China's J-11B fighter Presages Quiet Military Revolution

Aviation Week & Space Technology ^ | 11/05/2006 | Douglas Barrie

[Paul Ross]

someone signed off on f-18e/f. We are in full production here.

I know. But it was an uphill fight in the Pentagon to get it approved. The argument was that there "would was no need" with the F-35 coming on line...around 2010...

See what I mean about the Best becoming the Enemy of the Good?

[donmeaker]

I thought the F-117 was great for its time.

We have new ways of doing things. Better ways. The slab sides of the F-117 were due to limitations in computer power back then. We don't have those limitations anymore, do we?

While we have made progress, so have our enemies. What worked once, may not work so well the next time.

Back in the 1920s the .50 cal machinegun was developed as a weapon against tanks. It was not effective in that role during WWII. The 37mm Hotchkiss cannon was the next thing. It was by 1942. the 75mm cannon worked in 1942. It was hardly satisfactory in 1943. The 3 inch cannon (aka 76mm) worked great in 1943. It didn't work very well in 1944, unless you worked really hard to get to the sides or rear of your armored enemy. The 90mm cannon worked very well in 1944 to 1973. Technology advances.

Imagine how the Chinese feel. Trying to catch up with minimal capability against a particular platform, then have the US throw it away because better is available. All their tactics (used by Serbs, by the way) and techniques now useless, and they get to start over.

And they get to do that again, and again. They may get discouraged. They may get replaced, after promising year after year that all the sacrifices will lead to some advance, and they year after year they are further behind, and with prospects of being even further behind further in the future.

If I was them, I would vote out the Commies. Wouldn't you?

Don't you think the Commies know that? They must always spend most of their defense budget on "internal defense", to protect the masters from their serfs. That is why they keep the old junkers. The old junkers are useful in putting down insurrections.

[Paul Ross]

Technology advances.

Indeed, it does, but the best is often not either deployed, or deployable. Period. And until it is fully deployed, not partially, but fully, we need to take force numbers very seriously as we are looking squarely at a force implosion on the U.S. side as the Defense Holiday continues essentially unabated.

Imagine how the Chinese feel. Trying to catch up with minimal capability against a particular platform, then have the US throw it away because better is available. All their tactics (used by Serbs, by the way) and techniques now useless, and they get to start over.

That would be very nice to frustrate them. I'm not so sure the F-22/35 or UAVs will be any more immune from detection by the passive radar approach. Of course, detection is not the same as accurate fire control. Which is where the F-22 speed comes in as an extra plus. By the time the Chi-Comm supercomputers have a good track on the bird...its already changed vectors, and moved on. No question the F-22/35 will be better than the F-117A. But what is looming is potentially near-term. And numbers will count.

You think the Jihadists are gloating over the U.S. election results? Just what do you think the Chi-Comms are doing?

If I was them, I would vote out the Commies. Wouldn't you? ?

Of course. But we don't get a vote over that. Neither do their people.

[Paulus Invictus]

The billions the Chicoms have invested in upgrading their military had to have come, in large part, from W-M dollars. Their economy does depend upon us, but the enormous trade imbalance in their favor cannot be helping our economy.

[donmeaker]

Actually, the trade imbalance does help our economy. We get the products of their labor, and they get worthless pieces of paper (dollars).

Only when they take those pieces of paper back to someone who wants them can they derive benefit from them. Eventually someone brings the paper back to the US and trades it for US goods and services.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Most NATO airforces & those of the likes of Australia or even Japan couldn't be expected to take on a formidable rival like China or Russia.....without Uncle Sam around.Australia's fleet is getting a bit too old as of now while potential rivals in S-E Asia are arming up while Japan has never really invested in offensive capabilities.It's F-15Js can hit deep into China-but atleast officially,they don't have any air to ground capabilities.

[Paulus Invictus]

I cannot believe that the imbalance "favors us." The dollars they are spending are not all for our goods either. They are also buying from Russia etc.

[donmeaker]

Eventually the money has to come back to us. That is the nature of trade.

What they buy, that is the flexible part. The biggest part of our trade imbalance is oil. That goes to Canada and Mexico who produce most of the oil we buy.

I kind of think we will be stuck dealing with Canada and Mexico for a few million years for Mexico, or until the next ice age for Canada.

[s_asher]

One man's observation on the future of the "aussies" that you mentioned:
http://truthfulinsights.blogspot.com/2006/10/white-bums-in-sydney-end-of-western.html

No matter how many F35's you give them, it's hopeless if they turn into bums asking for $2 coins.

[donmeaker]

I don't think governments give fighter aircraft to bums....


Rather a different demographic entirely.

[donmeaker]

I have worked on the specifications for advanced radars, and yes, we do take very effective measures to protect against passive detection.

the "Passive Radar" approach has been known since WWII, when the German "Metax" radar detection device was used to locate German Submarines.

