Posted on 09/29/2009 7:56:30 PM PDT by Saije
For the first time in a decade, Beijing on Thursday will showcase its latest armored vehicles, ballistic missiles and fighter jets in a demonstration of military ambition meant to befit the nation's economic rise.
The display of hardware -- part of the nation's 60th anniversary celebrations -- will no doubt stoke national pride. But it's also a chance for China to show an international audience that the world's third-largest economy is investing heavily in defense technology, a strategic sector that Beijing believes will strengthen its regional security and global influence.
Expected to be on display is a new generation of missiles that could potentially strike American naval ships and pound Taiwanese soil from the Chinese mainland. It is the product of two decades of enhanced military spending aimed at overhauling a woefully inefficient and technologically challenged fighting force.
"They have been focusing on catching up in areas where the technological disparity has been the greatest, and cultivating pockets of excellence within the" People's Liberation Army, said David Yang, a political scientist at Rand Corp. "That said, the PLA is a massive, even ponderous, organization, and its professionalization and modernization will remain an arduous process for years to come."
With 2.3 million members, the Chinese army is the largest standing army in the world. Beijing has spent years trying to overcome the army's long-held image as a poorly equipped force consisting mostly of rural enlistees. The army lacks combat experience, having last engaged in a major conflict in 1979 with Vietnam.
Earlier this year, officials announced heavy recruitment of college graduates. More important, Beijing has increased military spending each year by double-digit percentages. China's official military budget was $70.3 billion this year, up sharply from $14.6 billion in 2000, according to Washington-based GlobalSecurity.org.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
That’s awfully nice of them to show us the technology that Chinese political contributions bought.
And in the United States of America, the Empire State Building will be red and yellow in recognition of China’s 60th birthday... What an upside down, inside out time we live in.
I read about these so-called ballistic missiles. They look like they could literally slice through the ship, breaking it in two just by the kenetic force alone. Thank you Clinton, for helping our “friends”. Unbelievable and sickening.
Two years ago, I would have said “bring it on”. Today, I’m more than worried. Obama is such a wuss and a sympathizer with the communist in the world, I have some concern about our future.
Um, how are these carrier killers going to hit the subs raining cruise missiles down on their launch sites, clearing the way for the surface Navy?
When do you think they plan to use them?
They will never hit an American ship.
OK, maybe if they sell some to Iran or to nutjobs on the black market, Cole style, 10 years from now, once.
But the Chinese military deliberately? Not a chance.
Anyone want to give me odds?
Hopefully this war will be fought only in the back rooms of banks and investment houses. And on the aisles of Wal-Mart.
“They will never hit an American ship.
OK, maybe if they sell some to Iran or to nutjobs on the black market, Cole style, 10 years from now, once.
But the Chinese military deliberately? Not a chance.
Anyone want to give me odds?”
As Obama would say, this is above my pay grade but isn’t that point not that they actually would but that they could? And that as a result we have to calibrate our own actions to make sure we don’t do anything that could lead to war even if it probably wouldn’t? Because you never know. Same thinking behind why it’s a bad thing if Iran gets nuclear weapons. It’s not for sure they’d use them but it changes everyone else’s behavior.
Not being an expert, I read about their accuracy. I believe ICBM’s have accuracy rated in meters. And while these missiles are not ICBM’s they are ballistic in the speeds they maintain. I read these missiles are fitted with guidance systems to do exactly what you said they can’t do.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=507484
Public Relations: The Empire State Building this week will illuminate red and yellow, celebrating China’s 60 years of communist rule. There are many things to appreciate about China, but communism isn’t one of them.
What was the Empire State Building thinking in lighting up in celebration of China’s long communist rule?
Amid all the charming reasons the classical 102-story skyscraper colors the Gotham sky at night — the 70th anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz,” El Museo del Barrio’s reopening, Columbus Day and Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation, according to its Web site — China stands as a negative outlier.
Cynics call it recognition that the Chinese, who buy U.S. debt, now own us. But this looks more like a thoughtless confusion of China with its communist government, in perhaps the same impulse that prompts some to set up kitschy eateries bearing photos of Mao.
Recognizing China’s regime with bright lights does New York’s most visible landmark no honor at all.
China’s 6,000-year-old history and civilization are loaded with things to celebrate — from its invention of paper money and fireworks, to its great cuisines, its Taoist philosophy, the daring historic voyages of Sanbao (a possible model for Sinbad), millions of Overseas Chinese, and perhaps the awed arrival of Marco Polo into the Middle Kingdom, which ignited the Age of Exploration.
Much of the story of civilization is rooted in the West’s longing to connect with China — and this is not a finished story. In 1989, China saw brave young people stand up to tanks in the name of liberty at Tiananmen Square, an event surely worthy of the Empire State Building’s honor as a beacon of freedom.
