Zhuhai Airshow 2022

ougoah said:

These sorts of "saturation attack via inexpensive drones" doesn't work against any half capable fleet. The attacker would need to get launching platforms and necessary minimum support for launching platforms well within 100km of fleet.

Click to expand...

Well, for example, recently infamous shaheds (which actually have decent datalinks, thus are halfway there) cost less than any actual decoys(not missiles), and can easily fly as far as any LACM can.
With a nation actually capable of sustained&intependent production of modern electronics, and of midcourse updates - it will perfectly swarm any navy.

There is a big reason why US is recently so concerned with anti-swarm technologies - fact is, swarms are dangerous.

Also, unlike normal missiles, it isn't just a game of depth: modern missile stocks can be depleted, quite easily so. Suicide/swarm drones, on the other hand, are perfectly recoverable/reusable.

Gloire_bb said:

Well, for example, recently infamous shaheds (which actually have decent datalinks, thus are halfway there) cost less than any actual decoys(not missiles), and can easily fly as far as any LACM can.
With a nation actually capable of sustained&intependent production of modern electronics, and of midcourse updates - it will perfectly swarm any navy.

There is a big reason why US is recently so concerned with anti-swarm technologies - fact is, swarms are dangerous.

Also, unlike normal missiles, it isn't just a game of depth: modern missile stocks can be depleted, quite easily so. Suicide/swarm drones, on the other hand, are perfectly recoverable/reusable.

Click to expand...

Swarms are dangerous for every military including the US and China's. The issue is how close you have to bring your swarm devices over. Ukraine and Russia have low abilities to prevent attacking platforms from unleashing their weapons, they have fewer abilities to intercept those weapons once fired. This is due to various reasons. On paper, Russia is more than capable of doing this and more. The thing with that war is they are to some degree actually lacking in electronics to bring their numbers up and win the attrition aspect - Pantsirs, Tors, S-300s, S-350s, S-400s require a lot of chips, they are complex difficult to manufacture weapons and the Himars and drones are much quicker and easier to make. The Ukrainians are being supplied with a lot of offensive weapons, at least enough to deal some damage sometimes, enough to propagandise. There would be many attacking platforms whacked by Russia before the tires stopped. There are some that are intercepted but we'll only hear of the attacks that go through.

This isn't the same as US and China. These nations have absolute behemoths of MIC and industrial abilities to produce at Russia x 100 (it's not just population but resources, and multiplier effect of things you have, don't have, depend on etc). Here wrt weapons and drones, China and US need to depend on no one. Russia has raw materials the likes of which neither have but that's another topic and it's not like US or China are lacking in ore and raw materials either, not in supply, not in reserves, not in stockpiles.

Focusing just on the question of PLA (all branches) vs USN (assaulting force coming up to first island chain and contesting the water and air between China mainland and first island chain), China would be leading with all aspect, mutidomain offensives to stop the USN fighting structure. If it can disable and disrupt its C4ISR, it wins half the battle already. US would be doing the same to China. China would lead with MaRV and HGV when the USN fleets are within range of PLA's YJ-18s and YJ-12s. So as to combine the effects of every single Chinese platform that can throw something at US carriers. Subsurface battle wages and if USN subs are able to negate Chinese SSKs and SSNs (although probably going to be accompanying Chinese SSBNs rather than joining that fight) then those SSNs can begin taking on PLAN surface combatants, ships that are very important in AD - contesting and helping PLAAF with air superiority and blunting F-35 striking PLAN surface ships. The battle is fought and won, well before swarm platforms can come into play because of range. It starts as far as DF-21 and DF-26 launch sites to first island chain area and the peak of the conflict is in the zone where YJ series and PLA airborne are within reach of USN carriers while DF-21, DF-26, and various HGVs are also flying at those carriers.

At what point do swarms come? A rogue H-6 launcher or Y-20 launcher flying solo within 100km of US CBG? If they are able to, the Chinese side won long ago. If not, then it's not even a discussion. Therefore, such a platform has no place. Not even as a supplementary since it can't get close enough without winning already. The idea is incongruent with this scenario. There is a place for it of course! It can be exported, it can be applied against other adversaries, it has a place in the future where swarms are dropped by extremely stealthy and smaller platforms with much higher survivability and if not that, at least expendable to some degree. Therefore I did not entirely dismiss it.

ougoah said:

The issue is how close you have to bring your swarm devices over

Click to expand...

