Japan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Janiz said:

The second ship of the 3900 ton class frigate, JS Kumano, had been launched yesterday in the Mitsui shipyard in Tamano. It's the second ship of the class launched first because the other one had an accident during turbine testing and the building process had been suspended in summer if I remember it correctly. Fortunately no casualties there and according to reports the works on the second vessel resumed earlier this month and it should be launched early next year. The new class is rougly as big as the 054A with empty displacement of 3900t, 133m in lenght and beam of 16.3m. It's also the first JMSDF ship to include stealth features to the extent that it looks more like European product rather than anything Japan launched in the recent years. And a short video from launch.

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Very good looking ship. Probably the best looking frigate in service.

siegecrossbow said:

Very good looking ship. Probably the best looking frigate in service.

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Definitely has a sinister sci fi look, I like it!

silentlurker said:

Does the ship not have a main gun? Or is it just ship hasn't been outfitted yet

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It's the latter. It will be Mk45 Mod4 gun.

Here is a fairly rare vid concerning the JASDF.

The training instructor squadron (AKA the Aggressor squadron) flying the very colorfully decorated F-15Js against the newly delivered F-35A squadron taking off at Misawa air base for a combat training exercise.
It is said that US TOP GUN graduates who went against the Aggressor squadron all wanted to go back to TOP GUN training because they were all reported as killed within minutes against them.
It is also rumored that the Russian air force doctrine against them is to always engage in a 3 to 1 scenario since with only 2 may result in defeat.

siegecrossbow said:

Very good looking ship. Probably the best looking frigate in service.

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Grey box with crude lines.

SamuraiBlue said:

It is also rumored that the Russian air force doctrine against them is to always engage in a 3 to 1 scenario since with only 2 may result in defeat.

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It's rumored that it takes a whole squad of japanese to take on a single hero brought up by the Songun society.
Or should i refer to undisclosed sources within US intelligence community?

This isn't how air combat works.

Gloire_bb said:

It's rumored that it takes a whole squad of japanese to take on a single hero brought up by the Songun society.
Or should i refer to undisclosed sources within US intelligence community?

This isn't how air combat works.

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Actually the US air force had admitted a JASDF F-104 starfighter, a 2G fighter making a kill call against the F-15 in the 80's during a combat exercise.
Takahiro "Rock" Iwasaki, a JASDF pilot with his wing man used a tactic which was highlighted in the 90's movie TOP GUN, flew closely together to disguise their radar signature to make it look as a single blip, closed into their opponents and broke off once in visual range into a high low position and sandwiching the opponent to make the kill.
The F-15 pilots never saw what was coming. It is recorded as the first kill of a 4th generation fighter by a 2nd generation fighter.

SamuraiBlue said:

broke off once in visual range

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How exactly does a Starfighter get into visual range with a F-15? Once you're WVR anyone in any plane can get lucky eventually.

silentlurker said:

How exactly does a Starfighter get into visual range with a F-15? Once you're WVR anyone in any plane can get lucky eventually.

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Well I mean this was back in the day before AESA and high fidelity radars/sensors were available. Heck F-15s of that time would still be firing what would now be considered obsolete AIM-7 Sparrow semi-active radar missiles that feature half the range of your modern day Fox-3 AMRAAM/PL-15, BVR was a completely different game compared to today.

SamuraiBlue said:

Actually the US air force had admitted a JASDF F-104 starfighter, a 2G fighter making a kill call against the F-15 in the 80's during a combat exercise.
Takahiro "Rock" Iwasaki, a JASDF pilot with his wing man used a tactic which was highlighted in the 90's movie TOP GUN, flew closely together to disguise their radar signature to make it look as a single blip, closed into their opponents and broke off once in visual range into a high low position and sandwiching the opponent to make the kill.
The F-15 pilots never saw what was coming. It is recorded as the first kill of a 4th generation fighter by a 2nd generation fighter.

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There is nothing fundamentally impossible in 2 gen fighter getting a kill against a 4th gen. I'd even argue that at least until the 1990s, good 2nd gens could still be reasonably effective in a furball of massed dogfight.

But throwing 4th gens at 5th gens till result isn't the way it happens. If anything, because number of russian su-35s on theater is ~equal to japanese f-35 fleet, and this is even all those w/o f-15Js. Their price isn't that far from su-57 either, so for rus 1st ian economy they are no more(actually, much less) expendable than, say, F-15Xs for the US.

Su-35(or almost any modern "4+" fighter for the matter) is an inferior product overall(legacy of the su-27 family goes all the way back to late 1960s, lol) , but there are nevertheless inherent advantages and possibilities to use.
"strength in numbers" works only for those who have these numbers.

Gloire_bb said:

There is nothing fundamentally impossible in 2 gen fighter getting a kill against a 4th gen. I'd even argue that at least until the 1990s, good 2nd gens could still be reasonably effective in a furball of massed dogfight.

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F-104 is different though. It has massive wing loading and couldn't really do squat in a turning fight.