PLA Navy news, pics and videos

taxiya said:

This is a basic logic screw up. Why would Chinese NOT build their OWN aircraft carrier because they can strike aircraft carrier of OTHER's?

"My sword is sharper to break your shield, so I would give up my own shield", what is that? Am I hitting my shield with my sword? Or the author expect China will hand over her ASBM to him to strike Chinese aircraft carrier?

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The kind of nonsense this admiral is saying is meant for mass consumption. Most won't even begin to understand the fallacy in that line of reasoning. It is clear from the words chosen, this guy either knows absolutely nothing, or he is hiding the information they have. This is obvious from how reluctant he is in giving ANY sort of detail like what speed ranges, why he believes the tech isn't there yet, and why there must be a compromise between speed and guidance and how dramatic the compromise is. This indicates there is an agenda behind how he wants to manipulate public understanding and thinking by purposefully withholding the details which I'm sure they have. Certainly further than the simple nonsense mentioned here.

Having said that, I find it difficult to believe China does not think AShBM are VERY promising weapons, worthy of development and improvement. Chinese government has not once disclosed this officially or threatened using it or bragged about it on an international scale like Putin has for the newly disclosed Russian "super weapons". Huge contrast between the two. It is far more likely those Russian ones are more for show and statement making to the US. If Chinese AShBM are a statement making paper tiger weapon meant to threaten or intimidate, they would be putting a lot of effort in showing it. They are not. Apart from internet images and hearsay, there is hardly a shred of actual info about it apart from the official hints given to its existence, after many years of leakers suggested the existence of such missiles.

Without satellite and nodes feeding and adjusting guidance, inertial methods will not make the weapon effective. It's probably unlikely the missile has the ability to be self-reliant in guidance, so the AShBM is more likely to be a pre-emptive weapon to be used first before satellites and nodes are knocked out or prevented from doing their job. By the time launches are detected, there isn't much time to defend and take out those guidance assets. The US will probably knock out Chinese satellites first before they do anything. Carrier movements will be impossible to track after that, if they are tracked at all.

one of the most interesting sentences I've ever read related to Dong-Feng is this:

ougoah said:

If Chinese AShBM are a statement making paper tiger weapon meant to threaten or intimidate, they would be putting a lot of effort in showing it.

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Interesting interactive comparison of Chinese navy vs the rest


The Expansion of the PLAN
The modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has resulted in a growth in fleet size and capabilities. Research conducted by suggests that China’s surface fleet in 1996 consisted of 57 destroyers and frigates, but only three of these vessels carried short ranged surface-to-air missiles (SAM), making them virtually “defenseless against modern anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM).” Three quarters of its roughly 80 attack submarines belonged to the Soviet Romeo-class that entered service in the 1950s.

Over the last few decades, China’s navy has rapidly expanded. As of 2018, the Chinese Navy consists of over , making it larger than the comprising the deployable battle force of US Navy. The fleet sizes of other leading nations are comparatively smaller. The British Royal Navy consists of 75 ships and the Royal Australian Navy has a fleet of ships.

New ships are being put to sea at an impressive rate. Between 2014 and 2018, China more submarines, warships, amphibious vessels, and auxiliaries than the number of ships currently serving in the individual navies of Germany, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Eighteen ships were commissioned by China in 2016 alone and at least another 14 were added in 2017. By comparison, the US Navy 5 ships in 2016 and 8 ships in 2017. Should China continue to commission ships at a similar rate, it could have 430 surface ships and 100 submarines within the .


According to the (DoD), a significant focus of the PLAN’s modernization is upgrading and “augmenting its littoral warfare capabilities, especially in the South China Sea and East China Sea.” In response to this need, China has ramped up production of Jiangdao-class (Type 056) corvettes. Since being first commissioned in 2013, more than 41 Type 056 corvettes had entered service by mid-2018.

The capabilities of the Chinese Navy are growing in other areas as well. has reported that based on contemporary standards of ship production, over 70 percent of the PLAN fleet in 2017 was considered “modern,” up from less than 50 percent in 2010. China is also producing larger ships capable of accommodating advanced armaments and onboard systems. The Type 055 cruiser, for instance, is planned to enter service in 2019-20 and weighs roughly 5,000 tons more than the Type 052D destroyer that entered service in 2014. The Type 055 is slated to carry large cruise missiles and be capable of escorting an aircraft carrier into blue waters.

