Why do some cities have air defences and other not?

Yes. I would agreed with Crobato on this issue. and as a general form that I believe I have stated earlier, we must also look at where is the distribution of the opposition's air force.

In Russia's case, they do have a very large air-force in the North, but what are they at the present interested in? Certainly not China at this point of time but the western theatre. As for North Korea, I don't think their air-force is of much of a threat.

As for the Indians - they do have a competent air force. But where is all their long range fighters and bombers? And I don't think that they are going to waste any of their resources on attacking China through Tibet while their enemy - Pakistan is looking at them from another theatre.

Thus we are actually looking at the coastal area that will most likely be hit by opposition coming in from the sea (meaning the western countries, US and Taiwan).

As for the mobility of the air defence, I believe that would also play a part in the active defence, but I still kind of believe that the main reason for deployment of these missiles near a city is actually determined by what I have stated before in my previous posts.

Potential lesser adversaries of China won't be attacking without a bigger player backing them up. They won't be sending aircraft into China alone unless they're involved in a military conflict started by China. The Himalayas are a natural barrier. India would never be able to do anything conventionally faster than the Chinese can respond. India wouldn't bother sending in aircraft or conventional forces when nukes will do the job? Russia is not going to be any trouble unless ultra-nationalist or pro-America elements take control. They don't have the numbers anymore to commit to such an endeavor. So the only true scenario of potential conflict comes from the West and their allies. They are the only ones that can stage and support a significant conventional airstrike and invasion capability more than anyone else. And also they can manipulate the geo-political will to take such an action. Realistically, in order to commit a significant strike against the mainland, China will see the staging of this attack far enough ahead to mobilize defenses appropriately.

AssassinsMace said:

They are the only ones that can stage and support a significant conventional airstrike and invasion capability more than anyone else.

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No way mate, Russia and the former USSR plus maybe Vietnam are better placed to invade by simple fact it wouldn't have to be an amphibious assault.

Great thought everyone but I guess the answer is we don't really know. Pity PLA hasn't publicised their deployment doctrine.

planeman said:

No way mate, Russia and the former USSR plus maybe Vietnam are better placed to invade by simple fact it wouldn't have to be an amphibious assault.

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Are you talking simply military capabilities? Your thread's question suggests there's a threat of attack from places where China hasn't mobilized its defensives appropriately. But who's most looking at China as a threat to their establishment in the world? It's not Russia or Vietnam. If you take their point of view, it's China that's going to attack them. The only countries that see China as a disruptive force to what they want to see happen in the world are Western countries and their allies. They more than anyone else have more to lose by simply a rising China beyond any military angle. Mao said war is politics with guns and politics is war without guns. Russia and many others may have the capability to strike China militarily, but do they have the political will? Do they have something to lose if they don't? Are they, especially a smaller country, willing to suffer the consequences from a counterstrike? If you read other military forums, you should know too that only people from Western countries and their cheerleading allies boast about being able to take on China, Rambo-style, despite that recent history shows higher-tech and big money doesn't always equate to a rout on the scoreboard. Maybe it's just boasting because they have this contradictory China is inferior/China is a threat mentality. But then those are the ones that start wars in the first place.

I don't want to give too much away because I'm preparing a "Bluffer's guide" amateur analysis, but the pattern I'm seeing on Google Earth is that most of China's active static SAM sites are legacy locations built for HQ-2. The HQ-2 sites were mostly built to defend against the USSR presumably in the late 1960s/70s. In essence there's a "great wall" of HQ-2 sites running along the top of China about parallel with Bejing, and in Bejing these sites are mostly across the North of the city. Many of those sites are still active both as HQ-2 and subsequent systems (HQ-9/S-300/HQ-12/FM-90). Harbin is the odd bit because given the described pattern you'd expect HQ-2 sites to the north and west of it.

More recent HQ-9/S-300 systems have a much longer range and multi-target capability so they are deployed more sparsely with a few sites covering an entire major city.

Another pattern is that other key cities also have SAM sites especially Shanghai. These include some cities in the South where presumably Vietnam is the main threat.

The last major pattern is the coastal chain you'd expect given the Taiwan situation; this is among the most modern (i.e. S-300 etc) and shows that in modern times this threat is taken very seriously. But, the seaboard defences are quite porous.

I've only found one city with any AAA positions although I've found AAA elsewhere, and mobile SAMs etc.

HQ-64 is a rare system it seems - only one location found.

I'm glad the PLAAF engineers were able to entertain another happy viewer with their efforts. /sarcasm.