KJ-600 carrierborne AEWC thread

[manqiangrexue]

I have no doubt it will be a very big upgrade for the Chinese...no doubt about that. However, as to the last phrase/statement...I highly doubt it and would be it against it in a big way.

Would you bet more or less than the amount you'd bet against someone who said 2 weeks ago that China would have the first naval rail-gun mounted on a ship and not the US?

 

[bd popeye]

Would you bet more or less than the amount you'd bet against someone who said 2 weeks ago that China would have the first naval rail-gun mounted on a ship and not the US?

The rail gun China has installed is not the final product. It is a step in the right direction of having the final product. In fact it is a big step. I do not know where the USN stands on it's rail gun development....I Thought the USN rail gun project was going to be axed.

As for the Chinese AEW aircraft..I'll have to dig the net for it's capabilities.

If you fellows only knew the full war reserve mode capabilities of a an Hawkeye..you'd be astounded.

 

[manqiangrexue]

The rail gun China has installed is not the final product. It is a step in the right direction of having the final product. In fact it is a big step. I do not know where the USN stands on it's rail gun development....I Thought the USN rail gun project was going to be axed.

As for the Chinese AEW aircraft..I'll have to dig the net for it's capabilities.

If you fellows only knew the full war reserve mode capabilities of a an Hawkeye..you'd be astounded.

Didn't say it was gonna be the final product. I said mounted on a ship, which is a big step in the right way, as you said, and it is a big step that no one else in the world has taken. You are correct; there are reports on the US rail-guns being axed but I'm not sure if that's permanent. Apparently, they've decided that due to the difficulties of a rail-gun being needed to fire a projectile at mach 7, they might be willing to settle instead for those projectiles being fired out of normal guns at mach 3.

Astounded by the Hawkeye? Maybe, maybe not. Whether or not I'd be astounded would depend on what I could discern from a comparison against KJ-500/600. (Not sure it's possible to get an accurate one just from net-digging though...) If I don't have a comparison, I wouldn't be astounded and I wouldn't be so sure which was better.

 

[Blitzo]

We should keep in mind that while the KJ-600 is China's 1st generation carrier-launched AEW/C, it is certainly not China's first AEW/C. China has had almost 2 decades of experience designing and operating AEW/C aircraft, starting with the KJ-2000 (in 2000) after the Israeli Phalcon was canceled due to pressure from the US. There is also supposedly a newer generation KJ-3000 now as well. China also has the KJ-200 and KJ-500 AEW/C aircraft. The KJ-600 will almost certainly incorporate GaN technology, thereby leapfrogging over the E-2C, at least in hardware capability. Will the KJ-600 be as good as the E-2D? I would bet probably not. But I'm also willing to bet it's good enough to track F-22s and F-35s and vector a squadron of J-20s at them.

Without knowing how good the pre-existing radars and combat management system of KJ-2000, -200, -500 are compared to E-2D, or the latest E-3 upgrade blocks, makes me wonder whether comparing how good KJ-600 will be to E-2D may be a jumping the gun.


What I'm alluding to of course, is asking whether the latest system in the form of KJ-500 might already approach or exceed E-2D in the relevant parameters (excluding airframe specific variables).

 

[Blitzo]

Now, the picture shown above is NOT what the Chinese are developing. I am talking about the one that says the US should fear the new Chinese AEW aircraft. That is simply a PS'd E-2C aircraft.

Jeff, the KJ-600 will almost definitely look like a PS'd E-2.

"Fear" is an inappropriate word to use, but let's go with what the SCMP wrote anyway.. The US should certainly "fear" the eventual carrier fixed wing AEW&C (KJ-600) as much as the Chinese military should "fear" whatever E-2 variant the USN is using by that time.

I'm sure we all appreciate how indispensable and vital fixed wing AEW&C is for carriers and air-naval warfare. It would be silly for either side to not "fear" the other's fixed wing AEW&C in that kind of environment.

The new aircraft the Chinese are developing are going to definitely be far better than the existing helicopter AEW capabilities they have...but they have a lot to learn and catch up to get their equipment and capabilities up to what the US has been working fifty+ year on developing.

Having operated something for many years and having spent many years developing a type of equipment doesn't mean there will be always be a proportional increase in the capability or the competency of that system.


If that were the case, then the established military powers of history would always have truimphed over newer upstarts every time because their capability should always have been better because they had been established for longer. Instead, what happens is that challengers and competitors catch up using their own relative advantages and can find new ways of doing things to field capabilities that can compete with powers or products that have been established for a longer time.

Will this be the case in terms of KJ-600?

Who knows.

 

[Jeff Head]

Jeff, the KJ-600 will almost definitely look like a PS'd E-2.

"Fear" is an inappropriate word to use, but let's go with what the SCMP wrote anyway.. The US should certainly "fear" the eventual carrier fixed wing AEW&C (KJ-600) as much as the Chinese military should "fear" whatever E-2 variant the USN is using by that time.

I'm sure we all appreciate how indispensable and vital fixed wing AEW&C is for carriers and air-naval warfare. It would be silly for either side to not "fear" the other's fixed wing AEW&C in that kind of environment.





Having operated something for many years and having spent many years developing a type of equipment doesn't mean there will be always be a proportional increase in the capability or the competency of that system.