China is also leading the world in terms of the overall tonnage of ships it has put to sea. The collective tonnage of the ships launched by China between 2014-2018 was an impressive 678,000 tons — larger than the aggregate tonnages of the of India and France combined. Importantly, the PLAN’s total tonnage remains less than half of that of the US navy, a gap estimated at roughly . This difference is largely attributed to the US fielding 11 aircraft carriers, each displacing approximately 100,000 tons.

Expanding Shipbuilding Capability
The rapid expansion of the PLAN has been undergirded by China’s growing shipbuilding capability. During mid-1990s, favorable market conditions and joint ventures with Japan and South Korea enabled China to its shipbuilding facilities and operational techniques. According to the, the modernization and expansion of these shipyards has “increased China’s shipbuilding capacity and capability for all types of military projects, including submarines, surface combatants, naval aviation, and sealift assets.”

These advances have also facilitated China’s transition into a commercial shipbuilding superpower. Merchant shipbuilding production rose from just 1 million gross tons in 1996 to a high of 39 million gross tons in 2011, which was more than double the output of Japan in the same year. In 2018, China surpassed South Korea as the global leader in shipbuilding orders. Through the first 11 months of 2018, China’s shipbuilding industry captured an impressive of the global market.
to continue click the link too long to post it here

What the French Admiral said below doesn't make sense, and makes the rest of his comments suspect.

We have air-to-air missiles which fly in excess of Mach 2. And somehow they manage to have terminal seekers that can hit a manoeuvring target.

A Sidewinder flies at mach 2.5+, yet somehow its IR seeker functions.
An AMRAAM flies at Mach 4, yet somehow its radar seeker functions.

So the comments of the French Admiral, saying that a DF-21 would have to slow down to Mach 1 or Mach 2, simply do not make sense.

Jura said:

LOL one of my favorite topis is Dong-Feng AShBM, now noticed its recent naysaying

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AndrewS said:

What the French Admiral said below doesn't make sense, and makes the rest of his comments suspect.

We have air-to-air missiles which fly in excess of Mach 2. And somehow they manage to have terminal seekers that can hit a manoeuvring target.

A Sidewinder flies at mach 2.5+, yet somehow its IR seeker functions.
An AMRAAM flies at Mach 4, yet somehow its radar seeker functions.

So the comments of the French Admiral, saying that a DF-21 would have to slow down to Mach 1 or Mach 2, simply do not make sense.

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LOL since you quoted me, I'll comment:

the problem is of homing (what radar frequency? or EO/IR?) the reentry vehicle, which would be DEcelerating

EDIT got distraught
in short, that source claims a relatively low speed at which the MARV would be homing

Jura said:

LOL since you quoted me, I'll comment:

the problem is of homing (what radar frequency? or EO/IR?) the reentry vehicle, which would be DEcelerating

EDIT got distraught
in short, that source claims a relatively low speed at which the MARV would be homing

Click to expand...

The deceleration/heat is just another engineering problem that we know can be solved with enough coolant or a disposable heat shield.

So I'll repeat again. The source is a French admiral speaking to the British parliament, but what he says doesn't sound credible.

He states a DF-21 MARV would have to decelerate to Mach 1 or Mach 2, in order to acquire a target. By even mentioning Mach 1 (which is far too slow), it means he doesn't know what he is talking about.

We know that air-to-air AMRAAM missiles operate at much higher speeds (Mach 4+), yet their sensors are able to acquire a target.

Therefore I would regard this source as unreliable.

The material said is purely for reassuring the subgroups that need reassuring. Behind the scenes, they are genuinely working towards countering AShBM and continuing the perpetual arms race. All western politicians say one thing and do another. Often they say several contradictory things... all of it is simply to pay lip service to the brainless masses that think and vote a certain way and mustn't have their feelings hurt or their dogmatic world order put into question.

Human being are nearly always motivated by emotional prejudices rather than forming well-reasoned rational thinking and changing one's understanding using evidence and thoughtfulness. Democracy is a failure because it allows for the positive feedback loop of politicians telling lies that the population wants to hear. When has a western politician not only told the harsh truth, persisted with policies that resolved the problem, and remained in power throughout?! Not once in democracy's history. Reason isn't the leadership, rather it is the low intelligence of the general population. Chinese people are no different and the country has its own set of problems that come with authoritarianism. But in the context of this conversation, the French admiral's words are about as factually accurate as Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".

