Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Re: The End of the Carrier Age?
Taiwan intelligence chief independently confirm the the deployment of DF 21D
I wouldn't read too much in Gen Chen statement. He is not specific with what he meant with bottle neck.
He is probably just being modest and polite not to upstage Mike Mullen visit and unnecessarily alarm US.
He also said this
“The missile is still undergoing experimental testing and will be used as a defensive weapon when it is successfully developed, not an offensive one,” Chen says. “It is a high-tech weapon and we face many difficulties in getting funding, advanced technologies and high-quality personnel, which are all underlying reasons why it is hard to develop this.”
Problem getting funding with 3 trillion dollars in stash?.
With 10000 Engineering Phd graduate every year, China has problem finding high quality researcher ?
Another thing he talk about 2700 km missile which is completely different missile then the widely discuss 1500km missile
then again there is different interpretation of what he meant by IOC as clearly explained in this passage
As for the definition of “operational,” it seems likely that the U.S. and Chinese militaries have different definitions of what it means for a weapon to be operational, with the PLA’s definition in this case being more stringent, at least in certain respects. This would explain why Admiral Robert Willard, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, stated in December 2010: “I would gauge it as about the equivalent of a U.S. system that has achieved [Initial Operational Capability] IOC.” Perhaps also whereas Admiral Willard was speaking of the U.S. concept of IOC, General Chen is alluding to a Chinese benchmark closer to the U.S. concept of Full Operational Capability (FOC)—a much higher standard to meet, and one that no U.S. official has claimed publicly that China’s ASBM has achieved. In any case, this apparent discrepancy highlights the pitfalls of using U.S.-specific terms to describe foreign systems and capabilities. But it is worth revisiting Admiral Willard’s own statement of December 2010, which is not necessarily so different from General Chen’s: “The anti-ship ballistic missile system in China has undergone extensive testing. An analogy using a Western term would be ‘initial operational capability,’ whereby it has—I think China would perceive that it has—an operational capability now, but they continue to develop it. It will continue to undergo testing, I would imagine, for several more years.” As in so many other areas, authorities on the respective sides of the Pacific may be talking past each other when in fact they are saying broadly similar things. It would be a mistake to let semantic issues obscure real Chinese progress with real strategic implications.
There may be other factors at play as well: General Chen may be downplaying Chinese capabilities to attempt to minimize foreign development of countermeasures to them. At the same time, the PLA may feel the need to meet a higher standard of testing before it can be confident of a novel weapon’s effectiveness because it lacks the U.S. military’s years of experience in high-intensity combat, sophisticated testing, and simulation. But it would be a mistake to assume that China’s DF-21D ASBM lacks what the U.S. military would consider to be lower-end “operational” capabilities just because it apparently does not yet meet General Chen’s definition.
Taiwan intelligence chief independently confirm the the deployment of DF 21D
I wouldn't read too much in Gen Chen statement. He is not specific with what he meant with bottle neck.
He is probably just being modest and polite not to upstage Mike Mullen visit and unnecessarily alarm US.
He also said this
“The missile is still undergoing experimental testing and will be used as a defensive weapon when it is successfully developed, not an offensive one,” Chen says. “It is a high-tech weapon and we face many difficulties in getting funding, advanced technologies and high-quality personnel, which are all underlying reasons why it is hard to develop this.”
Problem getting funding with 3 trillion dollars in stash?.
With 10000 Engineering Phd graduate every year, China has problem finding high quality researcher ?
Another thing he talk about 2700 km missile which is completely different missile then the widely discuss 1500km missile
then again there is different interpretation of what he meant by IOC as clearly explained in this passage
As for the definition of “operational,” it seems likely that the U.S. and Chinese militaries have different definitions of what it means for a weapon to be operational, with the PLA’s definition in this case being more stringent, at least in certain respects. This would explain why Admiral Robert Willard, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, stated in December 2010: “I would gauge it as about the equivalent of a U.S. system that has achieved [Initial Operational Capability] IOC.” Perhaps also whereas Admiral Willard was speaking of the U.S. concept of IOC, General Chen is alluding to a Chinese benchmark closer to the U.S. concept of Full Operational Capability (FOC)—a much higher standard to meet, and one that no U.S. official has claimed publicly that China’s ASBM has achieved. In any case, this apparent discrepancy highlights the pitfalls of using U.S.-specific terms to describe foreign systems and capabilities. But it is worth revisiting Admiral Willard’s own statement of December 2010, which is not necessarily so different from General Chen’s: “The anti-ship ballistic missile system in China has undergone extensive testing. An analogy using a Western term would be ‘initial operational capability,’ whereby it has—I think China would perceive that it has—an operational capability now, but they continue to develop it. It will continue to undergo testing, I would imagine, for several more years.” As in so many other areas, authorities on the respective sides of the Pacific may be talking past each other when in fact they are saying broadly similar things. It would be a mistake to let semantic issues obscure real Chinese progress with real strategic implications.
There may be other factors at play as well: General Chen may be downplaying Chinese capabilities to attempt to minimize foreign development of countermeasures to them. At the same time, the PLA may feel the need to meet a higher standard of testing before it can be confident of a novel weapon’s effectiveness because it lacks the U.S. military’s years of experience in high-intensity combat, sophisticated testing, and simulation. But it would be a mistake to assume that China’s DF-21D ASBM lacks what the U.S. military would consider to be lower-end “operational” capabilities just because it apparently does not yet meet General Chen’s definition.
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How many of those intercepts were in terminal phase? How many of them traveling at M10 and maneuvering?