Is China's military equipment 20 years behind the US' army ?

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

I believe China's Military is catching up with the US. One can noticed the Army 2nd Artillery anti-ship missiles, the PLA-AF latest stealth aircraft and weaponry that have been developed. The PLA-N is a modern Navy with a vast array of vessels complete with high technology, and it continues to expand. The Chinese General visiting the US is just being diplomatic. As long as the Central Communist Party controls the Military, there will be less belligerancy. However, within 10 years time, China will be a strong Military Power able to challenge the US and the others in the Asia-Pacific Region. The Arms build-up will continue in the Region by India, Japan, South Korea & Australia, as they will be prepared for any eventualities and not be caught napping.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

I think there is no doubt that People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde is being diplomatic during the visit. Nonetheless, his comment about the PLA being 20 years behind after seeing what the US military have is probably true as well.

This is why it is important to have interactions between militaries so that each have a better appreciation of what the others have. It prevents a military from having an overly high opinion of its own equipment and capabilities when it doesn't even know what others have. Hence, I think his comment serves as a useful reality check. Perhaps it is also meant for the hawks within the PLA?

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

Firstly, the General was on a diplomatic mission to the US, and so he would have made those comments for the benefits of his US hosts. It is also a well establish policy of the PLA to downplay their capabilities, so it would be silly to simply take those remarks at face value.

What more, the concept of xx years behind is inherently flawed and fundamentally inaccurate.

Not only does the PLA of today have weapons and assets that are actually far superior to what the US forces had in 91 (GPS/Beidou guided glide bombs, tank fired missiles, precision guided artillery shells, far better multirole fighter radars, AESA AWACS, heavy SAMs that could actually intercept ballistic missiles, far more effective battlefield UAVs and so on); but it has taken the PLA far less time to make improvements than the US first did.

How long did it take the US to go from the F15/16/18 to the F22? How long did it take China to go from the J10 to the J20? How long did it take the US to go from the Spruance Class to the Arleigh Burke? How long did it take China to go from the 052 to the 052C?

Pretty much everywhere you look, China has taken less time to move from one tech level to the next than the US did, and in many cases, China has even jumped entire generations/classes. That is because of many reasons, but some of the main ones include the fact that it is always harder to innovate than to play catch up, since the one catching up can benefit hugely from the past example of the innovator to avoid dead ends and have a clear idea of what is needed. The general technological advancement in the civilian sector also feeds through into aiding military development. China can use supercomputers for research and development that are a magnitude faster than anything available in the early 90s.

So not only is it not strictly true that China is 20 years behind the US, even if that was true, it will not take China 20 years to reach the tech level the US is at today, so the 20 years figure is meaningless.

China is still behind the US technologically, and in terms of overall global combat capabilities, the PLA is far inferior to the US military. It might actually take more than 20 years for China to build its overall combat capabilities to match that of the US today, especially in terms of the navy. But it is foolish to think it will take 20 years from China to achieve the level of technological sophistication as the US military enjoys today.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

PanAsian said:

If the Chinese military had to carry out an operation like Desert Storm today, they would utterly fail. This is because China doesn't have any of the strategic military tools which the US had and continues to have plenty of, such as:
- bases and forces already deployed all around the world
- strategic airlift
- aircraft carriers with airwings
- amphibious ships and forces with organic CAS
- submarines with LACMs
- long range strategic bombers

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That is just non-sense, and largely inaccurate to boot.

Lets take a closer look.

Bases around the world.
Irrelevant. The US had no military bases in Saudi Arabia until the build up to the Gulf War. If the Saudis allowed China to establish military bases on their soil, and the same coalition allowed the PLA the same access to their bases and facilities as they allowed the US in 91, the PLA could conduct a gulf war style operation just as effectively.

Strategic airlift
Again irrelevant. The vast majority of US military forces and hardware got to the middle east via ships, not transport planes. Not even the US has anything close to the airlift capacity to transport a desert storm sized expeditionary force. The PLA can get their forces to the middle east by ship, just as the US did with the bulk of its forces.

Carriers with airwing
Useful but not essential, what with some many air bases available in neighboring countries. The sortie and weapons release logs will also show that ground based aircraft did the bulk of the work. Having carriers would be helpful, but not having them would not render the mission impossible.

Amphibious ships
Again, useful but hardly essential. There was actually no large scale amphibious assault during the gulf war. The US Marines drove across the desert instead.