Western consumers are gobbling it up because it is what they want to hear and hope to be the truth. Despite the obvious problems with the words and lack of specifics. Sure they'll say they can't give specifics about why a warhead cannot be guided or why a warhead must be slowed down so it can be guided. None of these idiots hold degrees in physics so do not even understand high school kinematics let alone what the limitations are in reentry vehicle guidance, but they feel qualified in making a judgment and spreading it. This is actually good. The more the west likes to base things off bullshit and the further they carry that bullshit, the better it is for the rest of the world. Unfortunately for us, they are double dipping. One on side, they talk about how this is impossible and China could not have a working AShBM at the moment (just like how China could not possibly create a stealth fighter or conduct ASAT or survive the trade war ) and on the other side and behind the scenes, they are in panic mode doing everything they can to push China back even resorting to literal kidnapping.

You've done a good job in directly finding a clear contradiction in his words. How do some missiles have guidance at mach 6 yet a reentry vehicle cannot possibly have reliable guidance and maneuverability at slightly higher speeds when the requirements for maneuverability for the latter is so much lower than that of a SAM or AA missile. Not to mention the Russian "ballistic" missiles that are ground launched and air launched, all with perfectly operating guidance. Against a slow moving target like a carrier? As long as there is tracking and real time knowledge of where it is, there's nothing preventing AShBM from being guided to the target. Maybe they're struggling with the semantics of the word ballistic. Technically none of these things are ballistic missiles because they DO move, ARE propelled, and have been guided for years if not decades now. The ONLY reason the Soviets and 70s/80s Americans did not persist with their AShBM programs back in the day is because the tracking and reentry warhead guidance technology did not exist/ were not mature or capable enough back then. Now the Americans can easily develop something similar but there's no reason to. China's got two carriers and a relatively small and less capable navy. Conventionally, PLAN is easy enough today for USN pacific fleet to handle. Russians are broke.

AndrewS said:

The deceleration/heat is just another engineering problem that we know can be solved with enough coolant or a disposable heat shield.

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oh yes, the Chinese know how to get back to Earth in a controlled way
but this is not directly related to the mission profile of their AShBMs I mean to its homing part (except if you
AndrewS
knew it, which I think you don't)

AndrewS said:

So I'll repeat again. The source is a French admiral speaking to the British parliament, but what he says doesn't sound credible.

He states a DF-21 MARV would have to decelerate to Mach 1 or Mach 2, in order to acquire a target. By even mentioning Mach 1 (which is far too slow), it means he doesn't know what he is talking about.

We know that air-to-air AMRAAM missiles operate at much higher speeds (Mach 4+), yet their sensors are able to acquire a target.

Therefore I would regard this source as unreliable.

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I don't know a Dong-Feng mission profile either LOL but think a MARV would be extremely dangerous even at those relatively low speeds IF coming at some high angle, 'almost perpendicularly to a CVGB', which I guess it might

Jura said:

oh yes, the Chinese know how to get back to Earth in a controlled way

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but this is not directly related to the mission profile of their AShBMs I mean to its homing part (except if you
AndrewS
knew it, which I think you don't)

I don't know a Dong-Feng mission profile either LOL but think a MARV would be extremely dangerous even at those relatively low speeds IF coming at some high angle, 'almost perpendicularly to a CVGB', which I guess it might

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We can take an educated guess on the mission profile.

But you've missed the point.

That French admiral postulated to a British committee that a MARV would have to show down to as slow as Mach 1 or Mach 2. It demonstrates he was unprepared and was guessing.

From a technical perspective, we can easily find radars operating at Mach 4 or IR seekers that can operate at Mach 2.

So that is why I think we can take his comments with scepticism.

AndrewS said:

We can take an educated guess on the mission profile.

But you've missed the point.

That French admiral postulated to a British committee that a MARV would have to show down to as slow as Mach 1 or Mach 2. It demonstrates he was unprepared and was guessing.

From a technical perspective, we can easily find radars operating at Mach 4 or IR seekers that can operate at Mach 2.

...

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... and I think it's you missing the point I made above:

Jura said:

the problem is of homing (what radar frequency? or EO/IR?) the reentry vehicle, which would be DEcelerating

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(note an emphasis put on deceleration; either you got it, or you didn't)

so let's disagree LOL

(I'm not going to respond)