Posted on 04/18/2008 8:55:12 AM PDT by Fennie
Internet source imagery from January 4 has offered the first glimpses of what may be China's emerging 5th generation air-to-air missiles (AAM). One missile, called the PL-ASR or PL-10, shows a very close resemblance to the South African Denel A-Darter AAM. A second image, discovered on a China's Northwestern University website in mid-December, shows another missile similar to the radar-guided South African Denel R-Darter, designed in cooperation with Israel. Both of these missiles are likely designed for use with modern Helmet-Mounted Displays (HMD), which enable pilots to "look to kill" their targets. But there is more: additional imagery suggests that a previously reported ramjet powered development of the Chinese Luoyang PL-12 active-radar guided AAM, called the PL-13, could give the People's Liberation Army (PLA) an AAM that could out-range existing U.S. AAMs...
If you can read the markings on an incoming ChiCom missile, don’t thank a teacher. Thank the Clintons!
Clintons, the “gift” that keeps on giving.
Oh jeesh not this blame the clintons again. They have been out of office for 8 years. Give it up man.
Are you so partisan that you cannot see the huge trade with China under Bush's tenture that allowed the chinese to develop and build these armanants?
Look at the trade with china. It skyrocketed under Bush.
Blame the American CEO's for this and the Republicans for allowing it to happen.
It looks from the article like more thanks are due South Africa and Israel.
BUMP!
For that matter do either of you think that the Chinese are technologically backwards and can't come up with weapons on their onw?
The chinese are not technologically backwards. They have also have stolen much of their info. That being said development and manufacturing takes money..and lot’s of it.
The USA has been finacing the chinese weapons development program.
I suspect that you're oversimplifying. China gets some money from the USA, but from a lot of other sources too. In an economy the size of China's they could easily afford advanced weapons development without seeing a cent from the USA.
Of all the things the Israelis do, selling advanced technology to America's enemies burns my craw. Nor is it new; they were selling Patriot Missile technology to the Chinese in the mid-80s when missile defense technology was still brand new (I worked in that business at that time).
This behavior costs us not only in the risk to our soldiers and citizens, it forces us to expend the money to develop new weapons at a faster rate and ever higher risk, which doesn't help the fiscal bottom line one bit. It also doesn't endear the American people to their cause.
I am as big a fan of the restoration of Biblical Israel as anybody, but this just has to stop.
What about Boeing and their factories in China that produce parts for the 787 using state of the art composite manufacturing processes?
Many military uses for composites.
Radar-guided air to air missiles are the lawn darts of the Stealth Age.
China can use those missiles against Taiwan and India and Russia, but against U.S. B-2’s, stealth drones, and F-22’s they are harmless.
Last I checked we still had quite an inventory of non-stealth aircraft, helicopters, and transports.
China’s growing airpower also creates greater pressure for the United States to react, both in terms of improving its own capabilities and those of its allies and friends. The advent of the PL-10 and possibility the PL-13 raises the possibility of a new “AAM Gap,” a condition that U.S. Air Forces endured for the 1990s. Soon after the Cold War it was determined that former East German MiG-29 fighters had a decisive “first-shot” close-in battle advantage over U.S. fighters due to the helmet-sighted Vympel R-73 AAM. The PLA purchased this AAM with its Su-27SK and Su-30MKK fighters in the 1990s, and had the same advantage over U.S. fighters until the 2003 introduction of the AIM-9X. But in the PL-ASR/PL-10 the PLA may have a close-in combat AAM that could potentially have twice the range of the AIM-9X.[25] This presents U.S. defense planners with little alternative but to seek an upgraded longer-range AIM-9. In 1998 Australia chose the 20km range HMD sighted British ASRAAM over the AIM-9X to arm its F/A-18A fighters.Furthermore, save for the F-35 which will not enter U.S. units until 2012, no U.S. fighter has an integral Infrared Search and Tracking (IRST) system, as is carried by PLA Su-27, Su-30 and J-11 fighters, and is employed by the European Eurofighter and the French Rafale. This may enable the PLA to get the first shot with its new PL-10 AAMs when targeted passively by their IRST. The U.S. Navy is proposing adding an IRST to the F/A-18E/F, but its placement on a centerline fuel tank offers a restricted field of view.[26]
Last I checked, air to air missiles were only a problem for such craft when air superiority had not yet been established over a foe.
