This, if true, sounds like big news – why doesn’t anyone seem particularly interested?

because there isnt that good a chance of the PLAAF really buying the plane.

the chinese have shown time and again that they value ToT just as much, if not more so then the actaul hardware itself. so unless the russians are willing to also throw in a production line and blue prints, its unlikely the PLAAF will be that interested.

as the artical already states, production of the type has ended, so spare parts is always going to be a major concern. even more so seeing the russians will probably only offer their older ac, which wont have that many hours left in them anyways.

there’s also the political consquences to consider, as the arrival of the backfires will likely spark major concerns and purhaps even an arms race with the neighbours, not to meantion the US.

Looking at the aggressive maneuvres with BVR they are much further then just basic aircraft handling. Maybe if we can add that they left the road for different avionics and just settled for already tested in J10 avionics. That would mean that the plane is much more advanced then we can see in the formal program. Next year there is a Fc1-B planned. Fully capable.

well i think that was the idea behind choosing a chinese radar and avionics (for the early ac at least anyways). the radar and avionics going into the FC1 will most likely be pull out of the J10 programme with only some small changes. this should means that the FC1 can now benefit form the J10’s weapons intergration tests – ie the weapons are already fully intergrated to the radar and avionics even before they were installed into the prototypes!

the only thing left to do is ironing out any last minute bugs and test the ac’s handling with the weapons to devise a flight envelop. then they should be able to ‘fast forward’ through the test firing stages, unless something goes wrong, and the ac should be ready.

this is almost certainly the reason behind the FC1’s planned delivery date being so close.

the idea should basically be to get the plane into PAF hands ASAP so they can start pilot conversion and to reach initial combat readiness to plug the PAF’s BVR hole in the shortest time frame.

in the meanwhile, ‘proper’ intergration of the PAF’s ‘ideal’ radar and avionic suit would take place at chengdu. this is probably what the FC1B is, and would most likely take alot longer to get everything sorted.

its also somewhat interesting that the planned start time for the FC1B is shortly after the precieved date the EU is planning on lifting its arms ban against china. so if the deal falls through, there is the chance of the FC1B being delayed or changed.

I believe that the fast missile craft / fast patrol boat era was 70’s and early 80’s. The fast missile crafts were used, as stormeagle points out, close to the archipelago, making rushes towards sea in order to fire their penguins etc towards incoming vessels.

But in the early 80’s we had missiles with increased range and accuracy, Exocet being the most obvious example. These missiles could be launched from ordinary trucks on land (for example RBS15) and deliver the same effect as the fast missile craft could – but from a much safer place.

In Sweden and Finland, which both feared a russian invasion fleet during the cold war era, the marines / navies adopted this truck launched ssm system at once. That was a decision that led to the abandonment of small fast missile crafts and patrol boats. Therefore, one can see that the swedish navy is moving towards larger vessels (Stockholm class 50m -> Gothenburg class 57m -> Visby class 72m), and that these new vessels are capable of carrying helos as pointed out.

but you are forgetting a couple of important factors. in these past few decades, offensive weapons have advanced disproportionately faster then defensive weapons.

as such, even though the likes of the exocet could do the same job early FAC did from the shore, you’d need no small amount of devine intervention to get enemy warships that close these days! chances are they will just stay at sea and peper you with thousand mile cruise missiles and strike ac if they got a carrier.

also, the nature of warfare has also changed considerably. gone are the days of constant fear of a D-day-style soviet steamroller. now one can bring a government to its nees by merely cutting off their link to the sea – hence to the rest of the world in many cases.

all of this means that in this day and age, ‘static’ defence such as shore based missile batteries alone are desperately inadequet by themselves.

and i feel that few would argue with me that all commanders would need to have the ability to strike back at an attack fleet, and not merely trying to destroy the attack elemint, if he/she is to have any real hope of victory. this is where the navy comes in.

however, the question here is, that given the choice, would a naval commander prefer a large number of decent FACs or a much smaller number of corvettes to suppliement his main naval assets (frigates, destroyers cruisers etc).

my view is that when faced with a real threat of war, naval commanders would prefer the former, while in peace time, politics may force the same commander to choose the latter.