Basic device of this kind (shahed/harpy) has ranges well over 1500 kms, which is more than strike range against naval targets of most strike aircraft.
It's simply inherent to their engine type(simple gasoline), which gets crazy amounts of Isp, i.e. thrust per unit of fuel.

Assume that they'll rich you.

ougoah said:

Ukraine and Russia have low abilities to prevent attacking platforms from unleashing their weapons, they have fewer abilities to intercept those weapons once fired

Click to expand...

Russia, while huge, has way more AA than even China does(and thus the ratio of systems per covered space/units is noticeably higher). And in the current conflict it is packed with AA way denser than China will get a chance to (huge exposed coastline).
Ukrainian AA network is denser than any other European one(and only a few "western" nations have it denser, mostly simply because they're really small. Yes, it's outdated, but still, the fact is that simple small planes doing low altitude satcom flight from point a to point b, avoiding dangerous locations, are mostly quite safe from interception.
Earth is still quite large, even when you can cross a lot of it in a relatively short time. Densities still matter. It's especially true for China, which is both huge and is highly concerned about naval war. Oceans are epitome of empty, with just hundreds of presence "spots"(i.e. ships and fighters) ever available.

ougoah said:

These nations have absolute behemoths of MIC and industrial abilities to produce at Russia x 100

Click to expand...

While Ukrainian MIC is kinda fvcked*(mostly by Ukraine itself, but also by kind Russian help), Russian one is still more or less Soviet one.
In principle, if awakened, it may try to play volume games with the whole "west" (which needs awakening no less).
It shouldn't be in principle, but precisely due to a combination of American dominance and decades of 'peace dividend western MICs are in very bad shape.
*and I seriously suspect that even it can be restarted within just a couple of years, given enough urgency and manpower influx.

Don't be dismissive of participants of a conflict just because they show a shitty show - they show it after decades of peace. But the same peace was here for most of the world, it just didn't get the chance to show itself in the earnest. yet.

Gloire_bb said:

Basic device of this kind (shahed/harpy) has ranges well over 1500 kms, which is more than strike range against naval targets of most strike aircraft.
It's simply inherent to their engine type(simple gasoline), which gets crazy amounts of Isp, i.e. thrust per unit of fuel.

Assume that they'll rich you.

Click to expand...

I have strong doubts that even a much more electronically sophisticated swarm drone is going to have good enough ESM to make use of such ranges. But okay I'm not aware of the navigation they might use. A $100,000 missile surely would have much more impressive equipment in these regards. If a drone swarm unit had expensive comms and nav equipment, it would sort of defeat the purpose of their inherent strength.

Gloire_bb said:

Russia, while huge, has way more AA than China does. And in the current conflict it is packed with AA way denser than China will get a chance to (huge exposed coastline).

Click to expand...

Surely Russia has fewer AA than China. When you say more than China, do you mean by concentration of AA? All types including guns? Because there's no way Russia has more S-300 and S-400 than China has HQ-9 and so on for whatever layer AD. Russia's manufacturing simply isn't on the same scale. This is my assumption. We don't know exactly how many units/missiles each has but Russia would indeed have a higher concentration of AA present along the Ukraine border, Kalinigrad border, and Black sea compared ith what China would be able to put up along its entire coastline. I mean Russia barely has enough AKs and tanks without going into reserves and mothballed fleets.

And yet Himars, drones, SRBMs, and MLRS (other than Himars) are able to hit Russia despite such high concentration of AA. We all know AD is far from impervious and against any serious opponent is more to slow them down, demand more planning, and demand more resources from opponents, truly testing them more than having no AD would.

Gloire_bb said:

Ukrainian AA network is denser than any other European one(and only a few "western" nations have it denser, mostly simply because they're really small. Yes, it's outdated, but still, the fact is that simple small planes doing low altitude satcom flight from point a to point b, avoiding dangerous locations, are mostly quite safe from interception.
Earth is still quite large, even when you can cross a lot of it in a relatively short time. Densities still matter. It's especially true for China, which is both huge and is highly concerned about naval war. Oceans are epitome of empty, with just hundreds of presence "spots"(i.e. ships and fighters) ever available.