Which is to say, China has to deal with our F-22's and B-2's and stealth drones. After that fight, air to air missiles aren't an issue.
And for that matter, China's new radar-guided missiles aren't a factor against our F-22's and B-2's and stealth drones.
So, much ado about nothing.
Not every news article deserves an adrenaline-pumping Sky-is-falling response.
Oh really?!
So tell me Mr. So-Informed-Genius...just how do radar-guided missiles strike stealth aircraft like our frontline F-22 Raptors, B-2 bombers, and stealth drones?
Sheesh...
Stealth doesn’t mean that you are totally invisible to radar detection. It makes it harder, but not impossible that a radar lock can be obtained on a low RCS target. It isn’t some sort of magic shield cloaking device that makes you completely invisible.
Reality in the field is almost always a far cry from the cutting edge.
The fact is that empowering our enemies by whatever technology they desire enough to buy is generally a bad idea. Developing technology takes significant lead time and money. Learning to manufacture it is even a bigger challenge (I was working in the military radar business on still experimental Patriot missile technology at the very time the Israelis were selling Patriot system design information to the Chinese). It's better to make our enemies acquire military technology the hard way.
Further, after forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for all that hardware, I like seeing them get a better return on that investment by doing whatever is necessary to extend the useful life of a system. One doesn't accomplish that by allowing an ally to sell the design to the enemy.
Not every news article deserves an adrenaline-pumping Sky-is-falling response.
Calling selling our enemies military technology a risk and cause for expense is hardly what anybody would rationally call a "Sky-is-falling response," but then from what I've seen, such is a threshold you seldom attain.
Give it up girl.
Radar-guided missiles are mere lawn darts while our stealth aircraft are flying, and no amount of verbal dancing on your part will *ever* change that fact.
Now, if the Chinese start using Israel’s video-guided, artificially intelligent air to air missiles, then give me a ping, but radar-guided missiles are as relevant today as battleships.
Last I checked our F22’s don’t fly on carriers.
Last I checked our F-22’s could do mid-air refueling.
How many refuels would it take to fly from our bases in America to China?
In the inital conflicts with our carriers how long would it take our F22’s even from our bases in the Pacific like Japan?
All I’m saying is that you haven’t thought it through.. the initial combat will not be with only F-22’s.
Last I checked, Taiwan had airports and the U.S. had long range stealth drones and cruise missiles, in addition to F-22’s and B-2’s.
Perhaps you haven’t thought this through.
I am a Right-Wing Conservative.
The Clintons and McCain are what represents a two party system that scrapes the bottom of the barrel in order to find political candidates. In fact, the bottom was drilled through to find the worst of our society to shove up in our faces as worthy candidates.
We are, indeed, poorly served by traitors to our Constitution, our founders and the American people. (Some of whom haven't the intelligence to come out of a rainstorm!)
Clearly you are no expert since your reply makes no sense.
We don’t base any F-22’s in Taiwan.. and they will have potholes all over them after the 1000 missles China has makes mince meat out of them.
What does a cruise missle do against planes?
Cruise missiles take out fortified aircraft bunkers, command and control facilities, and runways.
China’s 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan, even with a blast radius of 100 meters each, would only pothole 100 kilometers of Taiwanese roads, taxiways, and runways.
Perhaps you haven’t thought this through...
Ditto..."Mr. Genius": They are infra-red targetted. Not just radar. You did read what the Russian and French planes now deploy, to complement the radar tracking. And we unfortunately don't yet.
The F-22 represents our state of the art in not merely radar evasion, but infra-red minimization. The F-22 type flat 2D nozzle, along with the B-2's design is what gives us a real advantage. But it may be temporary:
E.g. perhaps you recall that the Chinese Communists successfully obtained the B-2 nozzle design to minimize infra-red from Noshir S. Gowadia in 2006 (one of a rather large number of Northrup-Grumman engineers who have proven traitorous):
He showed them Precisely how we duct the exhaust on the B-2, and in a related fashion, for the F-22 to try to minimize the IR signature...potentially giving them all the clues they need to find a weakness, to minimize the success of that approach in evading IR detection...and it should give you pause....if you really care about our security.