Shipborne helos these days tend to be multipurpose, All of the RN’s Lynx helos not just dedicated anti-sub. All of the RN’s Lynx helos have been able to use Sea Skua for over 20 years, the USN’s helos carry Pinguin IIRC, the French AS-15 (?? I’m going on memory here) is in international service and so on. All relatively small anti-ship missiles specifically designed to knock out FACs and other small warships. It’s one of the helo’s primary tasks.[/QUOTE]

no disrespect, but i think u are missing the point. the issue is not whether the helos have the ability to engage FACs, but rather if they will get the chance. most warships will have their helos on ASW missions when in a combat environment. it takes time to (call them back if there is only one helo), reconfigure them and send them on their way (especially against an FAC with 250km missiles and AWACS support for targeting).

I’d be willing to bet that the last weapon that any RN frigate commander would want to give up, in war or peace, would be the helo. In warfare, the key to victory is information; knowing what’s going on. Without a helo, the ship is partially blinded.

not really an issue in reality if you think about it. FACs dont have the range to go globe trotting without support ships. but support ships arent worth sending if there isnt heavy warships going as well. FACs might not have helos, but their big brothers and sisters will. as for defence, well you can just use land based assets to scout and ‘light up’ for you FACs.

PS, here’s a pic of the 2208.

now thats a beautiful picture! does anyone have a bigger verson please?

i meant more then already planned, but i do sincerly hope they dont over do it like they did with the early migs.

well, thats mainly to do with efficiency and operational realities. how likely is it for such small craft to find themselves alone in hostile waters? with developed navies, FACs will be going to war enjoying cover from friendly fighters and air-defence dedicated destroyers and cruisers. as such, there is not much to be gained from arming those FACs with only short range, point defence SAMs. especially compared with the great costs of doing so.

being so small, FACs also suffer disproportionately to the addition of SAMs compared to bigger vessels, as valuable space previously used for storing feul, rations and other equipment would most likely need to be removed to make the neccessary room.

another factor to consider is that most mordern FACs have stealth features. as such, a conventionally mounted SAM would compramise the whole effect, and may well do more harm then good. but a VLS SAM is much more expensive and takes much more room.

just going back to FACs V corvettes subject. it would seem from my observation, that FACs are generally regarded as defensive weapon systems, designed primarily for shore defence, while corvettes on the other hand have a more offensive/long range patrol role to play in navies. as such, these are two completely different types of ships for different types of roles, so it would be somewhat of a missmatch to directly compare the two.

on the matter of FAC survilability in mordern warfare, well i feel they got a fairly decent chance, if used in the right manner and given the right support.

FACs are small, manoverable and fast. with stealth features, they are even more difficult to detect, lock-on and kill. and there is inconclusive evidence to suggest that the current gen of large, long range anti-ship missiles will be able to effectively engage them.

since there are few real life case studies, it might be a good idea to draw on lessons learn from other similar situations.

the first gens of AAMs designed to shoot down bombers did not prove themselves as very effective when used against smaller, much more manoverable and faster fighters. only after some major redesign and/or the introduction of more specificly designed missiles did the situation improve.

i have not heard of any of the current issue AShMs of any nation recieving specific mods to give better kill probablity against small, FAC like targets. if that is the case and not just my ignarence, then i would not expect the likes of harpoon, exocit, sunburn etc to have an overly impressive kill probablity against FACs manovering, and an even worse performance against FACs deploying active interferance like ECM and chaff etc as well.

considering the number of AShMs most of the western heavy surface ships carry, their chances do not look all that overwhelming when faced with a fairly large size FAC attack force. i would even vanture to suggest that if use correctly in conjucture with a normal surface fleet and air support, FACs can swing the ballance of a conflict against an opposing fleet with similar heavy surface ships and air support (in both numbers and capacity), and a far smaller corvette fleet. because in ASh combat, FACs with heavy, long range AShMs, good datalink capacity and AWACS support could be just as effective as frigates and destroyers.

even against subs the FAC are not all that hopeless. subs face the same weapons targeting and munitions constraintes as surface vessels, with the added burden of the need to remain silent. if u are the captain of an SSN or SSK, involved in a major naval engagment, knowing that there are enemy SSNs and SSKs nearby, would u go shooting at FACs? even if you are fairly confident of making the shot without giving the game away, would you want to ‘waste’ your small torpedo stock when there are far ‘juicier’ targets further ahead?