PLAAF Flyaway Costs Thread

[Brumby]

Here we go again, when could you stop quibbling and stop circling around over and over again?
Let me repeat again, all my replies above were simply opposed to your statement on "weapons could not be compared to each other"

You may be a believer in taking a propagandist approach but I do not. Your repetitious claims of having directly addressed the question is not backed up by the contents of your posts. You are just making repeated claims – period.

Btw, you are making up stuff of what I might have said. For example, I did not say as you suggested “weapons could not be compared to each other". That is grossly false representation of what I said. I said weapon platforms cannot reasonably said to be comparable unless you know their respective capabilities and in almost all the cases with Chinese products you don’t know.

In addition, you are also acting disingenuously. Fortunately our exchanges are documented. For example, here is an example and the sequence of exchanges.

You posted the following :

You accused me of avoiding your comments.

“I was referring to two similar aircraft with the different price tag,” (Post #16)

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plaaf-flyaway-costs-thread.t8667/page-2#post-584892

In my reply (Post #17)

“What different price tag? Please point your post that actually has specific numbers.”

In your subsequent reply you just ignore the question. Basically you accuse and when challenged you avoid answering.

You are the person who started picking tiny details and specifics, which surprisingly if you read my answer carefully, you will learn how to conduct a rough comparison without knowing the military secret.

In other words, you are the one making abstract claims and I am responsible for figuring out the facts behind your claims and that is your version of a cogent reply. Seriously? Where did you get your education from?

The answer I gave has nothing to do with cost, because the statement I made was, similar weapons between China and the US have price difference, and your answer was the "Cost (even if known) itself is a very poor measure because there are other important attributes in a weapons platform",

You clearly don’t know what is involved in a debate when there are competing positions. Just because you provided a response doesn’t mean you have provided anything meaningful. I have a point of view and you have a different one. Both positions are grounded on either some assumption, facts or opinion. The debate is over whether those assumptions, facts or opinion can be defended. I offer defeaters on your position and likewise just as you would. The problem is you just keep on repeating your claims and make accusation that I ignore your claims. I have news for you. Claims without any form of substantiation are ungrounded and don’t make a case.

seriously, have you read other people's responses before you reply?

Mate, am I talking to you or some other people?

Also, stop using sentimental language like "Malaysians are morons",

This is another example of your dishonesty.

I did not say “Malaysians are morons",

I asked the question “Do you think Malaysians are morons?” There is a big difference between a statement and a question. If you don’t even understand simple language construct I wonder why I am even wasting my time engaging with you

I haven't said or imply anything like that what so ever, it all came from your mouth. And just to enlight your from the confusion you got in there, NO, military purchase is not like what you said, probably the only country in the world will conduct the full life cycle estimation and buy all the spear parts first is Taiwan, as the "One China policy" sometimes cease them getting parts when they seriously needed, so they have to prepare everything, in case when Sino-US relationship get better and military sells got paused. Other countries will normally store some parts till for example its first major service/repair but not for the whole life cycle of a weapon.

I want to spend some time debunking your lack of comprehension of the issues under discussion and your illogical reasoning that you have been displaying.

This is what you said :

“NO, military purchase is not like what you said, probably the only country in the world will conduct the full life cycle estimation and buy all the spear parts first is Taiwan”

I said purchase of capital items involved a comprehensive process taking into account sustainability, serviceability, parts availability, support services, upgrade pathways et al

…. and your reply is “is not like what you said”. What the heck is that kind of reply? No basis, no facts and no reasoning - simply a claim. You considered that a cogent reply? Your replies to date are full of these nonsensical claims.

I did not bring up the issue of building up spare parts inventory although we did talk about spare parts availability as a consideration. They are two different issues.

That said, your example of Taiwan actually supports my position and that choice of weapons system selection is dependent on a range of variables and not just price. Your argument about Taiwan needing to build up spare parts inventory affirms my overall position - not negate it.

Lastly, to answer your Wing Long question, I don't know the price besides of Google results, and it doesn't matter, because with my original example was about "similar weapons are comparable", and I don't how many times I have already. I also said "I'm not trying to say which one is better between RQ-9 and Wing Loong, I'm just saying giving the fact that they are conducting a similar role and mission", and now you keep asking me to compare between Wing Long 2 and Wing Long 1? Seriously? again you didn't read other people's responses, and just simple quibble your and answer and keep twisting the question.