While Ukrainian MIC is kinda fvcked*(mostly by Ukraine itself, but also by kind Russian help), Russian one is still more or less Soviet one.
In principle, if awakened, it may try to play volume games with the whole "west" (which needs awakening no less).
It shouldn't be in principle, but precisely due to a combination of American dominance and decades of 'peace dividend western MICs are in very bad shape.
*and I seriously suspect that even it can be restarted within just a couple of years, given enough urgency and manpower influx.

Don't be dismissive of participants of a conflict just because they show a shitty show - they show it after decades of peace. But the same peace was here for most of the world, it just didn't get the chance to show itself in the earnest. yet.

Click to expand...

Most of this is low key talking for Russia. Not interested in this dialogue's direction.

Back to the swarm anti carrier idea, still doesn't work unless they are able to navigate towards targets from long ranges, all on their own, without much air support in terms of providing ECM, aiding their penetration somehow, and protecting them from being shot down at long ranges (okay this is a non relevant one for now but there will be a time where cheap micro missiles are designed to be carried by aircraft or other platforms and provide some range I mean Zhuhai 2022 already shows one).






If there are pieces of technology that allows cheap swarm type drones from getting past USN EW barriers, maybe there's a purpose for them in this scenario.

Don't compare Ukraine Russia scenario and draw parallels. Shaheds "working well" does not translate to PLA using a similar concept would work well against USN. USN is not Ukraine lol. Surely you can assume they have enough sophistication to disable any cheap sort of solution. If it were so simple, PLA from the 1980s could have already put the concept to work and produce worthwhile pieces of equipment by the 2000s. You know what the PLA did instead? Researched and developed hypersonic glide weapons and MaRV since the 1980s and put them into service (at least for MaRV) since late 2000s. Clearly PLA considers these "cheap" solutions as non-solutions against any sophisticated adversary.

And sorry but Russia is not sophisticated. Sophisticated means you can design and produce at least mature node chips of every variety and type. China is barely that and only after mobilising armies of engineers and pouring billions into it. Russia has no such resource pool to draw from. The US has a bigger resource pool than China. Do we really think they can't find a way to counter lawn mower engine budget "cruise missiles"?

Shaheds won't work against any half capable adversary. That direction of attrition warfare is played out in terms of AD and high end real cruise missiles including hypersonic ones when it comes to sophisticated militaries. Propaganda in this war from all sides have really let the fans and cheerers on whatever side go nuts for their superhero/team. We should get real on this forum. Shahed has a place and its place is low, low, low tier conflict and players.

Tomorrow is not just single’s day but also PLAAF’s 73rd anniversary. Supposedly there will be a surprise performance. My guess would be that J-20 will take off and land directly from Zhuhai Airport for its performance. Previously it has landed after flying in from Foshan and performing.

Gloire_bb said:

Well, for example, recently infamous shaheds (which actually have decent datalinks, thus are halfway there) cost less than any actual decoys(not missiles), and can easily fly as far as any LACM can.
With a nation actually capable of sustained&intependent production of modern electronics, and of midcourse updates - it will perfectly swarm any navy.

There is a big reason why US is recently so concerned with anti-swarm technologies - fact is, swarms are dangerous.

Also, unlike normal missiles, it isn't just a game of depth: modern missile stocks can be depleted, quite easily so. Suicide/swarm drones, on the other hand, are perfectly recoverable/reusable.

Click to expand...

Swarm using in combination with other weapon systems is way more dangerous. Cheap UAV swarm with half a dozen highspeed antiship missiles arriving at about the same time to target and you are in a total mess. You will need to choose between targets and any of them will wreck something valuable... No need to sunk a chip, shrapnels piercing arrays and subsystem and you rid most capabilities. China need to works on both swarm and anti-swarm to be able to survive a modern war.

siegecrossbow said:

Tomorrow is not just single’s day but also PLAAF’s 73rd anniversary. Supposedly there will be a surprise performance. My guess would be that J-20 will take off and land directly from Zhuhai Airport for its performance. Previously it has landed after flying in from Foshan and performing.

