I'm not well versed in radar capabilities, but isn't most of Eastern Taiwan mountainous? Would it really be that hard for a radar perched on a mountain to spot something as observable as a J-15 in the ocean ~50 miles from land?
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
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here's a road map of Taiwan. Notice how there's only a few roads in the mountains, mostly in valleys and passes.
Here's what a Patriot radar looks like. Note the road quality wheels, not offroad wheels, and requirement for level elevation.
here's a road map of Taiwan. Notice how there's only a few roads in the mountains, mostly in valleys and passes.
Here's what a Patriot radar looks like. Note the road quality wheels, not offroad wheels, and requirement for level elevation.
Ground based ROC radars can absolutely spot fighters like J-15 operating at normal altitudes, including radars on the eastern coast.
I seriously doubt that if J-15s have flown into the eastern side of the TW ADIZ before at normal altitude, that the ROC military would be unable to spot them.
If the J-15s were doing a low altitude flight then you might be right, but we have no indication of that.
The most reasonable assumption is that the J-15s were just doing a normal mission altitude flight. After all, detecting a J-15 isn't exactly difficult, it's still a Flanker after all.
I don't think we can know what they can actually detect in any conditions where there's an actively resisting opponent. if additional J-15s were launched from beyond the range of Patriot radars and were in low level flight, then 4x J-15 is just the number they were able to detect, not the total count.
To be clear, I fully do believe and expect that the actual number of aircraft around the TW ADIZ is probably more than they have detected and reported. How much more and often that is the case, I have no opinion on.
However in this specific case, my overall point is that the idea of the ROC military being able to detect four J-15s flying in the eastern side of the ADIZ is a very reasonable idea, and there's no reason for us to assume that they were flying at low altitude as default, as your post on last page #3000 did.
That doesn't exclude the possibility that there may have been additional J-15s which they didn't detect or didn't report on this occasion or on past occasions, but to answer nelBi's question, this does appear to be the first time (that I can recall) that J-15s have been reported from ROC MND ADIZ maps, and certainly from that vector.
He apparently has to pay a symbolic amount of rent for the housing. He doesn't own the property but I think those type of housing you can live inside for your whole life if you like, info from pop3:
in my post, I think I implied the only reason they were able to detect 4, is because they allowed themselves to be detected by flying high.
Oh okay, I thought you were implying that you believed in the past the PLA had flown J-15s and ROC had not reported on them because they were unable to detect them because they were flying low.
As to the idea that there were more J-15s that the ROC MND did not report because they couldn't detect them -- that prospect always possible and it is something that should be considered for every report that they come out with for all aircraft types.
It's not specific to J-15s on this instance, which I think is important to emphasize. For us, the presence of J-15s is notable as this seems to be the first time they've reported on it in the ADIZ on the east side, but for our purposes of considering "ROC MND reporting accuracy" it's no different to if they were any kind of Flanker.
