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Chinese F-22 equivalents. Air Force says "I TOLD U SO"

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Posts

  • FDRFDR Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Probably neither as most populated parts of Russia would probably be glass, burning cities, or ash fields before they had a chance to proceed to the nerve gas part of the operation.

    Not to say that the US would be in much better shape but it's hard to imagine the US responding with any less than total war after the use of multiple nukes against it's positions.

    FDR on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    My favorite part of economics class was the teacher suggesting a "what if" about cutting 400b from the defense budget since we don't need a large force because we have nuclear weapons, and everyone's incredible rage at the thought matched only by their utter lack of ability to articulate why that was a bad idea

    If, hypothetically, the US had a single aircraft carrier and used it to defend Taiwan, it would be functionally the same as using 13, since attacking would lead to exactly the same outcome: everyone loses and dies horribly

    override367 on
  • QliphothQliphoth Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    China's education system is renowned for producing intelligent yes men. Until they start allowing more freedom of expression they won't be pushing many technological boundaries.

    Qliphoth on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Over on slate there was an article on this fighter:

    http://www.slate.com/id/2280831/

    Gist of it is: worries are wastly overblown. China is so far behind the US that its going to take them decades to catch up.

    Case in point: China now has exactly 1 stealth fighter... The US has 139....

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    The current foreign strategy is to design and build a single prototype that is better than what we have and watch the US shit hundreds of billions in R&D products for a response, then wait a few decades until the technology proliferates to an extent and build the same thing they built but at a fraction of the cost.

    See: SU-37
    > SU-50 (in another 10 years or so)

    Edit: as for fighters, a significant percentage of Saddams in the first gulf war were either destroyed by F-4 phantoms or cruise missiles while on the ground. Outdated weapons > the most sophisticated fighter in the world if your air bases are visible to satellites and the people shooting at you have precision missiles.

    override367 on
  • armageddonboundarmageddonbound Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Wouldn't, China attacking the U.S., be kinda like McDonalds plotting to kill their top repeat customers...after lending them each 50 bucks, but before they pay it back?

    armageddonbound on
  • EvigilantEvigilant VARegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    The current foreign strategy is to design and build a single prototype that is better than what we have and watch the US shit hundreds of billions in R&D products for a response, then wait a few decades until the technology proliferates to an extent and build the same thing they built but at a fraction of the cost.

    See: SU-37
    > SU-50 (in another 10 years or so)

    And watch, it will work because the MIC, Generals, DoD, and the populace will use this as an excuse to shell out billions more for some fighter plane that is built for both a war that most likely won't happen and is so far out in the future that by the time that plane will be used, we'll already be building it's replacement.

    Evigilant on
    XBL\PSN\Steam\Origin: Evigilant
  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I somehow doubt China has the targeting tech of the F-22, which is its true advantage.

    jungleroomx on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I somehow doubt China has the targeting tech of the F-22, which is its true advantage.

    Yea, which is what I kind of pointed out. A P-51 mustang from world war 2 in the hands of the USAF is more dangerous than an F-22 in Chinese hands at present (assuming modern missiles could be loaded onto the P-51 and it had modern computers rigged into it), because of the ability of USAF aircraft to all network with each other.

    A drone that is 50 miles away could see an enemy aircraft, and a fighter can fire a missile locked onto the drone's target from 50 miles outside the bogie's radar range - that is huge. Networked smart weapons combined with things like AWACS mean if the USAF was still running its fleet entirely with F-14s they'd still be top dog

    Trying to out next-gen other countries' fighter jets is just so much dick waving and a way to renew public support in a bloated military industrial system

    override367 on
  • MyDcmbrMyDcmbr PEWPEWPEW!!! America's WangRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    F-14's had the Phoenix which had an effective range of over 100miles and a flight speed of MACH 5. That would still be a potent combo today.

    MyDcmbr on
    Steam
    So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.
  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    To be quite honest, we could probably take on the WORLDS air force with ours now and win, with some help from the Navy.

    Instead of expensive ways to shoot things, we need to get into automations (As someone said earlier) and drones, UAV's armed/unarmed.

    jungleroomx on
  • MyDcmbrMyDcmbr PEWPEWPEW!!! America's WangRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    To be quite honest, we could probably take on the WORLDS air force with ours now and win, with some help from the Navy.