Forces with organic CAS
The PLA actually has this, and has had it for years now. The PLAAF have embedded close air controllers in PLA units. This is well documented. Beside, the PLA has always had different battlefield tactics and strategies to the US, and the PLA place much more emphasis on organic artillery support, and have far more big guns in their force structure than the US army, which would have been more useful out in the open desert.

submarines with LACM
Silly example. Do you know how many cruise missiles were launched by subs during desert storm? Compare that to the total number of missiles and bombs dropped and you will realize this capability makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things.

long range strategic bombers
Again, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. In the age of precision munitions, the ability to carpet bomb has lost its significance. Hell, carpet bombing was never really that effective anyways.

It might have taken more sorties, but strategic bombers did not play a pivotal role to make their absence matter much. The PLA preferred to used massed artillery for saturation work anyways, and the H6 would be more than adequate to act as bomb truck if it was really needed.

All these assets allow the US to carry out offensive operations anywhere in the world with short notice. Not only is China's technology 20 years behind the US for equivalents, there are also areas where China does not have equivalents at all, such as in strategic airlift, strategic long range bombers, aircraft carriers, amphibious ships and expeditionary forces.

But this is not so bad since China doesn't care to rule the world, it just needs to be able to defend itself against a world conqueror such as the US.

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As I have explained above, none of the things you have raised, individually or collectively, would be able to cause PLA desert storm style operation to become an 'utter fail' by any stretch of the imagination.

There is no reason to think that if given the same level of international support and co-operation from neighboring countries and NATO allies as the US enjoyed that the PLA of today could not have conducted a desert storm style operation and achieved similar results.

It would take quite something to argue that the Iraqi military of 91 could have hoped to defeat the PLA of today plus NATO allies of 1991 operating from the same bases as the US did back then.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

PanAsia I agree with you on the most part.

plawolf has made some valid points.

However..plawolf has managed to spin Desert Storm into a "China can do the same thing as the US". Nice job. Anyone may be a spin doctor.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

I think 1 of the most important factors behind the statement by PLA CGS is that the modernisation of the PLA began slightly over 10 years ago. Hence, majority of the equipment that the PLA is currently using are old equipment. The modern, high-end equipment such as J10 and J11 are not in the majority yet (although they are the ones in the lime-light). The same applies for the PLAN and the army.

J20 is well and good. But F-22 has been operational for more than 10 years. When will the 1st squadron of operational J20 take to the skies? Hence, the statement that PLA is 20 years behind has some truth in it.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

Spartan95 said:

I think 1 of the most important factors behind the statement by PLA CGS is that the modernisation of the PLA began slightly over 10 years ago. Hence, majority of the equipment that the PLA is currently using are old equipment. The modern, high-end equipment such as J10 and J11 are not in the majority yet (although they are the ones in the lime-light). The same applies for the PLAN and the army.

J20 is well and good. But F-22 has been operational for more than 10 years. When will the 1st squadron of operational J20 take to the skies? Hence, the statement that PLA is 20 years behind has some truth in it.

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Agree, even perhaps in 4-5 years PLAAF may have 1 or 2 squadron of J-20, I believe J-20 will be a slightly inferior to F-22. 20 years behind is about right, but definitely not in computer and avionic technology, I believe in computer and avionic are almost at parity or perhaps 3-5 years behind. In engine technology the number will be more than 20 years, perhaps 30 years

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

bd popeye said:

However..plawolf has managed to spin Desert Storm into a "China can do the same thing as the US". Nice job. Anyone may be a spin doctor.

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Everyone's a critic.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

bd popeye said:

PanAsia I agree with you on the most part.

plawolf has made some valid points.

However..plawolf has managed to spin Desert Storm into a "China can do the same thing as the US". Nice job. Anyone may be a spin doctor.

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I think if one keeps a light head, it's more of a "China can take the role of the US in Desert Storm assuming coalition and international support was still there", which is a fair statement, for today's PLA at least.

Re: Are China's military equipments 20 years behind the US' army ?

The US forces and to certain extent the British have been in continous combat since World War II - Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia & various other skirmishes up to the present day Afghanistan. Not just training only but actual combat. They had their "ups & downs" & have learnt from experiences. Not many Armed Forces including the PLA have similar combat experiences (Conventional, Desert, Jungle, Insurgency etc.). BTW, the reason for this is as told to me by a US Defence Professor is that the US Armed Forces are most willing & able to "scrap" with its opponents when need be.