So it’s discordant and jarring to see the tyranny that’s plagued China for 60 years now the object of the skyscraper’s approbation.
“Would the Empire State Building honor the government of Sudan or the birth of Nazi Germany?” asked Thor Halvorssen, whose Human Rights Foundation has an office in this building. “It’s sad that a symbol of free enterprise honors the butchers of Beijing.”
Communism is the root of the honor and nothing has harmed China so much. The nightmare began with Mao Zedong in 1949. He imported the alien ideology that is still around, diluted only because the authorities made such an economic hash of the country. By Mao’s 1976 death, his successors had no choice but to open up.
Before that, the communist regime was responsible for wars, purges and famine on a scale untold in human civilization. According to University of Hawaii historian R.J. Rummel, the communist regime is responsible for the deaths of nearly 77 million people.
Wasn’t the silkworm missile supposed to be an anti-carrier missile when it first came out?? As I recall, that’s what drove the development of the Close-In Weapons System, or Sea-Whiz gatling gun...it shot the missile and then shredded the pieces...
But at what cost? What will it cost the Middle Kingdom to do the unthinkable, to sink US ships? All that matters to them is the possible repercussions. Do they have anything to fear from the current administration? Are they poking the tiger with a stick, or merely swatting a fly? Sun Tzu wants to know.
I believe they are called the DongFeng 21-D and have been under development for some time. And aircraft carriers are very large ships, that happen to house dozens of fighter jets, much like an airfield does. They are supposed to be showcased in a parade in China sometime soon. Just google the Dongfeng 21-D. Its not technology I would like to see the Chinese have, thats for sure.
They are trying to secure (hoard) resources all over the globe, but just like exporting a 100 million man army, they have to get the resources to China first.
It would be insanity to try to invade and conquer them, but I have never heard that being considered.
Am also convinced the ChiCom leadership is walking a very small tightrope with capitalism raging like a volcano.
I read a statistic that China could lose something like 8,000 men a month, every month, continuously in a conventional war, and never skip a beat. They literally have four times the population that we have. I think the biggest thing they have to fear is the loss that they would incur with the US Treasuries that the currently hold and buy, if we default on our debt.
The Silkworm is basically a slightly updated version of the original Russian “Styx” missile, used by the Egyptians in the 1960s to sink an Israeli destroyer. The Israelis developed a variety of countermeasures in the 1973 war that defeated it.
It’s big, has a huge warhead, but is subsonic.
The Silkworm isn’t a very advanced missile, and should be easily defeated by a variety of means today.
Things get confusing because all the codenames begin with “S” and the media as it often does decided to call ALL anti-ship cruise missiles “Silkworms” (The Hizbollah missile that damaged an Israeli corvette, for example, wasn’t a Silkworm, but a C-802, a smaller, but more advanced Chinese missile.
The Beijing government would probably look upon the loss of 8,000 men per month as a stimulus program.
Basically the entire above post is wrong.
Ballistic missiles can (and have had already) maneuverable re-entry vehicle warheads.
The US Naval Institute Proceedings isn’t “the doom mongering press,” it’s a pretty serious forum for discussion of naval matters; the first article below is written by a Naval War College Professor, and a RAND Corporation scientist. Read and learn.
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?STORY_ID=1856
https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp
I would shudder to imagine an Asian conflict of any kind. Especially with Pakistan and Iran in the mix. Iran and Pakistan almost have as many people as we do here in the US. And both have huge instability that China would surely aggravate. What really was a eye opener was the latest Israel Hizbollah skirmish that almost sunk an Israeli ship with a Chinese missile. And Hizbollah is merely a proxy.
Plus N. Korea. UGH. I fear the next attack on the US will also be assymetrical, but many times more devastating than 9/11.
The Soviets were considering such a weapon in the late 50’s/early 60’s. Submarine launched, range 2400km, 700 kT warhead. Don’t know if they were considering a radar terminal guidance similar in principle to the later US Pershing II missile (which had an entirely different mission). It would have still required targeting data from somethig like a Bear on station, and using something like a Punch Bowl comms link. Airframe was to be based on the SS-N-6 Sawfly.
While the Soviets could probably figure out the math involved for such targeting, the electronics probably were not there yet, even more so in the Eastern Bloc.
The Chinese lost 20,000 men a month during the Korean War for almost 3 years. It forced them to sue for peace. Uncle Sam lost 8,000 men a month during WWII for four years on a population base of 140m.
