quick question about ROCAF

tphuang

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Troika said:
Attacking beachheads!? If they wanted to waste planes that way it is their perogative, but I would not advise it. Cheaper and more effective to buy helicopters or rocket artillery... and more effective, considering size of Taiwan. Over the straits and massing points make more sense, but that of course has strategic problems of its own.

Having more planes in Taiwan is probably not a good idea. Pilot problems, geographical limitations, and so on. Much better I think to buy more missiles and perhaps replace older planes, and to of course upgrade existing planes and training.

To Zergling: Agree on all counts. Rafale is basically impossibility... it is a bit like aslking, why does not Taiwan buy Su-37?
if Russian sells su-37, it can say goodbye to Chinese weapon sales or at least see a huge decline in military cooperation and exports to China.
 

planeman

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Out of interest, when did France do the 180 degree turn about on Taiwan that makes the Rafale an impossiblity?
 

adeptitus

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These costs make Rafale the cheapest of the current crop of fighters, while the claimed lack of cost growth since 1997 would make it the most tightly managed modern fighter programme. In eDefence Online, however, respected French aviation writer JM Guhl quoted "a list price given at some $66.5 million for the basic "naked" aircraft and almost $145 million with its complete set of sensors and weapons."

Note: prices are in Euros


Assuming IF the figures are true, 100 aircraft * 145 million = $14.5 billion Euros?!

Boy if that ever came up in an arms bill, I think they'd be screaming over it for the next decade.
 

MIGleader

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planeman said:
Out of interest, when did France do the 180 degree turn about on Taiwan that makes the Rafale an impossiblity?

France never did a 180 turn of taiwan. probably just a 90 degree turn, and it was doen gradually. Originally, the french never sold the its best weapons to taiwan. Most of them had downgraded sensors and weapons systems. Certain weapons were blocked altogether, in which taiwan agreed to replace with its own systems. i.e Laffayetes

I guess as china-france relations warmed up steadiliy through the 90s, the chance of france making more major weapons deals with taiwan became more and more remote

Another, thought, 60 more f-16s is ludicrous. China does not have any j-10s facing taiwan. Only j-11s and su-27s. These fighters have been there for a decade or more now. I havnt noticed any signifiagant PLAAF buildups near the strait.
 
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Roger604

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tphuang said:
if Russian sells su-37, it can say goodbye to Chinese weapon sales or at least see a huge decline in military cooperation and exports to China.

Actually, I think it would be to China's advantage to have Taiwan get advanced technology from other countries. The best example (and impossible one) would be if the US sold a few F-22's to Taiwan. I'll bet the Chinese would know the F-22 inside and out within a few years after delivery.
 

Hsiung-Feng

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I highly doubt that the US would ever sell advance 5th generation fighter, such as F/A-22 to any countries in the world in any time soon. Including RAF and its European Allies. RoCAF is automatically out of the question. Recently, the RoCAF has been rejected the sale of ex-USAF F-15's and the participation of F-35. Personally, i think the RoCAF should focus mainly on upgrading avionics to its existing inventory, and replace the TFE1042-70 engine, currently used on the F-CK IDF fighter. The TFE1042-70 only provide about 27kn(6,000 lbf) each, which is seriously underpowered for a fighter its size.
 

MIGleader

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Well, roger did mention it was impossible for the u.s to sell f-22s to taiwan. At nearly 200$ million a plane, theres no way taiwan could afford them even if the offer was made.

IMHO, training is key. Taiwan could easily get her pilots to train against su-27type planes, whether it be India or america. That appears to be the primary chinese agressor in the region.
 

Finn McCool

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The_Zergling said:
China wouldn't like ANY arms sales... although there is indeed a difference of scale for different purchases. However I think it's safe to say that nothing Taiwan does that will strengthen the military is going to make the Chinese happy.

Obviously.

Until the ROCAF gets more missles, the entire question of more planes is moot. It would only hurt the ROCAF, spending money on planes that cannot fight for lack of missles.

Personally, I think that the ROCAF should increase its SAM capability and coverage. After 60 years of threatened invasion, one would think that the ROCAF had the entire island covered in a comprehensive SAM and AAA network. It doesn't. Taiwan is about even or ahead of the PLAAF in terms of aircraft, as it has a much smaller area to defend and about the same number of modern aircraft. A comprehensive air defence system, with radars plenty of SAMs and AAA batteries would make gaining air supremacy over the island much more difficult, and it would improve the ROCAF's survival ratio because the air fields would be very well defended and flying over and around Taiwan would always entail casualties. Plus, the PLAAFs flying time over Taiwan would be even more limited because they would have to be flying much more erratically. So it would probably be a better idea for the ROCAF to build up its air defence instead of buy new planes that it doesn't have missles for.

I know that the ROC has quite a few SAMs, but I don't know if it has them in any sort of a linked network that is connected to AAA batteries, radars and other SAMs. That is more important than the number of SAM units you have. In addition, it would probably be possible to cover all of Taiwan with two or three SAM units. But considering that the Chinese get to strike first, they know where almost every permanant installation of the ROC military is and the will send massive amounts of planes at the island, very redundant SAM coverage is necessary
 
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crobato

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Taiwan's SAM systems are pretty impressive. The indigenous systems, the TK-1 and TK-2 is capable of ranging between 90 to 150km, guided by the Chang Bei phased array radar which many have roughly described to be comparable to a land based AEGIS system. The next development is the TK-3 which appears to be based or derived from the Patriot.

The TK-2 is said to use a terminally radar active seeker, coupled with a long ranged infrared seeker for redundancy. They got this dual set up before the SM-3 Standards did.

There are also a number of Patriot, Sparrow and Hawk missile batteries.
 

Finn McCool

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Yeah...I know Taiwan has invested quite a bit in its SAMs. I was mostly saying that they need to connect them and allow them to operate as a network as opposed to individual batteries, as well as protect them so they can survive a ballistic missle barrage and all the other things that would be associated with the beginning of an invasion. A good SAM system (as opposed to individual batteries) makes quite a difference. Look at the Yom Kippur War. It would have been over much quicker, but the Egyptians had a SAM umbrella covering their forces in the Sinai that killed or chased away any Israeli aircraft that entered the area covered by the umbrella. The Egyptian ground forces were able to fortify and repel Israeli counterattacks under this cover. The Israelis had to wait for the Egyptians to make a mistake and come out from under their air cover. This opened a whole in their line that Israeli tank brigades were able to exploit without air cover. My point is that a good SAM system gives you a way to protect your self even if the enemy has air superiority, whihc China would gain quickly considering Taiwan's missle situation. It also gives your ground forces a margin of error and buys them time and breathing space they otherwise would not have if they were vunerable to constant air attack.
 
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