to be one. While this doesn't mean the reverse is true. I would bet as much as I can on this being the case. And following that pattern of reasoning, because Ethiopia hasn't claimed or shown any promise, it doesn't mean they don't have any and therefore they could really be a world leader? Well okay then. We'll see about it.

If the UK is world leader in virtually zero defense related technologies, you can bet your house they are not world leader in detection because these high end projects are far better suited to be conducted by the US. They have the talent, funding, and infrastructure advantage against the UK as a start. It makes little sense for the UK to be pouring resources into a relatively less important part of the their defense. Their main threat is Russia and there are far more pressing military hardware that could use the most funding and allocation of resources that will have priority over detection technologies. Sure they can come out with breakthroughs and sell them to all NATO but when's the last time UK has been ahead of the US in any major field? 70s? I dunno. Defense spending has gone down relative since then. I think Sampson is their most impressive piece of detection technology (software + hardware) and even that is not impressive against SPY-1 let alone SPY-6 and perhaps even Type 346B.

But please do enlighten me and provide me with some of that research. My small efforts have yielded zero impressive results from UK. They are well behind France and US in terms of technology and research. The only thing impressive is their actual armed forces and their equipment. Nothing breakthrough will come from the UK anymore because all of that is done by the US and why shouldn't it be. Back when they did amazing innovation in military gear was before completely cosying up with the US.

lucretius said:

The UK is very much a world leader in these technologies. You need to do better research.

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Perhaps you are the one who need to research better. The UK is definitely not a world leader .... far from it