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

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Nautilus

New Member
Registered Member
plawolf said:
Such a large, complex and expensive UCAV would obviously be better served as a normal UCAV instead of an expendable munition, but if you can trade an enemy AWACS, tanker, MPA, bomber or even large UAV like a Global Hawk for one of these, then it’s a hell of a trade. And to a large extent, a big part of UCAVs over traditional manned jets is their expendability. This would just be a step beyond but still not wildly out of the general acceptable use parameters.
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Even then, it would be better to have the option of using them as expendable munitions while still providing decent recovery abilities. Unless allowing for RTB makes them drastically more expensive, complex, or less capable, then it's always better to be able to reuse them in case of a broken kill-chain or overkill.

jnd85 said:
I just can't stop thinking about how precisely the constituent tucks would have to be aligned in order for the electromagnetic rail system to actually work.
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It's not like you'd have to parallel park each truck just right individually using the engine. Simple (enough) mechanical locks can achieve tremendous precision if the platform itself is engineered to tight tolerances.
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Nautilus said:
Even then, it would be better to have the option of using them as expendable munitions while still providing decent recovery abilities. Unless allowing for RTB makes them drastically more expensive, complex, or less capable, then it's always better to be able to reuse them in case of a broken kill-chain or overkill.
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If you are operating them from container ships with EMALs in the middle of the pacific, where are expecting the base to be?

There were two extremely similar designs in the September rehearsal but one was pulled for the live parade. The one shown in the parade had regular retractable MLG, and it’s almost certain that this one we are seeing here was the version that was pulled. So they likely have two versions, a normal one and this single use one.

If you know from the get go you are designing a single use drone, that fundamentally changes a lot of your basic design parameters. You don’t need to worry about landing. No need for MLG and the whole airframe structural design could be optimised to take out the need to handle the stresses of landing. With EMAL launch, you can afford to dial back engine power requirements. The engine itself could have its specs trimmed back to bare basics if it only needs to run one time ever. There are so many fundamental design choices that could be optimised if you fully embrace the fact you are building something that only need to fly one sortie that you can achieve really significant cost reductions, range increases and potentially also performance increases.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
plawolf said:
If you are operating them from container ships with EMALs in the middle of the pacific, where are expecting the base to be?

There were two extremely similar designs in the September rehearsal but one was pulled for the live parade. The one shown in the parade had regular retractable MLG, and it’s almost certain that this one we are seeing here was the version that was pulled. So they likely have two versions, a normal one and this single use one.

If you know from the get go you are designing a single use drone, that fundamentally changes a lot of your basic design parameters. You don’t need to worry about landing. No need for MLG and the whole airframe structural design could be optimised to take out the need to handle the stresses of landing. With EMAL launch, you can afford to dial back engine power requirements. The engine itself could have its specs trimmed back to bare basics if it only needs to run one time ever. There are so many fundamental design choices that could be optimised if you fully embrace the fact you are building something that only need to fly one sortie that you can achieve really significant cost reductions, range increases and potentially also performance increases.
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After you reach Guam in the Second Island Chain, there are lots of small islands stretching towards Hawaii.

But for the next 5 years at least, I think it would be very difficult for Chinese ships to operate beyond Guam.
 
N

no_name

Colonel
We might be at a point where single-use drones do not necessarily cost more than a Tomahawk type subsonic cruise missile (where China is concerned), yet is more flexible in what it can do and may even do the cruise missile's job better than them.
 
00CuriousObserver

00CuriousObserver

Senior Member
Registered Member
Speaking of which, I'm curious who's building WZ-X and GJ-X

If it's XAC, considering everything they have on their plate, we should be looking at an expansion of facilities.
 
A

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
00CuriousObserver said:
Speaking of which, I'm curious who's building WZ-X and GJ-X

If it's XAC, considering everything they have on their plate, we should be looking at an expansion of facilities.
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They definitely should.

In fact, I'd go further and say that they should also consider having more than one site for their production work, whether that means having sites in the same city (but in different locations with some distance between the two) or within a metropolitan region, or even in different cities elsewhere. Having too much production capacity bundled at just one location could introduce serious vulnerabilities, especially during wartime.

This similarly applies to the other ACs under the AVIC umbrella. Maybe we're seeing this starting to happen with Shenyang, though I'm not exactly sure whether this is actually true.
 
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plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
ACuriousPLAFan said:
They definitely should.

In fact, I'd go further and say that they should also consider having more than one site for their production work, whether that means having sites in the same city (but in different locations with some distance between the two) or within a metropolitan region, or even in different cities elsewhere. Having too much production capacity bundled at just one location could introduce serious vulnerabilities, especially during wartime.

This similarly applies to the other ACs under the AVIC umbrella. Maybe we're seeing this starting to happen with Shenyang, though I'm not exactly sure whether this is actually true.
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A lot China’s core MIC production hubs (barring shipbuilding for obvious reasons) are situated deep in China’s hinterlands to make them hard to attack by design. These factories didn’t just spring up randomly and organically, there locations were carefully selected.

The only thing that can realistically reach these locations and take out the facilities the size of small towns are nukes. If China and America are lobbing nukes at each others homelands, the production capabilities of factories will no longer matter.
 
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