NNUS: Nothing New Under the Sun

[Paul Ross]

the "Passive Radar" approach has been known since WWII, when the German "Metax" radar detection device was used to locate German Submarines.

The Germans actually developed such a thing during World War II, if under very special circumstances. The system, known as "Klein Heidelberg", intercepted pulses from the British Chain Home floodlight radar system, and then picked up echoes off targets from those pulses with a directional antenna.

NNUS: Nothing New Under the Sun.

Actually, yes there is, the introduction of computing power to radar has revived the concept. From Lockheed-Martin's early-version Silent Sentry onto today's classified R&D projects, we are ourselves pushing to make stealth aircraft visible for detection and tracking. Although fire-control targetting may still be proving elusive.

Anyways, our letting Chinese espionage successfully glean the science behind this was simply criminal. As for counter-measures, perhaps decoys could work, and perhaps an ECM package can be devised. But the viability thereto probably depends on knowing where the Chinese detection systems are. All of them. And to revert back to dependence on ECM, when our stealth approach was based on low observability and close-to-zero EM emissions...seems rather contradictory.

[Paul Ross]

We have new ways of doing things. Better ways. The slab sides of the F-117 were due to limitations in computer power back then. We don't have those limitations anymore, do we?

But production of those "new ways" is a very real limitation. A limitation which you have continuously ducked.

The F-117 has the virtue of being deployed. It's real. Its there. It has the extra virtue thereto of being a Deterrent. The Chi-Comms have to respect it. Whereas a paper threat...they don't...or at any rate won't. So if you want to prevent their launching war...stop defending the pell- mell...(and unilateral I might add)... disarmament.

Neither the F-22 (which is essentially not deployed for real with at best two wings available)...nor the the F-35 which doesn't even EXIST yet for all practical purposes...are available in the numbers which the F-117 affords us.

[Paul Ross]

I cannot believe that the imbalance "favors us." The dollars they are spending are not all for our goods either. They are also buying from Russia etc.

Indeed, the five-to-one imbalance is even worse than it sounds. They are attempting to purchase more of the industrial-production "capital" of the U.S. and relocate to China...further deepening and worseninng the trade imbalance! Which is also accentuated by any Treasuries or other securities they purchase.

See the Industry and Job Trends of the US and China [ E.g., Anecdotally, Magnequench successfully absconded with by the Chi-Comms, and the attempt on UNOCAL and all its deep-sea drilling technology as well as licenses thereto and its minerological holdings as well]

It's a down-ward spiral.

The Chi-Comm-controlled trade imbalance manifestly proves their economic enmity. The fact that donmeaker unthinkingly makes this well-debunked point...puts him in a new light.

[donmeaker]

The Czechs had passive radars out there some 20 years ago.

Always there is a conflict between smarter radars, and smarter countermeasures. My bet is on us. We design our aircraft software to be easily updated now, so what works on one day, doesn't the nest. The enemy never knows if what they pick up on one day is a real signal you could find in time of war, or a spoof, intentionally served up to preserve the effectiveness of "War Reserve" modes.

Certainly there are a lot more codes out there that are possible, than there are codes known to the enemy.

[donmeaker]

So you think that what is out there in the open is all we have?

[Paul Ross]

So you think that what is out there in the open is all we have?

What's in the field is in the open. Whats in the lab and on the "drawing board" is definitionally not deployed...or imminently deployable. And Black programs are also non-deterrent.

And keep in mind we have a whole slew of whiz-bang would-be military advisors who are so confident of our technical advantages, they want to end the F-22, the RPVs, the Carriers, the F-35, and ALL the associated gadgetry that makes them viable in the toughest war environments...all smeared as somehow "legacies of Cold War Thinking" [as if that is bad...that was a war we won] ...and "save the money" for more troops in the field.

The South Vietnamese Army was tailored expressly to deal with a guerrila war insurgency. When the armored divisions of North Vietnamese tanks rolled across the DMZ...the lightly-armored South was demolished in short order. The asymmetry of guerilla war was simply a ruse by the Communists to get the other side improperly structured against the real, MAIN OFFENSIVE THREAT.

One that the Communists are again fostering as against us...their Main Enemy. Trying to get us to delude ourselves again about the nature of the world and our enemies.

[donmeaker]

Oh back in 1973 at a little town called Quang-Tri there was a NVA offensive using armor. I seem to recall TOW missiles being used.

Again, I think that the south Viets were very clear on the NVA Armored threat. It was the US congress (Democrats) that cut funding for the South Vietnamese armor.

Blame the right guys. It wasn't the NVA fooling anyone, it was giving the Democrats the excuse they needed to betray out soldiers, who fought and bled there, and our allies.