If Wing Long 1 and 2 are comparable why are there two variants? Would you consider the two to have comparable pricing? If yes, what is comparable pricing? Is it the same or not?

Extending that argument, do you consider J-10A and J-10C to be comparable?

 

[plawolf]

Remember that the Chinese bought Su-35 at a per-unit cost of $83 million. That implies that the total cost of the support package attached to the Su-35s (engines, spares) comes out to about $40 million.

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Nope, latest claim is $2.5 billion putting the cost including support package at about 100 million per plane.

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When Singapore orders F-15SGs, the cost of purchase usually includes a support package of some kind (since, if the fighters break down or are otherwise damaged, the manufacturer is expected to provide provisions for repairs).

So going in for export pricing usually includes a few fudge factors (spares, support, etc).

And what is the point of this post? Who here doesn’t know that the total contract prices includes spares, weapons training and other miscellaneous costs?

I am reasoning that the add-ons should be somewhat comparable between the dozen Singapore F15SGs and dozen USAF F15Xs, this would then mean that there is not much different between what the USAF pays for airframes and export prices for airframes.

Or are you trying to suggest that the $1.2bn the USAF set aside for its dozen F15Xs is for airframes only? If so, then are you not aware that that would make the unit prices that the USAF is paying significantly higher than the export price Singapore paid?

 

[stannislas]

You may be a believer in taking a propagandist approach but I do not. Your repetitious claims of having directly addressed the question is not backed up by the contents of your posts. You are just making repeated claims – period.


Btw, you are making up stuff of what I might have said. For example, I did not say as you suggested “weapons could not be compared to each other". That is grossly false representation of what I said. I said weapon platforms cannot reasonably said to be comparable unless you know their respective capabilities and in almost all the cases with Chinese products you don’t know.


In addition, you are also acting disingenuously. Fortunately our exchanges are documented. For example, here is an example and the sequence of exchanges.


You posted the following :


You accused me of avoiding your comments.


“I was referring to two similar aircraft with the different price tag,” (Post #16)


https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plaaf-flyaway-costs-thread.t8667/page-2#post-584892


In my reply (Post #17)


“What different price tag? Please point your post that actually has specific numbers.”


In your subsequent reply you just ignore the question. Basically you accuse and when challenged you avoid answering.

If Wing Long 1 and 2 are comparable why are there two variants? Would you consider the two to have comparable pricing? If yes, what is comparable pricing? Is it the same or not?


Extending that argument, do you consider J-10A and J-10C to be comparable?

You absolutely correct, it's unfortunate for you as all you said were documented, so, Let's refresh:

1. Your first statement was "weapons could not be compared to each other because you don't know the capacities of the Chinese system", and gave a Malaysian Airforce example, which I will address separately.
   • My response to this was: you can roughly compare two weapons by their functionalities if they were used to achieve a similar mission
2. You then tried to fallacious proof my opinion with an example of comparing B-25 and F-117
   • I then state this could be solved by adding more and more conditions of the mission, so there are going to be fewer and fewer weapons been used in each country, and those weapons are comparable.
   • I also gave an example of RQ-9 and Wing Long, as many people believe they were comparable
3. At this stage, the discussion of how to compare two weapons without known the specifics is over, as I have provided you with a solution. but instead, you start to focus on if "Wing Long 1 and 2 are comparable", "is Wing Long 2 and Wing Long 1 being sold at the same price", "If Wing Long 1 and 2 are comparable why are there two variants?", and even "Extending that argument, do you consider J-10A and J-10C to be comparable?"
   • Dude, this is why I said you didn't read other people's responses, the entire idea here is that you don't need to know the specifics to know they are similar, and you still keep grasp this and ask me about details like price, different variants.
   • Since, Saudi, UAE, Egypt and etc are using Wing Long exactly like how US using RQ-9, thus I consider them similar, and I don't need to know their details like price, payload and other specifications to know they are comparable weapons.