Click to expand...

Didn't the J-20s take off and land at Zhuhai Airport on the first day?

T-U-P said:

Didn't the J-20s take off and land at Zhuhai Airport on the first day?

Click to expand...

No. It flew in from Foshan, landed, and left. My guess is that a J-20 will take off, perform, and land at the airport.

ougoah said:

I have strong doubts that even a much more electronically sophisticated swarm drone is going to have good enough ESM to make use of such ranges. But okay I'm not aware of the navigation they might use. A $100,000 missile surely would have much more impressive equipment in these regards. If a drone swarm unit had expensive comms and nav equipment, it would sort of defeat the purpose of their inherent strength.




Surely Russia has fewer AA than China. When you say more than China, do you mean by concentration of AA? All types including guns? Because there's no way Russia has more S-300 and S-400 than China has HQ-9 and so on for whatever layer AD. Russia's manufacturing simply isn't on the same scale. This is my assumption. We don't know exactly how many units/missiles each has but Russia would indeed have a higher concentration of AA present along the Ukraine border, Kalinigrad border, and Black sea compared ith what China would be able to put up along its entire coastline. I mean Russia barely has enough AKs and tanks without going into reserves and mothballed fleets.

And yet Himars, drones, SRBMs, and MLRS (other than Himars) are able to hit Russia despite such high concentration of AA. We all know AD is far from impervious and against any serious opponent is more to slow them down, demand more planning, and demand more resources from opponents, truly testing them more than having no AD would.




Most of this is low key talking for Russia. Not interested in this dialogue's direction.

Back to the swarm anti carrier idea, still doesn't work unless they are able to navigate towards targets from long ranges, all on their own, without much air support in terms of providing ECM, aiding their penetration somehow, and protecting them from being shot down at long ranges (okay this is a non relevant one for now but there will be a time where cheap micro missiles are designed to be carried by aircraft or other platforms and provide some range I mean Zhuhai 2022 already shows one).

View attachment 101547

View attachment 101548


If there are pieces of technology that allows cheap swarm type drones from getting past USN EW barriers, maybe there's a purpose for them in this scenario.

Don't compare Ukraine Russia scenario and draw parallels. Shaheds "working well" does not translate to PLA using a similar concept would work well against USN. USN is not Ukraine lol. Surely you can assume they have enough sophistication to disable any cheap sort of solution. If it were so simple, PLA from the 1980s could have already put the concept to work and produce worthwhile pieces of equipment by the 2000s. You know what the PLA did instead? Researched and developed hypersonic glide weapons and MaRV since the 1980s and put them into service (at least for MaRV) since late 2000s. Clearly PLA considers these "cheap" solutions as non-solutions against any sophisticated adversary.

And sorry but Russia is not sophisticated. Sophisticated means you can design and produce at least mature node chips of every variety and type. China is barely that and only after mobilising armies of engineers and pouring billions into it. Russia has no such resource pool to draw from. The US has a bigger resource pool than China. Do we really think they can't find a way to counter lawn mower engine budget "cruise missiles"?

Shaheds won't work against any half capable adversary. That direction of attrition warfare is played out in terms of AD and high end real cruise missiles including hypersonic ones when it comes to sophisticated militaries. Propaganda in this war from all sides have really let the fans and cheerers on whatever side go nuts for their superhero/team. We should get real on this forum. Shahed has a place and its place is low, low, low tier conflict and players.

Click to expand...

Biggest issue for Shahed specifically is that USN are moving targets...

So indeed they have no place against USN itself, but they have a place against stationary targets from nations trying to aid and abet the invaders.

Geran are basically the most monkey model possible of PLA loitering munitions. They use Chinese engines strapped to Chinese electronics, even if the HE might be from Iran or Russia.

Even while remaining cheap, China likely has far better versions of it in store. And these ones can be used to saturate defenses in Korea, Japan, even Philippines if they start helping America. And most of these countries do not have much better AA than Ukraine. Some are way worse.

Finally it is not a question of mutual exclusivity. Suicide drone swarm won't be the first or even second or third choice to destroy an invading CVBG, but if a launcher is positioned to take the shot, they can just add extra pressure while the big guns like DF100 or YJ21 score the killing blow.