In any event, none of these planes are totally invisible to radar. They can be detected....but reliably trackable by current weapons? Not so far. The Red Flag exercises gave us a lot of reassurance as to that.
But, we can forsee a set of weaknesses ourselves. Hence the new bomber design specifications are requiring even more stealth for the next iteration, to cover frequencies that the B-2...and F-22 are not so stealthy in. So how long do we have? That is the real question. I urge caution. The Chinese, together with their Russian enablers must not be cavalierly discounted. They are proving to be hugely successful at stealing the necessary info to erode the stealth we are banking on.
We need to keep pushing the state of the art...and get that art deployed in numbers sufficient to make a difference.
As for the mythical "stealth drones"....nothing we have along those lines have any a2a capabilities...at all. And it doesn't take a "genius" to have determined that. "Transformation" just doesn't happen....still takes money. And it can't be made to happen automatically and by command "on the cheap" as W seems to fantasize from an inapplicable business model of governance.
Sheesh.
And precisely which President is going to have the gonads to go up against...and bomb the Chinese mainland...of their "primary trading partner" in the Far East?
By all signs, W has already caved, and is waving the white flag. This would explain the failure to maintain the Navy, fleet numbers, its ASW capability, its long-range interceptor capability (ending the F-14, and refusing to do a Naval-F22), its next-generation stealth capability, its at-sea-refueling capability, or to have deployed in depth the NMD on Aegis...almost 7 years after it was shown to work. And to have cancelled the longer-ranged TBM, under-deployed the F-22, not to mention long-range a2a missiles, and to be basically running the clock out on his administration as he caves on North Korea and Iran.
It is my belief that if a President is really willing to fight...he is willing to fund that fight. And fund it when it might make a difference.
Perhaps it is you haven't thought this through.
No, I’ve thought it through...it’s just armchair wannabes who can’t stand losing an argument in public who won’t let it go.
You pretend, on a thread about existing missiles, that the Chinese may “one day” field something that can hit an F-22 or B-2.
Which is to say, you are being intellectually dishonest, and here’s why: the angst on this thread is from posters who are upset about the missile tech named **IN THIS THREAD** going to China...but instead of admitting that the missile tech that China “obtained” is useless against F-22’s, cruise missiles, stealth drones, and B-2’s, you choose to instead hyperventilate about potential **FUTURE** tech that the Chinese may acquire.
That’s a straw man argument, easy for you to knock down because *obviously* some unnamed potential future technology might be able to score a hit on an F-22...but that’s an argument entirely outside the scope of this thread and vastly beyond the technology of the missile-tech that is being discussed above in the article for this thread.
That missile technology is radar-based...and radar-based missiles are currently useless against F-22’s, cruise missiles, stealth drones, and B-2’s.
Now, you can continue to remain intellectually dishonest over an internet connection by pretending that some future tech might be able to hit F-22’s, but any mature reader will be able to see that you are blowing smoke.
What’s next, are you going to criticize my spelling or grammar?!
Pot, meet kettle.
You pretend, on a thread about existing missiles, that the Chinese may “one day” field something that can hit an F-22 or B-2.
No. I don't "pretend" anything. I anticipate trouble. Your smugness is simple over-confidence. Just like what we had prior to Pearl Harbor. As Rumsfeld says, we don't know what we don't know. We didn't know about Japan's shallow-running torpedoes prior to Pearl Harbor. And the Japanese kept their successful developments secret from us. Operational security that China is likely even better at.
Which is to say, you are being intellectually dishonest, and here’s why: the angst on this thread is from posters who are upset about the missile tech named **IN THIS THREAD** going to China...but instead of admitting that the missile tech that China “obtained” is useless against F-22’s, cruise missiles, stealth drones, and B-2’s, you choose to instead hyperventilate about potential **FUTURE** tech that the Chinese may acquire.
Not hyperventilating. Just reasonable speculation. And they are showing the ability to independently develop their own variations of tech once they steal enough from us. And to pinpoint weaknesses in ours.