To answer your newest curiosity, YES, they are comparable. Just like your iPhone has upgraded from first gen to iPhone 11, weapons upgrade too. Although I don't know which iPhone I should use to make it a fair comparison, nevertheless, they all smartphones, they all comparable.


The idea I made for the whole time was "You don't need to know the specifics in order to know two things are comparable if they are doing the same thing", and all you were doing was keep asking me about the detail like:

In my reply (Post #17)


“What different price tag? Please point your post that actually has specific numbers.”

For the entire time, I kept repeating a common sense to you and said the details are in this case neglectable, and you just kept saying, details, details, please provide me more details, seriously, this is what you called reading other people's comments? If you think so you should really criticize your logical thinking.





OK, let's jump back to the Malaysian example, this part is even funnier, let me quote:

Malaysia bought around the same time a fleet of 18 MIG-29, 18 SU-30MKM and 8 F-18 D. More Russian units were purchased because it was cheaper on a per unit basis. Today, the MIG-29s are prematurely retired; as recent as 2018 only 4 of the SU-30MKM were operational. The 8 F-18 are still flying and 4 participated in the Australian Pitch Black exercise last year. In the end, you get what you pay for.

Here, you pointed out :

1. Cost to operate
2. Russian weapons are cheaper when purchasing yet retired first

Let's just skip the fact this example makes pretty no sense in terms of replying to my comments and just focusing on this example about Russian weapons retired earlier, and make your story right first.

We all know why Russian weapons are cheaper when purchasing during the 90s and earlier 00s, and that's also the reason how Southeast Asian countries could afford such powerful weapons in the first place. But these weapons required careful maintain, and a lot of spare parts which could be very expansive.

Therefore the major reasons for Malaysian Airforce to retire these Russian weapons are due to the cost, the cost to maintain, the cost to modernization (which essentially is buying new parts).

Then I repeated told you about the reason why using Russian parts in comparison to China and the US is not fair as their parts supply won't face a shortage, so the price won't go up as such.

You then start to say, yeah the Malaysian should have done their math right in advance, so they should anticipate these cost and its increment when they purchase in the place, anyway, let me just quote your latest comments

I said purchase of capital items involved a comprehensive process taking into account sustainability, serviceability, parts availability, support services, upgrade pathways et al

…. and your reply is “is not like what you said”. What the heck is that kind of reply? No basis, no facts and no reasoning - simply a claim. You considered that a cogent reply? Your replies to date are full of these nonsensical claims.

This just makes me laugh, clearly, you have no idea on how weapons are traded, you have no idea on why I'm using Taiwan as an example, and most importantly, you don't even get your fact straight over your Malaysian example.

Let me just get this straight real quick as I don't want to keep repeating myself over and over again. Clearly, you know very little about weapon trade. What you said: "account sustainability, serviceability, parts availability, support services, upgrade pathways et al" are not usually calculated for more than a few years or only last till the first maintains. Most importantly, in a lot of time, what you listed are not important at all, as the seller breaks the contracts all the time, there were practically no accountability in the weapon deals, as a lot of time, if you don't pay more money, you won't get what you want from anywhere. No judge is able to force Russian to lower their maintenance price if they called up a contract breaking number. The reason why I bring up Taiwan is that the weapons supply used to be stopped so many times by the American, and they were forced to reduce training hours and weapon usage, and you tell me Taiwan didn't do any account over that?

I don't want to overdevelop this which may cause another 10 pages tangling, nonchalant with you, but I will suggest you look into how Russian export their weapon these years, especially how their weapon trades with India. Oh, and since this is SDF, I will suggest you read about the story about Sino-Russian weapon trade as well.

Weapon trades are very political, for this Malaysian story, I don't know if you have any awareness of how cheap they got those aircraft in the first place? What did they get beside the aircraft? When was the scheduled maintenance dates? Oh, a funny thing you should know, Malaysian planned to extend the services for those aircraft earlier last year? So your case is gone.

Here, I have told you why the cost is up, and tell you how weapon trades always not work the way as you buy some printers for your office. So please get the fact straight before you say anything.

This is another example of your dishonesty.


I did not say “Malaysians are morons",


I asked the question “Do you think Malaysians are morons?” There is a big difference between a statement and a question. If you don’t even understand simple language construct I wonder why I am even wasting my time engaging with you

Dude, we all adults here, let's just be honest here if you are not implying Malaysians are morons or implying I was saying it, why you brought up in the first place?

