US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

gelgoog said:

Not in the Chinese naval sector. At least not recently. The Chinese are way more incremental when developing ships. They also test things exhaustively on land based test rigs before anything is ever put onto a ship.

At best you might claim the Type 051B and such ships from three decades ago were failures in that they resulted in a single ship being built. But back then the program was seen as an insurance in case the gas turbine destroyers were a failure. The steam turbines they developed for propulsion also ended up being used in the carrier program. Since the gas turbine destroyer program was a success the steam turbine powered destroyer ship designs were cancelled. This is totally different from how US naval shipbuilding has been done.

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Naval programs true, the failures/setbacks in the aerospace sector for China are the best known publicly

That being said we can say that a program like 051B or even follow ons like 052B or 052C would ever peek at the light of day in the US? The weapon system of 052C is an orphan and is basically a limited production proof of capability. The post Cold War US MIC would never privately shoulder this risk/cost without the chance of a massive contract payday and the government simply no longer does that kind of design work, having long outsourced it to the contractors.

Whether the boat is considered a failure or not, it still demonstrates that ability to accept something that is below expectations in some way.

supersnoop said:

Naval programs true, the failures/setbacks in the aerospace sector for China are the best known publicly

That being said we can say that a program like 051B or even follow ons like 052B or 052C would ever peek at the light of day in the US? The weapon system of 052C is an orphan and is basically a limited production proof of capability. The post Cold War US MIC would never privately shoulder this risk/cost without the chance of a massive contract payday and the government simply no longer does that kind of design work, having long outsourced it to the contractors.

Whether the boat is considered a failure or not, it still demonstrates that ability to accept something that is below expectations in some way.

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The difference is that China has gone on to build successful designs whereas US has done nothing.

If lessons from Zumwalt were used to build a next generation destroyer in a timely manner, its dead end systems could’ve been forgiven as experimentation and valuable data.

But US only went on to have failed programs that produced nothing of value. So here we are, a decade plus after the Zumwalt with nothing to show for it. The surface fleet is a disaster only held afloat by Burkes’ massive upgrades.

HighGround said:

The difference is that China has gone on to build successful designs whereas US has done nothing.

If lessons from Zumwalt were used to build a next generation destroyer in a timely manner, its dead end systems could’ve been forgiven as experimentation and valuable data.

But US only went on to have failed programs that produced nothing of value. So here we are, a decade plus after the Zumwalt with nothing to show for it. The surface fleet is a disaster only held afloat by Burkes’ massive upgrades.

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It shows problem is less capability, it is ability to learn and reflect.

It appears China is a member of the USA MIC (Military-Industry Complex) as a MIC (Made in China) supplier
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You might be amused by the pearl-clutchers at Cdr Salamander

RobertC said:

It appears China is a member of the USA MIC (Military-Industry Complex) as a MIC (Made in China) supplier

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What now? lol. So, as they decouple, everything is going to get even more expensive. They already had to cancel the 6th gen program because they could'nt afford what they envisioned to be the counter for Anti-access/Area-denial strategy of China. Now its back to the drawing board. This whole 'pump money out of thin air' and inflating the value of the real economy by re-branding and re-monetizing financial products as value creation (artificial) is slowly starting to catch up.

What is China's answer to this new air to air missile? It said it is several times longer than AIM 120

bebops said:

What is China's answer to this new air to air missile? It said it is several times longer than AIM 120

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It is carried by super hornets... so J-20 will be in range with pl-15 before the super hornet get a lock on the J-20... longer range or not it will be screwed.

It's a good missile to balance against flanker variant carrying pl-15 not against J-20. They can be useful to hunt Tankers and kj-2000/200/500 before escort fighter can shot their missiles.

Atomicfrog said:

It is carried by super hornets... so J-20 will be in range with pl-15 before the super hornet get a lock on the J-20... longer range or not it will be screwed.

It's a good missile to balance against flanker variant carrying pl-15 not against J-20. or to hunt Tankers and kj-2000/200/500 before escort fighter can shot their missiles.

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They made people think it is a game changer (tilt the balance to US side). lol

I googled and found PL17 and PL21 to have longer range than PL15. So I dont think this new missile is a real threat.

RobertC said:

It appears China is a member of the USA MIC (Military-Industry Complex) as a MIC (Made in China) supplier

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You might be amused by the pearl-clutchers at Cdr Salamander

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I find Cdr Salamander a little annoying. Like right on the front page you have the prerequisite anti diversity article. These people always harp on about the same things. Feels like he is an old man yelling at clouds.

It cannot be carried internally by US 5th generation fighters because it won't fit. It cannot be used by most F-16 and F-15 fighters because those have radars with too poor performance to take advantage of the extra range. Only fighters with AESA radars can make proper use of the range of the missiles.
Which means you are stuck either using these missiles on the Super Hornet, the half a dozen existing F-15EX, or externally on the 5th generation fighters, with mountings, negating their supposed stealth advantage.

China has the PL-17 missile. So they do not need to develop such a BVRAAM because they already have it. China also has the PL-15 missile which can be internally carried and has more range than any internally carried US AAM.

Even Russia has the R-37M. Which US analysts used to claim was a missile that only existed as a prop shown at weapons expos. Until the Russians started using several of them a day in Ukraine.

In the meantime we have been waiting for like a decade for the internally carried Meteor missile on the F-35, for the AIM-260, and nothing.

This is just the US trying to catch up with China and Russia.