That’s a straw man argument, easy for you to knock down because *obviously* some unnamed potential future technology might be able to score a hit on an F-22...but that’s an argument entirely outside the scope of this thread and vastly beyond the technology of the missile-tech that is being discussed above in the article for this thread.
Not really. The same missiles which miss today, with a few refinements, vectoring to target, may score hits. We need to be prepared.
That missile technology is radar-based...and radar-based missiles are currently useless against F-22’s, cruise missiles, stealth drones, and B-2’s.
Not with passive radar giving vector direction. And once proximity is reduced, who knows how much their sensor improvements and tweaking might just make the difference. And the Chinese won't be keen to tell us that they have made our F-22s vulnerable until balloon goes up and we find out the hardway. See above.
Now, you can continue to remain intellectually dishonest over an internet connection by pretending that some future tech might be able to hit F-22’s, but any mature reader will be able to see that you are blowing smoke.
Sigh, it is you who are being dishonest. This thread is about China's 5th generation A2A. And you really are not getting it. With vectoring with other sensors, these long-range advantages that China is accumulating are deadly.
What’s next, are you going to criticize my spelling or grammar?!
Why? Just your over-the-top smugness, suggesting we need never, ever worry how much the Chinese successfully develop. Do you propose to worry...only after Pearl Harbor happens again...or don't you think it prudent to be on top of China from the get-go and prevent it from happening?
Such specious projectionism. I'm clearly being honest, not dishonest, by talking about the actual missile tech in question as discussed by the article for this thread.
And that tech is **radar** based. The tiny radars on 5th gen air-to-air missiles are useless against F-22's and B-2's, etc.
...and it is you who insists upon being dishonest by bringing in potential future technology as your straw argument, just as I said you would do in my above post.
Sure, some potential future technology *might* be able to hit an F-22 one day, I admit (unsmugly, by the way), but such fanciful tech isn't the subject matter for this thread.
In contrast, the subject matter for this thread is *NOT* a threat to U.S. F-22's, cruise missiles, stealth drones, and B-2's...which is my point.
But that's not good enough for you because:
#1. you *don't* want to admit that you've clearly lost this debate, and
#2. you *do* want to hyperventilate to get everyone's adrenalin pumped up.
The new missiles represent a significant addition to the Chinese arsenal and are a threat to US and allied aircraft, which are mostly non-stealth and will be for the foreseeable future.
How, pray tell, do radar-guided missiles hit stealth aircraft?
She HAWT!!!
However, the fact remains that stealth aircraft are few and far between. Also, they are expensive to fly and difficult to maintain. Most of our combat aircraft - and ALL of our naval aviation are non-stealth and this will remain the case for the foreseeable future.
Such fantasies aren't the subject of the technology that was transfered that is being discussed by the article for this thread.
Now, kindly answer how the radar-guided missiles under the umbrella of the article for this thread could even remotely hit any of our over 100 *deployed* F-22's, 21 B-2's, thousands upon thousands of cruise missiles, or hundreds of stealth drones.
Can you be honest-enough for a *single* post to answer that specific question?
How do radar-guided missiles hit stealth aircraft?
Stealth is not invisibilty. Stealth aircraft have an RCS, albeit a small one. If you have a radar that can see that cross section, you can lock on to it and hit it.
(Good luck figuring out which returns are birds, and which are F22s, though.)
Also, the return signal from a radar striking a stealth aircraft does not disappear - it is redirected. If your missile can home on radar emissions from another radar on a different angle, you may be able to lock on to the stealth aircraft. This may be the way they got the F-117.
Stealth aircraft use radars to locate targets. If you can find a way to defeat the “frequency hopping” feature of the F-22’s (and presumably the F-35’s) radar, you can send an ARM after them.
See - right there you have THREE ways to go after Stealth Aircraft with radar guided or anti-radiation missiles!
And, you keep missing this point - there are ONLY 100 deployed F22s - there are thousands of MiGs and Sukhois. Even a stealth fighter is going to have problems at 10-1 odds. Hell, the PLAAF pilots will probably have orders to RAM if necessary.