    Instead of expensive ways to shoot things, we need to get into automations (As someone said earlier) and drones, UAV's armed/unarmed.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_Avenger

    Stealth drone with a jet engine. Can fly at 60k feet, carry 3000lbs of ordinance, and fly at 740km/h+

    We are well on out way it seems.

    MyDcmbr on
    Steam
    So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I want something like project pluto.

    Radioactive super-drones? Yes.

    Hell, they can act as motherships for regular lame-ass non-radioactive UAVs.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Evigilant wrote: »
    The current foreign strategy is to design and build a single prototype that is better than what we have and watch the US shit hundreds of billions in R&D products for a response, then wait a few decades until the technology proliferates to an extent and build the same thing they built but at a fraction of the cost.

    See: SU-37
    > SU-50 (in another 10 years or so)

    And watch, it will work because the MIC, Generals, DoD, and the populace will use this as an excuse to shell out billions more for some fighter plane that is built for both a war that most likely won't happen and is so far out in the future that by the time that plane will be used, we'll already be building it's replacement.

    This is what I don't get.

    The hypothetical enemy produces a prototype...so you guys buy a fleet.

    Why not just build like, 4 prototypes or something?

    The cost of developing a fuckawesome prototype must pale to the cost of building an enormous fleet of new high tech aircraft you'll never use, but prototypes have the benefit of generally involving new technological development that can be spun off to peacetime uses.

    Whereas hundreds of planes do not.

    electricitylikesme on
  • jak7890jak7890 Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    China is not interested in total war. China is not interested in gaining control of Taiwan with military when they can simply reel them slowly in with the economy. China is not interested in invading it's neighbors when it can dominate them with money. And it certainly isn't interested in total war with the greatest military in existence when it can own the economy of the country that hosts it.

    See, the current situation is practically a dream come true for any budding superpower. For the last fifty years U.S. military has been building up for a fight with an equivalent military force. Soviet Union fell. Now instead of gearing down, they are building on the Cold War legacy military they have, even when they don't have the big red threat to fight against. You don't think China learned from the Soviet Union? Why engage U.S. in an arms race when U.S. is engaging itself on it? It's managing to do the same to United States that Reagan did to the Soviet Union without spending a single yuan themselves on anything else but their actual needs. And hey, that's 900 billion that United States won't be spending on economic competition with China.

    See, China is winning, but not in a way all the doomsday sayers are predicting. There won't be a 400 million Chinese invasion landing in the shores of California any time soon. Why would the Chinese bomb their own buildings and banks, after all?

    I seriously think that there have been very few times in the history of the world that a country has played into the pockets of it's supposed "enemies" as well as United States does. China is not the only one, really. I mean, United States spend the better part of the 2000's winning the Iraq War for Iran.

    Well, having read this entire shindig, I gotta go with this /\

    China's rise to international prominence has been entirely economically based. About the only thing that might draw China into a conflict would be a threat to their buffer state of North Korea, and even that is in question.

    Similarly, Taiwan is unimportant to either the US or China as anything more than a buffer state itself; rather, the main significance of Taiwan's "safety" is to ease the mind of Japan, where half of our Asian military presence resides.

    As for the original topic, I am willing to believe that China's been spying on our F-22 research but don't think that the article in question demonstrates that. Even the author knew the concepts behind why the F-22 and other stealth units were designed the way that they were; why wouldn't China know these design concepts just as well and thus try to implement them themselves?

    jak7890 on
  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    jak7890 wrote: »
    As for the original topic, I am willing to believe that China's been spying on our F-22 research but don't think that the article in question demonstrates that. Even the author knew the concepts behind why the F-22 and other stealth units were designed the way that they were; why wouldn't China know these design concepts just as well and thus try to implement them themselves?

    The plane has fuck-all to do with the F-22, it's just hard to tell in the side-view photos that are in the news (a top-down photo would demonstrate it better). The wing design is completely different (Chengdu has a thing for forward canards, which American firms have never liked), the engine exhaust is unshielded to radar, and the onboard radar isn't particularly sophisticated. If the plane is derivative of anything it's derivative of the J-10, their current from-scratch Chinese fighter, with a second engine and some stealth-like cladding on only the surfaces where it's easy to do.