Just like the Hongkong protestor keep bringing up the "Tiananmen square" and "64", just to tail it to them. At least they have the decency to admit on what they were doing, what you have done was either intellectually insult everybody who read this thread or implying "Malaysians are morons" and do not have the guts to admit it.

 

[TK3600]

Hahaha, this guy ignored the price question again. What is he even doing here.

 

[Brumby]

You absolutely correct, it's unfortunate for you as all you said were documented, so, Let's refresh:

• Your first statement was "weapons could not be compared to each other because you don't know the capacities of the Chinese system", and gave a Malaysian Airforce example, which I will address separately.

So for the record I take it that you are now admitting your prior accusation was false in that I said “weapons could not be compared to each other"?

My response to this was: you can roughly compare two weapons by their functionalities if they were used to achieve a similar mission

…. except you refuse to acknowledge I have already provided the rebuttal that you don’t know anything concerning the capabilities of Chinese platforms. You therefore have nothing to ground your argument concerning comparability.

“The problem is with all these comparisons, the starting point is the assumption that they are comparable. They are not by any measure comparable predominantly because nobody knows the capabilities behind the Chinese systems.”

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plaaf-flyaway-costs-thread.t8667/#post-584460

You then tried to fallacious proof my opinion with an example of comparing B-25 and F-117

I don’t think you actually understand your own logic that you apply in your argument. In your argument above, you invoked the logic based on comparable functional mission sets. You are now saying my logic is fallacious but you failed to understand that in fact you are conflicting and self-defeating your own. Both B-25 and F-117 have the same mission functions i.e. to deliver bombs to their targets. the core basis of vour argument. You need to make up your mind which side of the position you wish to take. You can’t have it both ways.

Do you understand calling something as fallacious does not mean it is. You actually need to understand what fallacious actually means and whether it is applicable in each situation.

• I then state this could be solved by adding more and more conditions of the mission, so there are going to be fewer and fewer weapons been used in each country, and those weapons are comparable.

This is another example that you do not understanding your own basis in arguing

My core argument is that unless you know specific capabilities you cannot make a judgement on whether the notion of comparability can be adopted between two platforms. The key word then is specifics and that is the same argument you are now using. You cannot have more conditions unless you have specifics. They are mutually linked since conditions are dependent on capabilities. Since you don’t know anything about Chinese platforms and their capabilities you cannot argue that they are comparable – again another self-defeating attempt.

• I also gave an example of RQ-9 and Wing Long, as many people believe they were comparable

Whether RQ-9 and Wing Long are comparable is not governed by opinion but by facts.

Btw, you cannot even tell me whether Wing Long 1 and 2 have similar pricing. There is a reason for every question I raised. You also did not address the question of why there are two variants of Wing Long since as you said they are comparable. If both are comparable why is there a variant? Typically, a variant means an upgrade and by that it is no longer comparable. They are mutually exclusive by logical deduction.

• At this stage, the discussion of how to compare two weapons without known the specifics is over, as I have provided you with a solution

No you have not. Please refer to my comments above regarding your self-defeating “solution”.

• but instead, you start to focus on if "Wing Long 1 and 2 are comparable", "is Wing Long 2 and Wing Long 1 being sold at the same price", "If Wing Long 1 and 2 are comparable why are there two variants?", and even "Extending that argument, do you consider J-10A and J-10C to be comparable?" .

Btw, you cannot even tell me whether Wing Long 1 and 2 have similar pricing. There is a reason for every question I raised. You also did not address the question of why there are two variants of Wing Long since as you said they are comparable. If both are comparable why is there a variant? Typically, a variant means an upgrade and by that it is no longer comparable. They are mutually exclusive by logical reasoning.

• Dude, this is why I said you didn't read other people's responses, the entire idea here is that you don't need to know the specifics to know they are similar, and you still keep grasp this and ask me about details like price, different variants.

You need to think through what you write because so far you are making statements that are contradicting your own position through your own arguments. You talked about adding more conditions but yet insist knowing specifics is not necessary. I have news for you. You cannot have more conditions without knowing specifics – duh. Where do you think the conditions come from? Your imagination? You just keep on making illogical statements.