China was not forced to do anything and that was several decades ago. Their population has more than doubled in that time. The Korean War is still an armistice agreement and now N Korea has obtained nukes. The Chinese “official” defense spending is $70 billion. It is unofficialy many time more than that. China is also not only just upgrading their missiles. Its not a coincidence that China has been around for 6000 years.
PRC/CCP missile show ping
They couldn't stomach the losses Vietnam inflicted on them in a matter of months, more recently.
The whole idea that China doesn't care about manpower losses is a Yellow Peril myth from start to finish, and has no relationship to history or military reality.
China has never won a war with a first rate military power, in any era, ever. They have occasionally crushed much smaller states in their immediate vicinity.
They are only an independent state today because the US pulled the Japanese off of them in WW II. Without the power of US arms, they'd still be licking Japanese boots.
Facts are stubborn things.
In the time it takes even a SLBM to reach its target, an aircraft carrier moves 5 to 8 miles.
If you want to hit an aircraft carrier, you need to use a guided cruise missile or a nuclear submarine firing a guided torpedo from quite nearby. The Chinese would not find either task easy. A typical US carrier task force has more anti-air missile firepower alone, than the entire Chinese navy can fire in a full salvo from every ship they possess. And our sonar ascendency makes their subs blind targets to ours.
China might risk war with Taiwan if they think the US will sit it out, which with the present adminstration might even be an even money bet or better. But they can't remotely handle the US military, the navy in particular. They aren't even in our weight class.
The only bigger joke is Obama as surrenderer in chief.
China might be able to defeat Taiwan if we stay out of it. They will never take on the US and wouldn't last a week if they tried.
Well if you consider a couple dozen nuclear tipped ICBM's pointed at the US to be a joke I guess you and I are not only not on the same page, we ain't even reading the same book.
The Pershing II (MGM-31) had a terminal guidance radar behind an ablative nose cone, which was used to compare to stored radar maps. Whether it had the capacity to recognize an additional ground return from a unit formation, well we might not have a need to know about that, and that was also mid-70’s level technology. Anyhow, it was good enough for a 30 meter CEP. This is a missile with a 900 nautical mile range, not an ICBM, however that is still good for a ballistic. This enabled the Army to reduce the yield from the 400kT of the Pershing I to 50kT, plus increase the range from 400 miles thanks to a lighter payload. A warship (carrier size) has a much bigger radar cross section than a ground unit formation, even against sea water which is quite reflective in itself. So this is indeed not too far from the realm of possibility, as long as ranges are a few hundred miles. Just on other catch - it does involve a nuclear warhead, since the throw weight of the ballistic missile would mean a conventional warhead may as well splash 200 meters off the bow, and then still not be large enough to damage a large surface vessel if it did hit (unlikely). Using these would definitely mean that the “balloon has gone up”. So for a conventional attack, it would be more effective to use cruise missiles.
China has ICBM nuclear weapons. Their manpower argument was strictly numbers, not how they would fight. They also happen to own a lot of Treasuries. Its why you see they take down a spy plane, we we end up apologizing. Its why you see the Empire State building being lit up tonight in commeration of Chinese communism. I dont’ remember the Chinese Vietnam war. Could you provide a link for that? China has existed for about 6000 years. It would be good to pick up some history about the Chinese and what wars they have won, in addition to the many dynasties they have had.
The US attacked Japan for bombing Pearl Harbor, not because we cared about pulling them off of Japan.
Clinton has armed the nation whose military will be able to kill one third of mankind: the People’s Liberation Army.
DH-10 cruise missile (aka Sino-Tomahawk).
Thanks Bill! /s And the Empire State Building is now “commemorating” the Chinese communist bastards. How far America has been taken down.
We can all sit around and make claims that the US carrier is invincible, but this fact hasn’t been tested in a long time. In fact I believe the last time a US carrier group faced a peer adversary was in World War II.
China has been aggressively pursuing “carrier killer” technologies - particularly cruise missiles and submarines. I can’t speak for the effectiveness of the Chinese missiles or the American anti-missile systems. However, there was an incident a few years back where a Chinese sub surfaced in the middle of a carrier group, completely undetected, and within torpedo range of a US carrier. Caught the Navy completely by surprise.
I’m a little worried that the USN hasn’t had a real conflict in so long that none of their major tactics or operations have been stressed and tested. Of course I also don’t foresee us going to war with a peer adversary anytime soon either, so its kind of a moot worry.
We have a long tradition of losing opening battles of wars in which we kick the other guy's teeth in soon enough. It is possible. It makes no difference to the eventual toothless adversary in the not-very-long-run.
The Chinese may attack Taiwan if they think we will sit it out. They aren't going to attack the USN because they are not suicidal nutjobs, and it'd get them thoroughly killed.
The rest is just contractors trying to sell stuff.
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