    Don't get me wrong; I think China will catch up eventually, but this plane is in no way an indication that they're there yet. They've got some deep-seated problems in their engineering culture that they need to fix first. Which I'm sure they eventually will. (Of course, the U. S. defense industry has completely different but equally horrifying problems, but I've gone on at length about that in the past and don't really feel like getting a good rant worked up about my industry just before I go to work).

    Daedalus on
  • jak7890jak7890 Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Daedalus wrote: »
    jak7890 wrote: »
    As for the original topic, I am willing to believe that China's been spying on our F-22 research but don't think that the article in question demonstrates that. Even the author knew the concepts behind why the F-22 and other stealth units were designed the way that they were; why wouldn't China know these design concepts just as well and thus try to implement them themselves?

    The plane has fuck-all to do with the F-22, it's just hard to tell in the side-view photos that are in the news (a top-down photo would demonstrate it better). The wing design is completely different (Chengdu has a thing for forward canards, which American firms have never liked), the engine exhaust is unshielded to radar, and the onboard radar isn't particularly sophisticated. If the plane is derivative of anything it's derivative of the J-10, their current from-scratch Chinese fighter, with a second engine and some stealth-like cladding on only the surfaces where it's easy to do.

    Don't get me wrong; I think China will catch up eventually, but this plane is in no way an indication that they're there yet. They've got some deep-seated problems in their engineering culture that they need to fix first. Which I'm sure they eventually will. (Of course, the U. S. defense industry has completely different but equally horrifying problems, but I've gone on at length about that in the past and don't really feel like getting a good rant worked up about my industry just before I go to work).

    Whelp. That sounds informed enough for me; I'll go with it.

    jak7890 on
  • DarkCrawlerDarkCrawler Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    jak7890 wrote: »

    China's rise to international prominence has been entirely economically based. About the only thing that might draw China into a conflict would be a threat to their buffer state of North Korea, and even that is in question.

    North Korea is not really a buffer state, it's more like an open air refugee holding cell. China isn't really scared of South Korea at the other side of the Korea border, that's one of the things the recent Wikileaks debacle revealed. It's scared that millions of unskilled malnourished fanatic refugees will flow over the border to their version of the Rust Belt and fuck things up there. As long as North Korea keeps North Koreans in North Korea, China is willing to buff them up.

    But it will never ever ever go to any sort of conflict for North Korea and the Kim regime. If Vanuatu declared war on North Korea tomorrow, the Party would have a serious thought on which side to support.

    If United States and South Korea went to war with NK, China would post a million troops to the border, take a seat and watch Pyongyang burn.

    DarkCrawler on
  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Evigilant wrote: »
    The current foreign strategy is to design and build a single prototype that is better than what we have and watch the US shit hundreds of billions in R&D products for a response, then wait a few decades until the technology proliferates to an extent and build the same thing they built but at a fraction of the cost.

    See: SU-37
    > SU-50 (in another 10 years or so)

    And watch, it will work because the MIC, Generals, DoD, and the populace will use this as an excuse to shell out billions more for some fighter plane that is built for both a war that most likely won't happen and is so far out in the future that by the time that plane will be used, we'll already be building it's replacement.

    This is what I don't get.

    The hypothetical enemy produces a prototype...so you guys buy a fleet.

    Why not just build like, 4 prototypes or something?

    The cost of developing a fuckawesome prototype must pale to the cost of building an enormous fleet of new high tech aircraft you'll never use, but prototypes have the benefit of generally involving new technological development that can be spun off to peacetime uses.

    Whereas hundreds of planes do not.

    Not really, R&D costs are the major thing for high tech aircraft. For the B-2:
    The cost of each aircraft averaged US$737 million in 1997 dollars ($1.01 billion today). Total procurement costs averaged US$929 million per aircraft ($1.27 billion today), which includes spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support. The total program cost, which includes development, engineering and testing, averaged US$2.1 billion per aircraft (in 1997 dollars, $2.87 billion today).

    And that's with 21 of them.

    L|ama on
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