Btw, you cannot even tell me whether Wing Long 1 and 2 have similar pricing. There is a reason for every question I raised. You also did not address the question of why there are two variants of Wing Long since as you said they are comparable. If both are comparable why is there a variant? Typically, a variant means an upgrade and by that it is no longer comparable. They are mutually exclusive by logical deduction.

• Since, Saudi, UAE, Egypt and etc are using Wing Long exactly like how US using RQ-9, thus I consider them similar, and I don't need to know their details like price, payload and other specifications to know they are comparable weapons.

You actually don’t understand how superficial and contradictory your statements actually are.


Firstly, you are only assuming that the Saudi et al are using those drones like the US

Functionally maybe but not in terms of mission set requirements. You and I would not know unless you are privy to their operations. Your idea of comparability therefore rest solely on an assumption.


The second part of your statement is where it becomes illogical.

“I consider them similar, and I don't need to know their details like price, payload and other specifications to know they are comparable weapons.”

You don’t know anything about their capabilities e.g. payload and consequently effects but you regard them as comparable. Based on what? Wishful thinking?

Imagine you are at the receiving end of a 1000lbs bomb vs 100 lbs or they have a CEP of 1 m vs 10 m. Would you actually still insist “they are comparable”?

To answer your newest curiosity, YES, they are comparable. Just like your iPhone has upgraded from first gen to iPhone 11, weapons upgrade too. Although I don't know which iPhone I should use to make it a fair comparison, nevertheless, they all smartphones, they all comparable.

Tell it to Apple when they price their product. Since they are comparable irrespective of variant shouldn’t they have comparable pricing? What do you think are in those marketing brochures every time there is a new variant? It is all those new features that differentiate them from the previous model.

 

[Brumby]

The reply is so long that I had to break it into two parts.

The idea I made for the whole time was "You don't need to know the specifics in order to know two things are comparable if they are doing the same thing", and all you were doing was keep asking me about the detail like:


For the entire time, I kept repeating a common sense to you and said the details are in this case neglectable, and you just kept saying, details, details, please provide me more details, seriously, this is what you called reading other people's comments? If you think so you should really criticize your logical thinking.

We are now recycling. If you define something as so broad that a Ford class carrier can sail through it then anything smaller can easily sail through it.


As you said “if they are doing the same thing”? The problem is what is meant by doing the same thing? My 15 year old Nokia phone can make a phone call as well as the latest IPhone because functionally they both can make phone calls. So does specifics matter, yes or no?

OK, let's jump back to the Malaysian example, this part is even funnier, let me quote:


Here, you pointed out :

1. Cost to operate
2. Russian weapons are cheaper when purchasing yet retired first

Let's just skip the fact this example makes pretty no sense in terms of replying to my comments and just focusing on this example about Russian weapons retired earlier, and make your story right first.


We all know why Russian weapons are cheaper when purchasing during the 90s and earlier 00s, and that's also the reason how Southeast Asian countries could afford such powerful weapons in the first place. But these weapons required careful maintain, and a lot of spare parts which could be very expansive.


Therefore the major reasons for Malaysian Airforce to retire these Russian weapons are due to the cost, the cost to maintain, the cost to modernization (which essentially is buying new parts).

I do not know what is the point you are making up until here. I can only deduce from the contents that you are supporting my position rather yours and that it is not only about initial cost but the entire gambit of parts, maintenance, serviceability et al.

Then I repeated told you about the reason why using Russian parts in comparison to China and the US is not fair as their parts supply won't face a shortage, so the price won't go up as such.


You then start to say, yeah the Malaysian should have done their math right in advance, so they should anticipate these cost and its increment when they purchase in the place, anyway, let me just quote your latest comments

If you are trying to quote me you are making a poor representation. If you can’t reproduce what I said in your own words, then just quote my entire comments. You are butchering what I actually said.


I did not say “the Malaysian should have done their math right in advance, so they should anticipate these cost…”


This is what I said “Do you think the Malaysians are morons that they don't know what they are buying or from whom? The negotiated price is a sum of many parts and price is just one of them. In other words it is a holistic consideration. Do you seriously think that price is the sole consideration?”