And this is assuming, of course, that you can deploy all of them, have someplace to deploy to, and someplace from you can operate and support these hideously expensive aircraft. If all of Taiwan’s airfields are cratered, you’re stuck with CVNs - then you have NO stealth aircraft.
Also, I think the “thousands upon thousands” of cruise missiles is a bit of an exageration... and they are not stealthy.
And the “stealth drones” are, at best, still in the prototype stage.
None of which have anything to do with the technology transfer discussed in the article for this thread.
How do the radar-guided missiles discussed in the article for this thread hit stealth aircraft?
A little basic math would improve your reasoning.
The ChiComs have 1,000 missiles pointed at Taiwan.
With a blast radius of 100 meters and 100% accuracy, that's a mere 60 miles of "cratering" done to Taiwan's roads, taxiways, and airports. 1,000 missiles times 100 meters equals 100 kilometers which equals 60 miles for the math challenged, by the way.
Moreover, F-22's and B-2's can do air to air refueling...needing no CVN's.
I favor option 2 - the remote off-bore radar. Just ‘cause the things have an active radar, doesn’t mean they have to use it and that they can’t accept guidance from another radar.
You seem incapable of dealing with the technology transfered by the missiles in the article for this thread.
Of course, obviously one such as yourself can *fantasize* about some potential tech that could possibly hit an F-22, but staying on topic would seem to box you in a bit, I’d say.
So how do the two radar-guided missiles mentioned IN THE ARTICLE FOR THIS THREAD hit stealth aircraft?
Can you be honest enough to deal with that question, or must I repeat it again and again after your every attempt to dodge it?
Apparently some lawn darts are still effective as against them...and as the Serbian Battery commander, Col. Dani Zoltan reports in his book as he has now retired, some of the pertinent factors in his success in shooting down an F-117 therein are universal and still potent issues today:
--- Zoltan studied all the information he could get on American stealth technology, and the F-117. There was a lot of unclassified data, and speculation, out there. He developed some ideas on how to beat stealth, based on the fact that the technology didn?t make the F-117 invisible to radar, just very to get, and keep, a good idea of exactly where the aircraft was. Zoltan figured out how to tweak his radars to get a better lock on stealth type targets. This has not been discussed openly.--- The Serbs also set up a system of human observers, who would report on sightings of bombers entering Serbia, and track their progress.
--- The spies and observers enabled Zoltan to keep his radars on for a minimal amount of time. This made it difficult for the American SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) to use their HARM missiles (that homed in on radar transmissions.) Zoltan never lost a radar to a HARM missile.
--- Zoltan used the human spotters and brief use of radar, with short range shots at American bombers. The SA-3 was guided from the ground, so you had to use surprise to get an accurate shot in before the target used jamming and evasive maneuvers to make the missile miss. The F-117 he shot down was only 13 kilometers away.
The Price of US Command Cockiness and Over-Confidence:
Bottom line: The list of measures Col. Zoltan took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan's battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles.
Now imagine the Chinese commanders implementing these tactics system-wide in preparation...and since they will be the aggressors, they know when the balloon goes up and will have the element of surprise...at least as against any commanders as misguided as arm-chairs like you....and I'm afraid too many of them exist. Look at Weasely Clark as one example. And he wasn't, and still isn't alone.
You don’t need to crater every inch of an airfield to put it out of service. And you can’t support F-22s from “roads and taxiways.” Sixty miles of cratering capacity seems pretty adequate to me...
Also, I’d LOVE to be the guy that tells some USAF fighter jocks that their going to fly 8 hours to China, do some really intense air combat, then fly 8 hours back - with three or four refills each way.
Even more fun would be had by the guy in logistics who has to get enough tanker capacity to support the attack in both directions - and make sure he doesn’t leave any of ‘em uncovered so they don’t get bagged by the PLAAF.
Imagination isn't an argument, it's an admission of defeat.
The two radar-guided air-to-air missiles transfered to the Chinese are real, however, but quite useless against our stealth aircraft.
That an entirely different nation, Serbia, used an entirely different GROUND-to-AIR missile barrage to bring down an entirely different and older stealth aircraft (the retired F-117A) is a different topic altogether, by the way.
...not that I expected any intellectual honesty on this topic from *you*, mind ya...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.