If that were the case, then the established military powers of history would always have truimphed over newer upstarts every time because their capability should always have been better because they had been established for longer. Instead, what happens is that challengers and competitors catch up using their own relative advantages and can find new ways of doing things to field capabilities that can compete with powers or products that have been established for a longer time.

Will this be the case in terms of KJ-600?

Who knows.

I will use the term respect. The US Navy...and any other for that matter...should respect what the KJ-200 will represetn for the PLAN.

Outide of the US and France, no one else will have a fixed wing AEW aircraft for their carriers like the Chinese will have once they get them operational.

And they bring a very strong capability to the carrier.

Now, the UK has the Mrlin AEW helo which is going to be top notch itself...and the Royal Navy has many decades of experience, in using it and in developing it...and so the Chiense will most definitely respect that platform in a similar manner.

The chinee will take years to develop the operational experience, the strategies, and the development of the radars to be optimal for AEW off of the carrier. They will not have that when they first fly them. But they will have a much greated capabilty than they now have, and over time they will develop it into a better and better operational capability.

I do not believe anyone who is serious about Naval technology, naval warfare, and naval strategy ...and who is serious about it...will doubg that for a moment.

 

[jobjed]

The chinee will take years to develop the operational experience, the strategies, and the development of the radars to be optimal for AEW off of the carrier. They will not have that when they first fly them. But they will have a much greated capabilty than they now have, and over time they will develop it into a better and better operational capability.

They've already been flying AEW&C over water for years using both the KJ-200 and KJ-500, and occasionally the KJ-2000. They have all the experience they need to develop the optimal carrier-borne AEW radar for fixed-wing aircraft. The areas where they can slip up is not in the design of the radar, but the entire package, AKA the aircraft. However, given how painstakingly methodical they've been with literally everything to do with their carrier programme, I doubt they'll slip up very much, if at all, in the design of the KJ-600.

 

[Lethe]

If that were the case, then the established military powers of history would always have truimphed over newer upstarts every time because their capability should always have been better because they had been established for longer. Instead, what happens is that challengers and competitors catch up using their own relative advantages and can find new ways of doing things to field capabilities that can compete with powers or products that have been established for a longer time.

Yet KJ-600 is hardly "a new way of doing things". It's basically an E-2D -- maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, but basically an E-2D. That may (or may not) be entirely sensible in the context of all relevant factors, but it certainly isn't a disruptive innovation.

 

[Iron Man]

I have no doubt it will be a very big upgrade for the Chinese...no doubt about that. However, as to the last phrase/statement...I highly doubt it and would be it against it in a big way.

As jobjed already pointed out, there is simply no way to defeat physics. The F-22 and F-35 are not invisible to all bands, and the lower the band, the more visible the F-22/F-35. That's why the yagi antenna (517) on the 052C/D is considered an anti-stealth early warning radar, as it operates in the UHF band. On the other hand, what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. J-20s and J-31s should also be easily detectable and trackable to either an E-2C or an E-2D.

However, since most AEW&C radars globally are of the L or S band, there's no telling whether the PLAN will go for the conventional bands or the anti-stealth UHF band.

Even a radar in L band can detect stealth fighters, just not as good as UHF or VHF. Come to think of it, both S-band and X-band will also detect stealth targets, just at a significantly compressed range compared to non-stealth targets. More radiating elements, more power output per element (i.e. GaN), and more advanced algorithms help to overcome stealth at any frequency, whether UHF or X-band. I actually wouldn't even be remotely surprised if the SPY-6 and Type 346(C?) could both detect stealth targets at significant ranges, assuming the latter is also using GaN emitters.

 

[Jeff Head]

As jobjed already pointed out, there is simply no way to defeat physics. The F-22 and F-35 are not invisible to all bands, and the lower the band, the more visible the F-22/F-35. That's why the yagi antenna (517) on the 052C/D is considered an anti-stealth early warning radar, as it operates in the UHF band. On the other hand, what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. J-20s and J-31s should also be easily detectable and trackable to either an E-2C or an E-2D.


Even a radar in L band can detect stealth fighters, just not as good as UHF or VHF. Come to think of it, both S-band and X-band will also detect stealth targets, just at a significantly compressed range compared to non-stealth targets. More radiating elements, more power output per element (i.e. GaN), and more advanced algorithms help to overcome stealth at any frequency, whether UHF or X-band. I actually wouldn't even be remotely surprised if the SPY-6 and Type 346(C?) could both detect stealth targets at significant ranges, assuming the latter is also using GaN emitters.

There are ways to defeat and spoof the various bands...both electronic and physical.

The US has been testing and perfecting those methodologies for decades now...and they work.

Without the various methodologies of which I speak, at certain bands and level, yes, they otherwise would be detectable. But as I say, they can also be spoofed and they can also be rendered much less capable of understanding what they are looking at, or rendered far enough/low enough into the background to make them, for all intents and purposes not able to pull them out.

Time will tell whether the US has done the job well enough...as well as tell whether the PLAN and others have been able to determine what they are and themselves able to overcome them.

Right now, given the amount of sheer time, money, and experience invested over the years, I would be very surprised of the new capabilities for the PRC defeat it out f the chute.

Its the nature of the beast...move/development --- countermove/development. Been going on since man developed the first spear, arrow, sword, etc.