Swarming and depleting ammunitions of airdefense is the only way I can see them flying and useful as a UAV. A one way ticket to enemy airspace and turning in circle until fuel depleted...
PLA Navy news, pics and videos
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
lcloo
Captain
Refitting those old jets like the cheap expendable target drones, they will be going oneway. No weapon nor bombs nor missiles to be carried only full tank of fuel.
Their only mission is to get shot down by enemy air defence missiles in order to deplet enemy's stock of SAM, like what the Israelis did to Egypt air defence during the 1973 war, with decoy drones depleting Egypt's frontline SAM inventory along the Suez cannal.
If they are not shot down, just crash them at enemy air base or navy base, with ignition of fuel to do the damage.
Even if the modification cost is high, above $millions as some suggest, a few hundred million dollars expenditure with no human life lost is worth it, even if $billions are spent for successful unification of a rebel province, it is still worth it.
Last edited:
PLAN already has a different concept for decoy drones. Literally mini UAVs dropped from larger UAVs.
That is not "a different concept".
What's depicted are GJ-11s dropping MALD-J like systems.
MALD-J of course has already been in service with the US for a number of years, and at present the PLA doesn't have an equivalent system in service that we know of yet (though it is likely in development).
I wouldn't be surprised if the deployment of MALD-J from UAVs is something that the US has been actively looking at or close to implementing, and likely further along than the PLA.
So I think using the word "already" is misleading. Especially because this is an industry video, and not a system that we can confirm to be in the works for the PLA (though it likely is).
One of the ships there is the Aldar Tsydhenzhapov, named after a sailor who died trying to put out a fire in his warship, saving the crew of 300 and the warship, the Bystry, which is a Sovremenny class. Poor chap had only a month of service before the incident happened. He was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation and a warship was later named after him.
This Project 20380 class member differs from the other members having the Zaslon radars in the mast. Notice the VLS behind the gun, which should be for the Redut SAMs.
This Project 20380 class member differs from the other members having the Zaslon radars in the mast. Notice the VLS behind the gun, which should be for the Redut SAMs.
Its a large corvette-small frigate, so you can't compare it with a destroyer. But for a small ship, it has what is in effect, something like a mini-aegis.
Here is a summary of the class. There is a second one in the previous pictures:
That particular ship above was only commissioned in December 2020, so its very new. Much of what is in the wiki entry is true except for this particular ship which has a different radar layout.
Corvettes and submarines that serve in the Russian Pacific Fleet are built in the Amur shipyard, which is in the province north of the China border. Same shipyard that long ago, built the four Gnevny class destroyers that were later sold to China that became the first destroyers for the PLAN.