So what is the difference between what you think I said vs what I actually said? The former suggest that the Malaysians did not conduct proper due diligence. My actual statement meant they possibly knew where they might end up but took the chance anyway and ended up with a less than desirable outcome.


Btw, in your previous reply you mischaracterized my post from a question to a statement. Now you are misquoting and misrepresenting the meaning of that post. I seriously question the integrity of your behavior based on these two events.

This just makes me laugh, clearly, you have no idea on how weapons are traded, you have no idea on why I'm using Taiwan as an example, and most importantly, you don't even get your fact straight over your Malaysian example.

You are making a bunch of claims with no facts, no reasoning and no substantiation. As to the Taiwan example, I have already rebutted it in a previous reply. Either you provide a meaningful rebuttal of it or you shut up and move on. Your only comments now – “it just made you laugh”. What the heck of an answer is that? Maybe a kid still in high school night behave this way? It just shows that you are running on empty. No rebuttal - just laughter. If you are in a hole stop digging.

Let me just get this straight real quick as I don't want to keep repeating myself over and over again. Clearly, you know very little about weapon trade.



What you said: "account sustainability, serviceability, parts availability, support services, upgrade pathways et al" are not usually calculated for more than a few years or only last till the first maintains.

How do you know that? Are you in the weapons purchase business? Do you actually have something that you can offer beyond making claims?

Most importantly, in a lot of time, what you listed are not important at all, as the seller breaks the contracts all the time, there were practically no accountability in the weapon deals, as a lot of time, if you don't pay more money, you won't get what you want from anywhere. No judge is able to force Russian to lower their maintenance price if they called up a contract breaking number.

Are you an international lawyer by profession specializing in cross border transactions and in the litigation of non-performing international contracts? How do you know the contracts are unenforceable or there are no recourse for aggrieved parties? On what basis are you making all these claims? Do you actually have anything you can offer to substantiate your position?

The reason why I bring up Taiwan is that the weapons supply used to be stopped so many times by the American, and they were forced to reduce training hours and weapon usage, and you tell me Taiwan didn't do any account over that?

Do you have any evidence to back up your position?

I don't want to overdevelop this which may cause another 10 pages tangling, nonchalant with you, but I will suggest you look into how Russian export their weapon these years, especially how their weapon trades with India. Oh, and since this is SDF, I will suggest you read about the story about Sino-Russian weapon trade as well.

You are claiming a bunch of stuff and you are telling me to conduct research to substantiate your claims. Are you serious or are you being delusional?


I am hereby invoking the Deino burden principle that I just coined today.


Here is the link.

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/j-10-thread-iv.t7305/page-358#post-584524

If you want to make outrageous claims then the burden is on you to substantiate it.

Weapon trades are very political, for this Malaysian story, I don't know if you have any awareness of how cheap they got those aircraft in the first place? What did they get beside the aircraft? When was the scheduled maintenance dates? Oh, a funny thing you should know, Malaysian planned to extend the services for those aircraft earlier last year? So your case is gone.

Is it? Provide the link to back up your argument. It doesn’t change the fact that the MIG-29s were retired early or are you disputing the facts?

Here, I have told you why the cost is up, and tell you how weapon trades always not work the way as you buy some printers for your office. So please get the fact straight before you say anything.

Problem is with your argument is that the debate wasn’t about whether the deals would work out as planned. Please point it out that I have said such a thing. My position has always been very consistent. There are a whole bunch of stuff involved and your arguments basically affirms such a position.

Dude, we all adults here, let's just be honest here if you are not implying Malaysians are morons or implying I was saying it, why you brought up in the first place?

Dude I can’t help you if you are entertainment imaginations in your head. You need to see a professional that deals with these kind of problems.

A question is what it is. You don’t seem to understand the basic function of a question. You will need English lessons. I don’t offer them.

Just like the Hongkong protestor keep bringing up the "Tiananmen square" and "64", just to tail it to them. At least they have the decency to admit on what they were doing, what you have done was either intellectually insult everybody who read this thread or implying "Malaysians are morons" and do not have the guts to admit it.

There you go again demonstrating your dishonesty by turning a question into a statement. Don’t you have any moral integrity?